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Bending the Spine


Wednesday, August 31, 2011

And the winner is…

and-the-winner-is Ok, so I've been pretty freakin’ excited all month about my FIRST EVER (!!!!) giveaway featuring two, yes TWO copies of Rusty Fischer’s awesome Ushers, Inc.  I just couldn’t wait to get the winners up on the blog! So…

…the winners have been chosen!  Our lucky Bounders are:



Both names link to their blogs, so check ‘em out and show ‘em some love!

Keep watching the blog for more giveaways and  more (I hope you thing they are) awesome reviews!

Now…

Get to reading,
Richard

*A special thanks goes out to Rusty who fronted the two eBooks to be given away.  Check out his blog and show him some love, too!*

Waiting on Wednesday (6) Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel


image WoW is a weekly blog-hop hosted by Breaking the Spine that features books we are eagerly awaiting!
 
I absolutely cannot wait to read Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel.  Read the description below and you’ll understand why. 
 
I first heard of this from The Bookish Brunette during Zombie Craze 2011 via guest post by Lia Habel (see it here).  I fell in love with the post and semi-cyber-stalked Habel for a few days, finding her on Goodreads and letting her know how freaking excited I am about her book.
 
And now, I anxiously patiently wait for October 18, 2011, for it to release.
 
Ms. Habel, can I have an ARC, please???
 
What are you waiting for?
Richard
 
Description:
Love can never die.
Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie? 
 
The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune, and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. 
 
But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.
 
In Dearly, Departed, steampunk meets romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.
(Goodreads)

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Review: Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

image
Description:
In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other.  Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack.  And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.
 
At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love -- the light and the dark, the warm and the cold -- in a way you will never forget.
 
Details:
Audiobook, Preloaded Digital Audio Player
Published August 28th 2010 by Scholastic (first published July 13th 2010)
ISBN: 1616379294 (ISBN13: 9781616379292)
series: The Wolves of Mercy Falls #2
literary awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Goodreads Author, Favorite Heroine, Favorite Book, Young Adult Fantasy (2010), Voya Perfect Ten (2010)
 
Review:
After LOVING Shiver, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Linger.  And, while it was good to continue the story of Grace and Sam, Linger left me a little disappointed.
 
I absolutely think the best character in Linger is Isabel.  I’m glad she got so much play time and that we really got to see who she is—not just as a Frost Queen, but as a real person, with feelings and depth.  I, however, really didn’t like Grace.  She came off as shallow and selfish.
 
One of my favorite parts of the book is where Grace tells her parents off.  I was all like “Yay, Grace!”  Their 180 had left me confused.  And, as a parent, I can see where there were coming from, but also I can’t believe how absent they were.  Giving Grace “room to roam,”  as her mom put it, and then trying to control her every move and banishing her from seeing Sam, it was too night-and-day for me.  Too much from one extreme to the other.  So it was like scientists  had finally proven there was life on Mars, unfortunately it was after the end of the world as they knew it—too little, too late….and a little unrealistic.
 
It all seemed very, juvenile to me.  After that maturity of Shiver, Linger felt a little too tween, not quiet there, but trying to act like it was (I’m not talking about audience here, more about depth of the story, characters, plotline).  There was good, and there was bad.  You can judge for yourself, it is an enjoyable read listen.  But, it left me with the lingering feeling, not that I had missed something, but that the book itself was missing something.
 
I’m a little leery about reading Forever.  I’ve heard mixed reviews.  After Linger, I might just want to make up my own ending to the story myself, so that everyone gets their happily-ever-after.
 
3: Linger did just that, lingered on the edge of greatness, but fell a little short.
 
Many Adventures,
Richard

Friday, August 26, 2011

Follow Friday (10)

image Q. In books like the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) series the paranormal creature in question "comes out of the closet" and makes itself known to the world. Which mythical creature do you wish would come out of the closet, for real?

A. Isn’t it kind of the point for fantasy to stay fantasy.  If it were reality it would be boring and commonplace.  So, my direct answer to the question is none of it.  It should all stay safely locked away in the minds of creative writers, TV and movie producers, who only let it out to entertain us.

What bump-in-the-night creature would you want to be real?

Richard

*Follow Friday is a blog-hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read*