Scarlet

Scarlet (Scarlet #1) by A.C. Gaughen (2012)

Scarlet

YA Fiction | Historical4 StarsBlurb:

“Will Scarlet is good at two things: stealing from the rich and keeping secrets – skills that are in high demand in Robin Hood’s band of thieves, who protect the people of Nottingham from the evil sheriff. Scarlet’s biggest secret of all is one only Robin and his men know…that she is posing as a thief; that the slip of a boy who is fast with sharp knives is really a girl.  Continue reading

Of Beast and Beauty

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay (2013)

Of Beast and Beauty

YA Fiction | Romance | Fantasy/Sci-Fi4.5 starsBlurb:

In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret…

In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds.  Continue reading

Immortal Writers

Immortal Writers by Jill Bowers (2016)
-eARC Review-

Immortal Writers
YA Fiction | Fantasy
3 Stars
Blurb:

“Young up-and-coming author Liz McKinnen has no idea that her life is about to change forever when she comes home from her first book tour. When she’s kidnapped and told by her captors that she has to kill her fantasy book’s antagonist, she thinks that she’s fallen into the hands of crazy, dangerous fans… until her antagonist sends a real, fire-breathing dragon after her. Liz is quickly initiated into the Immortal Writers, a group of authors from throughout time whose words have given them eternal life, and whose prose is so powerful that it’s brought stories over from the Imagination Field into the Reality Field. As Liz meets authors such as William Shakespeare, JRR Tolkien, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jane Austen, she has to learn how to control magic, fight dragons, and face her own troubled past before her power-hungry villain takes over the world. Will she survive the ultimate battle against the dragon lord whom she created?”
Goodreads

Expected Publication Date: November 7, 2016  Continue reading

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (1961)

The Phantom Tollbooth

Kids Fiction | Fantasy4 StarsBlurb:

“Hailed as ‘a classic. . . . humorous, full of warmth and real invention’ (The New Yorker), this beloved story–first published more than fifty ago–introduces readers to Milo and his adventures in the Lands Beyond.

For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams. . . . ”
Goodreads  Continue reading

The Big Con

The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man by David W. Maurer (1940)

The Big Con

Non-Fiction | Crime | Americana4.5 starsBlurb:

“Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitively proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology, ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot. Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers who let him in on not simply their language, but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” — i.e., cheated — of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The products of amazing ingenuity, crack timing, and attention to every last detail, these “big cons” richly deserve Maurer’s description as “the most effective swindling device which man has ever invented.” Continue reading

The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (2012)

The Casual Vacancy

Fiction | Contemporary3 StarsBlurb:

“A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN…

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.  Continue reading

Cat’s Cradle

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (1963)

Cat's Cradle

Fiction | Sci-Fi | Classic4 StarsBlurb:

“Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut’s cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it …  Continue reading

The Cure for Dreaming

The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters (2014)

The Cure for Dreaming
YA Fiction | Historical | Paranormal
4 Stars
Blurb:

“Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It’s 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia’s father, concerned that she’s headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she’s able to see people’s true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she’s drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women. Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including archival photos and art from the period throughout.”
Goodreads 

Continue reading

The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman

The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman by Brady Stefani (2016)
-NetGalley Review-

the alienation of courtney hoffman
Teen Fiction | Sci-Fi | Paranormal | Aliens
3.5 Stars
Blurb:

“Fifteen year old Courtney wants to be normal like her friends. But there’s something frighteningly different about her—and it’s not just the mysterious tattoo her conspiracy-obsessed grandfather marked her with when she was a child. “Mental illness is a slippery slope,” her mother warns her. And the last thing Courtney wants to do is end up crazy and dead like her grandfather did.  Continue reading

The Dream Protocol

The Dream Protocol (Descent #1) by Adara Quick (2016)
-NetGalley Review-

The Dream Protocol
YA Fiction | Dystopian
3 Stars
Blurb:

“WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T GET OLD.

In fiery young Deirdre Callaghan’s home of Skellig City, no one has dreamt their own dream in over a thousand years. Dreams are produced by the Dream Makers and sold by the Ministry, the tyrannical rulers of the city. In Skellig City, years of life are awarded equally and the ruined are cast away beneath the city on their 35th birthday.  Continue reading