Three Contests Not To Miss!

I recently came upon three contests that I think our totally amazingly awesome!

First off, Keyona from Only Sexy Books Allowed is giving away ARC of Something Like Fate by Susanne Colasanti, a book that I'm dying to read!

Princess Bookie is giving away the books featured above proving this to be yet another one of her contests not to miss!

 

Last but not least, Angie Frazier is giving away an ARC of Everlasting. Also, if she makes it to 100 entries by the end of the week, she'll add a SECOND ARC in!

Waiting On Wednesday: Week 56

My pick this week is:

Life, After by Sarah Littman

Everything changes when a terrorist attack kills Dani’s beloved aunt and unborn cousin.



Dani’s life in Argentina—private school, a boyfriend, a loving family—is crumbling quickly. To escape from a country in crisis, where it feels like every day the ground sinks a little more under their feet, Dani and her family move to the United States. It’s supposed to be a fresh start, but when you’re living in a cramped apartment and going to high school where all the classes are in another language - and not everyone is friendly - life in America isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Dani misses her old friends, her life, Before. In addition, she must deal with an angry father who seems more like a stranger every day.


Just when Dani is about to break, she meets a boy named Jon, who isn’t like all the other students. Through him, she becomes friends with Jessica, one of the popular girls, who is harboring a secret of her own. And then there’s Brian, the boy who makes Dani’s pulse race. In her new life, the one After, Dani learns how to heal and forgive. She finds the courage to say goodbye and allows herself to love and be loved again.

Oooh, this looks so good. I'm actually in the middle of reading her previous book, Purge, right now and it's pretty good so far. Sadly, Life, After dosen't come out until July 2010.

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore

Summary:

Nimira is a music-hall performer forced to dance for pennies to an audience of leering drunks. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to do a special act - singing accompaniment to an exquisite piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumours abound about ghosts, a mad woman roaming the halls, and of Parry's involvement in a gang of ruthless sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. When Nimira discovers the spirit of a dashing young fairy gentleman is trapped inside the automaton's stiff limbs, waiting for someone to break the curse and set him free, the two fall in love. But it is a love set against a dreadful race against time to save the entire fairy realm, which is in mortal peril.

Review:

Magic Under Glass was a magical and enthralling novel that was easy to get lost in.


From page one, you are introduced to Nimira, a girl that went from lavish everything to barley getting by day by day. Though she is given the chance of a lifetime when Holin Perry hires her. Nimira was a likable character from the start because she just brought such a fun light to the story and I loved seeing her friendship with Erris develop over time. Holin Perry, on the other hand, was someone I didn't like a whole ton because of the fact that he was weak and just an overall pushover who needed to get in control of his life. Moving on, Smollings was simply the definition of a perfect villain and while I did loathe him much because of the fact that the ruined many things, I still found it interesting to see just how far he would go to make Nimira, Hollin, and Erris' lives a living nightmare.
 
The whole premise was intriguing and fully original. I mean faires and characters falling in love with a person locked in an automaton? How could you go wrong? Plus, as said briefly above, Jaclyn Dolamore writing was up to par and the world she created was easy to get lost in.

My only complaint? Well, I felt the ending could have tied things up a bit better. Though, maybe that lack of tying things up means a sequel is coming soon. :)

In all, Magic Under Glass is yet another debut book that introduces you to a fab new author that you should definitely be keeping an eye out for.

I suggest this to fans of Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle Trilogy.
 
Grade: B+
 

Magic Under Glass is now out in the U.S. and will be released February 1st in the UK, with the cover shown to the left!
 
Source: Publisher. Thanks Anna!

Richelle Mead chat on Thursday, January 7!!

As you may already know, I'm a HUGE Richelle Mead/ Vampire Academy fan. So, when I got an email informing me of a Richelle Mead chat, I was SO EXCITED, and since I know a lot of my blog readers are fans of her too, here's the link to the chat taking place January 7, 2010 at 8:00 PM Eastern: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/publishersoffice/subcontent/watercooler.html . You can even set up a reminder for yourself at that link, so that you don't forget. Anyway, I hope to see all of you VA fans there. :)

Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu

Summary:

Everyone has secrets. Some are just bigger and dirtier than others.

For sixteen years, Lucy has kept her mother's hoarding a secret. She's had to -- nobody would understand the stacks of newspapers and mounds of garbage so high they touch the ceiling and the rotting smell that she's always worried would follow her out the house. After years of keeping people at a distance, she finally has a best friend and maybe even a boyfriend if she can play it right. As long as she can make them think she's normal.

When Lucy arrives home from a sleepover to find her mother dead under a stack of National Geographics, she starts to dial 911 in a panic, but pauses before she can connect. She barely notices the filth and trash anymore, but she knows the paramedics will. First the fire trucks, and then news cameras that will surely follow. No longer will they be remembered as the nice oncology nurse with the lovely children -- they'll turn into that garbage-hoarding freak family on Collier Avenue.

With a normal life finally within reach, Lucy has only minutes to make a critical decision. How far will she go to keep the family secrets safe?
 
Review:
 
Dirty Little Secrets was such a fabulous and intense read that I absolutely loved and I mean LOVED!

Lucy was a interesting character because on one side she was just a normal teen who facing normal teen issues (fitting in/boy/friend) while on the other she was facing a harrowing and confusing dilemma that catapults many different issues throughout the book. A dilemma that most teens hopefully will never have to face and if they do I sincerely will have the help of others. That dilemma? Well, Lucy's mother has a huge hoarding issue one that has plagued the lives of her loved ones. Believe it or not, I had heard of this little know disease before. Though, I could never have began to imagine how horrible and confusing it could be and how many people can be hurt because of it. Leaving me to seriously applaud C.J. for brining light to this issue. Anyway, getting back to Lucy, I seriously felt so many different emotions while reading this book. Those emotions ranged from hatred to Lucy's mother for letting her problem get so worse to courage for Lucy to overcome all this and live a normal life. And while I did not always agree with all of Lucy's decisions of how to deal with the problem, I still contained to root for her the whole time.

And because of all this drama and intrigue of learning more about this disease I finished Dirty Little Secrets in less then half a day. Since, it was just that good and just that hard to put down. So, you can just imagine all the thoughts and emotions going through me when I finally did hit the last page of this novel.

Though, I did have one tiny problem. A problem with where it end because I really wanted to see what happened to Lucy after her disturbing final decision. But at the same time I felt that it did conclude and wrap up things to the best it could.

Overall, C.J. certainly has a winner contained in this one leaving me to highly suggest you pick up a copy of this as soon as it's released.

Grade: A
 
Dirty Little Secrets will be released Febuarary 2, 2010!
 
Source: Contest Win on Authors Now!. Thanks C.J.!