February Challenge Wrap-up

I can't believe it's already the last day of February. Time sure is flying! See below for my progress in my various reading challenges!

New Authors Challenge:
So far so good on this challenge! I knocked down 4 books out of my goal of 15. Yay!

1. Claire Farrel - Thirst
2. M.R. Merrick - Exiled
3. Becca Fitzpatrick - Hush Hush (review not yet posted)
4. Nina Post - The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse (review not yet posted)

A-Z Book Challenge

I'm doing alright in this one too. With the books above, I managed to knock off E, H, L and T.

C- City of Fallen Angels - Cassandra Claire (not reviewed)
E- Exiled - M.R. Merrick
H- Hush Hush - Becca Fitzpatrick (review not yet posted)
L- The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse (review not yet posted)
T- Thirst - Claire Farrell


TBR Pile Challenge

I'm not doing so good on this one. I choose Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I'm not particularly enjoying, but am struggling through. I think from now on, I will keep my Austen and my zombies separate. No Progress.








Completely Contemp Challenge

I'm kind of regretting joining this challenge. I'm pretty sure I entered just because the button was so pretty. We'll see how this one goes, but I think it's at the bottom of my list. No Progress.

Teaser Tuesday - The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse Edition

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

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Today's Teaser Tuesday comes from The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse by Nina Post.

"Kelly pictured all of the thoughts and images in her head as birds. She turned the birds into paper origami, tossed them into a fireplace, doused them with lighter fluid, and flicked a lit match onto the pile."

 

In My Mailbox - 02/26

In My Mailbox (IMM) is a wonderful meme from the Story Siren that let's you share all the awesome new books you bought, received for review, received as gifts or took out from the library!


I missed IMM last week because I was away from my computer for a week. But upon my return to civilization (and my internet connection), I found my inbox full of approved netgalley requested. Needless to say, I have a lot of reviewing to do!!


Giveaways:

Shift - M. R. Merrick  - Thanks so much to Matt Merrick and to K-Books for running this giveaway!
House on Plunkett Street - Lorena Bathley - Thanks to Lorena Bathley and Vicky at Books, Biscuits and Tea for this awesome giveaway!
 

Review:

The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse - Nina Post
Dark Magic - James Swain
The Zona - Nathan L. Yocum
Worlds Burn Through - Vicki Keire
Queen of Swords - Katee Robert
The Woman Who Loved Jesse James - Cindi Myers
Bite Me - Parker Blue
Try Me -Parker Blue
Fang Me - Parker Blue
Quest for the Scorpion's Jewel - Amy Green
Prehistoric Clock - Robert Appleton
Beauty in the Beast - Christine Danse
Heart of Perdition - Selah March 
Synthetic Dreams - Kim Knox
The Last Night - Nico Rosso
Gate to Kandrith - Nicole Luiken
Pure - Julianna Baggott
Blood of the Pride - Sheryl Nantus
The Hunt - Andrew Fukuda
The Rook - Daniel O'Malley
Endworlds - Nicholas Reid


Let's just say I will be a busy girl indeed!

Review Copy Cleanup

I've decided to jump in on the Review Copy Cleanup from Books, Biscuits & Tea. I'm a pretty new blogger, so I don't get any review books, but I recently joined netgalley and a few publishers have been kind enough to give me some review ebooks, so now I can play too! Hooray!

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Challenge guidelines:

✦ This challenge runs from 1 to 31 March, 2012
✦ Sign-ups are open until 15 March 2012. After that the linky list will be closed and participation in the challenges and giveaways won't be possible for anyone who hasn't previously signed up.
✦ To sign up, just fill in the Mister Linky form below. Link to your sign up post directly, please! The Linky is the same for both our blogs, so you only have to sign up once.
✦ When you post your sign up post on your blog, either include the challenge button with your post or link it back to this article so that people know where to sign up. Thank you!
✦ Every book you received for review counts towards the challenge, both ebooks and hard copies, including all genres and lengths.
✦ You don't need to follow the two hosts in order to be able to sign up for the event (although it's appreciated), but you do have to follow us in order to be able to enter our giveaways. In order to be entered in the giveaway, simply complete the given challenge and add the link to your post in the linky list.
✦ Challenges will be posted every week on Fridays and will last throughout the week until Thursday the next week. Every challenge ends with a giveaway. To enter in the challenges and giveaways, simply add the link to your challenge post in the Linky list in the main challenge post. It will be posted on both blogs.
✦ At the end of the event we will host our Massive Giveaway. This contains tons of prizes donated by awesome authors. All you'll need to do in order to enter this giveaway is to fill in a Rafflecopter form - as simple as that. :)
✦ Most of our giveaways will be open INTERNATIONALLY but you'll find all the relevant info about each giveaway when we post the challenges.
✦ Feel free to use the #RCCleanup hashtag on Twitter for your RCC related tweets or join in the Twitter party at http://tweetchat.com/room/RCCleanup and meet lots of lovely bloggers :)

Challenge schedule:

✦ March 2 - Show Off Your Pile
✦ March 9 - Cuddle Up With a Book
✦ March 16 - Don't Be Such a Tease!
✦ March 23 - Mysterious Meet-up
✦ March 30 - Love Will Find a Way

Exiled Review

Exiled - M.R. Merrick

Goodreads Description:

Chase Williams is a demon hunter in the Circle, or at least he was supposed to be. On his fifteenth birthday, Chase stepped up to the altar to claim his elemental power, but it never came. Elemental magic is passed down to a hunter through the bloodline, but on Chase's birthday, the bloodline stopped.

Exiled without the Circle's protection, Chase has spent two years trying to survive a world riddled with half-demons and magic. When he has a run in with a frightened and seemingly innocent demon, he learns the Circle's agenda has changed: the Circle plans to unlock a portal and unleash pure-blood demons into the world. Vowing to stop them, and knowing he can't do it alone, Chase forms a reluctant alliance with Rayna — a sexy witch with an attitude and a secret.

In their attempt to stop them, Chase and Rayna find themselves in the middle of the Circle's plan, leaving one of them to decide what their friendship is worth, and the other's life depending on it

My Thoughts:

I picked up Exiled because of all the hype surrounding Shift. I though perhaps M.R. Merrick is just extremely good at P.R., but people seemed to genuinely love this series, so I thought I would give it a try. While M.R. Merrick may be a PR genius, he is also a talented author. Exiled was a very fun read! It was extremely fast paced with never a dull moment, but it was executed well. No confused faces or flipping back trying to figure out what was going on. Nope, overall I was very pleased with the story. Chase is a likable fellow and made an excellent main character: brave and loyal, even when his worldview starts to crumble. I also loved the strong female characters. Rayna is an awesome, kick-butt kind of girl and I loved her from the start. I also liked Tessa, Chase’s mom. She seems so kind and motherly, but when the time comes, she can kick butt with the best of them! And can I just say I love Willy. I just want to give him a big hug!

Overall, a great book I would recommend to anyone looking for an action-packed adventure complete with magic, demons, vampires and really awesome birds. 4 hearts from me! Now I just need to go buy Shift...

In My Mailbox - 02/12

In My Mailbox (an awesome meme from the Story Siren)

My book shelf got a little fuller this week. The public library was having a book sale this weekend, so I couldn't help myself and I stopped by. I went on the first day, so the selection was still fairly good, but it was busy, so I'm glad I didn't wait for today (though the price dropped to $10/box because it's the last day). If I didn't have a big paper to work on, I probably would have stopped by today as well!

I managed to limit myself to only buying 5 books, which I thought was pretty impressive. I picked up a couple books for my David Eddings collection (Enchanters' End Game and King of the Murgos), Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, Pariah by Bob Fingerman and Steampunkd, an anthology of steampunk stories! A pretty good haul for only $5!

Theme Thursday - Exiled Edition

Theme Thursdays

Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event hosted by Reading Between the Pages that will be open from one Thursday to the next. Anyone can participate in it. The rules are simple:

A theme will be posted each week (on Thursday’s)
Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word)
Ex: If the theme is KISS; your sentence can have “They kissed so gently” or “Their lips touched each other” or “The smooch was so passionate”

This will give us a wonderful opportunity to explore and understand different writing styles and descriptive approaches adopted by authors.

This week’s theme is very related to the ear – any action that you do with your ear.

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I'm still reading Exiled, so here is my 'ear' quote from Exiled by M. R. Merrick!

The small bird chirped in my ear, gripping so tightly to my shoulder I felt its claws pierce my skin. "Sorry, I'm a little busy running for my life here. You're supposed to be some impressive little creature; why don't you do something?"

Teaser Tuesday - Exiled Edition

 Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

*****************************************************************************************************

My Tuesday Teaser is from Exiled by M. R. Merrick. Can I just say, so far I'm in love with this book and the only thing stopping me from finishing it right this instant is my over-achiever need for good marks in university.Here is your teaser:

"I looked down at my watch, but the minute and hour hands were spinning in opposite directions."

I hope you enjoy the teaser and I hope it makes you want to pick up this great book!

Thirst - Claire Farrell

Thirst - Claire Farrell

Goodreads blurb:
Ava Delaney calls herself a hybrid - a living, breathing human who happens to have vampire poison running through her veins. The only thing greater than her thirst for human blood is her capacity for guilt. She does her best to avoid the human world, for everyone's sake.

When Ava accidentally enslaves a human while saving him from a vampire, she realises she has to look for help setting him free. Despite her misgivings, she expands her world but finds herself dragged into a possible vampire civil war. With the help of some new friends with ambiguous loyalties, she tries to find a way to keep her human, and herself, alive.

Megan's Review:
For me, Thirst falls into the "it was ok" category.  There wasn't anything I hated about the book or the story, but I certainly didn't fall in love with it either. To start with, I didn't feel much a connection to Ava, the main character. There's a lot you can do with a human-vampire hybrid, but Ava came off a little whiny. Instead of "Hey, look at all this cool stuff I can do, maybe I should figure how it all works!", it was a lot more "My life is really hard." Also, I liked the idea of an OCD main character, but I felt it was not handled consistently and I actually forgot she was OCD for a big chunk of the book.


The secondary characters weren't memorable or special either. Peter didn't appeal to me, Eddie felt underdeveloped and Nancy seemed like a 2-sided coin. I think the Farrell did the best job with Carl and his circumstances.


The writing lacked polish, but moved along decently and I did want to know what happened in the end, though the plot wasn't particularly novel. I think with more engaging writing, I would have enjoyed this book.


The cover, however, is gorgeous and was the main reason it stood out on my kindle app and made me start reading it. That said, that is not at all how I picture Ava and I'm not sure how it relates to the story.

Based mainly on potential and actual plot line, I give Thirst 2 and a half hearts.

 

Available at Amazon (ebook - currently free) or Sony (ebook - currently free).

In My Mailbox - 02/05

So before posting my first review (which will come tomorrow, I promise!), I decided to go ahead and join in with the IMM (In My Mailbox) meme I've seen around. So here we go!

eBooks I Bought:

Exiled - M.R. Merrick

Books I got for free on Amazon:

Notes to Self - Avery Sawyer

Blood Skies - Steven Montano

Black Scars - Steven Montano

Uprising - Justin Kemppeinen

Shatter - Elizabeth C. Mock

Demon Girl - Penelope Fletcher

Zombie's Don't Cry - Rusty Fischer

Heavenly - Jennifer Laurens

Clearly I went a little crazy with the free ebooks, but my excuse is that they were free! And it's not like I downloaded *all* of the free books on Amazon. Follow the links, I think some of them are still free on the kindle store!