Showing posts with label Lia Habel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lia Habel. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Cover Compare (2): Good Gone Ugly

Sometimes I fall in love with a cover. Like madly, head-over-heels in love. But since I'm poor, I don't buy the hardcover and decide to wait it out for the paperback. And then they change it. To something ugly and I feel so cheated! This happened to me recently with Born Wicked (as I mentioned in my first cover compare post). Now the new cover isn't awful, but it's nowhere near the original cover. And guess what? I broke down and bought the cover I don't even like because I could buy it at Walmart for 30% off. I'm not sure if I should have, but that's what happened.


I've seen the same things happen in other books, where things go from beautiful to butt-ugly. Why? (Note: Some of these are different editions for different countries, but the same idea holds).

1. Dearly Departed by Lia Habel

I loved this book! I don't own it (borrowed from the library in my early blogging days), but I was so sucked in the by the gorgeous cover, which was a major factor for me reading it. And the new cover is horrible! Just terrible! It looks like some cheap, bad romance novel as opposed to an awesome story of steampunk-y (not)zombies! Why???


2.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Review: Dearly, Departed

Blurb:

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, 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.


My Thoughts:

This book is an awesome read! Nora is a great heroine and Bram is a superb leading man. I really enjoyed all the characters because they all seemed well-rounded and realistic, complete with likes, dislikes, hopes, fears and all that good stuff.

I completely adored the setting of this book! New Victoria is a really cool steampunk future. I love the idea of culture going backwards, while still retaining some technology. I've always enjoyed stories set in Victorian times, but with the addition or technology, a rich history and zombies, well, it gets even better!

I think the zombie concepts were handled well. I liked the idea that sometimes zombies come back feral and sometimes they come back relatively normal. I guess it adds an extra bit of chance!

On the Cover:

Beautiful cover. I am totally in love with this cover! Everything is perfect! The model, the font, the colours, everything!!

Favourite Character:

I love Pamela Roe. While she is only a secondary character, I still think she is awesome, especially at the end!

Rating: 5 Hearts


Source: Borrowed from the public library.

Where to Find It: Goodreads | Amazon | Kindle | The Book Depository

Stalk the Author: Goodreads | Website | Twitter | Facebook

Don't Just Take My Word For It: Novel Heartbeat

Bonus: The cover of the second book in the series, Dearly, Beloved, has just been released. What do you think? I think the picture is pretty, but I'm not crazy about the placement of the author's name.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Theme Thursday - Dearly, Depart Edition

Theme Thursdays
Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event by Reading Between 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.

March is going to be all about making life easy. This month we will do ‘Pick what you see first‘ themes.
Pick the last sentence from the last page of the book. Yes, the very last sentence. I am assuming it would be mostly ‘Happily ever after’ but lets see how books end.

ENDING - Last sentence from the last page of the book. 

This week my teaser comes from Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel. I'm fairly close to the beginning still, so I hope it's not a spoiler!

"Like him - with him - I had to keep going."

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Teaser Tuesday - Dearly, Departed 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 Teaser this week comes from Dearly, Depart by Lia Habel, which I just started this afternoon! Since I'm only on page 14, this is a teaser for me as well!

" 'Protocol D,' " I began to quote. " 'No living person not interested in becoming acquainted with the sensation of his or her own body shutting down shall come into contact with the bodily fluids of Dr. Victor Dearly. This includes, but is not limited to: offering a hand should he cut himself, using his bathroom, or drinking from his I Love New London coffee mug.' "