Cover Reveal: Darkness Watching by Emma L. Adams



Title: Darkness Watching
Book 1 in The Dark World Series
Author: Emma L. Adams
(expected) Publish Date: September 1, 2014
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press

Cover Artist: Amy Chitulescu
 

Description:

Eighteen-year-old Ashlyn is one interview away from her future when she first sees the demons. She thinks she’s losing her mind, but the truth is far more frightening: she can see into the Darkworld, the home of spirits - and the darkness is staring back.

Desperate to escape the demons, Ash accepts a place at a university in the small town of Blackstone, in the middle of nowhere - little knowing that it isn’t coincidence that led her there but the pull of the Venantium, the sorcerers who maintain the barrier keeping demons from crossing from the Darkworld into our own world.

All-night parties, new friendships and a life without rules or limits are all part of the package of student life - but demons still stalk Ash, and their interest in her has attracted the attention of every sorcerer in the area. Ash is soon caught between her new life and a group of other students with a connection to the Darkworld, who could offer the answers she’s looking for. The demons want something from her, and someone is determined to kill her before she can find out what it is.

In a world where darkness lurks beneath the surface, not everyone is what they appear to be…



About The Author:
Emma Adams spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy and paranormal for young adults.
She was born in Birmingham, UK, which she fled at the first opportunity to study English Literature at Lancaster University. In her three years at Lancaster, she hiked up mountains, skydived in Australia, and endured a traumatic episode involving a swarm of bees in the Costa Rican jungle. She also wrote various novels and short stories. These included her first publication, a rather bleak dystopian piece, and a disturbing story about a homicidal duck (which she hopes will never see the light of day).
Now a reluctant graduate, she can usually be found in front of her writing desk, creating weird and wonderful alternative worlds. Her debut novel The Puppet Spell, published in January 2013 by Rowanvale Books, is a fantasy tale for young adults and the young at heart, featuring disappearing uncles, invisibility potions and chimeras.
Emma also writes dark and creepy supernatural novels for older teens and adults. Her next book, Darkness Watching, is the first in the upper-YA/New Adult Darkworld series, and was published in October 2013 by Curiosity Quills Press.

Find Emma Adams Online:
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Cover Reveal: The Other Lamb by Katie Young

Title: The Other Lamb
Author: Katie Young
(expected) Publish Date: Aug 28, 2014
 



SUMMARY -
Incarcerated on Earth as punishment for breeding with humans, the Watchers found a way to escape. Zach is living proof of that…even though someone has cut out his heart.

When Zach turns eighteen he develops an insatiable thirst for blood, but he tries to bury his fears and go on enjoying his birthday. His best friend Kim has scored them tickets to the hottest gig in town. But a charged encounter with his idol, the enigmatic rock star known as Grigory, leads to a revelation that shatters everything Zach thinks he knows about himself and the world, and places everyone dear to him in grave danger.
Zach is a Naphil, the forbidden offspring of a mortal woman and a Watcher. When those who seek to destroy him snatch Kim, Zach is forced to embark on a journey of discovery spanning continents and ages. With the help of a mysterious stranger named Sam, Zach must unearth the truth about his parentage, find Kim, and discover who has stolen his heart…before he triggers the apocalypse.


BOOK REVIEW: I Am The Weapon by Allen Zadoff

TITLE: I Am the Weapon
Boy Nobody #1
(when I reviewed this for Netgalley, it was called The Hit - orig pub on Apr 25, 2013)
AUTHOR: Allen Zadoff
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown & CO BYR
PUBLISH DATE: June 11th 2013

GoodReads
Amazon $2.99 kindle edition

Well I just lost half a night's sleep because I could not put this book down!!

The writing is simple, but well-written. It is easy to follow and even more easy to read like a crazy person. The characters have good, solid development giving the reader the ease to root for some and beg for the demise of others.

As a fan of female protagonists, this one surprised me. The main character, whose name changes as his hits are completed, was purely, detached and unemotional assassin. The perfect kind that is underestimated and successful driven by the deaths of his parents, the lies they told and the program's effort to make an invisible assassin. But he is human. And hard as he may try, he has feelings he cannot escape.

Oh man, this was SOOOOO GOOD!! I really enjoyed this book.

SUMMARY - 
He is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school, in a new town, under a new name, makes few friends and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for someone in his new friend's family to die -- of "natural causes." Mission accomplished, Boy Nobody disappears, and moves on to the next target.

But when he's assigned to the mayor of New York City, things change. The daughter seems so much like him; the mayor reminds him of his father. And when memories and questions surface, his handlers at The Program are watching. Because somewhere, deep inside Boy Nobody, is somebody: the kid he once was, the teen who wants normal things, like a real home and parents; a young man who wants out. And he just might want those things badly enough to sabotage The Program's next mission.

Book Review: The Glass Kitchen by Linda Francis Lee

TITLE: The Glass Kitchen
AUTHOR: Linda Francis Lee
PUBLISH DATE: June 17, 2014
PUBLISHER: St. Martins Press
384 pages

Amazon: $10.99 ebook
Barnes and Noble: $10.99 ebook
 
After a couple of chapters of wondering where this book was going, I was pulled and then couldn't put the book down.  It took a bit to figure out the characters and what was happening. The reader is hit with a bunch of chaos right off the bat and it requires patience for the issues to come to light. But if you are patient, the characters find their way into your heart and I was rooting for them all. Well all but Uncle Andrew. I didn't want him to get anything, but he was still a good, bad character. 

Ariel was my favorite, but I aligned with her as she was a dreamer, the problem solver, the bridge in negativity.

I did love the sisters, Portia, Olivia and Coredila, but would love to read a follow-up book that includes their own stories. 

There was a few major curve balls in this book that by the time I was sucked in, I was so transfixed that I was not prepared for them. They threw me and made it that much harder to put the book down for normal life things like sleep. I refuse to divulge them though!

This is a perfect book for a vacation read. It was light, happy and full of chaos. And of course, the family drama was fantastically written.

SUMMARY - Portia Cuthcart never intended to leave Texas. Her dream was to run the Glass Kitchen restaurant her grandmother built decades ago. But after a string of betrayals and the loss of her legacy, Portia is determined to start a new life with her sisters in Manhattan... and never cook again.

But when she moves into a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper West Side, she meets twelve-year-old Ariel and her widowed father Gabriel, a man with his hands full trying to raise two daughters on his own. Soon, a promise made to her sisters forces Portia back into a world of magical food and swirling emotions, where she must confront everything she has been running from. What seems so simple on the surface is anything but when long-held secrets are revealed, rivalries exposed, and the promise of new love stirs to life like chocolate mixing with cream.

The Glass Kitchen is a delicious novel, a tempestuous story of a woman washed up on the shores of Manhattan who discovers that a kitchen—like an island—can be a refuge, if only she has the courage to give in to the pull of love, the power of forgiveness, and accept the complications of what it means to be family.


Book Review: Come Back To Me by MIla Gray

Title: Come Back To Me
Author: Mila Gray
AKA: Sarah Alderson
ebook, 373 pages
Expected Publish Date: June 19, 2014
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Amazon: 
Barnes and Noble:

No one can write a love scene like Sarah Alderson!!! That said, there is so much more in this book than romance scenes. But boy, are the windows steamy!

I will read anything Sarah Alderson put out, so I did not read the summary of this book and therefore had no idea what to expect. It opens with a home filled with anguish and tension, fear so thick it could be cut with a knife. Jessa lives with this everyday. Her mother walks through life in a stupor, drug-induced haze. All of this caused by her father, a Marine who has had a bad turn of events during his last service. He has PTSD so badly he cannot contain his emotions.

Then Jessa runs in to Kit again. The boy she had a crush on as she was growing up as he was always around being her older brother's best friend. A historical playboy, girl player he does not have the best reputation, but when he starts to date Jessa things may change.

This was such a romantic book that I wanted to cry in so many places. The way Jessa and Kit met and their relationship grew was beautiful. I really can't say more because I refuse to give away the plot, but I will say that their time is numbered as Kit is scheduled to deploy very soon. What will become of their relationship? How it will continue even though her older brother may have words about the relationship? And will it survive when Jessa's own father has had a problem with Kit since he was a child?

This is a future movie, if you ask me!

Summary - Home on leave in sunny California, Marine and local lothario Kit Ryan finds himself dangerously drawn to his best friend's sister, Jessa - the one girl he can't have.

But Kit's not about to let a few obstacles stand in his way and soon Jessa's falling for his irresistible charms.

What starts out as a summer romance of secret hook-ups and magical first times quickly develops into a passionate love affair that turns both their worlds upside down.

When summer's over and it's time for Kit to redeploy, neither Kit nor Jessa are ready to say goodbye. Jessa's finally following her dreams and Kit's discovered there's someone he'd sacrifice everything for.

Jessa's prepared to wait for Kit no matter what. But when something more than distance and time rips them apart they're forced to decide whether what they have is really worth fighting for.

A breathtaking, scorchingly hot story about love, friendship, family and finding your way back from the edge of heartbreak.