Waiting on Wednesday (125)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Whispering Skull
Author: Jonathan Stroud
Series: Lockwood & Co. #2
Hitting the Shelves: September 16, 2014

In the six months since Anthony, Lucy, and George survived a night in the most haunted house in England, Lockwood & Co. hasn't made much progress. Quill Kipps and his team of Fittes agents keep swooping in on Lockwood's investigations. Finally, in a fit of anger, Anthony challenges his rival to a contest: the next time the two agencies compete on a job, the losing side will have to admit defeat in the Times newspaper.

Things look up when a new client, Mr. Saunders, hires Lockwood & Co. to be present at the excavation of Edmund Bickerstaff, a Victorian doctor who reportedly tried to communicate with the dead. Saunders needs the coffin sealed with silver to prevent any supernatural trouble. All goes well-until George's curiosity attracts a horrible phantom.

Back home at Portland Row, Lockwood accuses George of making too many careless mistakes. Lucy is distracted by urgent whispers coming from the skull in the ghost jar. Then the team is summoned to DEPRAC headquarters. Kipps is there too, much to Lockwood's annoyance. Bickerstaff's coffin was raided and a strange glass object buried with the corpse has vanished. Inspector Barnes believes the relic to be highly dangerous, and he wants it found.

The author of the blockbuster Bartimaeus series delivers another amusing, chilling, and ingeniously plotted entry in the critically acclaimed Lockwood & Co. series.

Why I Want This: I just finished reading Lockwood & Co. #1: The Screaming Staircase this morning and it was pretty great! Once you get immersed into this world it's hard to knot want more right away! Luckily this book comes out soon and I scored an ARC at ALA! Definitely going to be reading it soon! Happy reading! 

Waiting on Wednesday (124)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Winterkill
Author: Kate A. Boorman
Hitting the Shelves: September 09, 2014

Emmeline knows she’s not supposed to explore the woods outside her settlement. The enemy that wiped out half her people lurks there, attacking at night and keeping them isolated in an unfamiliar land with merciless winters. Living with the shame of her grandmother’s insubordination, Emmeline has learned to keep her head down and her quick tongue silent.

When the settlement leader asks for her hand in marriage, it’s an opportunity for Emmeline to wash the family slate clean—even if she has eyes for another. But before she’s forced into an impossible decision, her dreams urge her into the woods, where she uncovers a path she can’t help but follow. The trail leads to a secret that someone in the village will kill to protect. Her grandmother followed the same path and paid the price. If Emmeline isn't careful, she will be next.

Why I want this: 1. Debut author. 2. Creepy fall/winter book set in the woods. 3. Awesome cover! The typography is especially great! This is another gold mine of a find at ALA for me that I hadn't read heard about at all until I picked it up! Now I can't wait to read it! Will definitely be knocking this one out soon! 

Review: Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott

Title: Fire & Flood
Author: Victoria Scott
Series: Fire & Flood #1
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: February 25, 2014
Source: Purchased
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

Time is slipping away....

Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.

Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.

The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?

Victoria Scott's breathtaking novel grabs readers by the throat and doesn't let go.

My Thoughts: 

I can’t help but mention the Hunger Games while writing this review of Fire & Flood. Major aspects of these two books are very similar and I feel that’s why Fire & Flood has not been given its fair chance. Just because a book has some similarities to the Hunger Games doesn't mean it has to be a bad book. Fire & Flood is probably one of my favorite books of this year so far and I found myself more emotionally invested than I have been in a really long time!

Here are the similarities between Fire & Flood and The Hunger Games: There are contestants in a competition where there is only one winner and people die along the way. That’s it! Pretty much everything else is different. The main character Tella finds a communication device that tells her she has been invited to compete in the Brimstone Bleed and if she is the winner they will provide a cure to her brother’s fatal mysterious illness. So she follows the instructions and she chooses an egg which will eventually hatch and become her Pandora which will be her animal companion during the competition. There are four legs of the competition, one for each terrain, and they have two weeks to complete each leg which means making it to base camp without dying.

Fire & Flood is a crazy fast-paced adventure right from page one. I could not stop reading it. And I was so invested in almost all the characters, especially Maddox! There was always a new twist or turn around every corner and I had no idea what to expect next. I usually don’t like characters like Tella, who underplay dangerous situations and laugh them off after they’re over but she was quite likable to me. She wasn't annoying and she really stood up and became a leader among her little group.

If you haven’t read Fire & Flood, please, please give it a chance! Don’t let its similarities to The Hunger Games deter you! It is a very fun and exciting read and one of my favorite reads this year!

Book Haul: June 2014 ALA Edition!

Hey there! Welcome to this week's Stacking the Shelves! This awesome meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and we get to show each other the books we acquired this week whether bought, from the library or for review!

So I went to ALA Las Vegas last weekend and let me tell you! It was so much fun! It was so relaxed and so much more mellow than ALA Anaheim two years ago! People weren't too crazy and if you wanted something that was a pretty coveted book all you had to do was ask and the publicists just gave it to you! Needless to say I had a pretty good time and pretty much got what I went for: BOOKS!

I got a whole lot more than just these books but these are the books that I'm most excited to read and I will hopefully knock them out by the end of the summer!

From the top:

Winterkill by Kate A. Boorman (September 2014)

Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini (September 2014)

The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters (October 2014)

Maplecroft by Cheri Priest (September 2014)

The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh O'Brien (September 2014)

The Young Elites by Maire Lu (October 2014)

Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre (August 2014)

The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter (September 2014)

Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper (September 2014)

Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios (October 2014)

Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness (July 2014)

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (September 2014)

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (September 2014)

I have a whole lot of reading ahead of me and I literally can't wait! Are you guys excited for these books? Let me know in the comments!

What Does the Bookworm Say? Book Trailers

Hey there! Welcome to this week's What Does the Bookworm Say discussion.  This week we're talking about book trailers and whether we love them, hate them or just don't care.  Don't forget to visit my friends Thuy @ Nite Lite Book Reviews and Kimberly @ The Windy Pages and read their two cents on book trailers.

In all honesty, I never watch book trailers.  It's not that I think that they're bad or they're stupid or anything like that, I just never realized that book trailers are that big of a thing. Are they? Are they made often? Who makes the book trailer? The publishing company or the author? Where do they post them and how do I find them? Youtube, Facebook or the publisher's website?

In research for this discussion post, I had remembered that Richelle Mead posted something on her Facebook about a teaser trailer for her upcoming release Silver Shadows (which I'm super excited about) so I went back and I found the trailer so I could watch it.  And I really liked it! Now looking back I realize they have all kinds of book trailers for the whole Bloodlines Series! So if you haven't seen the recent book teaser trailer for Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead then here it is!!




I think book trailers are something I could definitely like.  I'll definitely start keeping my eyes open for more book trailers in the future and maybe start posting some of them here at Books Unbound!

What do you guys think about book trailers? Yay or nay? Let me know in the comments!

Happy 4th of July!!!!

I'm heading to a couple BBQs today and hopefully seeing a few fireworks.  I can't stay out too late cause I have to work in the morning but it's still going to be a nice holiday! 

I hope you guys have fun out there and stay safe! 

Waiting on Wednesday (123)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Maplecroft
Author: Cherie Priest
Hitting the Shelves: September 02, 2014

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks; and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one....

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.

But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.

This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.

Why I want this: Lizzie Borden??!!??? YES!!!!! This sounds like the epitome of horror stories to me! I just received an ARC at ALA and I'm definitely going to start it soon!!! I hope I love it!