What Lies Around The Bend...

"When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre... to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria... to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own - scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, the gorgeous Hale, appears, pulling her back into the world she has only just escaped. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster's priceless art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Now. Only a master thief could have pulled off this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is  the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat's dad needs her help. Kat's solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and, ho...

HAPPY FIFTIETH REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you to all who have supported me in my blogging and I hope I can continue for another fifty posts. "It's the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and is eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset - visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. But when one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia's world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she's not the seer of dark portents, but the cause." Review: This book was really, REALLY, good. I've been having a lot of good luck with books lately and this was no exception. I loved how it began in the present, after Amelia's world is ravaged and then goes into what happened in the summer of 1889.What I wasn't expecting was the romance, and even...

"Andi Alpers is on the edge. She's angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and angry at the world for taking her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And her father has determined that Andi's accompanying him to Paris over winter break is the solution to everything. But Paris is a city of ghosts for Andi. And when she finds a centuries-old diary, the ghosts begin to walk off the page. Alexandrine, the owner of the journal, knew heartbreak also, and Andi finds comfort in the girl's words. Until, on a midnight journey through the catacombs of Paris, words transcend paper and time, and the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present." Review: This was a wonderful book. By wonderful, I mean devastatingly, tragically, fantastic. Andi and Alex's stories were equally impressive and the history was amazing and really had me thinking, even researching it all!! I loved the fireworks metaphor throughout...

SPOILER ALERT: THIS IS A SEQUEL. FOR BOOK 1, CHECK OUT ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD ! "It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost hunter Cas Lowood can't move on. His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live - not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes. no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with. Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep, and sometimes in waking nightmares. But there is something very wrong... these aren't just daydreams." Review: Okay, I'll save you the trouble of reading this book and say that from the last page of the first book, to the last page of the second, nothing changes. I was rooting for Anna and Cas to be together. I had no idea how they would do it, but I'm the sap who believes that anything's possible, so, sorry Ke...

"Pia has grown up in a secret compound hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest. She was raised by a team of scientists who bred her to be the first of a new immortal race. Now those scientists have begun to challenge her, with the goal of training her to carry on their dangerous work. On the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia stumbles across a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home. Free in the jungle for the first time, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Unable to resist, she continues sneaking out to see him. As they fall in love, they begin to piece together the truth about Pia's origin - a truth with nothing less than deadly consequences that will change their lives forever." Review: This book was interesting. The way the characters of the scientists of Cam played out was definitely surprising, but Pia and Eio's relationship was predictably expected, which was disappointing. I realized that they would inevitably fall in l...

"Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kids Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten." Review: This was a wonderfully written book. Even though it’s about two kids with cancer, their wit and playful banter and of course all their inside jokes had me laughing till my sides hurt. I loved every minute of it...  except for the very end, for reasons I'll let you experience for yourself. And to those who are reading the book or in the middle of it, or, for future reference, those who will read it, An Imperial Affliction is not a real book. I checked. Update: It's been a couple years since reading this book and the movie has been out for some time, so I think I need to update myself on this book. It was a good book and I laughed ...

"Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that's all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone. Her father was right. The monsters are real. To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn't careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies." Review: This was an interesting and great new take on the world of zombies. I immediately assumed that this would be a post apocalyptic book, hence "zombieland", but that was not the case. And the zombies themselves were completely different from what other books lead you to believe. I also loved Alice and Cole's relationship but what I loved ...