"What's New" August YA Releases & Giveaway

August already!! Wow. This year is flying by.  My kid goes back to school this month and with that comes a few more hours of quiet reading time! Woooo! :D  But it's been a  fun summer---we have a few more fun day trips to cram in before saying good-bye to another great summer vacation.

So if you're new to Stories & Sweeties, here's a little run-down of this feature: at the start of each month, I do a little thing called the "What's New List & Giveaway" where you'll find a full list of the new releases in YA for the month, and entry to the giveaway. At the end of each month, one lucky winner will get to choose any new release as their prize!

First things first! The winner of July's giveaway was: Sašenka!  Congratulations! :D

August 2013 Releases:
Just like previous months, I've put a little l♥ve by those books that I am really anticipating!

{1}
Canary by Rachele Alpine
Charmed Vengeance by Suzanne Lazear

{6}
Aquifer by Jonathan Friesen
Control by Kim Curran
Elegy by Amanda Hocking
Gated by Amy Christine Parker ♥
The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky
Infinityglass by Myra McEntire
Maybe Tonight? By Bridie Clark
Out of Play by Jolene Perry & Dawn Nyrae
Running Lean by Diana L. Sharples
Second Impact by David Klass & Perri Klass
A Tale of Two Centuries by Rachel Harris
The Uprising by Lisa M. Stasse
The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce ♥
When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by Kersten Hamilton ♥
Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin ♥

{13}
Awoken by Timothy Miller
Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem
The Deepest Night by Shana Abe ♥
False Sight by Dan Krokos
Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry
Fire with Fire by Jenny Han & Vivian Siobhan
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
Hover by Melissa West ♥
If We Survive by Andrew Klavan
Lake Thirteen by Herren Greg
The Meme Plague by Angie Smibert
The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Stalked by Death by Kelly Hashway
Where Beauty Lies by Elle & Blair Fowler

{15}
Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke ♥
Demonosity by Amanda Ashby
On Little Wings by Regina Sirois

{20}
Asylum by Madeleine Roux ♥
Doon by Lorie Langdon by Carey Corp
Flicker & Burn by T.M. Goeglein
If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
The Infinite Moment of Us by Lauren Myracle
My Totally Awkward Supernatural Crush by Laura Toffler-Corrie
This Side of Jealousy by Lili Peloquin
VIII by H.M. Castor

{22}
The Broken Window by Christa J. Kinde

{27}
The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson
Black Spring by Alison Croggan ♥
Confessions of a Hater by Caprice Crane
Consume by Melissa Darnell
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Mass ♥
The Dark Between by Sonia Gensler ♥
Deception by C.J. Redwine ♥
Descendent by Lesley Livingston
Don’t Look Now by Michelle Gagnon ♥
Everlast by Andria Buchanan
The Fall of Five by Pittacus Lore
A Fractured Light by Jocelyn Davies
Jumped In by Patrick Flores-Scott
Just Like Fate by Cat Patrick & Suzanne Young ♥
The Liberator by Victoria Scott
The Morning Star by Robin Bridges
Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block
Origin by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Overpowered by Mark H. Kruger
Rein It In by Georgina Bloomberg & Catherine Hapka
Relic by Renee Collins
Sunblind by Michael Griffo
Taste Test by Kelly Fiore
To Be Perfectly Honest by Sonya Sones
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Unfed by Kirsty McKay

(All links go to Goodreads)
Please feel free to email me if you notice any YA titles missing! :)

Giveaway Details:
One winner will win a YA August release of their choice! *see note below
• Contest ends August 31st, 2013 at 11:59 PM
• Must be 13 or older.
• Open internationally. *International winners will be required to choose a book that is available through BookDepository.com.  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It lets us all gush about what soon-to-be released books we are jumping-up-and-down excited for.

Vengeance 
by Megan Miranda

hitting shelves February 13, 2014 from Bloomsbury

No official description released yet, but here is a blurb from Publisher's Marketplace:
Megan Miranda's VENGEANCE, a companion novel and sequel to FRACTURE, in which the lake that claimed victims appears to be cursed as more tragedy unfolds, raising the question of whether a character's strange affinity with the dying is something even more sinister...

My thoughts: I loved Fractured (check out my review here!) so I'm excited to hear there will be a companion novel!

Becky View: Ashes on the Waves by Mary Lindsey

Ashes on the Waves by Mary Lindsey
♦publisher: Philomel/Penguin
♦release date: June 27th, 2013
♦hardcover, 373 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Liam MacGregor is cursed. Haunted by the wails of fantastical Bean Sidhes and labeled a demon by the villagers of Dòchas, Liam has accepted that things will never get better for him—until a wealthy heiress named Annabel Leighton arrives on the island and Liam’s fate is changed forever.

With Anna, Liam finally finds the happiness he has always been denied; but, the violent, mythical Otherworlders, who inhabit the island and the sea around it, have other plans. They make awager on the couple’s love, testing its strength through a series of cruel obstacles. But the tragedies draw Liam and Anna even closer. Frustrated, the creatures put the couple through one last trial—and this time it’s not only their love that’s in danger of being destroyed.

Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling poem, "Annabel Lee," Mary Lindsey creates a frighteningly beautiful gothic novel that glorifies the power of true love.

Review: Mary Lindsey's sophomore YA novel, Ashes on the Waves, is a gorgeous gothic retelling of Poe's Annabel Lee.  If you know the poem, you know it doesn't end well, but the love story is one of such purity that even the gods are jealous.   Lindsey captures all the drama and innocents of the original poem, while putting such an imaginative spin on it that by the last scene, I'd forgotten what was coming and the ending effectively crushed me.  Lindsey also finds a fun way to pay even more homage to Poe; each chapter begins with a Poe quote that foreshadows what is about to take place.

Liam lives among a small island community that has clung to it's old ways and legends.  He was born with a birth defect, a paralyzed arm, and their backwards thinking brands him as a demon. He is so harshly outcast by the towns people that your heart just can't help but hurt for him on nearly every page.  Especially when he is such a good, kind person.  He has one single ally in Francine---I adored her. A shopowner who stands by Liam and is happily willing to tell off anyone who tries to show their prejudice around her.  

Enter Anna, Liam's one childhood friend, a girl he's held a flame for since the day her family moved away.  She returns to the island, temporarily banished from her life of fame in New York.  They reform their friendship and it quickly turns into something much more.  Their story spills out with such a sweet romantic tone and lovely prose, mixed with Anna's New York brand of sassiness and Liam's old-world charm (acquired from reading and rereading the only thing left of his mother's: old volumes of Keats and Tennyson and other classic literature). I'll admit that around page 250 or so, the intensity of their love grew just a bit tiresome, but the story soon picked up with a heavy dose of excitement and danger. 

Mythological creatures take on a big part in this story.  The Na fir Gorhm, cruel sea creatures that like to lure humans to their watery death, take their revenge on Liam when he inadvertently gets in their way.  Selkies are there to witness it all, and one love-sick selkie gets pulled into the Na Fir Gorhm's ugly games.  Then there are the Bean Sidhe (better known as banshees) who only Anna and Liam can hear.  I did love all the mythological world building here, but I did think the way the Bean Sidhe were written was a bit on the cheesy side.  There is a mystery that Anna and Liam are trying to unravel and the Bean Sidhe's screams would tell them if there were on the right path---kind of like a mythical game of "hot and cold".  I did like that they were basically good, a role that banshees are very rarely given!

A beautifully woven tale of love, legend, loss, and perseverance in the face of prejudice. Mary Lindsey's creativity and storytelling continue to impress! 

 Find Mary Lindsey online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Ashes on the Waves: Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

New Shelf Goodies & The Weekly Nutshell {55}

For New Shelf Goodies, I'll be showing you what lovely books I acquired this week, whether from publishers, or the library, or from whatever half-crazed book-buying binge I happened to go on. :D (Inspired by Tynga's Stacking the Shelves) The Weekly Nutshell will be just that...my week here at Stories & Sweeties, in a nutshell. (inspired by Ginger @ GReads and her recaps at the end of the TGIF posts)

Here's what's new on my shelf this week:

For review:

Antigoddess by Kendare Blake

Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender

The Broken Hearted by Amelia Kahaney

Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst

The Longings of Wayward Girl by Karen Brown

Fingerprints of You by Kristin-Paige Madonna

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Find Me by Romily Bernard

Really excited for all the books I received this week!! Many thanks to Hodder UK, Scholastic, HarperTeen, Bloomsbury/Walker, Atria Galley Alley, Simon & Schuster, and Kristin-Paige Madonna!

The Weekly Nutshell:

  {Monday} Cover Story

{Tuesday} Amy's series review: Twice Shy & Special Dead

{Wednesday} Waiting on Wednesday: Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins

 

As I previously warned, I wasn't around much this week! We had a gorgeous anniversary trip to Monterey, Ca...one of our favorite getaways.  GAH, I can't even believe summer is almost over---my little guy is back to school in only two weeks!!  

Have a great week, everyone!

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It lets us all gush about what soon-to-be released books we are jumping-up-and-down excited for.

Rebel Belle
by Rachel Hawkins

hitting shelves April 8th, 2014 from Putnam Juvenile

description: Harper Price, peerless Southern belle, was born ready for a Homecoming tiara. But after a strange run-in at the dance imbues her with incredible abilities, Harper's destiny takes a turn for the seriously weird. She becomes a Paladin, one of an ancient line of guardians with agility, super strength and lethal fighting instincts.

Just when life can't get any more disastrously crazy, Harper finds out who she's charged to protect: David Stark, school reporter, subject of a mysterious prophecy and possibly Harper's least favorite person. But things get complicated when Harper starts falling for him--and discovers that David's own fate could very well be to destroy Earth.

With snappy banter, cotillion dresses, non-stop action and a touch of magic, this new young adult series from bestseller Rachel Hawkins is going to make y'all beg for more.

My thoughts: It's Rachel Hawkins. That's really all I need to know.  Her books have never failed to make me laugh and cry and just fall in love with all the characters.  

Amy's Series View: Twice Shy and Special Dead by Patrick Freivald

Twice Shy by Patrick Freivald
♦publisher:  JournalStone
♦release date: October 26, 2012
♦paperback, 231pages
♦intended audience: Young Adult
♦source: from publisher for honest review 

High School Sucks...... It's worse when you're dead.............

Ohneka Falls is a small, Western New York town where everyone knows everyone and nothing of note happens. Ani Romero is a sixteen-year-old girl who wants to play sports, hang out, and kiss Mike, her middle-school crush. A childhood carrier of the zombie virus, she died at fourteen but didn't become a mindless, brain-eating monster. Her controlling mother forces her to join the emo crowd to hide her condition behind a wall of black clothes and makeup, and her friends abandon her. When creeper Dylan learns her secret, he falls into obsession, with Ani and with death. She bites him in self-defense. Persecuted by the jocks and ignored by Mike, Ani struggles through the motions of life hoping her mother's research unveils a cure, or Dylan dooms them all to a hungry, walking death. As her emo facade crumbles in the face of jealousy and obsession, Ani knows that the worst thing she can do is be true to herself.

 
Review: A contemporary, gothic horror that leaves zombies fans cheering for more.

Ani just wants to be a normal teenager, but hiding deep down is a secret she can only share with her mother. Which in turn, results in way too many rules: be part of the emo crowd, stay covered, only limited sunlight, take formaldehyde baths, get good grades, no secrets, and never ever tell anyone that you are a zombie. All of which is easy, if you’re ok being called a freak. Not to add, the one boy you have ever liked can’t stand looking at your new emo style and his girlfriend is determined to make your life miserable. Life would be simpler, if only she could keep the thought of brains off her mind. The serum her mother, (Doctor and scientist) creates helps a bit, and even keeps the decaying process down but it still isn’t a cure. Leaving Ani with the illusion of a normal teenage life with her piano, job , and finding simple ways to distract her from eating brains.

However, Ani’s life starts to change when Dylan, local creep and obsessive emo boy, turns his obsession onto her and discovers the truth. Turning Ani’s life into chaos, threatening the very life she has grown to tolerate.

With love and hate and hate again, Ani’s heart is constantly tugged between her junior high crush Mike and his toying affections, while his girlfriend Devon goes to any length to make sure Ani knows who’s boss. Causing a cat and mouse chase with her heart that doesn’t even beat. All leading up to one explosive ending, that leaves the door open to its sequel.

Patrick Freivald captures the essence of a teenager. With great dialogue, true problems and the angst of complicated love. Addressing real social issues such as: cutting, drinking, and acceptance at any cost. I was pleasantly delighted by the unusual and creative spin on capturing the zombie essence. Adding a little teenage undead drama, with all the gory details one would expect there to be in a good zombie classic.

Special Dead by Patrick Freivald
♦publisher:  JournalStone 
♦release date: July 12th, 2013
♦paperback, 260 pages
♦intended audience: Young Adult
♦source: from publisher for honest review 

Shackled to her desk, Ani Romero has a hard time concentrating on her studies. One of eight zombie survivors of the Prompocalypse, she's back at school, but this time it's no secret. Locked in their room, flamethrower-toting soldiers watching their every move, they're tasked with homework and classes during the week, and macabre experiments on the weekend.

When the courts rule they're not human, only an appeal keeps them alive long enough to discover a cure. College applications and SATs pale under the threat of incineration, and desperation turns them into lab rats... ...but the scientists helping them have ulterior motives, and the promised cure destroys more than the virus.

Surviving high school has never been so hard.

Review: Follow Ani through the zombie filled continuation of Twice Shy, where life as a zombie is not what it is cracked up to be.

 With the event of prom fourteen months earlier, and Ani’s small slip up, her secret is partially out, and the zombie virus has been discovered. Leaving Ani and 7 of her classmates infected and known world-wide as the zombie survivors of, Prompocalypse.

Now acting like a new undead person, Ani must suffer with her classmates the horror of returning back to high school. If you call being chained to your desk, wearing helmets and metal bite guards, while surrounded by guards with flame throwers, a normal high school day. Luckily she has Mike, her partly brain eaten boyfriend, there with her. Although, Devon his ex girlfriend just happens to be there as well.  Life could only get worse if they were all dead- wait they already are.

With a storyline that stretches through their days at school, medical testing, zombie virus injections you follow the trial and tribulations of not only being a teenager but being a zombie teenager.

With a realistic approach to how society might actually react to a zombie virus outbreak. This book highlights social disorder and raises the question of, “What do you do with the living undead?” Are they people with rights or subjects only to be kept around for medical experiments?

Special Dead highlights the fall of social structure at the dawn of a deadly virus and the challenges faced by those who are left to cope with the disease. Although teenagers themselves, they are faced with choices of which all  have deadly consequences, as well as being emotionally charged. If you are a fan of zombies, sci- fi, or gory medical research this book taps into it all.

Find Patrick Freivald online: Twitter  •  Goodreads

Purchase Twice Shy and Special Dead:  Amazon  •  BookDepository  • Indiebound

Cover Story

A few recent cover discoveries! 

 

And We Stay 

by Jenny Hubbard

Delacorte Press, January 28th, 2014 

 

Into the Dark 

by Bree Despain

EgmontUSA, March 11, 2014

Neverwas

by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed, & Larkin Reed

Scholastic Press, January 7th, 2014

 

Pawn

by Aimee Carter

Harlequin Teen, November 26th, 2013

See Jane Run

by Hannah Jayne

Sourcebooks Fire, January 1st, 2014

 

The Tinker King
by Tiffany Trent
Simon & Schuster, February 11th, 2014

Wayfarer

by Lili St. Crow

Razorbill, March 6th, 2014

Witch Finder 
by Ruth Warburton
Hodder, January 2nd, 2014







Alright, you cover-lovers...any new favorites among these?

New Shelf Goodies & The Weekly Nutshell {54}

For New Shelf Goodies, I'll be showing you what lovely books I acquired this week, whether from publishers, or the library, or from whatever half-crazed book-buying binge I happened to go on. :D (Inspired by Tynga's Stacking the Shelves) The Weekly Nutshell will be just that...my week here at Stories & Sweeties, in a nutshell. (inspired by Ginger @ GReads and her recaps at the end of the TGIF posts)

I got a few very happy-dance worthy goodies this week!

For review:

 Confessions of a so-called Middle Child by Maria T. Lennon

 Hadn't heard of this one---looks pretty cute, though.

3:59 by Gretchen McNeil

Parallel worlds done by this awesome author!

Deception by C.J. Redwine

Excited to read books one and two back to back!!

Memory by Christoph Marzi

Ghost story told from the POV of the ghost---loooove this cover. 

From trade:

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Unbreakable by Kami Garcia

 At both of these: Weeeeeeeeeee! 

Undying gratitude to Harper Collins, Orchard Books, and Ashley for these!!

The Weekly Nutshell:

{Sunday}  Super Six Sunday: Series I Need to Read Already!
 {Monday} Old Books, New Looks

{Tuesday} Becky's View: Blood Moon by Teri Harman

{Wednesay} Waiting on Wednesday: Tsarina by J. Nelle Patrick

{Friday} Becky's View: Some Quiet Place by Kelsey Sutton

I may not be around much this week! It's my wedding anniversary and we've got a little getaway planned! Have a great week everyone! Happy reading!

Becky's View: Some Quiet Place by Kelsey Sutton

Some Quiet Place by Kelsey Sutton
♦publisher: Flux
♦release date: July 8th, 2013
♦paperback, 334 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Elizabeth Caldwell doesn’t feel emotions . . . she sees them. Longing, Shame, and Courage materialize around her classmates. Fury and Resentment appear in her dysfunctional home. They’ve all given up on Elizabeth because she doesn’t succumb to their touch. All, that is, save one—Fear. He’s intrigued by her, as desperate to understand the accident that changed Elizabeth’s life as she is herself.

Elizabeth and Fear both sense that the key to her past is hidden in the dream paintings she hides in the family barn. But a shadowy menace has begun to stalk her, and try as she might, Elizabeth can barely avoid the brutality of her life long enough to uncover the truth about herself. When it matters most, will she be able to rely on Fear to save her?

Review: Simply put, there is nothing quite like Some Quiet Place.

How does one even begin to write a character that is so completely devoid of all emotion?  How does one begin to imagine what Fear would look like if you could literally face him?  What first drew me to this book was the incredibly unique concept and exactly how author Kelsey Sutton would pull such a thing off.  Well, pull it off she did, and beautifully.  While main character Elizabeth goes through her daily tasks with no emotion at all, I doubt any reader will read her story with the same indifference.

This story got my thoughts churning.  It had me asking myself what it would be like to really face a dramatic situation with no emotional reaction to it---how you could think something through with such incredible, harsh clarity without things getting muddled and clouded with feelings.  And would that truly be a power…or a curse?

Even though Elizabeth feels nothing, my heart broke several times over for her---in the abuse she faced at her father’s hands, in the daily torment she experiences at school, and watching the closest person she’d ever known as a friend waste away.  There’s an odd little love triangle here, but with one of the most unusual love interests I’ve ever come across.  Fear is always seeking her out, he is desperate to find out why she is the way she is, but in years of coming to her in frustration and testing her immunity in the most disturbing ways, he has also grown to care for her.  The first time he begged her to fight back against her father, my heart nearly melted right out of my chest.

The writing is fluid and lyrical, it still astounds me that this was Kelsey Sutton’s debut. The story unfolds with not even a hint of how it might end, and the explanation was something I never could have guessed.  I found myself unable to put this one down as Elizabeth finds herself facing scarier things that fear. This book had me being visited by many of the emotions it personifies: sadness, curiosity, wonder, and definitely fear.  I loved every minute of it.

  Find Kelsey Sutton online: Website  •  Twitter 

Purchase Some Quiet Place:  Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It lets us all gush about what soon-to-be released books we are jumping-up-and-down excited for.

Tsarina
by J. Nelle Patrick

hitting shelves February 27, 2014

description: 
Natalya knows a secret.

A magical Faberge egg glows within the walls of Russia's Winter Palace.  It holds a power rooted in the land and stolen from the mystics. A power that promises a life of love for her and Alexei Romanov.  Power, that, in the right hands, can save her way of life.

But it's not in the right hands.

My thoughts:  Magic, The Romanovs, romance, and one of my favorite authors (aka Jackson Pearce!).  All the ingredients for a book that I am certain I will fall in love with. 
 

Becky's View: Blood Moon by Teri Harman

Blood Moon by Teri Harman
♦publisher: Jolly Fish Press
♦release date: June 22nd, 2013
♦hardcover, 354 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Moonlight trilogy, book 1
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Willa dreams of true events and her best friend is a ghost. Simon can heal any wound with a touch and senses others’ emotions, intentions. All their lives they’ve felt alone in their bizarre abilities, hiding behind a facade of normalcy, wondering why and how. The night Simon walks into the Twelve Acres Diner and meets Willa face to face, in a swirl of electric heat, they are bound to one another and glimpse the magic of who they are.

Across town a witch is held prisoner in the derelict basement of an old Victorian house. One night as it rains, she dares to reach her filthy, scarred hand out the window. Willa, walking home from work, recognizes the pathetic hand from a recent, terrible dream.

After a daring rescue of the witch, Willa and Simon are catapulted into the alluring but dangerous world of witchcraft and the magic of The Six Gifts. Answers to all their questions are within reach, but they’ve stepped into the middle of a deadly fight for the Powers of the Earth. Do they stay, risk their lives on the promise of power, or walk away?

Teri Harman's groundbreaking debut novel, the first installment in The Moonlight Trilogy, completely reinvents the modern concept of witches and magic. With its authentic translation of the history of witches into a fresh and entertaining package with unprecedented characterization, Blood Moon is sure to capture readers from the first page.

Review: I've been drawn to stories about witches and magic for as long as I can remember.  Years ago, after reading the book Mists of Avalon, I did a really in depth study of wicca and natural magic---not really to become a witch myself, but just to quench a deep curiosity about this mystical religion and find out what it was all about.  It's really quite fascinating!  Blood Moon, a story full of romance and magic and destiny, impressed me with a unique take on magic that was partly fantasy but also drew heavily upon the real culture of wicca and paganism that felt very authentic to me. 

The story follows Willa and Simon and their discovery of each other (their meeting is very insta-lovey, but has a good explanation behind it) and the realization that witchcraft and magic are real and they are both very gifted.  They've always felt out of place with their secret gifts and I loved how each one separately feared telling the other about their powers.  The scene where they both find out is perfect.  Aside from Willa and Simon,  there were quite a few characters in Blood Moon that I just enjoyed reading---especially Willa's best friend, a ghost named Solace.  One thing I did find a little off-putting was the villain, Archard.  He was suave and elegant and pure evil, but I found him just a bit cliche. 

The plot of the two covens, one good and one evil, both trying to create a True Covenant, was captivating and full of action and danger.  One of my favorite parts of this story are the scenes in the past, though.  It shows an earlier time, the last time two covens tried to form a covenant, and adds a great depth to the story, creates some fantastic twists, and introduces a few more great characters to the mix.  The two plots really compliment each other and then converge beautifully at the end.  I loved that even though this is planned as a series, the main plot of this book felt complete. 

Be sure to check out my interview with author Teri Harman here! 

Find Teri Harman online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Blood Moon:  Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Old Books, New Looks {7}

Time again for another round of Old Books, New Looks, where I feature the covers of books that have already been released and their redesigned paperback counterpart! :) Sometimes I like the new better, sometimes I like the old. Here's a few that I've come across lately:

      The OLDIES  vs.  The NEWBIES

Let's just talk about these, shall we?
Unspoken: Noooo!...I loved the original cover. So unique. The new one? Not so much. Doesn't stand out to me at all.
Auracle: The original cover was perfect, can't see why they would change it---if I saw the new one on Amazon, I would have thought it was self-published, to be honest.
The Twin's Daughter: I like the new better...with the old cover, I wouldn't have thought this was a YA book. 
Lucid: The new cover looks like too many others that I've seen, plus the old one wins my heart for being purple :) Also, the original shows you right away that it's about dreams.
The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers: Loved the original and prefer it, but I see how the new one kind of goes with the current trend and has kind of a cool retro feel. 
The Wicked and the Just: Another one that I'm really disappointed with the change. The original was stunning. The new is kind of blahhh.

So to sum up...I like the originals for all but Twin's Daughter. Everyone weigh in!! What do you think of the changes?

Super Six Sunday: Series I need to stop dragging my feet and READ already!

Super Six Sunday is a meme hosted by the fabulous Bewitched Bookworms. Join in the fun...see upcoming themes here!!

These are all series that I hear and read such amazing reviews and recommendations for and I just haven't gotten around to yet.  And I need to, I really do.  Dear Father Time, please give me about 24 more hours per day and let me dedicate it all to interrupted reading. :D 

Here's six series that I'm seriously slacking on:

1~Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare
   

On my shelf: the first two. Such gorgeous covers, I couldn't resist.

2~Killer Unicorns by Diana Peterfreund
   

On my shelf: both.  I've had them for a few years at least.


3~Eve by Anna Carey

   

On my shelf: all three.  I adore this author, I just haven't found time to read her books! :\

4~The Iron Fey by Julie Kagawa

On my shelf: all four.  The covers got me...again.

5~ Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock
 

On my shelf: both.  My daughter shames me daily for not reading these. She loves them.

6~ Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

 

On my shelf: both.  I will be reading these soon. I will. ;)

So tell me...what series do YOU need to stop dragging your feel and JUST READ all ready??