Becky's View: Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones

Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones
♦publisher: Orchard Books
♦release date: July 4th, 2013
♦paperback, 320 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: The Poppy Sinclair thrillers, book 1
♦source: from publisher for honest review

People think of Mother Nature as a gentle lady. They forget that she's also Death...Sixteen-year-old Poppy Sinclair believes in quantum particles, not tarot cards, in Dawkins, not druids. Last summer, in a boating accident in the Lake District, Poppy had a brush with death. But the girl she finds face down in Scariswater hasn't been so lucky. As she fights to discover the truth behind what she believes is murder, Poppy is forced to concede that people and things are not always what they seem and, slipping ever deeper into a web of lies, jealousy and heart-stopping danger, she comes to realise - too late - that the one thing that can save her has been right there, all the time.

Review: Dead Jealous kicks off a great new mystery series, and introduces us to Poppy Sinclair, a veritable Nancy Drew for the modern age.  It's a perfect blend of crime thriller, YA contemporary romance, with just an inkling of something ghostly going on to keep readers on their toes.

This fun story boasts all kind of uniqueness, starting with a setting that I've never come across before.  The entire story takes place amidst all the curiousity and mysticism of a pagan festival.  Poppy, who was raised surrounded by paganism, is no longer into it, but she's come this year to attend her mother's handfasting to her new stepdad.  On her first night, she escapes the crowd and meets Beth---a somewhat enigmatic girl who's come to the festival in search of her missing girlfriend.  Though they just have a short but meaningful conversation, they immediately connect.  The next morning, Poppy discovers Beth dead in the lake and is compelled to find out how she ended up there.

Poppy is a great conflicted, flawed protagonist that you just can't help rooting for.  She is facing down a few fears of her own, which include her own recent brush with nearly drowning and the fact that she is completely in love with her best friend since childhood, Michael.  I know I've said this a million times, but I love a good romance with tons of history behind it, so all the building tension and mixed signals that happen between Michael and Poppy were just perfect. It even gave me that lovely little ache in my own heart as I was reading. The story actually alternates third-person POV between Poppy and Michael, and I admit that did get a little confusing at times, but also gave a wider perspective that worked for the story.  

When it comes to solving the mystery, Poppy is persistent to a fault (as any sleuth worth her salt will absolutely be!) and not afraid to get her hands dirty or go head to head with the creepiest of suspects. There were only a few silly-thriller-cliche moments where the heroine foolishly wanders right into the claws of the villain, but I easily enjoyed the story enough to overlook those.  The whole situation calls into question her own beliefs and her trust of even those closest to her.  It digs her deeper and deeper into danger, and leads up to a truly heart-pounding twist ending!

I definitely look forward to many more mystery-solving adventures with Poppy Sinclair!

Find Sharon Jones onlines:  Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Dead Jealous:  Amazon.uk  •  BookDepository

Sweetness on Sunday: Blueberry White Chocolate Almond Cookies

Mmmm...these are yummy. I made these lovelies for 4th of July this year and my whole family made them magically disappear.  I almost didn't get a chance to photograph them LOL.

Blueberry White Chocolate Almond Cookies

adapted from Cookie Monster Cooking

Prep:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Indredients: 

 2 cups all-purpose flour

 1 tsp baking powder

 1/2 tsp salt

 1 cup unsalted butter, softened

 1 cup packed light brown sugar

 1/2 cup sugar

 2 eggs

 1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 1 tsp almond extract (I loooove almond extract, so I might have used a little extra)

 1/2 tsp lemon juice

 1 cup white chocolate chips

 3/4 cup chopped almonds

 4 ounces dried blueberries

~Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl and set aside. 

~With a mixer (I used a handheld), beat together butter and both sugars.  Add in eggs one at a time and beat until creamy.

~Add vanilla, almond extract, and lemon juice; beat until combined. 

~Slowly add in flour mixture and  mix just until combined.  Fold in blueberries, white chocolate  chips, and almonds. 

~Drop by generous tablespoonfuls onto parchment-line cookie sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart.  Bake for 9-11 minutes, until they just start to lightly brown on the bottoms.  Let cool slightly before moving to a wire rack to cool completely...or to your mouth while they are still warm :) I highly suggest the latter.

Hope you try these and love them.  They are healthy, right? Blueberries? Antioxidants? Riiiight. ;)

Until next time...

New Shelf Goodies & The Weekly Nutshell {52}

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)

A nice little haul for me this week, but I'm definitely excited for all three! 

 For review:

Adela Arthur and the Creator's Clock by Judyann McCole

This story sounds so fun! I'm hoping to have found another self-pubbed gem!

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Read this synopsis. It sounds crazy good and spooky. Marketed as adult, but I think it will be a perfect YA cross-over. 

Night Witches by L.J. Adlington 

Could not resist this amazingly bizarre cover. Story sounds bizarre and unique, too!

Many thanks to JudyAnn McCole, William Morrow, and Hodder for these! 

The Weekly Nutshell:

{Sunday} Super Six Sunday: My six favorite author encounters!
 {Monday} What's New: July YA Releases & Giveaway

{Tuesday} Becky's View: Linked by Imogen Howson

{Wednesay} Waiting on Wednesday: The Historians by Trisha Leigh

 {Friday} Becky's View: ONE by Leigh Ann Kopans

Hope all my US friends had a safe and happy 4th of July! :D 
Happy reading, everyone!

Becky's View: One by Leigh Ann Kopans

One by Leigh Ann Kopans
♦release date: June 11, 2013
♦paperback, 374 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: One Universe, book 1
♦source: from author for honest review

When having two powers makes you a Super and having none makes you a Normal, having only one makes you a sad half-superpowered freak.

It makes you a One.

Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey would love to be able to fly – too bad all she can do is hover.

If she could just land an internship at the Biotech Hub, she might finally figure out how to fix herself. She busts her butt in AP Chem and salivates over the Hub’s research on the manifestation of superpowers, all in hopes of boosting her chances.

Then she meets Elias VanDyne, another One, and all her carefully crafted plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch, their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other.

Merrin's mad chemistry skills land her a spot on the Hub's internship short list, but as she gets closer to the life she always wanted, she discovers that the Hub’s purpose is more sinister than it has always seemed. Now it’s up to her to decide if it's more important to fly solo, or to save everything - and everyone - she loves.

Review: In the ever-growing world of self-pubbed books, I've been lucky enough (and picky enough) to really find some outstanding gems. One is definitely one of those.  There are things I look for: an author who puts herself through all the same unending and hellish rewrites and edits that a traditionally published author would go through, one that goes through the trouble to get test readers and fellow authors and mentors to read it before letting her work go out into the world, and yes, one that gives us a gorgeous cover to draw us right in.  Yes, I'm shallow like that, but lets face it, lots of us YA readers (not all, of course) are suckers for some pretty cover eye-candy and when an author puts together a cover that looks like it came out of one of the Big 6, it shows she's done her homework as to what sells.  I found all this and a really intriguing synopsis with Leigh Ann Kopans' book and I couldn't wait to read it.

I blew through One; the story is immediately engaging, the main character's voice is easy-going and real, like talking to a friend. She has an inner dialogue that is hilariously honest (her first encounter with the character Leni is a perfect example!).  Merrin is bright and determined, something you know right away by her refusal to give up on the development of her powers. She's being sent to a "normal" high school because her superpower never fully developed and after a few rough first days, she meets Elias and his group. I love that she doesn't immediately fall all over him, but keeps her guard up, and slowly discovers that she can trust and connect with these three new friends.  Another thing I loved were the sibling relationships, both with Merrin and her younger twin brothers and Elias and his two older twin sisters.  I'm always drawn in by close but realistically-written bro and sis ties and in this case, they were actually an integral part of the story, which made it even better.

Superpowers can often strike me as cheesy, especially flying, but I was really happy with the way the author wrote them, almost as an extension of the character.  Merrin has this great inner struggle: she loves flying with Elias but she has an intense need to someday, somehow develop her own powers so that she didn't need to depend on him to fly---I felt this really defined her character and her actions throughout the story and kept this from really revolving solely around a love story, which is refreshing. It gave her character a good dose of stubbornness and back-bone. :)  Still, the love story was good and romantic, but I did find that somewhere in the middle, it was what slowed the pacing for me just a bit.

A great series-starter, full of action, betrayal, discovery, and heroic rescues.  I'm excited to see where this story goes next!

Find Leigh Ann Kopans online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase ONE: 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. 

The Historians 
by Trisha Leigh

coming July 30th, 2013

description:
*If you could learn the identity of your one true love—even knowing you’d probably never meet—would you do it?*

Years have passed since refugees from a ruined earth took to space, eventually terraforming a new system of planets. Science has not only made the leaps necessary to allow time travel, but the process engineered a strange side effect—predicting people’s one true love.

The problem? If only one soul ever has been born, or will be born, that perfectly matches yours, the chances the two will exist in the same time and place are almost zero. It’s rare enough that the predictions have been reduced to a game, a parlor trick, and no one expects a happily ever after with their True.

*If you had the chance to meet your one true love—even knowing you couldn’t be together—would you go?*

Seventeen-year-old Kaia Vespasian is an apprentice to the Historians—a group charged with using time travel to document the triumphs and failures of the past—and can’t resist a peek at her long-dead one true love. Before she knows it, she’s broken every rule in the book, and the consequences of getting caught could be disastrous.

*If you could save your one true love from a terrible, untimely death, would you be able to resist?*

When Oz Truman, a fellow apprentice, discovers Kaia’s secret, he shows her the predicted trajectories that could result her from altering the history of ancient Egypt. They prove that if Kaia doesn’t ensure her True dies as he’s supposed to, the effect on the present will be catastrophic.

*Would you have the strength to watch them die?*

But when Kaia she notices Oz popping up in historical archives where he doesn’t belong, she suspects he has a secret of his own—and the conspiracy she uncovers breaks worse rules than traveling to ancient Egypt to meet a boy.

If Kaia’s experience with her one true love has taught her anything, it’s that no alteration to history comes without consequences. The Historians trained her to observe and record the past, but Kaia never guessed she might have to protect it—especially not from the people she trusts.

My thoughts: So..epically long description, but Trisha Leigh's Whispers in Autumn was one of my favorites so far this year, so I am super excited to see another series pop up from her.  I love time travel stories, and this one definitely sounds like it's got such an interesting twist to it.  Plus, gorgeous cover. :)

Becky's View: Linked by Imogen Howson

Linked by Imogen Howson
♦publisher: Simon and Schuster
♦release date: June 11, 2013
♦hardcover, 368 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Linked, book 1
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Elissa used to have it all: looks, popularity, and a bright future. But for the last three years, she’s been struggling with terrifying visions, phantom pains, and mysterious bruises that appear out of nowhere.

Finally, she’s promised a cure: minor surgery to burn out the overactive area of her brain. But on the eve of the procedure, she discovers the shocking truth behind her hallucinations: she’s been seeing the world through another girl’s eyes.

Elissa follows her visions, and finds a battered, broken girl on the run. A girl—Lin—who looks exactly like Elissa, down to the matching bruises. The twin sister she never knew existed.

Now, Elissa and Lin are on the run from a government who will stop at nothing to reclaim Lin and protect the dangerous secrets she could expose—secrets that would shake the very foundation of their world.

Riveting, thought-provoking and utterly compelling, Linked will make you question what it really means to be human.

Review: Going into reading Linked, I was completely drawn in by the idea of twins who are so intimately linked that they can feel each other's pain, share visions, and even bruise when the other is injured.  I was intrigued by a government who would see these twins as a threat and why.  I was expecting an exciting and emotionally-driven dystopian novel, and for the most part, that is what I got and I really enjoyed it.  However, I was not expecting something so heavy on the Sci-fi.  And while I do often really enjoy some lighter sci-fi stories, the detailed descriptions of buildings and gadgetry in a futuristic world and the intricate workings of space travel...some is fun to read, but sometimes, well, it just leaves me a little bored.

Aside from that, I did love how all the characters, even some minor characters, meshed and conflicted and grew. Lissa is from a privileged family, but has lost everything due to her mysterious "illness".  This poor girl, what kind of sad, shallow friends must she have had to have them all abandon her because she gets mysterious bruises and illnesses!  Her world turns upside down when she discovers the real reason for her visions and injuries, and suddenly she has to get her and her twin sister, Lin, to safety.  Lin, whose strange powers are barely controlled and has no concept of human compassion, proves to be quite a handful---but Lissa's strength of character and Lin's innocent need to please Lissa is often what saves them. And whoa, their mother!  Rarely have I come across a mother in a story who is so cruel and harsh in such an ugly manipulative way as this one.  I did really like the subtle romance: a slowly-evolving relationship with tons of real emotion and history behind it---my favorite kind of love story.

The action and danger of the chase was what kept the pages turning for me and a building curiosity to know the truth about why an entire government would be so desperate to catch Lissa and Lin.  The reason was shocking and horrifying and the conclusion of the story was pretty surprising, but also left the door open for a sequel without a harrowing cliffhanger. I think readers who really enjoy true sci-fi will appreciate this one even more than I did.

Find Imogen Howson online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Linked: Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

"What's New" July YA Releases & Giveaway

Guys, I am melting. MELTING.  I am not a fan of the heat, and here in Northern CA we're smack in the middle of heat-wave-HELL.  It was 104 today.  It's suppose to be 110 tomorrow, and 112 the next!! Ugh, ugh. ugh. Ready for Fall already.  I want to sit on my front porch and read but I can't even breathe out there!

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 June's giveaway was: Tina!  Congratulations! :D

  July 2013 Releases:
Just like previous months, I've put a little l♥ve by those books that I am really anticipating---whether I can't wait to read them or I just can't wait to have my own finished copy!

{2}
Blurred by Tara Fuller
Camp Boyfriend by J.K. Rock
Distance Between Us by Kasie West
Famous Last Words by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski
A Midsummer Night’s Scream by R.L. Stine
Playing Tyler by T. L. Costa
Shutdown by Heather Anastasiu
This is WAR by Lisa Roecker and Laura Roecker
This Strange and Familiar Place by Rachel Carter ♥
Truly, Madly, Deadly by Hannah Jayne ♥
The Twice Lost by Sarah Porter
Vortex by S.J. Kincaid

{8}
Shallow Pond by Alissa Grosso

{9}
Breaking Glass by Lisa Amowitz
In Too Deep by Coert Voorhees
Life’s a Witch by Brittany Geragotelis
Only Ever Always by Penni Russon
Raven Flight by Juliet Marillier
Right of Way by Lauren Barnholdt
Shadow of the Mark by Leigh Fallon
Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub
Who Needs Magic? By Kathy McCullough
Zom-B Angels by Darren Shan

{11}
45 Pounds (More or Less) by Kelly Barson
The Theory of Everything by Kari Luna ♥

{16}
Belladonna by Fiona Paul
Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols
Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy
No Easy Way Out by Dayna Lorentz
Perfection by JL Spelbring

{18}
Vigilante Nights by Erin Richards

{23}
Contaminated by Em Garner
The Counterfeit Family Tree of Vee Crawford-Wong by L. Tam Holland
A Darkness Strange and Lovely by Susan Dennard ♥
Extremities by David Lubar
The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith
How to Lose Everything by Philipp Mattheis
OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu
Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay ♥
A Really Awesome Mess by Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin
Shadows of Glass by Kassy Tayler
Starglass by Phoebe North
Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell

{30}
All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry ♥
The Boy on the Bridge by Natalie Standiford
Brother, Brother by Clay Carmichael
Bubble World by Carol Snow
The Cruisers: Oh, Snap! By Walter Dean Myers
Earthbound by Aprilynne Pike
The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe by dan Poblocki
If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth
Indelible by Dawn Metcalf
Love Disguised by Lisa Klein
Midnight Frost by Jennifer Estep
Torn by David Massey

(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 July release of their choice! *see note below
• Contest ends July 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. 

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