New Shelf Goodies & The Weekly Nutshell {83}

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)

New goodies for the week:

Bought:

Tempus by Holly Lauren 

This one came so highly recommended by Leanna of Daisy Chain Books, I just had to get myself a copy!

See Me by Wendy Higgins

 One of my favorite authors takes on Irish legend...this was a must-buy for me!

For review: 

Born of Deception by Teri Brown

Super-happy-dance!!  Born of Illusion was one of my faves of 2013, so excited for this sequel!

Ask Me by Kimberly Pauley

This looks really cool...about a girl who is an oracle!

Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

This will be my first Morgan Matson book and I can't wait to read it!

Mouseheart by Lisa Fiedler

The cover of this makes me think of The Secret of Nimh. And the illustrations inside...this is going to be gorgeous as a finished copy!

Many thanks to Harper Teen, Soho Teen, and Simon Schuster for the review copies!

The Weekly Nutshell:
{Tuesday} Waiting on Wednesday: The Crystal Heart
{Wednesday} Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting
{Thursday} MG Steampunk Giveaway: The Mark of the Dragonfly
{Friday} The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer

Wow where did that week go?  This week I was reading After the End, and I haven't pinpointed what it is about this book, but I can't seem to put it down!  I got drawn away from Liv Forever because of a few deadlines, but I actually can't wait to get back to it.  And guys, the cupcake end of this blog has definitely gone neglected for a while, but there are a few flavors I have been dying to put together, so hopefully you'll see some yumminess on this blog again soon! 

Happy reading, everyone! :D

Becky's View: The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer

The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer
♦publisher: Balzer & Bray
♦release date: May 13th, 2014
♦paperback, 304 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review (via SF book review)

Growing up in a house of female morticians, Lily Graves knows all about buried secrets. She knows that perfect senior-class president Erin Donohue isn’t what she seems. She knows why Erin’s ex-boyfriend, hot football player Matt Houser, broke up with her. And she also knows that, even though she says she and Matt are just friends, there is something brewing between them—something Erin definitely did not like.

But secrets, even ones that are long buried, have a way of returning to haunt their keeper.

So when Erin is found dead the day after attacking Lily in a jealous rage, Lily's and Matt’s safe little lives, and the lives of everyone in their town of Potsdam, begin to unravel. And their relationship—which grew from innocent after-school tutoring sessions to late-night clandestine rendezvous—makes them both suspects.

As her world crumbles around her, Lily must figure out the difference between truth and deception, genuine love and a web of lies. And she must do it quickly, before the killer claims another victim.

Review: The Secrets of Lily Graves is a morbid but colorful murder mystery.  It’s told from the POV of a teen that has grown up surrounded by corpses in the family mortuary. Lily lives with and gets a daily dose of guidance from a very eccentric group of women; her mother, her grandmother, and especially her aunt.  Reflecting that upbringing, we get her skewed, slightly cold attitude toward death.  She’s a bit of a gothic outcast, and we know from the get-go that she and Erin, the girl who is found dead in her bathtub, were far from friends.  

The story itself is good, though nothing about it truly stood out to me. I did like the way Lily used her family’s insider info and knowledge from working at the mortuary to really help work the mystery out.   Lily was tutoring Erin’s boyfriend, and she suspected they were getting a little too close right before she winds up dead, so Lily must do everything she can to find the killer and keep the fingers from pointing at her and Michael.  

Many of the characters suffer from a bad dose of heavy cliché: here we have the goth girl who grew up in a mortuary, here’s the jock with questionable intentions, there’s the town stoner, and oh look, there are the mean girls that all the adults think are angels.  I also found the humor to be a little off-putting at times, and while it might not bother some, it took away slightly from my enjoyment of this book. 

 Still, there are a few really good surprises to keep the reader guessing and a shocking twist ending will leave your head spinning! It was, for the most part, a fun and fast read that kept me entertained. This may be a win for fans of Pretty Little Liars (I watch the show, but haven’t read the books, so don’t quote me on that!), it's definitely a similar vibe.

Find Sarah Strohmeyer online:  Website  •  Twitter 

Purchase The Secrets of Lily Graves:  Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Mark of the Dragonfly - MG Steampunk Giveaway!!

Today I'm happy to be participating in the blog tour for the steampunk fantasy, 

Mark of the Dragonfly!!

Piper has never seen the Mark of the Dragonfly until she finds the girl amid the wreckage of a caravan in the Meteor Fields.
   The girl doesn't remember a thing about her life, but the intricate tattoo on her arm is proof that she's from the Dragonfly Territories and that she's protected by the king. Which means a reward for Piper if she can get the girl home.
   The one sure way to the Territories is the 401, a great old beauty of a train. But a ticket costs more coin than Piper could make in a year. And stowing away is a difficult prospect--everyone knows that getting past the peculiar green-eyed boy who stands guard is nearly impossible.
   Life for Piper just turned dangerous. A little bit magical. And very exciting, if she can manage to survive the journey.

 ★ "This magnetic middle-grade debut...[is] a page-turner that defies easy categorization and ought to have broad appeal."-Publishers Weekly, starred 

★ "Heart, brains, and courage find a home in a steampunk fantasy worthy of a nod from Baum."-Kirkus Reviews, starred

About the author:

JALEIGH JOHNSON is a lifelong reader, gamer, and moviegoer. She loves nothing better than to escape into fictional worlds and take part in fantastic adventures. She lives and writes in the wilds of the Midwest, but you can visit her online at www.jaleighjohnson.com or on Twitter @JaleighJohnson.



Giveaway!! 
The lovely people at Delacorte are allowing me to give away one finished copy of 
Mark of the Dragonfly!  
Enter below!
•US mailing addresses only
•Must be 13 or older, or have parent permission to enter
•Ends April 10, 2014
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Becky's View: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

The Taking by Kimberly Derting
♦publisher: HarperTeen
♦release date: April 29th, 2014
♦hardcover, 368 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: The Taking, book 1
♦source: ARC from publisher for honest review (via SF Book Review)

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

Review: In The Taking, Kimberly Derting gives us yet another great story full of struggle and romance and the mysterious unknown in her signature relatable writing style that I’ve come to love.   She’s taken a concept that can be precarious to tackle well in fiction and made it fresh---it’s probably the most human alien abduction story I’ve ever come across.

This story very smartly concentrates less on the hows and whys of an unexplainable alien abduction and keeps the focus on Kyra’s struggle to blend back into a life that doesn’t fit anymore.   She’s lost five years in the blink of an eye and hasn’t aged a day.  I was easily drawn into her confusion and hurt as she realized that everything she held dear has changed, her family, her boyfriend, even hopes for her future have all slipped away or changed to the point of being almost unrecognizable.

The love story in this one is not only very sweet, but also a strengthening factor for Kyra.  And not in a way that makes her feel dependent or weak.  It’s actually a bit awkward to begin with; a boy that she last saw as the twelve-year-old brother of her boyfriend is now charming, artistic, and connects with her in ways that his brother never could.  She has a hard time wrapping her head around that at first, of course, and tries to deny their attraction, but well, you can guess how that goes!  Kyra does come across a little angsty at times, especially where her new family situations are concerned but I thought most of her anger and frustration were understandable. She did misdirect some of that at her new little brother, which made it hard to like her at times, but that eventually smoothed out, which I was glad of. 

For me, anything to do with aliens can quickly turn cheesy, but here I think the subject is handled really well.  This IS the start of a new series, and while it touched on the mysterious things going on with government agencies, the sketchy character who claims to be like her, and the strange things that Kyra is discovering about herself after being abducted, there is plenty left wide open to make me curious enough to pick up book two.  It does leave us with a heart-stopping cliffhanger, but I actually loved where the story ended. 

This was one more from this author that I thoroughly enjoyed!

 Find Kimberly Derting online:  Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase The Taking:  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 Crystal Heart 

by Sophie Masson

hitting shelves July 1st, 2014 from Random House Australia

description: A girl in a tower. An underground kingdom. This retelling of Rapunzel offers a gripping blend of magic, romance, adventure, fairytale, and mystery.

When 17-year-old army conscript Kasper Bator is chosen to join the elite guard that keeps watch over a dangerous prisoner in a tower, he believes what he's been told: the prisoner is a powerful witch. But when he meets the prisoner, Kasper's life will change forever—for the prisoner is no witch, but a beautiful young girl. The daughter of the country's enemy, the Prince of Night, Izolda has been held hostage since she was three. And she is in imminent danger, for a prophecy says she must die on her 16th birthday if Krainos is to be saved from the Prince of Night. Kasper decides to help her escape. As the days pass, their friendship turns into real love, but their hiding place won't stay safe forever.

 

My thoughts:  Another fun twist on Rapunzel!  This one looks like it's only going to have an AU release, so thank goodness for sites like Fishpond and Book Depository!! 

New Shelf Goodies & The Weekly Nutshell {82}

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)

New to my shelf this week:

For review:

Conversion by Katherine Howe

Boarding school story that intertwines with the Salem Witch Trials. So excited for this!

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

 I'm a sucker for books about finding old letters or journals..and this involves Old Hollywood!

Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore

Curses and magic in a 1930's setting. YES.

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis

A boy who sees another world when he closes his eyes. So curious about this!

Many thanks to Penguin, Disney-Hyperion, and Abrams for these!

The Weekly Nutshell:
{Monday} Review: The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski
{Wednesday} Waiting on Wednesday: Winterspell
{Saturday} Old Books, New Looks : Cover Makeovers!

This week, I read The Taking and really enjoyed it. Now I've started Liv, Forever and Secrets of Lily Graves, both pretty good so far!  I need to unload some books, guys! Oh and actually I got duplicate copies of Otherbound, it's a June release so if anyone has anything fun to trade, just email me! I'm thinking about putting up a trade list soon, but looking for input---where do you like to look for trades?  Goodreads? YABookExchange?  Or should I just post a trade list here? 


Happy reading this week, everyone!

Old Books, New Looks {10}

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 
Some interesting changes this time around! 

Kind of like both, but the new one lacks the intensity and originality of the old. Plus I don't care for the font on the new one. 

The original of this always kind of bugged me---for some reason the eye didn't seem like it was in the right place on her face. The new one is pretty, but again, lacks some originality. 

LOVE the change. The original seemed so boring to me.

Not sure which of these I can really say I like---the new one feels very adult novel to me. However, I always hated that the "YA" characters on the original look like they are almost 30.

Like the new one better...the original was an interesting idea that just came out looking awkward.

Ooooh, major improvement here. Especially love how the title shadows her face.

They really should have stuck with the original on this one---it's focuses on her eyes and make you curious about why they are like that!  The second...not sure what's going on..is she a mannequin?

What are your thoughts on these cover makeovers??