St. Martin’s Press

I Do Not Trust You

I received this ARC from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.  

cover137030-medium

Let me start by saying this is not my first Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz collaboration, having read Sanctuary Bay back in 2016 for this blog.  It’s safe to say I am a fan and went in with high expectations.  They were met and another high speed, YA thriller will have a place on my bookshelf.

Memphis ‘M’ Engel is not your average 18 year old.  Raised by scholars, versed in ancient languages and often the smartest person in the room, she is anything but ordinary.   Her mom died several years ago and her father recently followed, leaving her in the care of friends she hardly knows in Boston,  the “hometown” that she had previously only spent months at a time in.    Enter Ashwin Sood, or Ash as he likes to be called, a student claiming her father isn’t dead but only being held for what he knows.

Finding her father is entangled in an ancient Egyptian cult of Horus followers called the Eye and its war for the fate of humanity with the opposing cult of Set.

“But all myths–”

“–are true,” he cut in. “And all myths are false.

As M and Ash traversed the world in search of answers, I was literally at the edge of my seat.  What a wild ride!

I definitely recommend this one, grab it for a cozy autumn weekend read…if you aren’t in East Africa like me where it’s 5 trillion degrees 365 days a year.  It’s out today!

4 stars.

Buy It Here

Everything Must Go

EMG

I received this ARC from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

I forgot how hard it is to be 17, white and rich…oh wait I was never two of those things.

Flora Goldwasser is quite possibly one of the least relatable characters I’ve ever encountered.  This is 2017 and for some reason Ms. Davis thought writing about an affluent, ultra-privileged white girl and her struggle for meaning was an excellent idea.

One of my aims here is to certainly tell a story.  But assembling this collection is really about seeing that story happen in just the way it happened, in all its urgency and all its absurdity.

Absurdity is right.  I normally don’t review books I don’t like, choosing instead to relegate them to “not my cup of tea” but this was too much.

Follow Flora as she departs her private all-girls school in New York City for the woo-woo Quaker upstate boarding school with 36 students run by people who espouse “non-violent communication” and disavow “shell speak”.  There is a male of color but he’s in the background and his name is Agnes, his moms are lesbians and one is even a famous gender theorist!  I feel like Ms. Davis made a list of all the relevant issues of our day and attempted to address them all at once in the most bizarre setting.

I’m going to stop now because all I have left are expletives and it’s not worth that.

Zero (0) Stars.

Publication Date: October 3, 2017

 

 

One Taste of Angel-Release Date!

Once again, I’m honored to participate in a Book Blitz for a St. Martin’s Press release.  Expect a review in the next day or two, but until then check this out!

OneTasteOfAngel_BlitzBanner.png

Their love was the stuff of Shakespeare – two star-crossed lovers from rival MC’s

divided by their families’ bloody history, but fate has given Eagle and Serafina a

second chance. Can the biker and the stripper find their redemption in Violetta

Rand’s sexy standalone romance, One Taste of Angel?

Eagle 

I’ve bled for my club. Taken four bullets. Buried eight brothers in six years. Screwed

a hundred women. And only loved one. The one I lost. But there’s something about

Serafina that reminds me of just exactly what was taken from me. Not just because I

can’t resist a damsel in distress.

Serafina

To Eagle, I’m dead. Murdered and cremated, my ashes interred at the local cemetery.

Part of a past I left long ago to save his life. Seeing him now, touching him again

makes me weak, even if he doesn’t recognize the woman I’ve become. Since my

escape from Holly Beach five years ago, I’ve lived by my own rules. And no matter

how much I love Eagle, he’s not going to break those rules.

“Riveting, gritty cast of characters! I was captivated by this intimate glimpse into the

volatile MC world. Violetta Rand’s ability to portray the essence of true love is

enjoyable. Great read!”

-USA Today Bestselling Author D.L. Roan

 

OneTasteofAngel_Whim.jpg

Buy It Here!

The Watcher

the watcher.jpg

I received this ARC from St Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Yet another breezy Bella Jewel read for a lazy weekend.  I feel so fortunate to be getting such a steady supply of her books lately, they are fast-paced thrillers!

Marlie has had more than her share of tragedy and horror.  Seven years ago she was kidnapped and tortured at the hands of “The Watcher”.  Now she lives in a cabin in the woods and works a dead-end waitress job rather than deal with the fame being the only survivor of a serial killer brought her.  Things are perfect but she has a life and it’s her own, until her sister, Kaity, goes missing too.

All because I was being a good person.  Life is a bitch like that.

This can’t be happening.  Twice to one family?  When the police show little concern or interest in the case, Marlie hires crack private eye, Kenai and sets off on a road trip to bring her sister home.

This wouldn’t be a Bella Jewel story without some sweet, dramatic romance to round the story out nicely.  Ms. Jewel has delivered once again!

4 stars.

Expected Publication: May 30, 2017

Buy It Here

72 Hours

72 Hours_cover image

72 Hours

I received this ARC courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.  Shoutout to Publicist Brittani Hilles for indulging my fondness for Bella Jewel yet again!

Lara is heartbroken, reeling from a recent breakup she didn’t see coming and a loss she may never recover from.  She has gone from a no nonsense, no sugar coating, speak her mind sort of woman to a shell of her former self in the last few months.

Noah is her devastatingly handsome ex, the cause of her despair.

When they are both kidnapped and dumped in the woods together as part of some sort of warped game on the part of a clearly deranged capturer, will they be able to put all their feelings aside to survive?

72 hours.  They have a 72 hour head start before his wicked games begin.  Can the ghost of a woman and the man she despises survive what’s to come?

WOW!  This was an edge of your seat, page turner!  I started it right before bed (immediately after finishing my previous read) thinking I’d read a chapter or two to give me a general idea and get back to it today.  Well, I woke up early and rather than get a few more hours of sleep on my relaxed  late-start workday I decided to get up and keep reading!

I read, a lot.  I’ve read about serial killers, I’ve read good thrillers and romantic suspense, but that’s all it was … fiction.  It’s created to entertain an active mind.  It’s no more than a creative author putting words onto paper.  Those things don’t actually happen.  I know the world is a vile and hideous place at times, but this …no.

I found Lara a bit one dimensional at times but I tried to temper it by remembering all she had gone through prior to the start of the book.  Noah appealed to my fondness for bad boy types.  That said, I found the one chapter written from Noah’s perspective to be more distracting than anything else.  I’m all about shifts but for only a single chapter it was a bit odd.  All things said, it was a fun and quick read.

If you are keen on a bit of suspense with a bit of suspension of disbelief,  without too much head scratching- Ms. Jewel is your girl.  This one did not disappoint!

*Fair warning, there is a bit of smut.  There are also a few issues with language consistency (the author isn’t American and some of the choices in vocabulary will stand out if you have a keen eye).

4 Stars

Publication Date: April 4, 2017 

Click on the link at the top of the review if you want to snag it from Amazon.

 

Can You Keep A Secret? (Fear Street Relaunch #4)

51GfyUA6e7L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_

I received this ARC from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Yet another new Fear Street classic!  I don’t think R.L. Stine could write a bad novel if he tried, but then again I grew up reading the original Fear Street and simply adore everything he touches.

Emmy is your average Shadyside High School student, down to the part time job and close group of friends.  She has a nice boyfriend, Eddie and plenty to do with her free time. Life is normal…except for her strange dreams.

…I was a wolf in the dream.  I was the blue-eyed wolf with the raven-black hair.

They are just dreams right?  She thinks so anyway.  Life takes a shocking turn when she and Eddie discover a briefcase full of money in the Fear Street Woods.  She and her friends agree to split it six ways, hiding it until it’s safe to spend.  A series of wolf-attacks has Emmy on edge and when the money goes missing things only get stranger.

And yes, we found the danger we thought we might encounter there.  But it was much more horrifying than any us could have predicted.

Will Emmy figure out what’s going on before it’s too late?

Five Stars.

Expected Publication: April 12, 2016

The Hidden Twin

25613811.jpg

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

A girl with no name has grown up in Caldaras City, at the foot of a volcano.  She is kept hidden from sight.  This girl is a twin, the product of a human and an “other,” and she should have been killed at birth by law.  She is a redwing and her kind are monsters that masquerade as human.

The face of the dead obsidian redwing of High Ra square finds me in my sleep, haunting me because he doesn’t look like a redwing.  Because he looks human, as I do.

The girl is good.  Her father saw it in her at birth and couldn’t bear to let her go.  She hasn’t ever harmed a living creature.

But to call me human?  If only she knew what I would give for that to be true!

After switching places with her sister, Jey, working in the imperial gardens one day things take a drastic turn.  Priests of the temple see her for who she is and she is plunged into a quest she’s not even sure she believes in.  Can she prove that she has humanity, even if it’s a little different?

But we know the truth of monsters by their actions, not their appearance.

This was a short read and I found it easy to page through while reading another more challenging book.  I found the plot predictable but the world-building was engaging enough that I kept reading.  I hope this book spawns a series, I’m rather curious to find out more about this world in the shadow of the volcano Mol.

Three stars.

Expected publication: March 29, 2016

Nowhere Girl

download

I received this ARC from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Well if this wasn’t a haymaker, I don’t know what is.

Cady’s twin sister was murdered sixteen years ago.  She felt it happening and the despair and horror never left her.  Cady lives her life in the shadow of Savannah’s absence.

Trauma climbed along the corridors of my mind and wrapped itself around the present so I couldn’t really tell the two apart.

Now a famous author, the cold case is finally reopened and she thinks she’s getting somewhere.

Instead of letting that memory drown me, I’d write.  I’d write to stay alive.  I’d write to keep the pain out of reach.

Strecker is a true wordsmith.  I honestly wasn’t sure what I was reading most of the time.  From the beginning I thought I had it all figured out and I smugly read a chapter here and there for an entire month.  It wasn’t until a lazy Saturday that I resolved to get down to business and finish it and after a few chapters I couldn’t put it down.  I was wrong.

We can barely speak our sister’s name aloud, never mind talk about what happened to her.  And then to us.

As Cady essentially simply exists with the help of her best friend Gabby and a few close friends her strange twin connection with Savannah slowly brings things to light.  Cady tiptoes towards the truth but will she ever be able to accept it?

An excellent read.

Five stars.

Expected Publication Date: March 1, 2016

Sanctuary Bay

25663880

I received this ARC from Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Sarah Merson is a foster kid, left a ward of the state after witnessing the brutal murder of her parents at the age of three.  A mixed-race foster kid from Ohio, so the whole charmed life story hasn’t ever applied to her.  That all changes when she gets accepted into Sanctuary Bay Academy, a school she never applied to and has never even heard of.

Sarah had tried to find information about the school online, a picture or something.  But she hadn’t found anything.  Maybe since Sanctuary Bay had such an amazing reputation they didn’t need a web site.  No need to advertise.  If they wanted you, they’d let you know.

Sarah is thrilled to attend this prestigious school that has been a breeding ground for some of the greatest politicians, rock stars, business moguls and scientists for several generations.  It’s a dream going to classes and making friends at SBA.  She falls in with a crowd a kid like her-moved from foster home to foster home-had never dreamed of.

Sanctuary Bay is who you are now.

Sarah is quickly caught up in the thrill of making friends, taking classes in state of the art labs and having luxuries she’d never imagined thrust upon her.  The only problem is, some things don’t add up.  Sarah has an Eidetic memory and she later discovers, Hyperthymesia.  She not only remembers everything she sees in extraordinary detail, but she can relive these memories as well.  Peer pressure doesn’t work, things that go bump in the night don’t jostle her much and she can’t push aside the things she notices.  Something is amiss on the island of Sanctuary Bay.

The world would never be normal again.

She needs to figure out what is going on beneath the perfect surface of the academy.  With the help of disillusioned rich kid Ethan and a kind teacher, she sets out to do just that.

They thought they could hide the truth but the truth doesn’t hide, the truth shines.

This was a good read, I went in with no knowledge aside from what was contained in the little blurb the publisher listed and it served me well.  I’m pretty sure this is the first in a series and I look forward to keeping up with it.

Four stars.

Publication Date: January 19, 2016

Hard To Break (Alpha’s Heart #2)

25448986

I received this ARC from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

I only just recently read and reviewed the first book in this series so I was delighted when I was offered a chance to do the same with the newest installment.

Quinn is just one of the boys, a skilled mechanic that spent her childhood working on cars with her dad.  When her mother passes away, Quinn has to step up and keep her family garage going and keep an eye on her grieving father.  She enjoys her work, though her personal life isn’t much to write home about.  When finances get desperate, enter Tazen Watts, world-famous mechanic with his own TV show.  He makes quick work of dismantling her life, starting with her garage.  She hates him, or at least she tries to.  She annoys him, or at least she used to.

He is getting to me and…I can’t deny it.  I like it.  I like it a hell of a lot.  I shouldn’t, but I do and a huge part of me is tired of pretending I don’t.

Like the book before it I found this to be a pleasant enough weekend afternoon read.  It was uncomplicated and quick, just the way I like my lazy morning reads.  A definite must if you are a Bella Jewel fan.

Three stars.

Publication Date: October 13, 2015