Posted May 2, 2016 in Reading / 0 Comments
The Star-Touched Queen by
Roshani Chokshi Publisher: St Martin's Griffin (2016)
Paperback ARC (339 pages)
Via: Publisher Rating: Reading Challenges: 2016 Retelling Challenge,
2016 Royal Challenge,
Read 2016 Synopsis
Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you're only seventeen?
Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran's queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar's wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire...
But Akaran has its own secrets -- thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most. . .including herself.
A lush and vivid story that is steeped in Indian folklore and mythology. The Star-Touched Queen is a novel that no reader will soon forget.
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Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Blog Tour
Posted April 30, 2016 in Life, Reading / 6 Comments
Tagged as Monthly Wrap-Up
Posted April 28, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
No One Dies in the Garden of Syn by
Michael Seidelman Series: The Garden of Syn #1 Publisher: Chewed Pencil Press (2016 - April 26)
eARC (269 pages)
Via: Blog Tour Rating: Synopsis
Synthia (Syn) Wade is a teenage girl who struggles with cystic fibrosis, an incurable life-threatening disease. One day she is pushed into a pond by an unseen figure and wakes up in a new world – a mysterious garden where illness and death don’t exist.
Welcomed by the garden’s residents and now free of her symptoms, Syn decides to stay. But, before long, she realizes that this apparent utopia holds many dangers and dark secrets.
Surrounding the garden is a fog that Syn is warned never to enter. She encounters bizarre creatures that defy reason. And always lurking in the shadows is a masked woman - a woman who may have a connection to the disappearance of Syn’s parents many years ago. A woman whom no one will speak of, but whom everyone fears.
While No One Dies in the Garden of Syn, Syn will soon discover that some fates are worse than death.
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Tagged as 4 star, Blog Tour, Read 2016
Posted April 25, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Juliet Immortal by
Stacey Jay Series: Juliet Immortal #1 Publisher: Delacorte Press (2011)
Hardcover (206 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Reading Challenges: 2016 Backlist Books,
2016 Retelling Challenge,
Read 2016 Synopsis
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.
-William Shakespeare, ROMEO AND JULIET
Juliet Capulet didn't take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, who made the sacrifice to ensure his own immortality. But Romeo didn't anticipate that Juliet would be granted eternal life as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light.
For seven hundred years, Juliet has struggled to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent, while Romeo has fought for the dark side, seeking to destroy the human heart. Until now.
Now Juliet has found her own forbidden love, and Romeo, O Romeo, will do everything in his power to destroy their happiness.
Secrets unfold and surprises abound in Stacey Jay's powerfully dark romance, which reunites literature's most tragic couple.
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Tagged as 3 star, Read 2016
Posted April 23, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
The Name of God is Mercy by
Pope Francis Publisher: Random House (2016)
Hardcover (176 pages)
Rating: Also by this author: The Joy of the Gospel,
Walking with Jesus,
Encountering Truth Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In his first book published as Pope, and in conjunction with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis here invites all humanity to an intimate and personal dialogue on the subject closest to his heart—mercy—which has long been the cornerstone of his faith and is now the central teaching of his papacy.
In this conversation with Vatican reporter Andrea Tornielli, Francis explains—through memories from his youth and moving anecdotes from his experiences as a pastor—why “mercy is the first attribute of God.” God “does not want anyone to be lost. His mercy is infinitely greater than our sins,” he writes. As well, the Church cannot close the door on anyone, Francis asserts—on the contrary, its duty is to go out into the world to find its way into the consciousness of people so that they can assume responsibility for, and move away from, the bad things they have done.
The first Jesuit and the first South American to be elected Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has traveled around the world spreading God’s message of mercy to the largest crowds in papal history. Clear and profound, The Name of God Is Mercy resonates with this desire to reach all those who are looking for meaning in life, a road to peace and reconciliation, and the healing of physical and spiritual wounds. It is being published in more than eighty countries around the world.
“The name of God is mercy. There are no situations we cannot get out of, we are not condemned to sink into quicksand.”—Pope Francis
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Tagged as 5 star, Catholic, Catholic Book, Pope Francis, Read 2016
