Tag: 4 star

Review: Frostbite – Ski Slopes and Mortal Vampires

Posted May 25, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Frostbite – Ski Slopes and Mortal VampiresFrostbite by Richelle Mead
Series: Vampire Academy #2
Publisher: RazorBill (2008)
Paperback (327 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Vampire Academy, Shadow Kiss
Also in this series: Vampire Academy, Shadow Kiss
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Rose loves Dimitri, Dimitri might love Tasha, and Mason would die to be with Rose…
It’s winter break at St. Vladimir’s, but Rose is feeling anything but festive. A massive Strigoi attack has put the school on high alert, and now the Academy’s crawling with Guardians—including Rose’s hard-hitting mother, Janine Hathaway. And if hand-to-hand combat with her mom wasn’t bad enough, Rose’s tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason’s got a huge crush on her, and Rose keeps getting stuck in Lissa’s head while she’s making out with her boyfriend, Christian! The Strigoi are closing in, and the Academy’s not taking any risks… This year, St. Vlad’s annual holiday ski trip is mandatory.
But the glittering winter landscape and the posh Idaho resort only create the illusion of safety. When three friends run away in an offensive move against the deadly Strigoi, Rose must join forces with Christian to rescue them. But heroism rarely comes without a price…

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Review: The Jewel – Luxury or Slavery

Posted May 21, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: The Jewel – Luxury or SlaveryThe Jewel by Amy Ewing
Series: The Lone City #1
Publisher: HarperTeen (2014)
Audiobook
{10 hours and 12 minutes} (358 pages)
Rating:
Also by this author: The White Rose, The Black Key
Also in this series: The White Rose, The Black Key
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

The Jewel means wealth. The Jewel means beauty. The Jewel means royalty. But for girls like Violet, the Jewel means servitude. Not just any kind of servitude. Violet, born and raised in the Marsh, has been trained as a surrogate for the royalty—because in the Jewel the only thing more important than opulence is offspring.
Purchased at the surrogacy auction by the Duchess of the Lake and greeted with a slap to the face, Violet (now known only as #197) quickly learns of the brutal truths that lie beneath the Jewel’s glittering facade: the cruelty, backstabbing, and hidden violence that have become the royal way of life.
Violet must accept the ugly realities of her existence… and try to stay alive. But then a forbidden romance erupts between Violet and a handsome gentleman hired as a companion to the Duchess’s petulant niece. Though his presence makes life in the Jewel a bit brighter, the consequences of their illicit relationship will cost them both more than they bargained for.

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Review: The Pharaoh’s Daughter – An Egyptian Princess Risks Everything

Posted May 13, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: The Pharaoh’s Daughter – An Egyptian Princess Risks EverythingThe Pharaoh's Daughter by Mesu Andrews
Series: Treasures of the Nile #1
Publisher: WaterBrook Press (2015)
eARC, Paperback (384 pages)
Via: Blogging for Books
Rating:
Also by this author: Miriam, Isaiah's Daughter, Isaiah's Legacy
Also in this series: Miriam
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

“You will be called Anippe, daughter of the Nile. Do you like it?” Without waiting for a reply, she pulls me into her squishy, round tummy for a hug.
I’m trying not to cry. Pharaoh’s daughters don’t cry.
When we make our way down the tiled hall, I try to stop at ummi Kiya’s chamber. I know her spirit has flown yet I long for one more moment. Amenia pushes me past so I keep walking and don’t look back.
Like the waters of the Nile, I will flow.
Anippe has grown up in the shadows of Egypt’s good god Pharaoh, aware that Anubis, god of the afterlife, may take her or her siblings at any moment. She watched him snatch her mother and infant brother during childbirth, a moment which awakens in her a terrible dread of ever bearing a child. Now she is to be become the bride of Sebak, a kind but quick-tempered Captain of Pharaoh Tut’s army. In order to provide Sebak the heir he deserves and yet protect herself from the underworld gods, Anippe must launch a series of deceptions, even involving the Hebrew midwives—women ordered by Tut to drown the sons of their own people in the Nile.
When she finds a baby floating in a basket on the great river, Anippe believes Egypt’s gods have answered her pleas, entrenching her more deeply in deception and placing her and her son Mehy, whom handmaiden Miriam calls Moses, in mortal danger.
As bloodshed and savage politics shift the balance of power in Egypt, the gods reveal their fickle natures and Anippe wonders if her son, a boy of Hebrew blood, could one day become king. Or does the god of her Hebrew servants, the one they call
El Shaddai, have a different plan—for them all?

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Review: Divergent – Living With A Choice

Posted May 11, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Divergent – Living With A ChoiceDivergent by Veronica Roth
Series: Divergent #1
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books (2011)
eBook (487 pages)
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue–Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is–she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are–and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

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Review: Tortall and Other Lands – Wonderful Short Stories

Posted May 6, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Tortall and Other Lands – Wonderful Short StoriesTortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce
Series: Tortall
Publisher: Bluefire (2010)
Paperback (369 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Alanna the knight, Numair the mage, Daine the wolf-speaker and more! Favorite and unfamiliar characters in 11 tales, including three brand new stories!
Collected here for the first time are six tales from the land of Tortall, featuring both previously unknown characters as well as old friends. Filling some gaps of time and interest, these stories, some of which have been published before, will lead Tammy’s fans, and new readers into one of the most intricately constructed worlds of modern fantasy. Also included are four other fantasy stories . . . one set in a remote desert, two in an unknown town, and one set in a very familiar locale: New York City, in the present day. Also, as a bonus, there is a non-fantasy story set in contemporary Idaho that proves that Pierce’s ability to spin a tale is not limited to realms of dragons and magic.

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