Book Labyrinth: November 2014

November 28, 2014

The Shape of My Heart by Ann Aguirre

The Shape of My Heart by Ann Aguirre
Release Date: November 25, 2014
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Pages: 352
Series: 2B Trilogy #3
Review Source: For review from Netgalley through InkSlinger PR

Synopsis: (from Goodreads)

Some people wait decades to meet their soul mate. Courtney Kaufman suspects she met hers in high school only to lose him at seventeen. Since then, Courtney's social life has been a series of meaningless encounters, though she's made a few close friends along the way. Especially her roommate Max Cooper, who oozes damaged bad-boy vibes from every pore.

Max knows about feeling lost and trying to move beyond the pain he's been on his own since he was sixteen. Now it's time to find out if he can ever go home again, and Courtney's the only one he trusts to go with him. But the trip to Providence could change everything because the more time he spends with Courtney, the harder it is to reconcile what he wants and what he thinks he deserves.

It started out so simple. One misfit helping another. Now Max will do anything to show Courtney that for every heart that's ever been broken, there's another that can make it complete.

My Thoughts:
If you read my reviews regularly you know that I’ve been loving Ann Aguirre’s New Adult 2B trilogy. This final book in the trilogy, The Shape of My Heart, stars Courtney and Max. Courtney is a very cool chick; she’s spunky and outgoing, but she also has a soft side to her. While it doesn’t totally take over her life, she’s very much still suffering over the death of her high school boyfriend, who was also her best friend. Our hero, Max, is a very layered character. We’ve seen some glimpses into his true self over the past two books, but here we get his full story. Max is someone who has made something of himself despite his rough past. He’s actually very vulnerable, and he’s one of those people who is so lovely but doesn’t see his own worth.

Courtney and Max are very intense together, but their relationship feels so right. They grew incredibly close as friends first, a situation where going to the next level made perfect sense. Of course since this is a novel, and reading about total happiness tends to be boring, there has to be a wrinkle in the perfection of their relationship. I was a bit disappointed in how things went down. In some ways it fit the characters, but I was frustrated with Max’s actions and confused as to why both of them made it seem like Courtney was completely in the wrong.

Overall, though, I thought this was a good book with awesome main and secondary characters. I do have to say that I Want It That Way is my favourite book of the three, but I still enjoyed every book in the trilogy. Ann Aguirre has a great talent at writing diverse college aged characters who feel like real young adults. I love that her books include drama without going over the top, and that they tell a great story of character growth for each of the the main characters, as well as a sizzling romance.

The Cover:
Like!

Rating:

About Ann:
Ann Aguirre is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author and RITA winner with a degree in English Literature; before she began writing full time, she was a clown, a clerk, a voice actress, and a savior of stray kittens, not necessarily in that order. She grew up in a yellow house across from a cornfield, but now she lives in sunny Mexico with her husband, children, and various pets. Ann likes books, emo music, action movies, and she writes all kinds of genre fiction for adults and teens, published with Harlequin, Macmillan, and Penguin, among others.

Where to find Ann:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads | Newsletter Sign-Up

GIVEAWAY:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

November 27, 2014

Foreign Exchange by Denise Jaden

Foreign Exchange by Denise Jaden
Release Date: October 10, 2014
Publisher: Evernight Teen
Pages: 326
Series: n/a
Review Source: eBook from author for review

Synopsis: (from Goodreads)

Jamie Monroe has always played it safe. That is, until her live-for-the-moment best friend, Tristan, jets off to Italy on a student exchange program. Left alone with her part-time mother and her disabled brother, Jamie discovers that she is quite capable of taking her own risks, starting with her best friend’s hotter-than-hot older brother, Sawyer. Sawyer and Tristan have been neighbors for years, but as Jamie grows closer to the family she thought she knew, she discovers some pretty big secrets.

As she sinks deeper into their web of pretense, she suspects that her best friend may not be on a safe exchange program at all. Jamie sets off to Europe on a class trip with plans to meet up with Tristan, but when Tristan stops all communication, suddenly no one seems trustworthy, least of all the one person she was starting to trust—Sawyer.

My Thoughts:
Probably my favourite thing about this book is the characters and how they interacted. I thought Denise Jaden did a good job of creating layered characters who had shades of grey to them, just like real people. Our main character is Jamie, an all around girl next door type. However Jamie has had a pretty tough life, having to look after her little brother constantly and having a mom who doesn’t make it easy on her.

The secondary characters in Foreign Exchange were also very interesting. I liked that Sawyer had hidden depths and he wasn't what people thought he was. There’s this idea we have, both in fiction and real life, that if you're a Popular Beautiful Person then you must automatically be a completely horrible person too. Of course this isn’t true, and this stereotype is completely proven false by his character. Tristan, Jamie’s best friend and Sawyer’s sister, is definitely capital-T Trouble. She’s a total control freak and is seemingly a compulsive liar, something which Jamie is just figuring out. Things are never what you think they are with Tristan, and it makes for an interesting mystery to unravel.

This book has a lot of good elements, but I think what I enjoyed most was seeing Jamie coming into her own and out of Tristan's shadow, making her own decisions and getting away from that toxic friendship. Jamie does make some pretty sketchy decisions, but I didn’t find them entirely unbelievable. I could see someone who's a little desperate and naive going along that same path. On the romance side of things, I definitely dug Jamie/Sawyer. Romance isn’t the primary focus of the story, but it does make up a nice part of it. I liked seeing these two truly get to know one another.

Overall I definitely liked this book. I didn’t completely fall into the story, but it did provide an enjoyable reading experience, and I’d recommend it.

The Cover:
Not my favourite.

Rating:

[Strong 3/5]

Purchase Links:
Kobo | Amazon.ca | Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble

November 25, 2014

Excerpt of Last Will and Testament by Dahlia Adler

You may have noticed that the blog has been pretty empty lately. I've still been reading like crazy, but I haven't exactly been motivated to blog about those reads. However I definitely had to pop in to promote Dahlia Adler's New Adult debut. I absolutely loved Dahlia's debut YA novel, Behind the Scenes, so I was thrilled to receive an early copy of Last Will and Testament, and I'm equally excited to share an excerpt of that book with you.

First, here's some info about the book:

Last Will and Testament by Dahlia Adler
Release Date: December 9, 2014
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 273
Series: Radleigh University #1

Synopsis:

Lizzie Brandt was valedictorian of her high school class, but at Radleigh University, all she's acing are partying and hooking up with the wrong guys. But all that changes when her parents are killed in a tragic accident, making her guardian to her two younger brothers. To keep them out of foster care, she'll have to fix up her image, her life, and her GPA—fast. Too bad the only person on campus she can go to for help is her humorless, pedantic Byzantine History TA, Connor Lawson, who isn't exactly Lizzie's biggest fan.

But Connor surprises her. Not only is he a great tutor, but he’s also a pretty great babysitter. And chauffeur. And listener. And he understands exactly what it’s like to be on your own before you're ready. Before long, Lizzie realizes having a responsible-adult type around has its perks... and that she'd like to do some rather irresponsible (but considerably adult) things with him as well. Good thing he's not the kind of guy who'd ever reciprocate.

Until he does.

Until they turn into far more than teacher and student.

Until the relationship that helped put their lives back together threatens everything they both have left.

Purchase Links:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Kobo

And now the EXCERPT! --

“Did you mean what you said?” he asks. “About dropping?”

“I’m not sure yet.” No point in lying, especially to the one person who’s actually been helping me organize my thoughts. It’s not like I know I can get into another class this late, but I do know the idea of sitting in one with him is torture. And the truth is, it’s not just his class I’ve been thinking about leaving. The more of Tyler’s moodiness I observe, the more I wonder if Radleigh itself just isn’t the right place for us right now.

“You can’t make me the difference between staying and going,” he says tightly, bracing a hand on the back of kitchen chair. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but instead watches his own knuckles go white from his grip. “That’s not fair.”

I snort. “First of all, you’re talking to someone who lost her parents in an instant and became an eighteen-year-old mother of two, so if you want to compete about ‘fair,’ you’ve brought a fucking watergun to the Second Crusade.”

“That’s not—”

“Second of all, this isn’t a ‘boo hoo, the boy I like doesn’t like me back so I’m uprooting my life’ situation, okay? I need an A in all my classes this semester in order to keep my scholarship, which I need to stay here. Now my transcript is shot to hell. Honestly, it’d probably be better for both me and the boys if I stopped wasting money on my tuition altogether and got a full-time job instead. Maybe then I could actually afford to get the boys’ their own damn bedrooms.”

“But you’re getting an A in the class….”

“Maybe for now, but you think that’s gonna hold up without you tutoring me?” I all but growl, taking care to make sure the boys can’t hear me through the door. “You think I’m gonna be able to focus in class every day? Watching you hand out papers and remembering how those hands feel on my skin? I’m supposed to listen to you lecture and not think about how you said my name like I was a glass of water and you were dying of thirst?”

“Lizzie, stop.” His knuckles are so white now I swear I can see bone through the skin. But I don’t care. I’m not done.

“I can’t be around you. I’m sorry if that sounds crazy to you or whatever. But I need to focus, and I don’t see myself doing that when all I can think about when I see you is finishing what we started.”

Connor swallows hard. “Even now?”

“I threw myself at you earlier today, Connor. Just because your feelings go away with the snap of your fingers doesn’t mean mine do.” The humiliation of my admission burns in my face, and I gather up the remaining dishes with a clatter and stalk past him to drop them in the sink. When I turn back around, he’s standing in my face, so close I can feel body heat radiating from every inch of him.

“You don’t really think that’s what happened, do you?”

“I don’t know how else to explain it,” I counter, but all the fight’s gone out of my voice. He’s just too close. The heady scent of his aftershave is scrambling my brain cells.

“I told you—because I’m your TA. And everything you just said is exactly why they forbid us from getting involved.”

“Then why are you here?” I rasp.

“Because I can’t not be.” He takes the last step needed to close the space between us and slides his hands into my hair, pulling me into a starving, searching kiss. His tongue sweeps my mouth as if he doesn’t want to miss a spot, and pressed up against him as I am now, there’s no doubt he wants me every bit as much as he did last night, if not more. Even when he pulls away, panting.

Oooooh. Thoughts?! I love Dahlia's writing, and I can't wait to share my review with you within the next week or so.

November 7, 2014

Cover Reveal: Hear Me by Viv Daniels

I'm a big fan of Diana Peterfreund, especially her Secret Society Girl books, so when she began writing New Adult under the name Viv Daniels I was quite excited. I loved her first novel, One & Only, and I'm anxiously awaiting the second book in that series, Sweet & Wild. In the meantime Viv has another book coming out, this time a paranormal entitled Hear Me.

I'm psyched to be able to show you the cover for Hear Me, but first, here's a little bit about the book:

Title: Hear Me by Viv Daniels
Release Date: November 17, 2014

Listen… the bells have stopped ringing.

Once upon a time, Ivy belonged to Archer, body, heart, and soul. They spent long summer days exploring the forest, and long summer nights exploring each other. But that was before dark magic grew in the depths of the wilderness, and the people of Ivy’s town raised an enchanted barrier of bells to protect themselves from the threat, even though it meant cutting off the forest people—and the forest boy Ivy loved—forever.

And there’s a naked man lying in the snow.

Three years later, Ivy keeps her head down, working alone in her tea shop on the edge of town and trying to imagine a new future for herself, away from the forest and the wretched bells, and the memory of her single, perfect love. But in the icy heart of winter, a terrifying magic blooms—one that can reunite Ivy and Archer, or consume their very souls.

Warm up this winter with a sexy, paranormal New Adult romance from Viv Daniels. Contains magic spells, true love, and the hottest scene ever set in a greenhouse. Not meant for readers under 18.

Intriguing, right? And here's the cover: