bookishbrunette

In the beginning there was light… Okay you caught me. I forget how the Bible actually starts. Don’t tell the nuns!!!Of Beast and Beauty starts out much like a very old fairytale, whispered from the voice The Pure Heart.The Dark Heart and The Pure Heart were ONE being in the beginning, before humans came raising domes around their cities to keep out those they called Monstrous. For anyone “touched” by The Pure Heart’s magic gift turned flesh to scales.Humans inside their domed cities made sacrifices to The Dark Heart in exchange for safety, and after The Pure Heart made one last attempt to win the humans back to his side by going to their gates and begging them for acceptance and “restore the innocence I’d lost when they had begun to call me god and devil.”The Pure Heart found no help from the domed cities or from the Monstrous outside the walls, so the being set a curse upon the world that the Monstrous should never again shed a tear… But the Smooth Skins were cursed that some of their children would be born with the Monstrous traits they hated… And all the others born with “missing pieces, trapped in bodies as twisted and wrong as the Dark Heart they worshipped.”The only way to break the curse is if a Smooth Skin and a Monstrous can love one another above all else. Only then will everything be put right.And this is where Of Beast and Beauty begins…In the city of Yuan, Isra is a Princess bound to a tower by day… and unknowingly stalks the streets by night. One night as she runs amongst the magic roses of the city, there is someone watching her. Someone who doesn’t belong there.Gem is from outside the dome, his Desert People dug under the walls so they could sneak in and steal the roses that were in his chief’s visions and supposed to save their people.Isra, the blind Queen, of one of the three settlements left of the original fifteen that came to the new world. Her skin is rough and peeling, almost translucent – but otherwise she was unharmed by the curse.Gem is Isra’s prisoner after his people invade the dome and her father is killed. He speaks in the common tongue of Isra’s people and is far more than he originally appeared.Of Beast and Beauty is told over four seasons, and in alternating chapters of Gem and Isra. I adored getting to know Gem and Isra. Each of them having their own hardships to overcome, and seeing them grow beyond what their separate worlds had told them they SHOULD or COULD be.Stacey Jay completely blew me away with the rich, colorful world in Of Beast and Beauty. Gem and Irsa have taken seats upon my favorite couples AND characters lists! This one is not to be missed!

OMG I LOVED THIS BOOK! Where's #2? I may die without it!

Blue Echohawk doesn’t know her real name… Abandoned when she was just two years old and taken in by a kind stranger – who then unwillingly leaves her all alone again at the tender age of TEN.Spending her life fighting for her own survival, when she meets someone who only tries to HELP… she doesn’t know what to do.Wilson. Oh… Wilson. Redemption, resolution, revolution, relevance. A hero disguised as a regular guy… Complete with a sexy British accent.Hardened by a tragic life that no one should be forced to endure, Blue Echohawk made me ACHE. There’s no other way to explain her… She’s beautiful, intelligent, darkly witty and amazingly selfless – but she doesn’t realize it. She feels ugly, dark and tainted in her SOUL, even if her face is the opposite.“I wanted to hate him because he was beautiful in a way I would never be.”Wilson… There are no words to describe the amazing man that Wilson is, or the hugeness of the role he plays in Blue’s life… So I simply won’t try. But I’m currently trying to convince hubs to perfect his pathetically horrid excuse for a British accent!The way Any Harmon lets this story unfold is amazing… Most authors would split this book into a two book set – and because of its length it would’ve been an easy feat. I loved that with every flip of the page, another ghastly detail shadowed the previous one and I wondered how this wonderful, talented, beautiful girl would dig herself out of the dark hole she had found herself in.Witnessing Blue’s story unfold was mesmerizing! I was held captive by Blue’s torrid emotions, her lack of self respect, her constant lashing out and her incessant shame over things she had no control over.A Different Blue made my heart ACHE, while continuously making laugh aloud, and SOB uncontrollably over the course of the entire book. It was RAW, real, emotional and simply amazing!

OMG!!! Soooooo freaking AMAAAAAZING! Full review to come on 6/14 @ The Bookish Brunette!

Samantha Jansen is timid, closed off and hides from the world. UNTIL she dons her alter ego of author of vampy awesome, Laura Drake complete with wig and the whole disguise.“Without her facade, I’m a wallflower with scars that only I can see.”She’s rocked to her very core, while at a book signing and in walks the man of her dreams… And nightmares. A visual double of Mason, the leading man in her books. But he is not Mason, he is Alec Brand.“He draws my eye, my thoughts, ad some deep tragic part of my soul toward him.”The next day while having coffee with her sister, *gasp* ALEC walks in… and says something to the effect of:“I know you.” and Samantha just ABOUT DIES – because NO ONE (except her sister) knows about her double life… She’s like… “No you don’t.” and ALEC says…“I want to.”Um… Dear Alec, TAKE. Me. Now. Love, BBSamantha is a SUPER complex chick… the kind I love to emerge myself into!Honestly. I never thought I’d say this. Christian Gray – you have been REPLACED as the emotionally scarred, deeply broken, so exceptionally sensual, yet frightening at the same time fictional man of my heart – Alec Brand has taken up residence and made himself at home there. No hard feelings darling.I love books told from dual and multiple point of views! So when I flipped to Chapter 2 of Until I Break and realized we’d get Alec’s POV, as well as Samantha’s, I did the “bookish jig”! Which if you’re not familiar with this, it’s a cross between Gangnam Style and the Macarena. Dude. True story!Dear lord, seriously… I was CONVINCED – CONVINCED!!!! I tell you that Alec was going to chop Sam up into teensy little pieces and feed her body to sea turtles.There are so many twists and turns in Until I Break, and I never saw any of them coming! I kept turning over Alec’s secrets in my head, trying to figure out WHAT he was HIDING – and I never came close.I’m almost certain that I say this with EVERY new book I read by M. Leighton, and what can I say? She is just one of those authors… But Until I Break is M. Leighton’s best novel yet!!!Dangerous, passionate and addictive - Until I Break is one that I’ll think of long after I finished… the characters got under your skin and all I could think is, “MORE!!!!!”

Rhiannon Frater’s As The World Dies UNTOLD TALES (Vol 3) is broken up into multiple stories, as the previous two Untold Tales volumes were.If you’re unfamiliar with these particular tales, they are the UNTOLD tales from Rhiannon Frater’s AMAZING zombie trilogy, As the World Dies.Untold Tale #1 : RUNERune has been one of my very favorite and most beloved characters since his first appearance in the As the World Dies trilogy. He just has this PRESENCE that can’t be overlooked.His story in As the World Dies: The Untold Tales Volume 3 starts out heartbreaking and is as horrifying it is riveting!Rune can see spirits, he is a medium of sorts (I do hope this doesn’t spoil anything for anyone…) and he’s awakened by his daughter and grandson’s spirits while he’s on the road. Telling him that the world is no longer safe and he must SURVIVE.“For the last two hours he’d listened to the end of the world.”Running into a barricaded town on his way to check in on a friend, he actually runs into BRANDY – the chick Eric was with when the zombies came! Remember in Untold Tales Vol 1? She left him at the Bed & Breakfast and then he met Stacey!A bit later he runs across Tito! Remember Tito is the guy who helped Ken and Lenore escape the city!As Rune makes his way across Texas, the spirits of the dead become almost unbearably persistent until one particular ghost (I CRIED!!!) shows up with a message for him.He runs across Monica next, and I ALSO cry At the mention of Juan. Dear LORD almighty I didn’t realize how much I MISSED these characters!!!“Gritting his teeth, Rune played the Pied Piper to the zombie horde behind him.”We leave Rune raising hell, saving the day and heading for Waco! I swear, I hope when the zombies do attack, I have someone like Rune popping by every now and again to be my hero!!Untold Tale #2 : Senator Paige BrightmanSenator Paige Brightman’s story (the “leader” at the mall compound in Siege (As The World Dies, #3)When I turned the page on my kindle to see that Senator Brightman’s story was next, I PHYSICALLY recoiled from my beloved 4×6 device like it might decide to bite me or something!Paige Brightman’s story is a short one, but get across her malicious ways quite well!Untold Tale #3 : EMMA*tears*Emma’s story is so completely heartbreaking, and she’s a WICKED zombie killer.I knew who she was when a dark haired apparition appeared to her… That’s about all I can say without giving too much away – if for some ungodly reason you have yet to read the As the World Dies trilogy.I, PERSONALLY have very strong emotions toward Emma and her role in the As the Wold Dies and Untold Tales series – for reasons I can’t discuss without being TOTALLY spoilery and such!!!I will never tire of this series, of these characters or of the post-apocalyptic world created within! I need MORE! As The World Dies Untold Tales Volume 3 contain three new and completely fantastic additions to the world in the As the World Dies series by Rhiannon Frater!

Fair warning… Don’t skip the author’s note in the beginning of the book, as it contains pertinent information to the reader!!!! Camie, Tristan and your favorite band of teen awesome are BACK in book two of the Grab Your Pole series, The Other Fish in the Sea!!! Remember how much I ADORED Shark Bait? I know RIGHT?!?! SQUEE!!!Again with the EPIC chapter titles… Seriously!How to Bury a HookerChampagne Kisses & Tattoo DreamsBella Is An Idiot [Yeah dude... That Bella.]Okay, so The Other Fish in the Sea picks up right where Shark Bait left off- just a couple months later!It’s Thanksgiving break and Camie, Tristan and the gang are gearing up for a long weekend and mini vacation from school when Tristan’s days as a bachelor start flipping their ugly (skanky) hair – via text during a group bowling excursion.“You find out who your real friends are when you call and tell ‘em you just accidentally killed a hooker and they show up with a shovel and a full tank of gas.” ~Jeff is so epic.Other Fish in the Sea is told in the multiple POVs of Camie, Jillian (the epitome of EPIC), Kate and Melissa. That’s right! We get inside a few other character’s heads this time around!FIRST our GYP clan heads to the desert in November for Thanksgiving weekend… And over the four day break, a very intriguing couple gets together! *SQUEE*!!!!“Yeah well, we would’ve if Maleficent hadn’t chosen us to play a part in her scheme to save Sleeping Beauty’s and Prince Phillip’s asses” ~ Jeff again!GYP #2 goes through Christmas, um… the NEW YEARS PARTY! And ends after Camie’s birthday… O_OCamie is still sweetly naive in The Other Fish in the Sea, but not in the annoying way that nativity often is. Tristan is still super hot, and YUMMY.TEAM PETE!!! God Pete is my super fav guy in this series!!! He’s the quiet sexy, closet badass… With Brandon in such a close second that it was almost TOO much for me to choose between the two of them!!!!“You gonna let me take you to Hell, Jillian?” *I may have DIED a little bit here*Of course I can’t forget to mention Camie’s awesome inner monologue of playlist EPICNESS… So be on the lookout! And the personalized plates she gets on her 16th birthday are so awesome: SHRKB8SO much goes down in The Other Fish in the Sea!!!! HUGE secrets are revealed, GIGANTIC mistakes are made and DEVASTATING events lead to a CATASTROPHIC ending that will leave you CURSING whoever invented the “cliffhanger ending”.One of the things I dearly love about the Grab Your Pole series- is the absolute REALNESS of the characters! They evoke crazy, irrational, raw emotions to be elicited from the reader. There is warm and fuzzies, butterflies, hysteria, laughing, sobbing, nausea… the list goes on and on!

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO freaking EXCITED for this one dude!!!!!!

Meh... I didn't see what the huge fuss was about?

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK!!!!!

In Three Words: I’m dying. Hard.Wounded begins in Iraq 1993 … Desert Storm I believe? (Hey! I was only in third grade, don’t judge!) and swiftly progresses through devastatingly heartbreaking events in both Rania and Hunter’s lives. Wounded is told in the alternating point of views of Rania, an Iraqi woman, forced into prostitution – just to FEED herself. And Hunter, an American soldier, just trying to get through his last mission overseas before his tour is over.We are privy to the horrors that Rania faces after her parents are killed and her brother abandons her to join the Iraqi Army at 12. We glimpse Hunter’s life outside the military and the devotion he has to his fellow Marines…Rania and Hunter finally cross paths during a vicious, bloody battle in the middle of the street.Both Rania and Hunter are beautifully broken and AMAZINGLY written. I was caught in the relentless grip of their lives and their struggles to triumph through a seemingly win-less situation.“It’s the only word I know, in that moment. All I know is her. Her name. Her body, her love. Nothing else has ever existed.”Wilder holds NOTHING back- you will be gritting your teeth and overcome with emotions through the last page!Wounded is ruthless, devastating and intense.Wounded is completely romantic and beautiful. Laugh, cry… hyperventilate.Just. Get. Ready.Wounded is painful, heart-wrenching, absolutely enthralling book… Jasinda Wilder hit this one out of the park!

I'm thouroughly mind-fucked. Holy shit. I did NOT expect any of that.

Two words: Freaking Awesome.My favorite books are always the ones that I continually quote throughout and find I simply MUST repeat the character’s lines without fail like every other paragraph. Seriously. And Finned went like this:“He kept staring at my legs. Did my jeans offend him?” *chuckle*snort* BB repeats line aloud to be certain it’s as funny as it sounds INSIDE my head.It totally is! *giggle*snort* some more… 2 sentences later:“Keep an eye on Mr. Smarmy.” *hehe* the whole process then repeats itself.Okay, so down to business!! Were you wondering if I was actually ever getting to the REVIEW part of this ‘book review’? Marina Valentine has been BANNISHED by a chick with “lime green hair, orange eyes, and a nose the size of Chesapeake Bay Bridge.” (you like the word pictures as much as I do, don’t you?) for reading (tarot) cards.She apparently predicted two murders and aided terrorist mentality!! I know right? One of those murders was her very own father, and the Imperia Canon of Peculiar Malfunctions chose to ignore her, and then banish her and her mother AFTER the fact. As a part of her banishment, Marina is blocked from ANY future reading, or they’ll kill her immediately!“Should you touch even a single card with a bare or gloved hand, we will know, as will the Imperia. Such an offense will result in your immediate execution.”Hmmm… Smells fishy to me!!Her and her mother are banished to Saxet Shores, Texas where the ‘Normals’ (anyone who doesn’t belong to the Ravenflames or the Fairhairs) are shunned.“painting her nails her favorite color, Undead Red.” … Ummm I believe I need this color. I mean REALLY.“we’ll throw you a going-to-die party. That’s polite, right?”Marina’s mom is simply an EPIC, EPIC character… She’s hilarious and every time she popped up in a scene, I knew laughing would soon ensue.“My keys are gone! Someone’s stolen my keys! Wait. Found them. Let’s go.” … This is the STORY of my life!!! Whenever I can’t find something- someone has stolen it!!!!! Until I find it in the refrigerator or somewhere equally inappropriate. *sigh*Troy Tombolo … Fairhair and local heartthrob has stolen Marina’s attention, but they can never be together because of the social hierarchy and its plain to see that something BIGGER than meets the eye is going on.A series of disappearances, her mother goes completely crazy and Troy FINALLY confesses his feelings for Marina in a very BOY-like way (insensitive jerks!) … and Marina isn’t sure she can take anymore. But she’s about to find out she can survive all that and MORE.Marina was a fantastic character, her mother was SIMPLY FABULOUS and Troy had some SUPER swoon-worthy moments when his guy-filter was working…“My heart stops when I’m near you and bleeds when I’m away from you.”*dies*FINNED is a fun, sharp-witted tale of Merpeople, Normals, first love, some heart-pounding action and a centuries old war that everyone is still fighting.And MerRacing?? Oh. My. God. BEST THING EVER!!! Seriously- one of the coolest freaking scenes I’ve ever read in my life. Troy is like the Kyle Busch of the Merworld. I love it!!

DNF... I got 15% into FML before I couldn't take anymore. Full review to come.

Omg! How freaking EXCITED am I for the release of Shadow’s Claim?!?! A minor companion series to the Immortals After Dark Series (a series I completely and absolutely ADORE!), The Dacians debut book of the newest series by Kresley Cole, Shadow’s Claim, won’t disappoint the long time lovers of the IAD series!Our heroine, Bettina, a half demon/half sorceress was at a concert when four winged creatures, the Vrekeners’, brutally attack her. She is saved when Raum, —, summons her back to her home plane of Abbadon (a demon realm) with a medallion she had previously considered a leash.In what she had thought were her last moments, she was thinking of Cas and how he’d never know how much she loved him. When she appears bloody and broken by the Vrekeners on her castle floor, Cas is there. And upon seeing her, he completely goes to pieces.Trehan Daciano is an assassin, a Dacian assassin. If you’ve read the Immortals After Dark series, you’ll remember Dacia is the hidden vampire kingdom of Ivana, Lothaire’s mother. It’s cloaked in mist and sports fountains of blood. No one goes INTO Dacia and comes back out alive. This is how they’ve managed to stay HIDDEN for thousands of years.Playboy Cas entered Dacia, left a trail of fully tended to Dacian women, and then promptly snuck out again. Bad move Demon… Bad move. Trehan lives and BREATHES Dacia, and no one crosses him or his beloved Dacia without paying with their lives. And now his sights are set on Cas.Upon tracking Cas to the land of Death Demons, he meets Bettina, and his heart STARTS BEATING for the first time in a millennium. After hundreds of years of feeling nothing, in a matter of days – he’s been dispatched to dispose of Cas, found his Blood Mate and entered into a death tournament to win his Bride’s hand.One problem… Bettina has refused to ever forgive him if he kills Cas as planned.Bettina is a FABULOUS heroine. Trehan is the bane of her very existence, even if she can’t stop thinking about how he makes her feel… That is-when she doesn’t want to stop his freshly beating heart instantly.“I wanted his tongue on me; I couldn’t decide if I wanted it still attached to his mouth or not. So I held off.” ~ Morgana (the most powerful Sorceri known to the Lore and Bettina’s aunt.)You totally do not have to have read the Immortals After Dark series to understand the first book in the Shadow’s Claim series. It’s definitely it’s own series all together. But having read and LOVED all the Immortals after Dark books, it’s definitely awesome to revisit some of the IAD characters in this series!A romantic, sexy and action-packed page-turner, Shadow’s Claim is an amazing start to this series!

Okay FIRST, I must relay how much I ADORED Molly and her "voice"! She spoke my language dude. And I loved it hardcore!Molly's in training to become a full fledged necromancer, of the ka heka (Zombie Maker) division.On her 16th birthday, her boyfriend Rick, takes a nasty fall and DIES. Yeah. Dead as a door nail, instantly. Molly acts in a frenzied panic of "HOLY CRAP!", grabs his soul as its hovering over his body and shoves it back inside him.Well, this did not turn out as beautifully as she had hoped and Rick comes back... Wrong. And that's all I'm going to say about THAT.Throughout the beginning of Undeadly, we are privy to Necromancer history and different ranks in the Necromancer/Reaper hierarchy. Also how the war between two Gods shaped the modern day. It was super informative and I find myself wondering if it would be inappropriate to teach these "ideas" to my children. Just sayin."Most historians agree, however, that it was the Egyptians who perfected the art of raising the dead. No other culture can boast that their zombies built such magnificent monuments."She works for her father, Big Al, at Big Al's Zomporium, doing awesome zombie related tasks for zombie-keeping people..."Zombies required care. You had to comb their hair, cut their nails, oil their skin, brush their teeth and give them weather appropriate shoes." - BAHAHAHA! *dies* I love it!!!!Her grandparents, whom she's never met, show up out of the blue and tell her of their `practically royal' bloodlines among the Necro community and inform her of the enormous responsibility she's about to undertake.Off to Hogwart's Nekyia Academy she goes... where she'll encounter much to overcome. Especially since Rick followed her there, and he's acting all super creepy... Then people start dying.I thoroughly enjoyed Undeadly! It wasn't at all what I expected, which was a welcome surprise! Undeadly is awesome, hilarious, suspenseful and intriguing - Molly is a brave, witty and wickedly funny heroine. Rath? Hmmm... I'm seeing potential here! Can't wait to find out more about him and how he came into the Reaping business!