Cover Reveal - Descendant by Nichole Giles

What it's about:
Seventeen-year-old Abigail Johnson is Gifted.

Blessed—or cursed—with Sight and Healing, Abby lives an unsettled life, moving from place to place and staying one step ahead of the darkness that hunts her. When she arrives in Jackson, Wyoming, she is desperate to maintain the illusion of normalcy, but she is plagued with visions of past lives mixed with frightening glimpses of her future. Then she meets Kye, a mysterious boy who seems so achingly familiar that Abby is drawn to him like he’s a missing piece of her own soul.

Before Abby can discover the reason for her feelings toward Kye, the darkness catches up to her and she is forced to flee again. But this time she’s not just running. She is fighting back with Kye at her side, and it’s not just Abby’s life at stake.

Author Bio

Nichole Giles had early career plans of becoming an actress or a rock star, but she decided instead to have a family and then become a writer. Writing is her passion, but she also loves to spend time with her husband and children, travel to tropical and exotic destinations, drive in the rain with the convertible top down, and play music at full volume so she can sing along.

Author Links:

Website: http://www.nicholegiles.blogspot.ca/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3384651-nichole-giles

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/128455014233/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicholegiles

Isn't the cover awesome?

I can't wait for May and the book release. 

Review of "Created" by Cindy M. Hogan

BOOK DESCRIPTION of Created by Cindy M. Hogan

Ari and her friends find themselves in an independent spy school in Belgium, Bresen Academy. Test scores reveal her true abilities and the director wants to send her onto to more advanced training school immediately. She is given a two week reprieve to explore the school's training program and hopefully make amends with both Reese and Marybeth. Despite her lack of advanced training, the director convinces Ari she would be the best fit for a mission that surfaces in Prague with a group calling themselves Division 57. Uncertain, but wanting to please, she agrees. She quickly discovers there is nothing easy about being a spy and finds her very life on the line.

MY TAKE
In this third and last book in the series, Christy aka Ari is finally not on the run anymore. Kinda. She's still running but it's for a different reason. My thought at the end of "Protected" was that she was being given survival skills that would make her great spy material. It seems someone else thought so, too.

In Belgium, you follow her through training and testing in the field as she tries to mend bridges with former friends all while figuring out her feelings for guys from her past and decisions about her future. There's plenty of action and some nice twists at the end. A satisfying conclusion.

Books 1 and 2

Book Review - Two Souls Are Better Than One

Two Souls Are Better Than One (The Misadventures of a Teenage Wizard) is a hoot!

From the back of the book:

Barely thirteen, Jeremy James Johansen has had more than his share of trouble. His father disappeared without a trace and the police believe he murdered his lab assistant, though his son knows it isn’t true. His dad can’t even handle a knife, let alone a bow and arrow.

A year later Jeremy stumbles across a portal to another world and gets pulled through—but not as himself. Somehow he swaps bodies with the man on the other side before the portal disappears.

Captured by a dragon and a man in black who insists on calling him father, he tries to escape, only to plummet to his death. He awakens in his own bed, believing it was all a bad dream. The problem is there are holes in his memory he can’t fill.

In time, he discovers that the portal holds the answers not only to his forgotten memories, but most importantly, points him down the path to finding his father. 

Poor JJ. He's already having a tough time. His father went missing after his lab assistant was murdered (shot by an arrow, no less). How's that for your social standing in school? JJ's mother is grieving while trying to cope. His twin sister is as irritating as ever while dealing with her own issues. And then the school bullies beat JJ up and when he fights back he gets suspended. Yet this is nothing compared to begin sucked through a portal and into the body of really old guy with a really long beard who has problems of his own. Like people trying to kill him.

And that's just the start.

Karen Hoover does a wonderful job with JJ's youthful sense of humor and wonder when faced with the unbelievable. I felt his grief over his father and his sympathy for his mother. He moans and groans just like a boy his age would but he also finds himself having to stretch, to do more than just look out for himself. JJ learns rather quickly that his problems could have a devastating impact on our world and things seem to spiral out of control.


The book must be the beginning of a series because things are not quite right in the world at the end.

Have you read any good middle grade or early YA books lately? What would be your favorite this year?

Book Review - 'Second Kiss' by Natalie Palmer

My copy of this book arrived earlier this week, and I started reading it that night, though it took a couple of days before I had time to really delve into it.

The main character, Gemma, is subject to the usual dumb mistakes that adolescents make, but she has a real flair for taking them a step further. This obviously causes her great embarrassment, and the social blunders take their toll on her social life.

That's not really all that bad as far as she is concerned as long as her closest friend, Jess, is there. He was assigned to walk her to school when she first started attending, and their friendship began there. He became her a protector, and he's been doing it ever since, providing her with strength, understanding, comfort, and support. He truly has her back.

But little does she know just how much this handsome, popular boy relies on her for his own strenth.

I love the way the story develops over the course of about 18 months. You get to see the long-time friendship of these two young people and watch as it evolves with them. Any friendship can survive in good times, but its true mettle is how it grows and changes in adversity.

I got sucked into the story and couldn't put the book down. My time on the exercise bike and the treadmill this morning went way too fast, and I had to take the book with me to work today, so I could finish it at lunch.

I really enjoyed the character development. When I was a girl, I grew up on Nancy Drew--until I found my library had this even older (seeming) series about a girl named Judy Bolton. I enjoyed Judy's mysteries so much more than Nancy's because Judy was believable. She wasn't the perfect at everything character that Nancy always was. Judy made mistakes, and even more importantly, Judy grew.

Palmer's characters aren't one dimensional but come across as flawed human beings, who make mistakes--just as we all do. Junior high is one of the most brutal battlegrounds youth have to survive. I liked how the characters--even the 'villains'--had the ability to show good qualities or at least be worthy of some sympathy by other characters and the reader.

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.