Clio

Giveaway Winners

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helium-balloons Thank you to everyone who entered our very first giveaway! We all appreciate you guys taking the time to read our reviews and/or joining in the discuss on Facebook with us.

I used Random.org to pick the winners for both books – mom2cyrusncash won Pivot Point and Loida won The Sea of Tranquility! Congratulations to both of you and check your emails for more details. 🙂

Thanks for participating everyone. Stay tuned in the future for more possible giveaways. Feel free to check out our Facebook page along with the blog. We post daily with different things – from price drops and new releases to general book discussions

~ Clio

Review: The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay (and giveaway!)

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This is a difficult review to write because I loved the book, the storyline, the characters, the plot, pretty much everything. So it’s hard to be objective and write almost anything.

The book starts off a little slow and at first I was wondering when it would pick up. But after reading the whole book I realized that the slow start was necessary. This book packs in all the emotions and by the end I was overwhelmed with the feels.

It’s almost impossible to say anything without being spoiler-ish and I think with this book it’s important to not have spoilers.

This quote pulled me in right away.

“I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.”

Nastya and Josh tell the story from alternating points of views and this technique definitely worked for this book.

This was not just a romance, this is a suspense, a young adult novel but also an adult one as well. I can’t say enough good things about this book so instead I’m going to give away the book so one reader can see for themselves!

To enter the giveaway make sure you’re officially following this blog and make a comment as well. On Thursday, the 15th I’ll post the winner – which will be chosen by a random number generator.

Good luck!

5 stars

~Clio

Buy it Now The Sea of Tranquility: A Novel

Review: Pivot Point by Kasie West (and giveaway!)

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11988046 You know how you buy some books because they sound good-ish at the time and then when you finally read them months later you wonder why the heck you bought the book in the first place? (Maybe that’s just me…) Well, this book was so the opposite of that. I was expecting an average book when I began this but got an amazingly well written and captivating book instead. Yay to pleasant surprises!

Addie Coleman lives in a city where everyone has a type of paranormal power of the mind. Her power is a form of clairvoyance that allows her to take a decision she needs to make and see into the future (within limits) both paths that the choices would lead to. When her parents get a divorce she has to decide which parent to live with. Her mother is staying in the city Addie has grown up in and her father is moving out of the city into the normal world where no one has powers. Addie chooses to look into the future over the next 6 weeks to see which one she should choose.

Just the plot of this book is rather unique, with all of the YA books that I read I haven’t come across another with anything close to it. This is the author’s debut novel and I was blown away by that because of how well written and thought out the book comes across. I was surprised many times by different twists and plot points. Pivot Point has some suspense, a little bit of YA romance and while some of the characters have paranormal powers it is not heavy on that part. So if you normally stay away from the paranormal type books I would give this a chance!

Even better than the plot are the characters. Addie and her friends are all very fleshed out. Addie, in particular, was great – I understood her emotions and all of her actions made sense to me. I completely hate when I read a book and I spend most of the time wanting to smack the main character. Happily, that was not the case here.

If you’d like to win a copy of Pivot Point you need to do 2 things – follow this blog and comment on this post. I’ll post the winner next Thursday the 15th.

5 stars

~ Clio

Buy it Now Pivot Point

Happy Birthday to US…and a Giveaway!

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Next week our blog will be exactly 1 month old! The 5 of us have been having so much fun reviewing books and getting feedback both from readers and from some of the Authors we’ve reviewed.

We want to keep going and just make the blog better and better every month.

But in the meantime Happy Blog-iversary to us!! On behalf of all of the muses thank you to anyone who has read our posts!!

To celebrate I’m going to give away two of my most recent favorite books that I’ve read.

Pivot Point by Kasie West & The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

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I’ve read both of these in the last month or so and they were both 5 star books for me. I’ll be posting my review of Pivot Point on Saturday and my review of The Sea of Tranquility. But spoiler alert – they were both freaking awesome. But in totally different ways.

So if you’d like to enter for the giveaway you need to do just 2 things – become a follower of this blog and comment on any of this post or the 2 reviews I’ll be doing. If you’re interested in only one of the books make sure to comment which one.

Next Thursday the 15th I’ll post the winners and contact you about getting your ebook to you!

Good luck 🙂

~ Clio

Review: Always Watching by Chevy Stevens; Narrated by Joyce Bean

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16044953 Chevy Stevens’ debut novel Still Missing surprised me and kind of blew me away with how much I loved it. Her second novel, Never Knowing was almost as good so I was really looking forward to Always Watching, her third novel. I chose to get the audio book because I love to listen to them.

There are many narrators I love and rarely do I find one that I hate. Joyce Bean was just kind of meh. I found her to be too monotone almost immediately but figured that the story would outweigh the narrator. I was so wrong.

Nadine is a psychiatrist who works in the lockdown ward of the psychiatric hospital. She is treating a young woman who had spent time with a cult when that triggers her own unhappy memories from the time she was with the same cult. She uncovers some nasty memories that she was unaware of and her life kind of spins out of control from there. Her own daughter is a homeless runaway. Nadine tries to put all these pieces together.

There is very little I liked about this book. The plot felt contrived and forced from the beginning. There wasn’t one character I really felt anything for – I didn’t feel one way or the other about anyone in the book. Honestly, I just wanted the book to be over. There is a “mystery” of what the uncovered memories will reveal but it was obvious to me. There was a mystery throughout the book dealing with the cult leader and his nefarious ways. But my overwhelming feeling was I don’t care.

I found Nadine to be whiny, I really disliked her daughter and her brother was annoying.

As I got further into the audiobook the narration got worse and worse to me – the monotone in the beginning got worse. The only reason I finished it is because I loved the author’s first two books so much.

If someone else read and liked it please let me know what I was missing out on!

2 stars for the book. 2 stars for the narration.

~ Clio

Review: Like Falling by Jaden Wilkes

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17995429Like Falling (Surfaces #1) is another take of my current favorite angst filled genre, New Adult. I can’t help it – I can’t get enough of it. I’ve read the good, the bad and the ugly in the genre so far and believe me there has been some very ugly! But this one seems to fit pretty much right smack dab in the middle of the genre- in a good way.

Sarah Miller comes from a Mennonite family who wants her to marry as soon as possible and have lots of Mennonite babies. She wants to go to college and her parents decide to let her and Sarah explores her boundaries while there, in every way. Sarah lives with her Mennonite friend Nic, who quickly introduces Sarah to all the joys of college life.

Sarah seems at times to be almost over the top, but then I remember people who I’ve known who felt repressed and she acted pretty much just like they did. She is wide eyed and trying to experience different things from cursing to kissing. I did laugh at her text messaging and dealing with her roomate’s girlfriend.

This book was part amusing, coming of age story, and part angsty romance between two people who obviously should be together. It does end in a cliffhanger, but does so in such a way that did not make me angry. The author pointed out that the the 2nd book is in the process and it will be part of a trilogy as she felt that the story was too much for one book.

I received this ARC from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Solid 3 stars

~Clio

Musings: Anatomy of a Book Slump

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I love to read. A lot. Like all the time. Which used to be a problem with limited space, limited budget and almost no bookstores near me. But then I got my first Kindle and it was like the clouds parted and I got manna from heaven – books at my fingertips. Whenever. Wherever. Only limited by my budget.

So, all my book problems were a thing of the past, right? Umm, not quite.

I began to have the opposite problem – what should I read?? This is almost as serious a problem as not having anything TO read as my fellow book lovers know. And then the worst problem of all hit me – a book slump.

What is a book slump you ask? A book slump is when even with all the resources of Amazon at your disposal you still cannot find anything to read.

I had such a bad book slump this weekend. At any given time I have about 40-50 books on my kindle, because I like knowing that I have options. These consist of a combo of library books, books I’ve gotten on sale, ARC’s to review and all are sorted carefully into genres. Then I have a short list of books out of those that I want to read very soon.

I chose a book from that pile and just wasn’t into it. Put it aside. Started another book – thought I’d try a suspense this time. Got 20% into it and was soo bored. Move onto romance. No. Thriller. No. Non fiction. Nope! Maybe a different romance. How about dystopian? OOh, what about supernatural?? Nope, no, not even close.

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At this point I’ve read about 10-15% of at least 10 quality books that I truly want to read. ARGHH!!! I then bought 6 books of my Amazon wish list o’ books but still wasn’t really interested in any. I’m feeling pretty desperate here…it’s like I NEED a good book fix right now!

And then a wonderful fellow muse, Thalia, saved the day! She gifted me a book she enjoyed and I was off and reading. Finished the book that night and the next day was able to pick up a different one and keep on going.

Thank heaven for good friends, sometimes they can save you from yourself 🙂

~ Clio

Review: Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

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12985143 Hemlock is a supernatural YA book featuring werewolves…and I freaking loved it.  I really thought that was just a tired genre for me – and for many others – but Kathleen Peacock managed to pick and choose the best parts of this category.

Lupine syndrome is on the rise in the country and a few months ago Mac’s best friend Amy was killed by a white werewolf. Nothing has been the same for her or for her best friends Jason and Kyle since then.  When it seems that danger is back in the town of Hemlock Mac isn’t sure who to trust when it seems that betrayal is everywhere.

I’ve read a few other reviews that talked about a love triangle and how typical it is to have in a supernatural YA book. However during the reading of the book I wasn’t really feeling a triangle vibe.  More like an I hate Jason and he needs to get over himself vibe but that could just be me.

What I liked about this book so much was the mystery combined with the plot twist that came with every turn. That made it much more than the typical YA supernatural book.  Mac’s dead best friend Amy visits her in her dreams and I loved those chapters and the interactions between the two.

Mac is also not a damsel in distress that seems to appear in so many YA books. I appreciated how resourceful she was and while she did make a few bad decisions they weren’t the kind that made me scream in frustration and want to throw my kindle across my room – um, not that I’ve done that before with a book or anything.

This book is suspenseful, plot driven and funny.  It’s full of danger and love. I would highly recommend to anyone who loves YA books and specifically anyone who has ever remotely liked a supernatural book, this one is excellently done.

5 stars.

~Clio

Buy it Now Hemlock

Review: Gameboard of the Gods by Richelle Mead; Narration by Emily Shaffer

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13477883 In looking for a new audiobook I was surprised to find a new series by Richelle Mead that I had heard nothing about. I really enjoyed Richelle’s first series The Vampire Academy due to the strong female characters and take no crap attitude. I listened to the first few books in the spin off series of Bloodlines and really enjoyed that one because even though it continued some of the same characters it was still pretty different from the original series. I also really liked Emily Shaffer, she did a great job narrating both male and female characters. So when I saw that she was going to narrate this one too I immediately bought it.

Gameboard of the Gods is set in the future where society is pretty segregated into different classes. Mae was born into the elite upper class but is now a member of the militaristic Praetorian Guard. Justin was previously an investigator of “religious groups and supernatural claims” as a revered servitor but was exiled four years ago. He is brought back after a series of difficult to solve murders take place and Justin and Mae are teamed up to solve the crimes.

I wanted to give up on this book multiple times but I didn’t solely because I’d liked so many of her other books. At the end I was left wishing I had given it up. The audiobook was around 16 hours which was about 12 hours longer than I wanted of this world. I didn’t understand the segregation of classes or the reason for the segregation and it wasn’t really ever explained.

Much worse than that was that Justin literally talked to birds in his head. Let me repeat – he talked to birds in his head. I’m not sure when exactly we found out the reason for this but it was very, very late in the story and I saw no real understanding of why we couldn’t have been told this information much earlier.

At the end of the book I was left feeling very meh. I will definitely not be reading further in this series.

2 stars for the book. 4 for the narration.

~Clio

Buy it Now Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X)

Review: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

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15818107 “I believe in ghosts. They’re the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind. Many times in my life I have felt them around me, observing, witnessing, when no one in the living world knew or cared what happened.”

Orphan Train pulled me in from the very beginning with the prologue and this haunting opening paragraph.

This is a very moving narrative with alternate settings in both the present day and the 1920’s through 1940’s. It starts with 17 year old Molly, who has been bounced around the foster care system for the last 8 years or so and has currently landed in a home that’s not so bad in the grand scheme of things. Molly is used to wearing her goth makeup like a mask.

“As a newcomer Molly had liked the distance her persona created, the wariness and mistrust she saw in the eyes of her peers. But though she’s loath to admit it, lately that persona has begun to feel restrictive.”

When she is caught stealing a book that she would like to have for her own Molly needs to do 50 hours of community service. She ends up doing the time with Vivian, a 91 year old woman, in her attic helping to clean and sort through all of her boxes. This begins her story and the story of the orphan trains in the 20’s.

It took me a while to get into Vivian’s story until she was actually on the orphan train and when that happens this novel really began to shape into a beautiful, woven story for me. Through Vivian’s telling of her history we’re also hearing of Molly’s as well. The unlikely friendship between the two women evolves throughout the book and changes them both.

I really enjoyed both of these stories and felt the author did a beautiful job of weaving the two together to create one full story. We don’t get a complete look at either Molly or Vivian and it seems that at the end it’s because together we get everything. The journey of both is overwhelming and inspiring at turns.

I would highly recommend this book to readers of all ages from YA to adults and to anyone who likes historical novels.

4 stars

~Clio

Buy it Now Orphan Train: A Novel