Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your bookshelf, be it the physical one or your digital one!
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Title: ParanormalcyAuthor: Kiersten White
Format: Hardback
Release Date: August 31st, 2010
Weird as it is working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, Evie’s always thought of herself as normal. Sure, her best friend is a mermaid, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she's falling for a shape-shifter, and she's the only person who can see through paranormals' glamours, but still. Normal.
Only now paranormals are dying, and Evie's dreams are filled with haunting voices and mysterious prophecies. She soon realizes that there may be a link between her abilities and the sudden rash of deaths. Not only that, but she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
So much for normal.
I was looking around on Goodreads for a new series. Something that was different, that had a good fanbase, had a few mixed reviews (without trying to spoil the book for me) and just something off the wall to normal books I read. That's where this series came in. I have heard a lot of good things and bad from this book, and frankly I enjoy that. I like to make my own opinion and try to avoid hype as much as possible. And even though I have the first two books on my shelf, I may hold off till some of the hype or expectation dies off.
Anyways, this falls into the paranormal genre that I have started to get into, but it has a lot more than that too. I am curious on the whole dark faerie thing, and what types of paranormal creatures / people are in this book. Would be interesting to see a paranormal girl trying to act normal and want a normal life. However, at the same time I'm worried that there may be too much paranormal in this book to keep me interested or frankly not confused and always questioning why the paranormals act in X way.
Title: SupernaturallyAuthor: Kiersten White
Format: Hardback
Release Date: July 26th, 2011
Evie finally has the normal life she’s always longed for. But she’s shocked to discover that being ordinary can be...kind of boring. Just when Evie starts to long for her days at the International Paranormal Containment Agency, she’s given a chance to work for them again. Desperate for a break from all the normalcy, she agrees.
But as one disastrous mission leads to another, Evie starts to wonder if she made the right choice. And when Evie’s faerie ex-boyfriend Reth appears with devastating revelations about her past, she discovers that there’s a battle brewing between the faerie courts that could throw the whole supernatural world into chaos. The prize in question? Evie herself.
So much for normal.
I bought this at the same time as Paranormalcy, mainly cause I wanted to read the series with how well it's been doing. I just had the curious itch to read the series and get into it, but like I stated before it'll sit for a while so that the hype and expectations I have for this book die down a bit. I think it'll be better and in the end give a a better non-bias review. I am still looking forward to getting into this book / series.
Author: Kendare Blake
Format: Hardback
Release Date: August 7th, 2012
It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.
His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.
Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.
Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.
I have waited for this book for a long time. After reading Anna Dressed in Blood, this sequel has me pumped. As a sequel to one of my favorite books, it's hard to put this down and want my hype to die off before reading it to give a good unbias review. But I'm in the middle of a book at the moment, so it'll have to wait. Anyways, when I do get around to it, I don't think anything will really die off. I love the darkness of this series. Cas and Anna have this great connection that I hope continues and I just frankly love the series to death (literally).
Title: Where She WentAuthor: Gayle Forman
Format: Hardback
Release Date: April 5th, 2011
It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.
Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.
Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.
If I Stay brought on this book. Where She Went just pulled me in, when I finished If I Stay, I just had to go out and get this book. I wanted to know what happened to Mia, where she choose to go, and what she's doing in her life now. And this book seems to go on that road and continues the tragic love-story. I am hoping that this book has the same emotional roller coaster that the last book had, and maybe puts an end to the story, or leaves me feeling that the series is somewhat complete.
Title: HaloAuthor: Alexandra Adornetto
Format: Hardback
Release Date: August 31st, 2010
An angel is sent to Earth on a mission.
But falling in love is not part of the plan.
Three angels – Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and most human – are sent by Heaven to bring good to a world falling under the influence of darkness. They work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments.
Then Bethany meets Xavier Woods, and neither of them is able to resist the attraction between them. Gabriel and Ivy do everything in their power to intervene, but the bond between Xavier and Bethany seems too strong.
The angel’s mission is urgent, and dark forces are threatening. Will love ruin Bethany or save her?
I won't say that I'm a huge fan of Fallen, but the series brought upon this series. I normally wouldn't buy books in this manner, that the synopsis needs to get my attention and keep it for me to pick it up. However, I made an exception here, Halo seems like one of those paranormal romance books (well Duh) that may not have a halfway retarded female main character. I am curious and I just love the cover and how it looks. Something about the sun and how the angel and human are together, seem almost meant to be..
Title: HadesAuthor: Alexandra Adornetto
Format: Hardback
Release Date: August 30th, 2011
Heaven Help Her.
Bethany Church is an angel sent to Earth to keep dark forces at bay. Falling in love was never part of her mission, but the bond between Beth and her mortal boyfriend, Xavier Woods, is undeniably strong. But even Xavier’s love, and the care of her archangel siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, can’t keep Beth from being tricked into a motorcycle ride that ends up in Hell. There, the demon Jake Thorn bargains for Beth’s release back to Earth. But what he asks of her will destroy her, and quite possibly, her loved ones, as well.
The story that Alexandra Adornetto built in her New York Times - bestselling debut, Halo, comes alive in action-packed and unexpected ways, as angels battle demons, and the power of love is put to the test.
Hades, I am curious of. Building on the tragic love-story of Halo, Having not read the first one, I can't really say what I'm expecting out of this, but there is a part of the synopsis that makes me wonder. The price of her escape from Hell, I am curious to see what that toll is, and how it effects her and the ones around her. Something about it, reminds me of Daniel's curse in Fallen; how Daniel has to relive every life of Luce, the one he eternally loves, fall in love with him and burst into flames and die, only to be reincarnated and repeat the cycle.
Author: Kathleen Peacock
Format: Hardback
Release Date: May 8th, 2012
Mackenzie and Amy were best friends.
Since then, Mac's life has been turned upside down. She is being haunted by Amy in her dreams, and an extremist group called the Trackers has come to Mac's hometown of Hemlock to hunt down Amy's killer:
A white werewolf.
Lupine syndrome--also known as the werewolf virus--is on the rise across the country. Many of the infected try to hide their symptoms, but bloodlust is not easy to control.
Wanting desperately to put an end to her nightmares, Mac decides to investigate Amy's murder herself. She discovers secrets lurking in the shadows of Hemlock, secrets about Amy's boy-friend, Jason, her good pal Kyle, and especially her late best friend. Mac is thrown into a maelstrom of violence and betrayal that puts her life at risk.
Kathleen Peacock's thrilling novel is the first in the Hemlock trilogy, a spell-binding urban fantasy series filled with provocative questions about prejudice, trust, lies, and love.
I don't exactly know why or for what reason, but I picked up this book on whim. It made it on my wishlist when I read Under the Never Sky. I enjoyed the cover, it was simple and elegant, but there was something about the synopsis that caught my eye. Frankly I don't normally do werewolf books, after Twilight, but I'm willing to on a limb and try a book out. The plot of trying to go into a pack of werewolves, to find out what happened to your friend and solve what happened to her, that has me curious.
Title: The UnquietAuthor: Jeannine Garsee
Format: Hardback
Release Date: July 17th, 2012
Sixteen-year-old Rinn Jacobs has secrets: One, she’s bipolar. Two, she killed her grandmother.
After a suicide attempt, and now her parents' separation, Rinn and her mom move from California to the rural Ohio town where her mother grew up. Back on her medications and hoping to stay well, Rinn settles into her new home, undaunted by the fact that the previous owner hanged herself in Rinn's bedroom. At school, her classmates believe the school pool is haunted by Annaliese, a girl who drowned there. But when a reckless séance goes awry, and terrible things start happening to her new friends—yet not to her—Rinn is determined to find out why she can’t be "touched" by Annaliese...or if Annaliese even exists.
With the help of Nate Brenner, the hunky “farmer boy" she’s rapidly falling for, Rinn devises a dangerous plan to uncover the truth. Soon reality and fantasy meld into one, till Rinn finds it nearly impossible to tell the difference. When a malevolent force threatens the lives of everyone she cares about--not to mention her own--she can't help wondering: who should she really be afraid of?
Annaliese? Or herself?
All I have to say is this made my list right after This is Not a Test, the whole plot, the whole suicidal thing has me interested. I have been looking forward to this as far a while, there is just that full appeal that This is Not a Test that had. Then there is that supernatural ghost / haunting of the school pool of Annaliese, that reminded me of the zombies in This is Not a Test. The question I have with Hemlock primarily is Annaliese going to play a big part of the book, or will she be a background effect used to create drama and suspense, while the main issue is still Rinn's want to commit suicide or other personal issues? I am interested this book, has my full attention.
Title: Witch & WizardAuthor: James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
Format: Hardback
Release Date: December 14th, 2009
The world is changing: the government has seized control of every aspect of society, and now, kids are disappearing. For 15-year-old Wisty and her older brother Whit, life turns upside down when they are torn from their parents one night and slammed into a secret prison for no reason they can comprehend. The New Order, as it is known, is clearly trying to suppress Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Being a Normal Teenager. But while trapped in this totalitarian nightmare, Wisty and Whit discover they have incredible powers they'd never dreamed of. Can this newly minted witch and wizard master their skills in time to save themselves, their parents--and maybe the world?
When I first saw this book, and read the synopsis, my mind went to Sacred Scars where Somiss had imprisoned the children and was using them to test magic. I began to then question why Wisty and Whit were imprisoned, could someone be trying to push them to learn magic, or teach them? There is questions all over this synopsis. However, the whole added benefit to find their parents, and then save the world? That seems like a leap in the first book, however I am curious as to how the dystopian government and the fantasy witch and wizard collide together.
Title: The Marbury LensAuthor: Andrew Smith
Format: Hardback
Release Date: July 26th, 2011
Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury.
There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But he’s trying to kill them.
Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid he’s losing his mind.
Conner tells Jack it’s going to be okay.
But it’s not.
Andrew Smith has written his most beautiful and personal novel yet, as he explores the nightmarish outer limits of what trauma can do to our bodies and our minds.
The synopsis reminded me so much of X-Files or even Fringe, that I couldn't pass it up when I got it for a steal. The whole being able to see two different worlds seems rather interesting and got my attention. But there is a slight issue with this series is; even if you can see what is going on in the alternate universe, how do you prevent events from happening in that alternate universe? There isn't like a window you can jump through to help or anything, just a lens you can see through, I am curious on that question and it's answer. Probably more so than I should be.
