How to Write a Bestselling YA Book

This is an easy list of how to write one of the most popular YA books, and is completely, definitely, and utterly not sarcastic at all.

Read More

Witchstruck (The Tudor Witch Trilogy #1) by: Victoria Lamb

Three-point-five stars rounded up to four

ARC received from Netgalley. This review is not biased in any way. There was no money, gifts, discounts, or favors exchanged for this review.

Meg Lytton has always known of her dark and powerful gift. Raised a student of the old magick by her Aunt Jane, casting the circle to see visions of the future and concocting spells from herbs and bones has always been as natural to Meg as breathing. But there has never been a more dangerous time to practise the craft, for it is 1554, and the sentence for any woman branded a witch is hanging, or burning at the stake.

Sent to the ruined, isolated palace of Woodstock to serve the disgraced Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and half-sister of Queen Mary, Meg discovers her skills are of interest to the outcast princess, who is desperate to know if she will ever claim the throne. But Meg's existence

becomes more dangerous every day, with the constant threat of exposure by the ruthless witchfinder Marcus Dent, and the arrival of a young Spanish priest, Alejandro de Castillo, to whom Meg is irresistibly drawn - despite their very different attitudes to her secret.

Thrilling and fast-paced, this is the first unputdownable story in a bewitching new series.

Read More

Unravel the Mysteries of Unhinged: Giveaways

Unravel the Mysteries of Unhinged: Giveaways: Welcome to Amulet's official Campaign! Starting today and over the next couple of months, we'll be sharing reveals, giveaways...

Read More

{Mini Review} Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott

Three-point-Five Stars, Rounded up to Four

ARC received from Netgalley. This review is not biased in any way. There was no money, gifts, discounts, or favors exchanged for this review.

Life. Death. And...Love?

Emma would give anything to talk to her mother one last time. Tell her about her slipping grades, her anger with her stepfather, and the boy with the bad reputation who might be the only one Emma can be herself with.

But Emma can't tell her mother anything. Because her mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the baby growing inside her.

Meeting bad-boy Caleb Harrison wouldn't have interested Old Emma. But New Emma-the one who exists in a fog of grief, who no longer cares about school, whose only social outlet is her best friend Olivia-New Emma is startled by the connection she and Caleb forge.

Feeling her own heart beat again wakes Emma from the grief that has grayed her existence. Is there hope for life after death-and maybe, for love?

Read More

Unchained (Nephilim Rising #1) by J. Lynn (a.k.a. Jennifer L. Armentrout)

Four Stars

ARC received from Entangled Publishing. This review is not biased in any way. There was no money, gifts, discounts, or favors exchanged for this review.

Between the pissed off creatures that want demon-hunter Lily Marks dead and the fallen angel who just...wants her, Lily is about ready to trade in forever for a comfy job in a cubicle farm.

The fact that she and Julian are civil to one another is enough to have her thrown out of the Sanctuary, but she can't shake her not-so-angelic stalker or how he brings her dangerously close to ecstasy.

Her forbidden relationship with Julian provides the perfect fuel for suspicion when a traitor is discovered to be working within the Sanctuary. Lily quickly finds herself hunted by well, everyone.

Her only hope is to discover the real traitor before she loses everything--and she'll need Julian's help. That is, if Julian is really there to help her...and not destroy her.
Yeah, being a Nephilim isn't everything it's cracked up to be.

Read More

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

Three Stars

Weary of her storybook, one "without pictures or conversations," the young and imaginative Alice follows a hasty hare underground--to come face-to-face with some of the strangest adventures and most fantastic characters in all of literature. 

The Ugly Duchess, the Mad Hatter, the weeping Mock Turtle, the diabolical Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat--each more eccentric than the last--could only have come from that master of sublime nonsense, Lewis Carroll. 

In penning this brilliant burlesque of children's literature, Carroll has written a farcical satire of rigid Victorian society, an arresting parody of the fears, anxieties, and complexities of growing up. 

Carroll was one of the few adult writers to successfully enter the children's world of make-believe: where the impossible becomes possible, the unreal--real, and where the height of adventure is limited only by the depths of imagination.

Read More

Fire and Flood Excerpt and Giveaway

There's a little over five months before the release date of Fire and Flood, by Victoria Scott, so the author decided to give us an excerpt:

Read More

Deeper by: Blue Ashcroft

One Star

ARC received from Netgalley. This review is not biased in any way. There was no money, gifts, discounts, or favors exchanged for this review.

Rain Wilson isn’t ever going to love again. 

It’s a promise she made the day her boyfriend died in a water park accident, one she still blames herself for. Now she’s a senior lifeguard in a new town with a new pool and she’s just going to keep her head down and everyone safe. 

Until a mysterious guy follows her into the waves at the pre-season bonfire and kisses her senseless. It’s just one mistake, and Rain is determined to put it behind her, until the dark haired, blue eyed hottie turns out to be her new co-supervisor Knight Mcallister. 

Knight is hot, tatted, and carrying baggage of his own. He’s not happy about having Rain for a co-supervisor, and he’s even less happy about his attraction to her. 

But between lifeguard drama, hot underwater kisses, and a growing attraction between them that can’t be stopped, Knight and Rain are being pulled deeper into their pasts, and realizing that sometimes too much broken can make a relationship impossible.

Then again sometimes it’s the broken parts of us that fit together best.

Read More

The Sea of Tranquility by: Katja Millay

Five Stars

ARC received from Netgalley. This review is not biased in any way. There was no money, gifts, discounts, or favors exchanged for this review.

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.

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to                                             give you your space.

                                          Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Read More

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke

Two Stars

You stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand…

Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White’s sleepy, seaside town… until River West comes along. River rents the guest house behind Violet’s crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. 

Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more?

Violet’s grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery... who makes you want to kiss back. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12930909-between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea

Violet’s already so knee-deep in love, she can’t see straight. And that’s just how River likes it.

Blending faded decadence and the thrilling dread of gothic horror, April Genevieve Tucholke weaves a dreamy, twisting contemporary romance, as gorgeously told as it is terrifying—a debut to watch.

Read More

What Not to Do Around Me When I'm Reading

My friend dragged me to some social place, so I was doing my usual thing and was curled up in a corner with an amazing book when people begin to interupt me. This is what you should never do when you're near an Alisa with a book.

1.  Try and involve me in an intense philosophical debate about homosexual rights. They should be able to do whatever and whomever they want. End of discussion. Go away now.

2. Eat annoyingly loud food items around me. These include: chips, cookies,candy, Asian food, Mexican food, European food, African food, Australian food, Antarctic food, American food, gum, or anything slightly edible. Get it away from the book.

3. Walk very slowly in front of me. I'm reading a book. I don't want to be distracted by someone's footsteps.

4. Tell me to be more "social". Don't even try.

5. Talk on your phone. No. I don't care who broke up with whom.

6. Try and engage a conversation with me. This will result in my amazingly terrifying glare and you slowly backing up.

7. Talk with anyone.

8. Bumping into me and claiming you don't see me. I've been in the same place for at least an hour. It's not a shock if you've already passed me twice.

9.  Laugh.

10. Whistle.

11.  Walk a pet near me.

12. Blink.

13. Crack your neck.

14. Look at me.

15.  Move

16.  Breathe.

I don't see how hard this is...

Well, maybe a little. And people wonder why I'm always in my room.

Read More