Double-Stacked Bookshelves

I have to say that I was completely surprised by Julia London's The Secret Lover ...in a good way!  Reading the synopsis kind of left me feeling ho-hum, but it definitely didn't do the story justice.  I'll admit, the beginning of the book was rather slow, but it really picked up and I thoroughly liked the characters and how things played out.  Good deal! Lover follows Sophie Dane and her journey and re-entrance into London Society (which she adamantly wanted to avoid) after eight years of absence.  For reasons that are explained fairly early on, Sophie has been ostracized from her family and high society and has been living as a companion to an older, wealthy woman, Honorine, in France (among other places).  Soon Honorine decides that she wants to travel to London and that Sophie must accompany her.  Thus begins to harrowing journey and Sophie's not so seamless appearance back in London.  However, she soon finds herself on the receiving end of one o...

Jude Deveraux's TheDuchess , yet another in the Montgomery series (which I will completely knock out one of these days) was a pretty decent read.  While I didn't quite enjoy it as much as some of the others, I did like the fact that it was a quick read with characters that I believed. Duchess tells the story of Claire Willoughby and her journey to finding a "suitable" husband, as declared by her grandfather.  Claire finds Harry Montgomery, the Duke of MacArran, and a seemingly perfect fit for her grandfather's stipulations.  The engagement is announced and Claire and her family move into the historic castle of her intended.  While there, some interesting things occur.  Claire is thrust into the mix of an extremely eccentric bunch of people, all of whom inhabit the castle.  A mysterious man, Trevelyan, appears in the countryside who draws Claire like a magnate.  Harry starts to show some of his true colors.  People's feelings and true circumstan...

Markus Zusak's Getting the Girl follows the hardships of Cameron Wolfe, the youngest of the four Wolfe siblings, who is constantly in his brother, Ruben's, shadow.  Cameron is considered by most to be the least productive of his family, as well as the child with the least potential.  He is always trying to prove himself in one way or another, yet he keeps his true self buried deep inside for fear of familial reactions.  Ruben, on the other hand, is a cocky ladies man who women seem to love despite his notoriously slick attitude.  Because of this, Cameron looks up to his brother, even going so far as to develop feelings for some of Ruben's previous girlfriends.  When Octavia, one of Ruben's many conquests, comes into the picture, Cameron falls hard.  He spends his time fantasizing about Octavia and becoming increasingly jealous of Ruben.  Only this time Ruben's picked the wrong girl to pursue and he's soon on the wrong end of a verbally abusive tirade ...

Allie Condie's Crossed takes the reader back to Oren, or at lease back to the people who used to inhabit Oria, and the fight for control of Free Will.  The story picks up with Cassia, now exiled to the outer provinces, and her struggle to reunite with Ky and find the Rising.  It also brings us a little closer to Xander and imparts some interesting revelations about his character.  The book is full of deception, sacrifice, secrets, and testing relationships.  As the characters struggle toward personal growth and the Rising, the reader is asked to question motives and actions on a constant basis.  Who do we trust?  Who should Cassia trust?  Where is everything going to lead?  Will the Rising be everything the citizens (and the reader) want it to be?  What will happen once Cassia is fighting from WITHIN the Society?  And who will she choose?  So many questions to answer! "Everyone has something of beauty about them....You notice t...

I have to admit...I have been SUCH a blogging slacker these past few weeks.  I could blame this on the term starting up at the beginning of the month, but that's really not a good enough excuse (honestly).  I'm sitting here and I have three books that I've finished and need to post reviews for.  Those three books have been sitting next to my computer for nearly two weeks.  See what I mean?!  Terrible...just terrible.  Anywho...enough of my slacker-tude.  It's Tuesday and we all know what that means:  Teaser!  I'm just about done with Steven Tyler's book , so this teaser comes from the book I'll be starting as soon as I finish that one, Allie Condie's Crossed , the sequel to Matched . "Xander smiles and in the expression I see surprise and cunning and happiness all mingled there together.  I've surprised Xander--and myself.  I love Xander in ways that are perhaps more complicated than I first expected" (36). I can't wait to see ...

I loved, Loved, LOVED this book!  Ally Condie's Matched , the first in a trilogy, was absolutely phenomenal.  I can not recommend it more.  A young adult installation, Matched is set in a futuristic society where, basically, your entire life is mapped out for you by government officials, the Society.  There is no free choice or free will.  You dress alike.  You live alike.  Your career choice is made for you.  You stay the course to keep in the good graces of the leaders. The story starts with Cassia Reyes on the day of her seventeenth birthday.  At the age of seventeen, all children, unless otherwise chosen, are "matched" with their ideal life-partner.  The government bases the choice on what will produce the strongest offspring.  At her matching ceremony she is surprised to find out that she already knows the person she's been matched with; an unlikely occurrence.  When she finally views her match card a few days later, so...

Just finished Sarah Blakley-Cartwright's Red Riding Hood and I am not amused!  I had, I guess unreasonably, high hopes for this adaptation of the classic fairytale.  Alas, I was let down.  The story was interesting and kept me involved, however I felt completely let down by so much of the book. Hood follows the experience of Valerie and the village she lives in.  Every full moon a family must sacrifice one piece of their livestock to appease the werewolf who haunts their village.  One fateful harvest there is the rarely occurring blood moon.  This is where all the action starts.  There is a vicious killing of one of the villagers and, literally, all hell breaks loose.  The one killing leads to broken loyalties, paranoia, questions of faith, and more deaths.  Of course there is also a love triangle between Valerie, Henry, and Peter that plays into the action of the story, but the reader doesn't have to think hard to know who Valerie will e...

Having just finished Janet Evanovich's Smokin' Seventeen I have to say that I was disappointed.  Yes, it's better than the last book in the Stephanie Plum series, but they've just gone downhill for the past seven or eight books.  I hate to say that because I loved the first few, but after a while you just have to make a decision.  The love triangle is getting old, the skips all sound the same, the characters don't evolve.  It's monotonous! This book finds Stephanie, yet again, attempting to catch skips with her sidekick Lula, going back and forth between cop Morelli and security system designer Ranger, and being hunted down by a couple of people who want her dead.  It's entertaining at times (mainly when Lula is involved) and has some good scenes sprinkled throughout, but overall it's rather hum-drum.  The book does end on a nice cliffhanger that leaves the reader wondering who she is going to take with her on vacation and hints at a final decision ma...