Following your heart can be a crime
A
royal wedding means one celebration after another: balls, fireworks,
and revelry until dawn. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her
own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth
about her engagement: that she agreed to marry the crown prince in
exchange for Arin's freedom. But can Kestrel trust Arin? Can she even
trust herself?
Kestrel is becoming very good at deception. she's
working as a spy in the court. If caught, she'll be exposed as a traitor
to her country. Yet she can't help searching for a way to change her
ruthless world...and she is close to uncovering a shocking secret.
This dazzling follow-up to The Winner's Curse
reveals the high price of dangerous lies and untrustworthy alliances.
The truth will come out, and when it does, Kestrel and Arin will learn
just how much their crimes will cost them. @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
3 STARS
Well, damn.
I didn't like this book as much as I hoped. Never fear, I still liked it but . . . . . 
So
Arin FINALLY shows up at about 70? pages in and it wasn't the reunion I
was hoping for. I know that Kestrel is trying to make sure nothing
happens to Arin because if she tells him she's doing it all for him then
he will go off and be a twat and ruin everything. But, it's still no
fun.
And I was getting sick of hearing about this Risha girl, who gives a rats arse about her! Get over it!
Kestrel
made the deal with the emperor to marry his son, Verex in order to save
the Herranians. She did that at the end of the first book. Now here she
is living with them and trying to keep the wedding put off. Verex is a
nice guy and isn't too enthused about the wedding either. Not that they
don't like each other as people, they just know that the emperor twat is
using them both.
I did read a spoiler for the third book about the emperor that made me happy :-D I will be glad to read about that.
Anyhoo,
then we have Jess visiting Kestrel but she gets her panties in a wad
when she finds out Arin was there and she knew Kestrel was still in love
with him. Crap, I forgot to write down the page for the excerpt I was
going to use! The whole thing is that Arin and his people poisoned and
killed a lot of the Valorians but Arin gave Kestrel something to give
Jess to help her live. But Jess was going on and on about how could you
love him or blah blah. He took our homes and killed our people. Kestrel
was like, they weren't our homes. See the Valorians attacked the
Herranians first because they were jealous and wanted every thing they
had. I mean they were trading with each other and had a good thing going
I thought, but you know, greed and stuff. So how could Jess sit there
and blame any of these people when SHE and all of the other people were
living in the homes they had stolen and murdered families. Okay, not
Jess exactly but still. They made them into slaves. I think Arin was a
slave for like 10 years. My arse Jess, I don't like you any more for
your stupidity.
Moving on.
Kestrel was playing some
tricky games with people trying to work out something to make sure
everyone was happy.
But.................................................................................
does anything ever really work. I want to smack everyone.
Someone
better get their act together in the last book before I climb in the
book with a flame thrower and set everyone straight!
I probably left something out but my brain can't think. Oh and Kestrel's father - wth? And the baby tiger =) Fin!
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1610080145
"The Night Cyclist" by
Stephen Graham Jones is a horror novelette about a middle-aged chef
whose nightly bicycle ride home is interrupted by an unexpected
encounter. @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
5 STARS
OMG! I LOVED THIS TOR SHORT! READ IT FREE!
http://www.tor.com/2016/09/21/the-night-cyclist/
I could picture every little thing in the story and it's so much fun.
Biking through the woods in the middle of the night after working until 2
in the morning as a chef! This story rocks! I haven't read a lot of
short stories that I love and especially horror ones because it seems
they need to be longer but this one was awesome for me! 
For five nights in a row, there’d been driftwood from the creek dragged up onto the trail.
It was then I’d relented, finally started running a headlight. And the headlight was how I saw them. The bodies.
Two guys, young, floating in the shallows where the creek turns west.
The atmosphere was amazing and the actual night cyclist was
pretty awesome himself. I say no more, you must read. It's short and
free and cool so why wouldn't you =)
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1910366578
Winning what you want may cost you everything you love.
As
a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves
those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can
join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One
day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for
auction.
Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone.
Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences.
It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he,
too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid
for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.
Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse
by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at
stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your
heart. @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
4 STARS
That ending! What are Kestrel and Arin going to do now? I guess I will find out in the other books. 
Kestrel
is a Valorian and a very high ranked one as her father is a general.
Years ago the Valorian army defeated the Herrani people and turned them
into slaves. Why? Because they wanted to and that's what jerks do. These
poor people had to live as slaves in their own town and even in some of
their own homes. RUDE!
Anyway, Kestrel was out gambling one day
(she's pretty good at it) and her and her best friend, Jess end up at
the slave market. Kestrel ends up buying a slave because of reasons and a
lot of it was a set up for, reasons. <--- I love saying that in my
book reviews.
Arin is an amazing blacksmith and he's working or
Kestrel's household and there is something brewing there. Arin and
Kestrel become friends, slowly but surely.
Kestrel plays the
piano beautifully. BUT, her father wants her to go into the military.
They have a rule that Valorians have to get married or join the military
by age 21. RUDE! I mean good grief, these people don't have the lives
they want, even though they are jerks for making slaves and killing
people.
Then other things happen and there is a big war brewing, plots being made, etc . . . .
I loved Kestrel, Arin, Jess and Enai.
Kestrel
wasn't a bad@ass, she even admitted she couldn't fight even though her
father had her taking lessons for years. She just wanted to play her
music and be left alone. But she was very smart and asked her father to
let her started talking strategies and politics with him. If she's not
bad@ssed on the fighting ground at least she has a brain to think up
things better than these men. <-- Sorry boys.
Anyhoo, all of
this helps her in the end but uggggggg, why? I don't like that ending
and I hope she can get out of it but she's trying to keep everyone
alive. We shall see.
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1909309688
In this gripping
page-turner, an ex-agent on the run from her former employers must take
one more case to clear her name and save her life.
She used
to work for the U.S. government, but very few people ever knew that. An
expert in her field, she was one of the darkest secrets of an agency so
clandestine it doesn’t even have a name. And when they decided she was a
liability, they came for her without warning.
Now, she rarely
stays in the same place or uses the same name for long. They’ve killed
the only other person she trusted, but something she knows still poses a
threat. They want her dead, and soon.
When her former handler
offers her a way out, she realizes it’s her only chance to erase the
giant target on her back. But it means taking one last job for her
ex-employers. To her horror, the information she acquires only makes her
situation more dangerous.
Resolving to meet the threat head-on,
she prepares for the toughest fight of her life but finds herself
falling for a man who can only complicate her likelihood of survival. As
she sees her choices being rapidly whittled down, she must apply her
unique talents in ways she never dreamed of.
In this tautly
plotted novel, Stephenie Meyer creates a fierce and fascinating new
heroine with a very specialized skill set. And she shows once again why
she’s one of the world’s bestselling authors. @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
5 STARS
I LOVE the Twilight saga and I don't give a damn what the haters
think. But I'm not sure if I will like this book because it's not my
normal genre but I have been surprised in the past so we shall see =)
I
thought this book was awesome! I was worried at first because I'm weird
about mysteries/thrillers, sometimes I love them and sometimes not so
much. But I was pleasantly surprised that SM wrote such a great
thriller.
I just wished they could have taken all of the dogs and that's all I'm going to say on that because you need to read the book!
Dr.
Juliana Fortis has been on the run for some time. They want to kill her
for reasons. She changes names constantly and keeps on the run. She
booby-traps any place she stays in and they are some awesome booby
traps. She sleeps in a gas mask and other things. Sounds like a pretty
crap life.
Then she is pulled back in to the fold in a sense
with some information email to her by an old friend from the work place.
She decides to go after the person they want her to find because it's a
matter of life and death for millions of people.
BUT . . .
It
was a lie and she tortured a sweet man for no reason. This bothers her
to no end and said boys brother almost takes her out with the help of
his dog Einstein. He found that wasn't so easy to do =)
The
sweet brother is Daniel and the special ops brother is Kevin. He's off
the grid for reasons. And he ends up taking Daniel and Alex (Juliana) to
his hidden compound where he has a partner, Arnie, that run a guard
dog/house pet business. I love all of the dogs and all of the
characters.
But poor Daniel is an idiot. I mean you have all of
these people trying to kill you in the world and he goes off and does
something stupid. So now not only are people looking for Alex (Juliana)
and Kevin but they will take out Daniel too and anyone or thing that
gets in their way.
Yes, a lot of people die and some things
happen to the dogs. BUT, they didn't expect to run into Alex - The
Chemist, a weapon of torture and how she can take you out. I mean there
WAS these assassins but . . . .
Back to Daniel, I wanted to
smack him sideways for being so stupid. I mean yes, he's never been in
situations like Alex or his brother Kevin. But I have never been in
those situations and even my tiny brain knows not to do stupid stuff
like he did! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
I digress!
I still love Daniel because he's a really sweet person and he's a pretty decent learner and excellent with a gun =)
They
are all on the move to find and take out the target that is trying to
kill them all. All kinds of stuff goes down and in the end some of them
end up where they want to be. <-- Like that wasn't cryptic. LOL, just
read the book and you can know the whole story.
I very much
enjoyed this book. I couldn't put it down actually. I waited so long
because I felt like I was going to be bored because these kinds of books
a lot of times bore me to tears. And for some weird reason I thought we
were going to be sitting in a lab, doing boring lab stuff and blah. It
wasn't like that and it's all good so there.
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1821222761
Life in the outer realm
is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for
it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where
nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the
felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the
realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the
rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through
high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.
When
a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious
repute, Doran learns he's been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he
pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to
clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work
together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may
be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything
they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes
home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover
on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives,
but the existence of everyone in the universe... @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
5 STARS
I just thought I would take a little detour from my currently reading
and pulled this little gem off one of my tbr bookcases. I'm so glad I
did because I loved it! It felt so good to just pick something, read it
and love it!!! 
So,
Solara is trying to get across the galaxy and start a new life because
she was set up my her so called jerk boyfriend. She got in trouble, he
didn't, she got the tattoo's to prove it, he didn't. Now no one wants
anything to do with her.
She gets kicked out of the home when
she's eighteen so she's trying to get someone to pay her passage out of
there. She has no money and it costs to travel the galaxy.
She
ends up getting taken on board a ship by a bully from school named
Doran. He is a major jerk to Solara but later on in the book some stuff
happens with him and they become friends and STUFF =)
They end up
on another ship called the Banshee with a ragtag crew and OMG, I loved
them all! And little Acorn the sugar glider :-)
They have so
many close calls in the book I was getting nervous! They have a run in
with all kinds of people after them. Turns out there are two people on
board that are wanted! And someone I love dies =-(
They end up
finding out all kinds of things that Doran's father did. They are rich
because of their fuel company. And then some stuff and some other stuff
and a revelation all happens and Lord have mercy! I felt sorry for them
all for reasons. And there are evil pirates but it worked out nicely.
Heh!
It was just a feel-good book with galaxy action and all of
the places they stopped and things and people. I am so loving space
opera's - whatever you want to call them. It made me feel so happy. And
when Solara felt like she finally found a family it brought a tear to my
eye. You can actually read this excerpt on the back of the book but I
have to add it.
FAMILY.
She hadn't realized it until now, but that's
what the people on this ship were to her. At some point during this
haphazard journey, she'd fallen in love with a bespectacled
kleptomaniac, a star-crossed seducer and his displaced princess, and
most of all, an infuriating blue blood who used to call her Rattail.
She'd learned that home was a fluid thing, and whether on a planet, on a
satellite, or on a rusted bucket of a ship, this crew was her home.
*sob*
For me, all the stars! 
I look forward to the next book in this dualogy that are about two of the other crew members.
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1297692267
In a kingdom by the sea…
In a secret world where half-angel warriors are sworn to fight demons, parabatai is a sacred word.
A parabatai is your partner in battle. A parabatai is your best friend. Parabatai can be everything to each other—but they can never fall in love.
Emma
Carstairs is a warrior, a Shadowhunter, and the best in her generation.
She lives for battle. Shoulder to shoulder with her parabatai,
Julian Blackthorn, she patrols the streets of Los Angeles, where
vampires party on the Sunset Strip, and faeries—the most powerful of
supernatural creatures—teeter on the edge of open war with
Shadowhunters. When the bodies of humans and faeries turn up murdered in
the same way Emma’s parents were when she was a child, an uneasy
alliance is formed. This is Emma’s chance for revenge—and Julian’s
chance to get back his brother Mark, who is being held prisoner by the
faerie Courts. All Emma, Mark, and Julian have to do is solve the
murders within two weeks…and before the murderer targets them.
Their
search takes Emma from sea caves full of sorcery to a dark lottery
where death is dispensed. And each clue she unravels uncovers more
secrets. What has Julian been hiding from her all these years? Why does
Shadowhunter Law forbid parabatai to fall in love? Who really killed her parents—and can she bear to know the truth?
The
darkly magical world of Shadowhunters has captured the imaginations of
millions of readers across the globe. Join the adventure in Lady Midnight, the long-awaited first volume of a new trilogy from Cassandra Clare. @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
5 STARS
Okay so I'm just going to put the ole spoiler beware up here because I
think I'm just going to start spoiling on most every book I read so that
I can talk to myself about it. Ya get meh? Okay
so I loved, loved, loved that there were parts that had Jem and Tessa
from The Infernal Devices in it. I love them and I loved Jem so much so
it was really touching. I liked that it had some parts where Clary,
Jace, Magnus and Alex were in it. Not so much as Jem and Tessa because
they are just better to me.
I am absolutely in love with Mark,
the half faerie half shadowhunter that was taken in the last book of the
mortal instruments. He had to go to the faerie realm because of reasons
and now he's back to try to help the Blackthorns and Emma find who are
murdering faeries and such. If he completes this trial and they find the
murderer then he can have the choice of staying with his family or
going back to the Wild Hunt. <--- It's a faerie thing you can read
about it.
Emma Carstairs, who is a distant relation to Jem
(swoon), is living with the Blackthorns because Julian Blackthorn is her
parabatai. Their uncle is supposed to be running the home/institute but
it's really Julian and he also takes care of all his siblings. I loved
all of them too. The only thing that got on my nerves was how many times
they had to mention they were parabatai. I wanted to scream we know
already. But, I digress. 
But
then they start falling for each other and that is forbidden. It's a
LAW! And it seems for good reason as Jem states to Emma at the end of
the book. Thank goodness. I really wanted Emma to end up with Mark
because he's hot and he's a little wild like Emma. Then I thought he was
going to want Emma's best friend Cristina. Then find out he's with some
faerie dude. So, no I wasn't happy with any of this. But, the ending
might lead to what I'm hoping for!
Emma is bad to the bone. She
has trained since she was little. She really kicks arse and she's not a
brat. I never wanted to smack her like I did Clary in all the other
books. Emma is a tough warrior and does everything she can to help every
one else.
Everyone is trying to find out about these murders.
The little kids are doing research online while the others go out and
look for clues. Julian almost dies when he gets shot with a poisoned
arrow but Emma saves him.
Emma and Mark go out on their own on his steed and find more clues and kill some demons.
They
also have a warlock friend named Malcolm, he helps out where he can.
See none of them are supposed to be helping the faeries so it's all
hush-hush. It's a law and they could get in trouble with the Clave after
the Cold War 5 years ago when they set up some more laws. Sigh. They
help anyway because the same markings that are on the dead were on
Emma's parents when they were brutally killed. Plus, they want Mark
back, if he wants to come back.
Turns out there some cult out
there that put people in a lottery and if they are chosen they have to
go kill someone. And there are reasons. They have a Guardian that wants
this done for reasons and I didn't even see it coming when I found out
who the Guardian was.... I can definitely understand the Guardians
reasons for doing what they were doing. I felt sad for Emma when she
found out and also glad because she killed the Guardian. Although, they
will probably not be dead for real. They will come creeping back in the
next book!
Speaking of the next book! 
Something
wicked this way comes! I'm going to assume there will be hell on earth
because when you take an innocent person and do what they did to them . .
. um, yeah . . . I would think the Kraken is going to be released! I
can't wait to see =)
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1510315563
The terror began
unobtrusively. Noises in Regan's room, an odd smell, misplaced
furniture, and icy chill. Small annoyances for which Chris MacNeil,
Regan's actress mother, easily found explanations. The changes in
eleven-year-old Regan were so gradual, too, that Chris did not recognise
for some time how much her daughter's behaviour had altered. Even when
she did, the medical tests which followed shed no light on Regan's
symptoms, which grew more severe and frightening. It was almost as if a
different personality had invaded the child. Desperate, Chris turned
from the doctors to Father Damien Karras, a Jesuit priest who was
trained as a psychiatrist and had a deep knowledge of such phenomena as
satanism and possession. Was it possible that a demonic force was at
large? If psychiatry could not help, might exorcism be the answer? @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
4 STARS
I think I'm ready. . . Help!
Well,
maybe I'm weird but I found the movie scarier than the book. Don't get
me wrong, there are a few parts that gave me the heebie jeebies, but
overall it didn't get me like the movie. Just getting the gifs for this
freaking review had me all creeped out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This
book is very disturbing though. Reading the stuff about people in the
Black Mass and what they were doing. Uggg, no. 
I
thought about getting a copy of the movie to watch again since I have
read the book but hell no. Just NO! The only reason I wanted to watch it
again is because I wanted to see if they had some of the really
disturbing things in the movie that were in the book. I wanted to see if
they talked about all of the Black Mass stuff and different things that
were in-depth in the book because I can't remember any of that stuff it
was so long ago.
I remember when I was younger I had a
nightmare that she was coming after me on a bicycle! Lol, and it was
scary as hell and seemed real. A bicycle though, heh! 
There
is a part in the prologue that I didn't even realize was in another
part of the movie until I read the book. It was about the demon when
Father Merrin was overseas.
The man in khaki prowled the ruins. The Temple of Nabu.
The Temple of Ishtar. He sifted vibrations. At the palace of
Ashurbanipal he stopped and looked up at the limestone statue hulking in
situ. Ragged wings and taloned feet. A bulbous, jutting, stubby penis
and a mouth stretched taunt in feral grin. The demon Pazuzu.
Abruptly the man in khaki sagged.
He bowed his head.
It was coming.
He
stared at the dust and the quickening shadows. The orb of the sun was
beginning to slip beneath the rim of the world and he could hear the dim
yappings of savage dog packs prowling the fringes of the city. He
rolled his shirtsleeves down and buttoned them as a shivering breeze
sprang up. Its source was southwest.
He hastened toward Mosul
and his train, his heart encased in the icy conviction that soon he
would be hunted by an ancient enemy whose face he had never seen.
But he knew his name.
This all started when Regan started playing with the ouiji board. People, just don't do it.
Regan's
mom Chris who is a movie star let her do it because she didn't think
there was any harm in it. Although, she did have some trepidation when
Regan started talking about a "Captain Howdy."
Then things
started to happen. Chris had Regan taken to all kinds of doctors and
psych's until they finally said they need a priest. Ya think?
Chris
was able to get in touch with Father Karras through some peeps but he
had to spend time with Regan to prove to the Bishop an exorcism was
needed. The kind of proof he had to look for in the book was ridiculous.
With all of the stuff going on with Regan they must have been out of
their damn mind! That should have happened with no problems. 
And then we finally get Father Merrin =) I loved him and Karras.
As the stranger reached up to remove his hat, Chris was
nodding her head, and then suddenly she was looking into eyes that
overwhelmed her: tht shone with intelligence and kindly understanding,
with serenity that poured from them into her being like the waters of a
warm and healing river whose source was both in him and yet somehow
beyond him; whose flow was contained and yet headlong and endless.
"I'm Father Lankester Merrin," he said.
At
any rate, the movie and the book were disturbing. Both in their own
ways. The movie was scarier but the book had more detailed, disturbing
stuff. Now I can only read normal horror for awhile!! 
Enjoy!!!!
GOODREADS REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1319960502
