After a ravaging war, Bethany and her family are forced to flee to Envado. There, women are safe from the oppressive rule of male owners. When her pursuers draw too close, Bethany stays behind to buy her sisters time to escape and she's captured.
She's turned over to a depraver who tarnishes her. Now bald, branded, and barren, she's worth less than the shadow she casts. From this lowly place she leads the tarnished to overthrow the Grand Chancellor--the man behind Chardonia's oppressive rules against women and the tarnished. If they fail to defeat him and his supporters, all will be lost.
The Beat the Heat Readathon runs from August 24th at 12:00 AM to September 6th at 11:59 PM. What does this readathon entail, you ask? Well, read as much or as little as you want – the main point is to READ! You set your own goal, and for three weeks you read as many books as you can/want to reach your goal!
There will be mini-challenges throughout the Readathon for participants, along with a grand prize giveaway at the end!
Sign up here at Novel Heartbeat or over at Phantasmic Reads. You may join whenever you like, but to be eligible for our grand prize giveaway, you must sign up by August 28th.
To join, all you have to do is make a sign-up post – even if it’s just a “Let’s do this!” thing – and add your post URL to the linky below! You can put your goals and progress (will be required for the final giveaway) in your sign-up post, or you can make it separate. Totally up to you! (You are welcome to use the template we provide in the kick-off post as well.)
In order to enter for the grand prize, you must have a post to keep track of your progress so we can see that you participated.
Follow along on Twitter and share your progress with the hashtag #BtHReadathon!
August 24th:
Currently Reading: Whispered Echoes
Pages Read: 36%
Completed Books: 0
August 25th:
Currently Reading: Whispered Echoes
Pages Read: Finished the last 64%
Completed Books: 1 August 26th: Currently Reading: Undead and The Witches of BlackBrook Pages Read: 74 pages of Undead and 22% of The Witches of BlackBrook Completed Books: 0 August 27th: Currently Reading:The Witches of BlackBrook and Strings Binding my Doll Pages Read: 12% TWOB (Close to DNF it) and all 100% of Strings Binding my Doll Completed Books: 1 August 28th: Currently Reading: Undead Pages Read: 37 Completed Books: 0 August 29th: This was my husbands day off so I didn't read but spend all my time with him Currently Reading: Nothing Pages Read: None Completed Books: 0 August 30th: Currently Reading: Undead and Game On Pages Read: TBA Completed Books: TBA
Not bad so far but I want to do better next week! Here's the links to the books I've read and reviewed-
Books for Nothing is where I’ll be updating you guys on free Kindle reads.
I downloadtons of Freebies weekly and sometimes I’m too lazy to let you guys know about the tons of books I get on I am a Book Hoarder, so I decided to create this! That way you guys can enjoy the awesomeness too as who doesn’t love the word free!
*Note: If some aren't free they became non-free after I scheduled this post
Paranormal Public (Paranormal Public #1) by Maddy Edwards
Publication Date: December 25th, 2013
Genre: New Adult Paranormal
~Summary~
There is no such thing as a mage. There is certainly no such thing as a vampire, pixie, werewolf, or fallen angel. And they certainly do not all attend a college together called Paranormal Public University.
One minute Charlotte Rollins is a normal girl about to go to a normal college. She is at once excited and nervous, getting ready to start this new phase in her life. The next minute she is a freshman not at a normal college, but at Paranormal Public University, a school where paranormals of all kinds must co-exist. Charlotte must learn magic, that is, if she could actually do magic, which unlike every other mage at Public she can’t seem to manage.
Her transition to this new and wonderful world is difficult. On top of trying to learn magic, make new friends, and confront forbidden love, the archenemy of the paranormals, the demons, are getting stronger. They are looking for something. It turns out that Charlotte might just hold the key to finding it.
Can Charlotte get a handle on her powers in time to save the school she loves? Can she fulfill a destiny the paranormals scarcely dared to hope for? Or will she be too late?
The future can be a dangerous place when you changed the past....
15 minutes is all the Rewind Agency gives a person when they travel to the past, but for Lara Crane it’s enough for her to race through the city, find her mother, and stop her from being killed in a mugging that happened over ten years ago.
But the story she’s been told all her life is a lie. When Lara takes a bullet meant for her mother, her future changes forever. A new house, new friends and a new boyfriend turns Lara’s life upside down. She thinks if she can save her father from prison, reunite him with her mother, everything will be fine.
15 Minutes is an edgy high octane YA thriller where the people Lara trusts change in an instant. She is in a timeline she doesn't understand, and is about to make one fatal mistake as she faces an enemy so familiar, he’s family.
Shadowmen wait around every corner to feed on her fear…
Stuck working at the family food truck for the summer, Sukhi cannot wait to rid herself from the eau de Cajun spices that haunt her every step - like the headaches that come with each storm. Storms that bring moving shadows that turn into men who want something from her.
Here’s her choice: family voodoo or lose the fight. Trinkets, Evil eye and dolls made of strings, Sukhi never believed in but now absorbs every bit of knowledge her grandmother gives. Yet it comes with a price. The old woman’s life essence drains little by little every time Sukhi learns something new.
And so begins the race against time to truly be part of the family before her grandmother’s last breath. Girls & Ghosts is a Standalone series so this can be read by itself Amazon
~My Thoughts~ Though I'm sad that this is the end of this series, Anne couldn't have ended it with a better story! Strings Binding My Doll may have been subtle with the ghosts then the previous books but this story was more than that! It's about a girl who finds her voice in a hectic world. Sukhi and her family were hit by Katrina and now they bustle to get a new house built in time so the grandmother can go peacefully in her own room and to see them succeed after the devastate. But fate of course has other plans. I absolutely loved the voodoo aspect! It's why Sukhi can see the shadowmen, it's her turn to take over the "family business". I really enjoyed this story and though the ending was heartbreaking, it was perfect. Go Sukhi! Overall in just a short amount of pages I was able to get connected to these characters, that just shows how amazing Anne is as a writer! I can't get enough of her work! They take you to another world and I never want to leave them!
*Was given a copy from the author in exchange for my honest review*
~Girls & Ghosts Series~ Cursing at the Sky (Girls & Ghosts #1) Melancholy of Souls (Girls & Ghosts #2) ~Praises~ "Ina's pain is visible and through Anne's words and storytelling it isn't hard for her pain to seep into your own bones." Cursing at the Sky- Ashley from Paranormal Sisters "Melancholy of Souls is by far my favorite out of Anne's work! And all her other work are amazing too, so they're not far behind this one. All I've got to say is that she just keeps getting better with time, just like a fine wine!" Melancholy of Souls- Ashley from Paranormal Sisters
~About The Author~
She who likes dark things never grew up. She never stopped listening to gothic, industrial and alternative bands like when she was fifteen. She always loved to read horror and dystopia and fantasy, where doom and gloom drip from the pages.
She, who was supposed to make films, decided to write short stories, novelettes and novels instead. She, who's had her films listed on festival programs, has been printed in a dozen anthologies and magazines since. She, who always dreamed of making a feature film, is having her novels published.
She who likes dark things prefers night to day, rain to sun, and reading to anything else.
Debut author Dawn Kurtagich is dead on in this terrifying psychological thriller!
Over two decades have passed since the fire at Elmbridge High, an inferno that took the lives of three teenagers. Not much was known about the events leading up to the tragedy - only that one student, Carly Johnson, vanished without a trace...
...until a diary is found hidden in the ruins.
But the diary, badly scorched, does not belong to Carly Johnson. It belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, a girl who shouldn't exist Who was Kaitlyn? Why did she come out only at night? What is her connection to Carly?
The case has been reopened. Police records are being reexamined: psychiatric reports, video footage, text messages, e-mails. And the diary.
The diary that paints a much more sinister version of events than was ever made publicly known.
~About the Author~
Dawn Kurtagich is a writer of creepy, spooky and psychologically sinister YA fiction, where girls may descend into madness, boys may see monsters in men, and grown-ups may have something to hide. Her debut YA novel, The Dead House, is forthcoming from Orion/Indigo (UK) and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (US) in 2015.
By the time she was eighteen, she had been to fifteen schools across two continents. The daughter of a British globe-trotter and single mother, she grew up all over the place, but her formative years were spent in Africa—on a mission, in the bush, in the city and in the desert.
She has been lucky enough to see an elephant stampede at close range, a giraffe tongue at very close range, and she once witnessed the stealing of her (and her friends’) underwear by very large, angry baboons. (This will most definitely end up in a book . . . ) While she has quite a few tales to tell about the jumping African baboon spider, she tends to save these for Halloween!
When she was sixteen, she thought she'd be an astronomer and writer at the same time, and did a month-long internship at Cambridge's prestigious Cavendish Laboratories.
She writes over at the YA Scream Queens, a young adult blog for all things horror and thriller, and she is a member of the YA League.
The first teen book I ever read was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban. The first MG book I ever read was Animorphs (the Animorphs series is amazing—go read it!)
I love cold weather and I adore the rain. I'd rather traipse through the mud on a hill than walk down the street. I'd rather get lost in the woods than lost in London.
I love colours with a blinding passion, but mostly I only wear black.
Things I find fascinating: mirrors, corridors, oddly shaped doors, balconies, forests, the weather, siblings, stickers, post-its, outsider art, art of the insane, Henry Darger, cellos, gum-wrapper chains (I make them), dolls, heavy ornamentation, extremisms, body modification, life, death.
The Dead House is my debut novel, but not my first novel. It is the book I wrote to explore the issues that came up for me when I was dying. The main character, Kaitlyn, isn't sure she exists. I wasn't sure I did, then, either.
Whispered Echoes (Whispered Echoes #1) by Anne Michaud
Publication Date: September 24th, 2015
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Format: ebook
Source: Author
Read: August 24th to 25th, 2015
~Summary~
After years of being haunted by her sister's ghost, Alyx must choose between saving her friends or keeping the only family she loves.
Alyx lost everything in the fire, her family, her home, her freedom, but she discovered something, too: something lurking in the darkness. To protect her from harm, the ghost of her dead sister haunts the walls of the mental institution holding Alyx captive for the last 9 years. But even she can’t help when patients suddenly act possessed and turn against Alyx, who must find the strength and knowledge to rid them of evil and save their lives.
After a narrow escape from the institution, Transcend welcomes Alyx in with opened arms since she’s the daughter of a former star agent; her mother. They hope to teach her ghost seer abilities to help them keep the leaders of the world in check and give her a normal life. With her friends and newly acquired knowledge, Alyx prepares to battle against evil, but when facing her greatest enemy yet, everything she knows might not be enough to save the people she loves. No matter what her choices, the consequences will be paid in blood – maybe her own.
~My Thoughts~
I love how it starts with action and ends with action! It made me interested, pulling me in to figure out what's happening in Alyx's life! I didn't know what I was expecting, honestly I never know when it comes to Anne, but I've come to expect amazing things from her! This was not doubt amazing! Whispered Echoes was a fun, ghost adventure and I cannot wait to get to the rest of the series! Alyx can see ghost just like her mother and because of this reason, she has lived in a mental hospital for the last nine years. Her whole family died in a freak fire and she was the only one to survive, so her guardian became her uncle and he's a nonbeliever which is how she ended up in the mental hospital. I felt absolutely horrible for her because she isn't crazy, she really can see ghost- but how can you prove it to nonbelievers?
We find out that the last few months at the hospital have turned for the worst ever since a new doctor came to the place. Her friends are changing and she needs to escape before they get to her too. Y'all, her trying to escape was intense! I was sitting on the edge of my seat!
Once she escapes she goes to the one place that's deemed safe or is it really? It's an academy for those who can see the spirits, it's where her mother worked. But y'all, this place seems shady! And I'm not just talking about the way they do things up front, like use ghost to get information on a politician then selling it to their opponent for money. I know they say they're doing good but really, something smells fishy. But Alyx doesn't care, she's only here for one reason, to find a way to expel the ghost that posses her friends.
Along the way she meets amazing friends, I got quite attached which is why I was sitting on the edge of my seat at the end of the book. I need to read the next one soon to make sure everything is okay! Skye is her colorful roommate, she's there by her side and Lucky Lukas, well I wasn't surprised when he showed up after their first encounter haha. Can't wait to see how that all plays out! I think it's adorable how into ghost he is without being able to see them.
Overall Whispered Echoes was an enjoyable read! I could not put it down, except this one time after the shocked twist of turns at the end of ch. 16! Ohmigod, I did not see that coming! I was reading it and I was like, is that person going to do what I think they're going to do? I was literally scooting to the edge of my seat as I was reading it! And then that person did what I thought they were going to do and y'all, I could not process what was happening! My mind was shocked and blown, I could not continue till my brain was able to process what just happened! Here is what my reaction was when I read that twist-
Anne has done it again, that scene gave my goosebumps all along my arms! This story brought chills to my spine and reading at night, y'all I swear I was being watched! haha Cannot wait to get to the sequel!
*Was given a copy from the author in exchange for my honest review*
Although Elea’s the most powerful necromancer in history, she’s spent most of her nineteen years imprisoned in the Midnight Cloisters. Enchanted manacles keep her unique brand of soul magick in check. While the guards and initiates seem contented to torment her, the Cloister’s Mother Superior is obsessed with finding a safe way to destroy Elea, both body and soul.
Escape seems impossible until a handsome hunter named Asher offers to help. Elea takes a chance and soon develops feelings for the mysterious stranger. However, Asher may not be who he claims. Then again, Elea may not be, either…
Christina graduated from Syracuse University's Newhouse School with BA's in English as well as Television, Radio, and Film Production. Her day job is in marketing for companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and Brainshark. Back in the go-go 90′s, she founded her own software start-up, Mindful Technologies. Christina believes that, upon close examination of Tolkien's text, it's entirely possible that the Balrog was wearing fuzzy bunny slippers.
The Angel Killer (The Watcher Saga #2) by Lisa Voisin
Release Date: 01/05/15
Inkspell Publishing
286 pages
Summary from Goodreads:
Now that she’s found him again, all Mia Crawford wants is some downtime with her fallen angel boyfriend, Michael. But the call of duty keeps him away—from school and from her—with more demons to smite than ever.
When Michael is mortally wounded by a cursed sword, Mia must perform an ancient blood ritual to save him. But the spell exacts a price. Haunted by visions of war, torture, and despair, Mia discovers the world is in more danger than she ever imagined. Behind the scenes, an evil adversary pulls all the strings.
After redemption, there’s Hell to pay.
~Excerpt~
Light from the near-full moon shimmers off the leaves of sycamore trees, and the scent of pomegranate hangs in the air. Though my footfalls are silent on the hard-packed earth, Hell is never far away. Nor is that blood-stained rack that was my prison for millennia. The memory of my master’s claws still stings my throat; the poison of his hate burns below the skin. Perhaps it always will. The only reality I’ve come to know is that my pain satisfies him.
Anka sleeps on a grass mat, her lithe, young form curled into a fetal position on the roof of her family’s mud brick house. Strands of her long, black hair are stuck to her cheekbones from the heat. The girl is old enough to be married but will be taken to the temple of Seth in the morning instead. Rumors of her prophetic dreams have secured her place as an oracle. Such a gift interests my master too, and as influential as Seth is among the Egyptian people, he’s a false god, my master’s rival. A demon warlord just like him.
Her father snores deeply, but the stifling air makes her mother fitful. The woman twists and turns. Does she anticipate me? I stand over the girl and contemplate how to take her without waking them. Their terror alone would sound a call to all the scavengers along the Nile, and my master wants her soul intact. More power that way. In servitude or sacrifice, souls are the fuel that builds empires.
My hand hovers over her nose and mouth, and her soft breath tickles my skin. I could suffocate her while she dreams, a silent, seemingly natural death. Or I could carve out her heart, a symbolic gesture. He’d take pleasure in that. If I’m fast enough, she won’t have time to cry out or wake the others. I run my fingers over the middle of her chest and extend my claws.
A Canadian-born author, Lisa Voisin spent her childhood daydreaming and making up stories, but it was her love of reading and writing in her teens that drew her to Young Adult fiction. In her spare time, she teaches meditation. So when she's not writing, you'll find her meditating or hiking in the mountains to counter the side effects of drinking too much coffee. She lives in Vancouver, B.C. with her fiance and their two cats.
