Thursday, December 30, 2010

Follow my Book Blog Friday


Hosted by Parajunkee's View:
Hi welcome to Follow Friday! Let me tell you what is going on today. For New Years we are having a light hop...you can choose to join in if you would like, but I know that everyone is going to be super busy. I didn't want to stop it, in case people were banking on me having one, but I don't have a feature for today. I will ask a question though? WHAT ARE YOUR NEW YEARS BOOK BLOGGING RESOLUTIONS?

My book blogging resolutions are as follows:

  • Post more regularly
  • Comment more when I visit blogs
  • I hope to continue to bring honest and interesting reviews for my followers
  • Learn more about HTML

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Back from Holidays

I'm back from a great holiday at Melbourne, Australia.

Over the Christmas period I went to Melbourne to have a holiday with the in-laws and see the Ashes at Melbourne cricket ground. Congratualtions to all the English supporters on retaining the Ashes. The English team performed really well. Since I'm an Aussie it was a bit disappointing though.

Ricky Ponting

Photo: Ricky Ponting's walk of shame

Unexpectedly I don't have a lot of reviews to post because I haven't been reading much. Weird I know! My husband and I have been thinking of buying a house so we have been doing quite a bit to do with that and I got a new job!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Review: Shannon Delany - 13 to life - book 1


Shannon Delany - 13 to life - book 1


Book Description

Everything about Jessie Gillmansen’s life changed when her mother died. Now even her hometown of Junction is changing. Mysterious dark things are happening. All Jessie wants is to avoid more change. But showing a hot new guy around Junction High, she’s about to discover a whole new type of change. Pietr Rusakova is more than good looks and a fascinating accent—he’s a guy with a dangerous secret. And his very existence is sure to bring big trouble to Jessie’s small town. It seems change is the one thing Jessie can’t avoid…

Summary

When a new student comes to Junction High, the mysterious Russian-American turns Jessica's world completely around. At first Jessica can’t stand Pietr, but as she gets to know him she can’t deny the attraction between them. Soon she is drawn into his world and her belief that she has been through the worst she could imagine, when her mother died is tested.

Review

Jessica Gillmansen is now one of my favourite protagonists. She is fun loving, caring, funny, altruistic, brave, hardworking and smart. Her only downfall from being a great role model is her propensity to lie a lot, even though she usually means well. I also loved how Jessica didn't instantly fall for the love interest Pietr. She only started to when she found out more about him. This was a refreshing change from some of the books I've been reading lately. 

The story was fascinating. The twists and turns were making me dizzy but it was so interesting I couldn’t stop for a rest. As we progress through we find out more and more about the characters as they reveal their secrets and history. Some revelations are easy to anticipate while others left me gob smacked. The only negative aspect I can comment on is the relatively slow way the plot progresses.

One other aspect I didn’t particularly like was the two guys (Derek and Pietr) that Jess liked. Both had (in my opinion) annoying traits that stopped me from getting attached to them. Derek was a classic ‘jock’ character who, after saying he liked Jess, quickly moved onto kissing and dating another girl (for Jessica's sake, of course). Pietr was not as bad but he was very self pitying and after being (fairly easily) pushed into a relationship with Jess’s best friend (by Jess...long story), he later seemed to be quite happy to keep dating her (and later kissing her), while maintaining that Jess was the one he wanted. 

There were quite a few questions that were left unanswered at the end of the book but there was no real cliff-hanger instead it just ended quite suddenly. However, once I reached the ending I didn’t feel really anxious to read the next book as I suspected I would be. I will be reading it when it comes out though.

My rating out of 5

4/5

Friday, December 3, 2010

Finally finished University for the year

I have finally finished Uni for the year, which is very exciting for me.

I'm going to have a lot more time for reading and blogging in the immediate future so look out for all the book reviews.

I will be going on holidays for a week over Christmas and I won't be able to post during this time but I'm sure I'll have lots of books to catch you up on when I get back.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010


Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Go check out Breaking the Spine if you are interested in participating in Waiting on Wednesday! This week's book:

Secrets of the demon by Diana Rowland 
Publication Date: January 4, 2011


Book description

Homicide detective Kara Gillian has a special talent: she can sense the "arcane" in our world, and there's quite a bit of it, even in Beaulac, Louisiana. She's also a summoner of demons, and works on a task force that deals with supernatural crimes. Her partners are attractive and smart FBI agents, but they're not summoners, and they're not telling Kara why they are on this special force with her.

TO make things worse, Kara has pledged herself to one of the most powerful of demons-a Demon Lord-who helped save her partner's life, but now expects things in return. Meanwhile, she's trying to solve a string of murders that are somehow tied together by money, sex, rock music and...mud. But how can she concentrate on the case when she's not even sure who-or what-her partners are?