Tempest Unleashed by Tracy Deebs

Goodreads Blurb

Tempest Maguire is happy with her decision to embrace her mermaid nature and live among her mother’s clan within the ocean’s depths. Even though training to one day ascend the throne for the aging mermaid queen is rigorous, she finds refuge in the arms of Kona, the selkie who first opened her up to her mermaid side. But when word comes that one of her brothers has been gravely injured on land, Tempest immediately rushes to his side—which also brings her back to her old flame, Mark. And in her absence, a deadly battle begins raging at the hands of Tempest’s old nemesis, the sea witch Tiamat. As the dangerous war erupts, Tempest’s two loves—Kona and Mark, sea and land—will collide for the first time, both to protect her and to force her to choose.

I know I was supposed to review Lost Code but I couldn’t get into it. I think it was because it was around 11 PM…But anyways, I started reading Tempest Unleashed soo…here’s my review!

Unfortunately, I did not love it, or even like it. It had a good plot, but the characters! Tempest seemed incredibly annoying, naïve and thought she knew everything. It just annoyed the hell out of me when she made everyone feel guilty when she was the one who was wrong. Really…she also kept switching from Kona to Mark. From Mark to Kona. From Kona to Mark. From Mark to…you get the point. It really did annoy me, even more when she said that she loved them both. And (SPOILER NEXT) I can’t believe she abandoned Kona when he needed her most. Instead she picked Mark of ALL PEOPLE. Obviously, I’m Team Kona here. (SPOILER END) But even so…I just couldn’t fathom how Tempest could be so oblivious, naïve, unforgiving, and smart-mouthed (when she really shouldn’t be).

The plot was great and fun and Tempest learned more about her mom, and though she didn’t completely forgive her mom, she started understanding just a bit more. She practices her powers more, learning both how to use them and trying to discover how to defeat Tiamat once and for all. I loved how Tracy Deebs described how Tempest channeled her power and I absolutely adore the underwater world she created! It was enchanting how all the pieces came together in their world and I found it just a tad amusing how all the “land-lubbers” didn’t have a clue! Except Mark, but he’s another story

All in all, it would’ve been a pretty good book (4 stars?), but I highly disliked Tempest in this book, so it dropped by 2 stars. I feel as if, even though Tracy Deebs did do a good job writing the story, Tempest was too…irritating. And characters are a MAJOR part of my reviews so…it’s just how it happened.

Pages: 352

Series: Tempest #2

Genre: Fantasy/Romance

Publisher: Walker Childrens

Release: June 5

Rating: 2 stars 

"My breath hitched, as if my gills had suddenly stopped working.If it makes you feel better, I kind of scared myself too.
That doesn't make me feel better at all, actually. He skimmed his mouth along my jaw, paused to nibble at my right ear. I jumped a little, tangling my fingers in his hair and pulling him closer as delicious shivers worked their way down my spine."

Blog Tour: Contingency by P.S. Martinez+Giveaway!

Get To Know Author P.S. Martinez in 10 Questions!)

(And don't forget! You can win a STUNNING necklace below!)

Favorite book:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Favorite Movies:

Bettlejuice, The Godfather, Adventures in Babysitting, & Braveheart.

Guilty pleasure TV shows:

Vampire Diaries, The Bachelor, & my hubby makes me watch Call of the Wildman. O_o

Things your addicted to:

Besides books? Dr. Pepper, Lip Smackers lip gloss, Slim Jims, and buying nail polish.

Favorite quote:

"Be a fruitloop in a world full of cheerios."

Best piece of advice you’ve ever received:

Dont let your circumstances determine your success, let your hard work and determination do that.

Favorite authors:

Karen Marie Moning, Charlaine Harris, Maria V. Snyder, and so many others.

Dream vacation:

At least 2 weeks in either Greece or Ireland.

Actor crush:

Denzel Washington (dont tell my hubby!)

What kind of jobs have you had:

My first job was at a daycare when I turned 15, and I had that job until I went to college. Ive worked as an apartment manager, Dunkin Donuts Assistant manager, and now my favorite job is taking care of and homeschooling my five amazing children. Ive also sold Avon, Scentsy, and had my own natural soap & gift basket company. But, writing has always been my first love.

 

Contingency Blurb:

Eighteen-year-old Sage Hannigan wants to get back to her own time, preferably one that hasn’t been destroyed by an underworld plot brewing in Edwardian-era South Carolina. How hard can it be?
All she has to do is:

1. Learn to use newly acquired warping skills to bend time to her will.
2. Take out a few rogue vampires.
3. Join an ancient secret society.
4. Figure out who is putting the time stream in jeopardy.
5. Find and maim whoever invented the corset.

Sage never asked to be chosen by the Druid Priestess, Amerach, to become a Warper and she never asked to have the future hanging on her shoulders or to warp a hundred years into the past. She certainly never asked to meet Dr. Aldwin Blake, who would make her question her desire to get back to her own time. But if she fails her mission, people will die, history will change, and the present she wishes to return to will be no more.
Unfortunately, not all boogiemen are bad guys, and not all good guys live up to the title.

Short Author Bio:

Hello! My name is Peggy & I am happily married to my best friend, Omar, who loves me despite my penchant for spending too much money on books. I am a writer, book lover, sponge bob addicted, movie quoting freak & proud of it! 

   I have five wonderful children. David is my 11 year old son who loves all things fantasy like his momma...and unfortunately also shares my love of sarcasm. I have four beautiful girls; Olivia, Madelynn, Julianna, & Analise. All with their own personalities and quirks which make me love them all the more! We have been homeschooling for 3 years now & LOVE it.

The Giveaway:

What you can win:

Enter to Win:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Beta by Rachel Cohn (Bit of a Spoiler...Vague Spoilers)

Goodreads Blurb

In a world constructed to absolute perfection, imperfection is difficult to understand—and impossible to hide.
Elysia is a clone, created in a laboratory, born as a sixteen year old girl, an empty vessel with no life experience to draw from. She is a Beta, an experimental model of teenaged clone. She was replicated from another teenage girl, who had to die in order for Elysia to be created.
Elysia's purpose is to serve the inhabitants of Demesne, an island paradise for the wealthiest people on earth. Everything about Demesne is bioengineered for perfection. Even the air there induces a strange, euphoric high that only the island's workers—soulless clones like Elysia—are immune to.
At first, Elysia's new life on this island paradise is idyllic and pampered. But she soon sees that Demesne's human residents, the most privileged people in the world who should want for nothing, yearn. And, she comes to realize that beneath its flawless exterior, there is an undercurrent of discontent amongst Demesne's worker clones. She knows she is soulless and cannot feel and should not care—so why are overpowering sensations clouding Elysia's mind?
If anyone discovers that Elysia isn't the unfeeling clone she must pretend to be, she will suffer a fate too terrible to imagine. When Elysia's one chance at happiness is ripped away from her with breathtaking cruelty, emotions she's always had but never understood are unleashed. As rage, terror, and desire threaten to overwhelm her, Elysia must find the will to survive.

One line review: Beta was an enjoyable read, but I didn't LOVE it as much as I hoped I would. (P.S. sorry if I'm redundant. I've been tired lately for no reason...also. I have a book hangover. Read Pushing the Limits, loved it, so all books seem a bit dim to me right now.)

There was a lot of description in her writing and I'm not quite sure...is that good or bad? I mean, Elysia is a clone so she would think of things in descriptive ways, but it just got on my nerves sometimes. But otherwise Beta was written beautifully! What I liked was that a lot of things were well thought out. Like how one side of the face got the purple fleur-de-lis tattoo to announce that they were clones and the other got a different tattoo, telling what their specific job was. And how the process of creating a clone was where a dead body had to go through the process in 48 hours etc.  It just seemed like the world was real the way there were no small holes in the logic! Wait. Did that make sense?

The thing I didn't really enjoy were the characters. One moment, Elysia seemed like the (supposedly) unemotional clone she should've been then an actual human. Sure, half the book she was supposed feel, but even in the beginning, she just switched back and forth and it just annoyed me. (And near the end when she accepts Alexander...she's been fighting to be her own person..but suddenly she accepts him because he's an excellent solution? And because "she" isn't there so it's Elysia's for the taking? What?) And Tahir...well he was OK, but it wasn't really explained why he acted like himself after he met Elysia...

As for the romance...it just seemed a bit sudden, and it didn't feel like actual feelings were there. More like..they were there so they fell in love. That was kind of my feeling for the entire book since their "romance" came to light. Elysia just seemed extremely desperate to love someone and Tahir was there. (Redundance...) But...eh.

Pages: 304

Series: Beta #1

Genre: Dystopian/Romance

Publisher: Hyperion

Release: October 16

Rating: 3 stars

"My heart suddenly beats faster, as if I am being threatened, when I know I am only being reassured about my duties. "I do not wish," I state. "I serve."

Waiting on Wednesday!

Yup! i'm now participating on Waiting on Wednesday which seems like a fun way to tell others about books we're absoltuley DYING for!!! I have so many I can't wait to read, but the #1 one is...

 Mystic City by Theo Lawrence

For fans of Matched, The Hunger Games, X-Men, and Blade Runner comes a tale of a magical city divided. A political rebellion ignited. A love that was meant to last forever.

Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud—and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths. But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place. Only when Aria meets Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic from the Depths, does she start to have glimmers of recollection—and to understand that he holds the key to unlocking her past. The choices she makes can save or doom the city—including herself.


Doesn't it just sound AMAZING!?! AGH.

Goodsies and Badsies OVER

I've decided not to do Goodsies and Badsies anymore for personal reasons (and because it's not fun anymore) so I'll be erasing ALL Goodsies and Badsies posts! I'll still partake in some other memes, but not this one now. Sorry!

For Darkness Shows the Stars

Goodreads Blurb

It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.
Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth--an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.
But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret--one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she's faced with a choice: cling to what she's been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she's ever loved, even if she's lost him forever.

My reaction when I finished:

HOLY SHIZZLERS. That was awesome. Let me read it again! Sequel please? NO SEQUEL?!?!? DIE.

Yeah, that was me. For Darkness Shows the Stars was an amazing dystopian romance that just stunned me! It had everything I loved, strong characters, an amzing plot, an exciting romance, secrets, and one cold off-limits boy. SQUEAL TIME.

I absolutely loved the characters. Elliot knows what her duty is, what her birthright is as a Luddite. And that sense of duty was what kept her from running away with her childhood friend and first crush/love, Kai. She sacrificed a lot to be able to take care of the Posts becasue she knew her family wouldn't. So she gave up the one person she never wanted to. Now THAT takes a lot and it shows how strong and loyal she is. Although Kai definitely thinks something else. Speaking of Kai, I think Diana wrote his character SO WELL. I actually did want to strangle him for being so insanely cruel to Elliot, but I guess that was the point! Eventually he warmed up (thank goodness), but hey, I'm not telling you if they end up together or not. Kai really did get hurt and I was at war with myself. Hate him? Or pity him? ARGH. But trust me, you're going to LOVE him!

The world was just wonderfully made and I never felt as if it was too far-fetched or too stupid or just too fake. Everything was just vividily described like the Star Caverns and the Cliffs...ESPECIALLY the Star Caverns! The world of FDSTS just fascinated me and I wanted to know more of the history immediately! Not many things were left for us to draw our own conclusions when it came to how the world of FDSTS came about and that just made me love this book even more!

The romance was slow even though Kai and Elliot were childhood sweethearts! They had to start from Step 1 all over again which was harder than most because of their past. And it just HURT every time Kai said something cruel or meaningful about Elliot. I can't count how man times I wanted to kill Kai. Honestly, there wasn't much kissing (1 kiss maybe?), and usually that makes me feel as if the "romance" isn't a romance at all, but in FDSTS it felt natural. I doubt just anyone can do that.

As a retelling of Persuasion by Jane Austen, I was delightfuly surprised by how Diana Peterfreund managed to insert some of her own sci-fi and dystopian flavors in it! Not many (if any) people have tried to rewrite the story of Persuasion and even if I haven't read the original, I think Diana did an AMAZING job, and although I didn't exactly LOVE it (I don't know hwy, but there was something I didn't like...I just can't put my finger on it), I'm desperately hoping she changes her mind or writes another post-FDSTS short story! Here's to hoping!

Pages: 398
Series: Stand-alone *cries*
Genre: Dystopia/Sci-fi/Retelloing/Romance
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: June 12

Rating: 4 stars

"No. Kai. No, not her Kai. Elliot stared at Kai in horror. He was still dancing around on the ledge, but he noticed her and froze. His arms dropped to his sides. Even across the gulf of years and distance, he could read her. His smile faded. His mouth opened."