Contemporary Archives - Winged Reviews

reviewer: Daphne April 2nd, 2013 Contemporary, Promo, Young Adult

This is a stop for the Dear Cassie blog tour, hosted by Rockstar Book Tours! For the rest of the tour stops, please click here. There is a contest to win copies of the book below!

About DEAR CASSIE

Release: 5 March 2013
Publisher: Entangled Teen

What if the last place you should fall in love is the first place that you do?

You’d think getting sent to Turning Pines Wilderness Camp for a month-long rehabilitation “retreat” and being forced to re-live it in this journal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

You’d be wrong.

There’s the reason I was sent to Turning Pines in the first place: I got arrested. On prom night. With my two best friends, who I haven’t talked to since and probably never will again. And then there’s the real reason I was sent here. The thing I can’t talk about with the guy I can’t even think about.

What if the moment you’ve closed yourself off is the moment you start to break open?

But there’s this guy here. Ben. And the more I swear he won’t—he can’t—the deeper under my skin he’s getting. After the thing that happened, I promised I’d never fall for another boy’s lies.

About LISA BURSTEIN:

Find LISA on:

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Official Blog

Official Website

Lisa Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University and is glad to finally have it be worth more than the paper it was printed on. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her very patient husband, a neurotic dog and two cats.

She wrote her first story when she was in second grade. It was a Thanksgiving tale from the point of view of the turkey from freezer to oven to plate. It was scandalous.

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reviewer: Daphne December 13th, 2012 Blog Tour, Contemporary, Guest Post, New Adult

Today I’m very excited to be hosting a guest post as part of Irresistible blog tour! When Piccadilly Press sent me the release for the title, it sounded so yummy that I knew I had to read it. Please keep reading for the author Liz Bankes’ other new adult recommendations!

About IRRESISTIBLE

Release: e-book on 6 December 2012, paperback on 25 April 2013
Publisher: Piccadilly Press

When Mia gets a job in a posh health/country club during her gap year, she is strikes up a friendship with the laconic and funny Dan. Dan is also working in the club and keeps Mia amused. However, she soon finds herself drawn to the wealthy bad boy, Jamie. Jamie is the beautiful and privileged Cleo’s boyfriend. Mia knows that her relationship with Jamie is wrong, but there’s something so dangerously exciting about Jamie that she just can’t stop.

Irresistible heralds a new genre of passionate romance that is setting adolescent hearts racing. ‘Steamies’: it’s not about what they do, but how it makes her feel!

About the book in Liz’s own words:

About Irresistible
I wanted to write a love story that I would have wanted to read as a teenager i.e. full of gossip, some rude bits and sequences that would be set to music if they were in a film – but with love at the heart.

It is not based on my own experience, but not for want of (desperately) trying to get boys like Jamie (or any boys) to notice me.

My heroine Mia is sarcastic, spikey and can be shy when you first meet her, which are traits we share. We are also both short. Where we differ is in her sense of adventure – she’s desperate to get out of her small town and see the world. Her craving for excitement means she is liable to throw herself into situations and worry about them later. She’s also a good waitress, whereas in my short-lived waitressing career I almost started a fire.

I write for the same reason I read – to have marvelous adventures without leaving the sofa. I also think that one of the loveliest things about humans is that we tell each other stories.

Guest Post from LIZ

Liz’s recommended ‘new adult’ books

Young Adult books are relatively new – and we’re lucky to have so many great books to read these days. However, there were numerous books written before we came up with the term ‘Young Adult’ where the main character is a teenager, like J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. We meet the characters at the age where everything is still possible and the future still unknown.

We are currently seeing more and more New Adult books emerging that pack an emotional punch and really capture that sense of being seventeen and embarking on the world. Mal Peet’s Life: An Exploded Diagram tells a story of love at the point of uncertainty set during the Cold War, when people thought they might have been on the brink of a third world war. Tanya Byrne’s Heart-shaped Bruise shows us a young girl on a destructive path in a Young Offenders Institute and Tamara Webber’s Easy is a story of the very difficult process of learning to trust. One of the best books I’ve read this year is Kirsty Eagar’s Raw Blue. It takes a main character, Carly, who feels set adrift. A horrific experience makes her feel that her emotional life has been stopped before it began. We follow her as she tries to deal with it alone and will her to allow people to help her.

On the steamier side Molly McAdams’ Taking Chances sees 18-year-old Harper starting college and finding herself caught in a passionate love triangle. Next year will also see the first in the Union Street series by Gemma Burgess, which is about five girls sharing a house in Brooklyn after graduation. Relationships are viewed alongside this sense of starting out and discovering who you are.

Have you got some ‘new adult’ books to recommend?

**About LIZ BANKES:**

>Find Liz on:

Official Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Liz Bankes grew up in Sevenoaks, (or One-oak as it should be called since six of the oaks fell down).

As a child she was passionate about books, the Beano and Ryan Giggs.

She has been writing since she was a child when she drew plenty of cartoons and comic strips, giving them to her family to read and then waiting patiently (staring at them intensely) until they laughed. In year 6 she co-wrote, with a friend, The Sealyham Story (like the Iliad, but in Wales), which was scandalously ignored by all the major literary prizes. Then at secondary school she wrote a story about a woman who killed people and turned them into pies. Instead of a referral to a psychologist the school gave her a creative writing prize and sent her on her way.

She attended Leeds University, Oxford University and now works as senior editorial assistant at Nature Publishing Group.

Since then she’s been writing book reviews and blog posts (and, secretly, more stories).

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reviewer: Daphne November 25th, 2012 Blog Tour, Contemporary

Today I’m very excited to be hosting a guest post as part of The Burning of Isobel Key blog tour. There is also a contest to win a gift card!

About THE BURNING OF ISOBEL KEY

The Burning of Isobel Key by Jen McConnel

Release: 1 October 2012

When Lou travels to Scotland, she’s a mess. She’s twenty-six, unemployed, and unsure of herself. It doesn’t help that she’s traveling with Tammy, her best friend, who is everything Lou is not.

At first, the trip pushes Lou towards the brink of depression, but then she meets Brian, a handsome local tour guide. When Brian tells the tourists about the countless witches burned in Scotland, Lou starts to listen. And when she discovers information about Isobel Key, one of the victims of the seventeenth century, Lou finds renewed purpose.

Lou has begun exploring the Neo Pagan faith, a dramatic shift from her wealthy Catholic upbringing. Despite her fears of being too “hocus pocusy”, Lou turns to her new faith as she struggles to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of Isobel Key. But faith or not, Lou must face her demons if she has any hope of righting the wrongs of the past.

Guest Post from JEN

Top 10 Favorite Books & Why

I never know how to answer this question, but I’m going to try. I’ve always been an avid reader, so instead of my top 10 favorites of all time, I think I’ll share with you my top ten favorites that I’ve read in 2012. My goal for the year was to read a hundred books before 2013 (or the Mayan apocalypse, whichever comes first), and I’m ALMOST there.

Hmm. So it might be harder than I thought to pick just ten. But I’ll do my best!

Make Lemonade, by Virginia Euwer Wolff

This novel-in-verse is haunting, gripping, and beautiful. It’s a fast read, but it’s also the kind of story that you want to linger in for awhile. LaVaughn, Jolly, Jilly, and Jeremy will steal your heart. Be prepared for an emotional roller coaster!

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, by Joshilyn Jackson

If you haven’t read Jackson before, you need to remedy that immediately. Told from the points of view of three generations of Slocumb women, this is a story about skeletons in the closet (or the back yard) that will suck you in from the first line.

The Minister’s Daughter, by Julie Hearn

What do piskies, Puritans, and witches have to do with each other? Read this lyrical tale that blends history and myth for the answer. I was truly charmed by this book: the characters are vivid, the setting is rich, and the story takes a few unexpected turns along the way.

The Book of Blood and Shadows, by Robin Wasserman

History, mystery, and a sinister secret society: this book is bursting with adventure. Woven around an alchemical mystery that spans centuries and pulls the story to Prague, I loved every minute of this book.

The Near Witch, by Victoria Schwab

This is mystery told in true fairy tale fashion. Dark and haunting, I devoured this book in one sitting. What an amazing read!

Moon Magic, by Dion Fortune

Known for her esoteric teachings, Fortune’s last novel (completed posthumously) is bewitching. Lilith is a priestess, and Malcolm is a pragmatic man. Of course their relationship changes both of them forever.

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer

It’s a sci-fi retelling of Cinderella, with a cyborg standing in for the beautiful scullery maid: so cool! I love reimagined fairy tales, and this is one of the most unique I’ve ever found.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor

Karou has blue hair. She’s been raised by demons. An angel is after her. Seriously, if you haven’t read this one yet, grab it now. SO good!

Summoning the Fates, by Z. Budapest

Budapest breaks down a woman’s life into three astrological phases: the Saturn returns. Myth and fairy tale weave together with astrological wisdom to craft a book that every woman must read at least once in her life.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, by Lish McBride

Dark comedy meets action and mythic adventure in this awesome tale. Sam’s more than just a college dropout: he’s a necromancer, and his powers plunge him into a world of danger (and zombie garden gnomes).

Well, y’all, those are my favorite books of 2012. What are your picks this year?

**About JEN MCCONNEL:**

Find Jen on:

Official Website

Facebook

Twitter

Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).

She is also an active reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.

A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. When she isn’t crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches writing composition at a community college. Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time.

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reviewer: Daphne October 8th, 2012 Blog Tour, Contemporary, Young Adult

Today we are hosting a stop on the Love’s Providence blog tour, courtest of Reading Addiction Blog Tours. Keep reading for an excerpt from the book and a chance win an eBook copy. Be sure to visit the rest of the blog tour stops for more.

About LOVE’S PROVIDENCE

Release: 24 May 2012
Publisher: Self Published

Collegiate athlete Lily Brennon has always been the piece that doesn’t quite fit in the puzzle, especially in her fragmented family, and no amount of rule-following perfection seems to bring her any closer to the love and acceptance she desperately seeks. If not for Jackson Carter, her childhood best friend and the only boy she’s ever loved, she’s sure she would have run away years ago. But when Jackson loses his father and a future basketball career within months of each other, his faith is so shattered, he shuts out everyone, including Lily.

After months of heartache, Lily begins to piece together a life without Jackson, and while vacationing on a beautiful island off the Georgia coast, she begins a long-distance romance with Alex Walker, a police officer with a quick wit and a cocky grin. He revives her hope in love again, but their intense attraction and his devastating secret test Lily’s values, stretching them until they break. Through her struggles to remain true to her principles, an agonizing choice between Alex and Jackson, and a series of terrifying events that threaten all of them, Lily must endure losing everything she’s been grasping so tightly. Only then will she discover the depth of the love that already surrounds her.