Thursday, July 31, 2014

Clearing the Ice


18652295The Playmaker by Dakota Madison



Kian Kavanagh, Mr. Fire on Ice, has just been called up to play hockey for the NHL's new expansion team in Seattle. Finally playing in the NHL is a dream come true...except for one thing. Kian has to leave Northern Arizona and the love of his life, Taylor Thompson, to pursue his dream.

Taylor Thompson thinks she's got life figured out. She'll finish her final semester of college then move to Seattle to attend graduate school and be with her man. Until one fateful night when Taylor's world is complete shattered and everything she's ever wanted--everything she's ever hoped for--is called into question.

Will Kian's love be enough to help put Taylor's shattered world back together again or will tragedy tear them apart?





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Heat Index 1 ☼

This is the follow up book to Fire on Ice and was very enjoyable. It's one skull less in rating only because I thought some of the obstacles were a bit easily over come. Still a very enjoyable read and I am so glad I found this new author.


Thursday, July 24, 2014

Liking the ice


18222174Fire on Ice by Dakota Madison

He’s Fire on Ice and she’s afraid to get burned again…
“You always think a guy is going to be different until he’s not.”

Firestorm Center Kian Kavanagh dominates the ice like a rock star dominates the stage. He’s the hottest new player to be recruited for the Firestorm, a newly established professional hockey team in Northern Arizona.

After Taylor Thompson’s heart was completely shattered by her high school’s most popular jock, she vowed never to date another athlete. And she keeps that promise through her first three years of college by putting up impenetrable walls to protect her from heartbreak.

But after a chance meeting with the charming and irresistible Kian Kavanagh, Taylor’s carefully constructed walls are in serious danger of being burned down by Mr. Fire on Ice.




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Heat Index 1 ☼


Please forgive the cheesy cover...the version I bought was much better but GoodReads only had this one. This is classified as New Adult and everything I've read in this genre has not disappointed. Unlike the cover the writing was cheese free, smooth, and addictive. I was so into the story I jumped right into book two which finishes the story or Kian and Taylor very nicely. My review of that book will be up next.


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Drum roll Please!


11710373Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon


WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD is the eighth novel in the world-famous OUTLANDER series. In June of 1778, the world turns upside-down. The British army withdraws from Philadelphia, George Washington prepares to move from Valley Forge in pursuit, and Jamie Fraser comes back from the dead to discover that his best friend has married Jamie’s wife. The ninth Earl of Ellesmere discovers to his horror that he is in fact the illegitimate son of the newly-resurrected Jamie Fraser (a rebel _and_ a Scottish criminal!) and Jamie’s nephew Ian Murray discovers that his new-found cousin has an eye for Ian’s Quaker betrothed.

Meanwhile, Claire Fraser deals with an asthmatic duke, Benedict Arnold, and the fear that one of her husbands may have murdered the other. And in the 20th century, Jamie and Claire’s daughter Brianna is thinking that things are probably easier in the 18th century: her son has been kidnapped, her husband has disappeared into the past, and she’s facing a vicious criminal with nothing but a stapler in her hand. Fortunately, her daughter has a miniature cricket bat and her mother’s pragmatism.



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At last my wait finally came to an end, and this book was well worth it. It felt so good to be with my favorite book family again, I've missed them so much!! I wanted to read this book slowly but that did not happen, I gobbled it up in 6 days. Not to worry, there is always the re-read, and then the audio version that is always read brilliantly by the amazing Davina Porter. Another wonder of this gem is that it did not end on the cliff hanger!! So now however long it takes for the author to write the next book I won't have to wonder and worry too much about the fate of my beloved characters. 


Thursday, July 10, 2014

Not exactly starstruck

20491568
Severed by Lizzy Ford and Julia Crane


Two sisters with special gifts and an unbreakable bond ...

Cyena Tyana were born to powerful parents who are among the ruling class on their planet. Their lives are pampered but isolated, constricted to the city walls in which they were born.

Fun loving with a rare but powerful mind power, Tyana is accustomed to being treated like a princess and using her influence to get anything she wants – including protecting her sister from the elders and students who look down on her. The opposite of Tyana in most ways, Cyena’s second-class mind skills make others view her as a blemish on the family bloodline. No one but her sister believes in her.

They don’t know that a war is brewing, until it erupts. A class war tears their perfect world a part, leaving them helpless, alone and worse –severed from one another.

Each girl will risk her life to find the other, and each will be challenged to hone her powers in order to survive environments unlike any they’ve ever experienced.



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Another Y.A. offering that grabbed my attention from the book blurb. This is book one of the Starwalkers series. It had potential and it did offer me entertainment, however it felt written with the intention of a series from the beginning and the amount of action was carefully controlled and doled out. From reading the blurbs of the next few books in the series it seems that continues to be the case. I really want to get invested in a series that is either well into numbers of books, or even better is entirely finished, however this will not be one of them as it didn't feel like it would hold my interest in the long run.


Thursday, July 3, 2014

Good Grave


13576640The Grave Artist by Paula Lynn Johnson

16-year-old Clare can't stop drawing the bizarre, winged skulls she calls "Sammies". Her psychiatrist assumes the compulsive drawings are just expressions of Clare's grief over her father abandoning her. But then Clare discovers that her Sammies are exact matches for the Death's Head on the grave of Samantha Forsythe, a teen who reportedly fell to her death over two centuries ago.

Before long, Clare's drawings morph into cryptic writings that urge her to uncover the truth behind Samantha's death. Together with Neil -- the friend she might be falling for -- Clare scours the local history for clues. She finds that, although Samantha was engaged to a wealthy landowner, there were whispered rumors of her involvement with a younger, biracial man.

Soon, Clare is haunted by disturbing dream images -- a mysterious eye, a broken chain -- that point to someone Samantha called her "Dearest". But who is Dearest? And why does Samantha need Clare to find him so badly?

Isolated and carrying hidden scars of her own, Clare fears her obsession with Samantha will threaten her sanity and safety. But it seems she has no choice in the matter . . .




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I was compelled right away from the book blurb. I do have a bit more than just a passing interest in our connection with the next world, so I was hooked. This title delivered in making that connection plausible and even added a little twist towards the end that turned up the enjoyment level of this Y.A. tale. This fit my definition of a perfect summer read.