Posts tagged with series
Wild Hunger, by Chloe Neill
Chloe Neill's Wild Hunger is very clearly a spin-off. It's a fun, easy-to-follow spin-off that works reasonably well as a standalone novel, but there are plenty of areas where I felt like the author was skimming over huge chunks of characterization or background, lest she bore her preexisting fans with stuff they already knew. I definitely wish I'd started with the earlier books—not that...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Lovely and the Lost, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Our latest Book Giveaway is Jennifer Lynn Barnes's The Lovely and the Lost, which sounds like a soap opera and I am sincerely hoping is not a standalone. (I am much more invested in this book than in Barnes's previous effort.) A full review will follow shortly, and this giveaway will run through 7/22/19...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Renegades, by Marissa Meyer
This week's Book Giveaway is Renegades, the first book in a new series by the Lunar Chronicles' Marissa Meyer. I was never as emotionally invested in the Lunar Chronicles as I hoped to be, but I'm assuming this new series won't be so visibly cobbled together from outside sources (specifically, fairytales and Sailor Moon), so that might help. A full review will be posted later this week...
Immortally Yours, by Lynsay Sands
It's been years since I've read one of Lynsay Sands's vampire romance novels, but they have always stood out in my mind: in her long-running Argeneau series, vampires are not the result of dark magic or whatever, but rather the products of blood-powered nanotechnology first developed in Lost Atlantis. The quality of her individual installments might vary, but Sands gets all the gold stars for coming up with such a delightfully weird premise...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Ash and Quill, by Rachel Caine
This week's Book Giveaway is Rachel Caine's Ash and Quill, which, as it happens, is not the final book in a trilogy. (If I had known this ahead of time, my expectations might have been... different.) A full review will follow shortly...
Makes sense
If you have mixed feelings about the upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, there seems to be a TV series in the works, too. It's unclear if version will have much (if anything) in common with the movie, but TV certainly seems like a more logical medium...
Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
After reading the laundry list of awards won by Seanan McGuire's 2016 novel Every Heart a Doorway, I was expecting something spectacular. What I got, sadly, was a stylishly packaged novella that is long on atmosphere but distressingly short on plot, payoff, or fully-developed characters...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
This week's Book Giveaway is Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway. I'm inclined to look suspiciously upon books that cost $18 but weigh in at well under 200 pages, but this book has won, like, all the awards (seriously), so I'm looking forward to reading it. A full review will follow shortly...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Boy is Back, by Meg Cabot
This week's Book Giveaway is Meg Cabot's novel The Boy is Back. The story involves one of my favorite things to read about (organizing) and one of my least favorite things to experience in any medium (golf). One cannot win them all, I suppose. A full review will follow shortly...
A Conjuring of Light, by V. E. Schwab
A Conjuring of Light is the third and final book in V.E. Schwab's bestselling Shades of Magic series. At this point in the story, the relative safety of Red London has shattered. Kell, Lila, and their allies are confronted with the seemingly limitless powers of Osaron, a being of pure magic determined to bend the world of Red London to his will...
I do remember how terrible the covers were.
The website Lenny recently posted novelist J. Courtney Sullivan's gushing tribute to Ann M. Martin's Babysitters Club books. As a book-loving woman in my 30s, I'm definitely in the same demographic as Sullivan, but my parents tended to be a little dismissive of "series books"...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Day Shift, by Charlaine Harris
This week's Book Giveaway is Charlaine Harris's Day Shift, the sequel to her highly enjoyable novel Midnight Crossroad. If Day Shift is even half as fun as Midnight Crossroad, readers are in for a treat—the first book in this series hit all of Harris's sweet spots (pink-collar work, small towns, creepy hijinks), while neatly avoiding her weaknesses...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Bad Magic, by Pseudonymous Bosch
This week's Book Giveaway is Pseudonymous Bosch's middle-grade novel Bad Magic, which seems to be a spin-off of his The Name of This Book is Secret series. I haven't read Bosch's earlier novels, but many a sixth-grader has enthusiastically recommended them to me, and I approve of the fact that, as pen names go, "Pseudonymous Bosch" is much cooler than "Lemony Snicket" or "Pittacus Lore"...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Seeker, by Arwen Elys Dayton
This week's Book Giveaway is Seeker, the first YA novel by Arwen Elys Dayton. This book is receiving LOADS of hardcore promotion, but readers should note that Dayton, who is married to EarthLink founder Sky Dayton, is something of a celebrity author. I am not saying that Seeker is bad (I haven't even read it yet! Maybe it's great!), but publishing is not always an 100% merit-based industry, and...
Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell, by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
When I reviewed the first Veronica Mars novel, I had several minor complaints: the story felt like fanfiction, there were too many needless cameos from the TV series, and the authors failed to take advantage of the longer format to create a subtle, well-paced mystery. Some of these problems are resolved in the second book in the series...
Alice in Zombieland, Through the Zombie Glass, and The Queen of Zombie Hearts, by Gena Showalter
I am a huge Alice in Wonderland nerd, but I've had some bad experiences with Alice-inspired rewrites. (I'm looking at you, Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars. You were abysmal.) After years of buying—and regretting—these novels, I swore off them for good... until I saw a “specially priced” copy of Gena Showalter's Alice in Zombieland at my local Target, and that red-and-white 20% off sticker was enough to overcome my embargo....
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Smoke Thief, by Shana Abe
This week's Book Giveaway is Shana Abé's The Smoke Thief. It's the first of her bestselling Drakon books, a series of historical fantasy/romance novels about characters that shift between human, dragon, and, uh, smoke monster forms (but not in a Lost kind of way)...
Discount Armageddon, Midnight Blue-Light Special, and Half-Off Ragnarok, by Seanan McGuire
The third book in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series hit bookstores last week, making it officially Way Past Time for me to feature this fantastic (in all senses of the word) urban fantasy series on the site. Do your best to ignore the cover art—I promise this isn't a R-rated story about an anime schoolgirl gone rogue—and believe me when I say this series is wildly fun...
Omens, by Kelley Armstrong
Omens, the first book in Kelley Armstrong's new Cainsville series, perfectly encapsulates my feelings about her writing as a whole: her plots are solid and her mysteries intriguing, but her characters lack charm. I get ridiculously invested in finding out what happens to Armstrong's protagonists, but rarely do I care about the protagonists themselves...
A Rogue By Any Other Name, by Sarah MacLean
After hearing absolutely glowing reports of Sarah MacLean's romance novels, I picked up a copy of the first book in her most recent series, A Rogue By Any Other Name. It's been quite some time since I last read a straight-up romance, and my hopes that I had found an entertaining new author to follow were high...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass. I am told I can expect tremendous things from this story, but I keep getting distracted by the shirt the heroine appears to be wearing on the cover. Is that... ribbon? How does it even work? I will ponder this, and post my review later today...
Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel
We had such high hopes for Palace of Spies, the first book in Sarah Zettel's new YA trilogy. Zettel's writing is consistently solid, she chose an unusual time period for her setting, and she avoided the cover art controversy that has dogged her otherwise-excellent Dust Girl books. The end result, sadly, fell a hair short of our dreams, but let's face it: even Zettel's B-grade work still stands head and shoulders above...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel
This week's Book Giveaway title is Palace of Spies, the first book in a historical YA series by Dust Girl author Sarah Zettel. Our review will go up tomorrow morning, seeing as we still have to post our thoughts on the Book Giveaway title we featured over our winter break: Lauren Kate's Teardrop...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Teardrop, by Lauren Kate
Our current Weekly Book Giveaway pick is Teardrop, the first book in a new trilogy from popular YA author Lauren Kate. Her Fallen series was hit-or-miss, but here's hoping she's learned something along the way...
The Infinity Ring #1, 2, & 3: A Mutiny in Time, Divide and Conquer, and The Trap Door, by assorted authors
In an effort to duplicate the monster success of their 39 Clues series, Scholastic Books has launched The Infinity Ring, another multi-platform series blending reading and an online experience. The Infinity Ring series was outlined by The Maze Runner author James Dashner, and will be seven books long. The first three installments—Dashner's A Mutiny in Time, Carrie Ryan's Divide and Conquer, and Lisa McMann's The Trap Door...
Still terrible after all these years
The fine people at The Hairpin recently posted an interview with Ryan Nerz, a late-90s-era ghostwriter for the Sweet Valley High series. Mr. Nerz offers quite the eye-opening look behind the scenes, let me tell you...
Still kicking
The Atlantic Wire has an impressively in-depth article up about the current state of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Turns out they're less dead than I thought.
39 Clues on a budget
If you've never read the best-selling 39 Clues series, I noticed a "buy one, get the next for half price" deal at my local Barnes and Noble. I don't know if the deals will get better or worse as ...
Looking to waste some time?
Have I got the iTunes app for you: several "classic" Choose Your Own Adventure titles have been launched recently as interactive reading experiences for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Even as a...