Review: A Dragon's Treasure

'' ''Oh, my goodness.'' She sounded breathless. ''You're lethal.'' ''

★★★☆☆

Something different this time. For a long time, I've mostly reviewed young-adult books and now I made an exception to my normal routine. So, here it is.

We follow Connie who is on the run. In a 'wrong place, wrong time' scenario she witnesses a drug-deal gone bad. Leaving Chicago behind and heading to her cousin's farm where not only wolves run, but they also change into men. The wolf-shifters are not the only kind. Among them live other supernatural creatures, including dragons.

Review: Cursed Blood

''The world flew by without me and I was okay with it for once in my life. I was okay with not being the centre of attention. I was okay with not knowing what was going on around me.''

★★☆☆☆

 Avery Black wanted normal but then she saw her father murdered. And, like most people, she didn't take it well.  Ending up locked in an institute, she locks her emotions away from the world becoming cold and detached. Little did she know that when she would be released to her uncle's care, her life would change indefinitely. 

When I was offered this book by the author Ashley Marie herself I was ecstatic. The synopsis gave me the impression that this would be a bestseller someday. Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly the case.

Review: Mine

'' ''What do you want now?'' I groaned in defeat, giving in to his gaze. ''Nothing. I enjoy watching you.'' Kind of sweet? ''Especially when you don't know I'm watching.'' Nope. Creepy. Just creepy. ''

★★★☆☆

 Your average innocent love story had a bit of an unexpected twist. There were no signs in the synopsis, none whatsoever.

We follow the story of Anika Mason. When she encounters the school's new student, Foster, who is a little too much, smitten with her she lies about having a boyfriend. A fairly innocent lie that could have been easily confessed but no. Brady, the pretence boyfriend, takes advantage of her lie, though, and plays along with it. This doesn't suit Foster and he does his everything to get Anika to himself.

Review: Knight of the Hunted

'' Blood and coffee.''

★★☆☆☆

Blood in the book, coffee for me. There was a time when I was obsessed with the Twilight saga. Most of us have been there, don't try to fool me. And speaking for myself (and probably for a few others), my picture of vampires in books was, should I say, dramatically stuck on the sparkly side. Not to say that there's nothing wrong with a little sparkle in life. Thankfully, though, there were no sparkles in Knight of the Hunted. And to those of you, who understand that my reference to Twilight is up there because these two could be compared to each other, let me tell you: NO. That being said, let's move on.

Okay, let's mix things up a little. Let's start from the end. The ending. Well, it ended. It wasn't one of those slammed-the-cover-closed-as-hard-as-I-could endings. More like, 'oh, it's over, didn't notice. Let's move on. In addition to that, the ending was really confusing. But that I'll dig into later.

Review: Aversion

★★★☆☆

You know the feeling you get when you are doing something challenging for the first time? You know you only have one try and you can't fail, or you can but there would be severe consequences. Then you know how Gemma Green felt performing her first aversion. 

Averters are all male-born protectors of humans. They avert humans from bad decisions they are going to make in to future, for example drunk-driving. Then there is Gemma, a girl Averter.  She is the only one, or that's what she is told. While performing her first aversion on the school's tennis star, Russ Tanner, something goes wrong. Instead of passing with flying colours, Gemma fails. The recipient of the aversion isn't supposed to remember that they have been averted but Russ does. And now he can't seem to let go of the idea that Gemma is something to him.

Review: The Brothers Three (The Blackwood Saga #1)

'' Those who lose dreaming are lost.''

★★★☆☆

I'm stunned. The ending came out of the blue. Unexpected and leaving me craving for more.

The Blackwood Brothers, Will, Caleb, and Val,  have always kept together even when miles away from each other. They are brought together by their godfather, Charlie, when he summons them to hear an urgent message concerning the brothers' father. To their surprise their father isn't what they believed him to be. When Charlie is kidnapped by a necromancer the brothers world isn't the same anymore. They embark on a dangerous journey to save their godfather and on the side they discover new sides of themselves they never thought possible.

Told from three point of views, the brothers, the story follows all of their struggles in finding their places in the new reality they have to face. The story starts with the youngest brother's, Will's, point of view, as are most parts of the story.

Review: Alpha Grayson

★★★★☆

We got to know Lexia's character a bit in the last book Alpha Kaden and with Alpha Grayson we get see even more. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Alpha series it is based in a world where the land is divided between werewolf packs, which are Power, Wisdom, Loyalty, Love, Freedom, Purity, Passion, Vengeance, Devotion, Discipline and Harmony. Each pack is lead by an Alpha wolf. The series follows the stories of these Alphas and their soulmates(-to-be). Alpha Grayson tells the story of Lexia, a girl originally from the Discipline pack but now resciding in the Vengeance pack. Her only goal is to bring down the pack system and create a leadership position to herself. Little does she no that the Alpha of the Freedom pack is on the hunt for her, as are many others.

DIY Project For My Graduation Party! - The Book Roses

I haven't ever liked fresh cut flowers. Somehow I always manage kill them, although they should be easy to keep alive. Maybe they just don't like me.

My graduation day is approaching fast and it's almost a must to have flowers on the buffet table. I had to figure out a way around this etiquette rule.

Then in the middle of the night my friend tells me that she has seen some awesome roses made out of book pages. After an intense Pinterest session and brainstorming, we decided to use Melinda's instructions.

Thus began a night of cursing, cutting, and figuring out how to make them look like a flowers, not just a mangled pile of paper.

We didn't measure the squares. Just ripping a page out of a book and then folding it half from the top and cutting the extra slip from the bottom off.

We had a first version of the rose, but something was wrong. There weren't any pretty petals, they were all straight and pointy. At this moment we realised, that we were meant to curl the outer edges of the petals. Between the fingers was a bit hard and slow. So taking a narrow knitting needle and rolling around it made the whole process a lot quicker.

The same knitting needle technique we used when rolling the stems for the roses.

Now to the gluing part. It amazed both of how much glue actually goes into one rose.

Parts ten through 15 show the layers of the rose. You're supposed to glue only the edges of the petals together in ten, eleven, and twelve. With thirteen through fifteen you're supposed to glue two petals on top of each other.

The rest is easy. You build the rose from inside out. We glued the first layer (16) of every rose first and then let them dry. It made the rest easier since the base is already dry and unmoving, giving a sort of a stopper for all the other layers.

My best advice is to use a lot of glue. And rather let the layers dry in between than using a little less to get them ready faster.

We skipped the last phase altogether, since we wanted the text to show.

Making these was fun at first. But let me warn you, it's not fun after you are on the tenth hour. Your fingers are probably cramping and glued together. In the end, though, it's all worth it. They are so pretty.

The book had about three hundred pages. Every rose takes three pages, so from one book you get hundred roses. We didn't use textless empty pages, since we wanted the text to show. So altogether we got about seventy roses.


The book I used was a paperback version of Kelly Link's Pretty Monsters. The spine was glued, which helped a lot when ripping the pages out.

Review: Alpha Kaden

★★★★★

'' Lock your doors, hold them tight. 

Close your windows, every night. 

Don't go out, in case he's there, always live in total fear. 

Even if it means sacrificing your mate, don't let Alpha Kaden seal your fate.''

 

He steals girls from their beds. No one knows what happens to them, they know one thing though, the identity of the man who takes them. Alpha Kaden, alpha of the vengeance pack. They all fear him, all except a few. Mara is one of those who don't fear him. She has always thought that the rumours and stories concerning alpha Kaden are mostly made up, just to keep people in line. 

Then, she is taken from her bed, and she gets to know what Kaden is like first hand.

Review: Satan's Son

'' '' Would it kill you to not be sarcastic?'' he snapped with an annoyed expression.''

★★★☆☆

Addison wanted her life to be worry free. Living in the present, firing her snarky comments. Then in a blink of an eye she finds herself not in her world but in Hell.

Ethan has been protecting Addison since she was a little girl. Being the son of the Devil himself, he has been around Addison without her knowing.

Then the unexpected happens: Ethan finds Addison in hell standing in line for her verdict. And from there begins a journey neither of them could predict.

Review: Rise: How A House Built A Family

'' A lake of coffee couldn't compete against the effects of the sleep deprivation I'd been facing for weeks.''

 

★★★★☆

I never pegged myself as the one to read memoirs or biographies or anything akin to them. So turning the first page was a feat for me. I have to say I'm more than positively surprised how Rise turned out. Not that I find Cara's story a positive one, but simply incredibly laid out on paper.

Alternating between rises and falls, the story flows between the present and past, revealing reasons behind their behaviours in the present. I found the order sometimes a bit confusing, since the scenes in the past, the Falls, were not always in chronological order. In the end it didn't matter.

Review: Everlasting

★★★★☆

'' ''You want to be a Watchman, well, here it is. This job is dangerous. It's unpredictable. You either have the gall to get through it, or you cower and find a life in Ethyreal City. Which will it be? '' ''

I bought The Night Watchmen series a while ago and been wanting to read them ever since, but for some reason haven't. So two days ago I picked Everlasting up and felt it was time.

The main character, Faye Middleton, thought her whole life that she was a Defect in a world where you can have only onw of two paths: You are either a Hunter or a Witch. Being neither means bye-bye to the life as you know it. Within the Coven, when coming of age, you are to go through a Culling ceremony, in which you will find who you are and who your partner will be. Your partner will always be of the opposite sex and all pairs are Hunter-Witch. And that's where the story begins.

Vacationing must end now! - I'm back.

The new bookshelves! *Sighs of happiness*

Some of you might have noticed that my last post was on March 10th. Such a long time ago, but worry not. I'm back.


To give you the insight of what happened I'll tell you a story.

'' Once upon a time, not so long ago, on an evening in February, there lived two tired over-achiever sisters. They did everything they could, as best as they could and as fast as they could. They were known, they were loved and they were hated. 
On returning home after an stressful day, they noticed their bathroom had started to flood. They water rose and rose. Nothing was stopping it. Not even the sisters.
Their saviour was not a prince on a white stallion, but a plumber in a run-down car. He did everything he could, but the flood won. 
The first rays of sunlight had started to peek from behind the horizon, and the sisters had to flee the flood. 
And so they left. For two months they endured another apartment with its strange inhabitants. 
When the flood stopped, the flooring renewed, and the kitchen reinstalled, the sisters were finally able to return home. ''

And here we are! Finally home. I could've updated while away, but nothing kills your mood better than not sleeping because of your neighbours are night owls and then napping throughout the day.

In my new year's resolution -post, I remember writing  '' the toughest of us might just make it through March'', and apparently I was right. Even though I thought I would've lasted forever. Well, nothing is permanent, not even diamonds. Because of my oh-so-dramatic failure, I've decided to loosen up a bit. One post a week, at least, which will either be a review or something else. We'll see when we'll get there.

How I Got Into Reading

Some of us have been reading all of our lives. Some of us started a little later. And some of us are just starting. But the most important thing is that all of us started. We stepped inside the covers of a book, into the world of endless possibilities.

My story started years ago with a book that may sound like a cliché:  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I was around seven years old and in first grade. Everyone else was reading picture books or books with the words chopped into syllables. But me? I read Harry's story.

Review: More Than A Slave

★☆☆☆☆

 Potential, so much of it. Unfortunately most of it went unnoticed because of the technical problems. I'm going to cut the chase and go straight to business.

I'm not totally against romanticising slavery, it can be done tastefully, in a Cinderella-ish way, or not-so-tastefully. More Than A Slave didn't go too much into the untasteful side of it and some parts could've been written in a better way. But the romanticising of slavery was not what bothered me the most here.

Problem Number 1: What big secret that no one would want to know?
I didn't find it. I have a few strong candidates for it, but none of them are clear and perfectly fitting to the role. And if the 'big revealing' was the one I am thinking, then why it was hyped so much beforehand.