Contest for all you readers and writers....

Chanelle Gray, the author of the soon to be released My Heart Be Damned, is doing a big contest on her blog to promote the release of MHBD on September 15! There are quite a few cool prize packs that I encourage everyone to check out.
Info is all here!

As you all know I was vying for an ARC but wasn't able to quite get my hands on one. Expect a review shortly after September 15th :) For those of you who don't know what MHBD is about, here's the Goodreads synopsis:

If you're a Hunter, there are only three things you must know about the Damned. The Damned can't lie, can't live without a body, and can't leave you alone.

Amerie Carter has the blood of a Hunter, unfortunately. She is one of a rare line of women who, upon her sixteenth birthday, will come into extraordinary powers used to hunt the Damned; escaped souls from Hell who take up residence in human bodies. It's supposed to be her sweet sixteen, but Amerie has never dreaded a day more, and her worst fears are confirmed as the celebration turns tragic when her mother is killed.

Grief-stricken, Amerie vows to never hunt a day in her life. She's determined to hide behind normalcy, attending school, hanging out with her friends and working an after-school job at The Hut. All Amerie wants is to be left alone. But try telling the Damned that. The harder Amerie tries to ignore her powers, the more the Damned come looking for her.

When an attack leaves one of Amerie's friends in the hospital, and endangers the lives of her fellow students, she knows she has no choice: Hunt or Be Hunted. Thankfully, the gorgeous, secretive, and so-off-limits Marshall offers to train Amerie to take out her supernatural enemies. But training with Marshall means lying to her friends, her family, and confronting the mysterious circumstances surrounding her mother’s death.

Amerie soon discovers she’s not the only one with something to hide, Marshall's secrets might kill her before the Damned get the chance.

Sounds pretty cool, right? Such a kickass sounding book also has a very awesome cover! One of my favorites so far this year:

REVIEW: Rift by Andrea Cremer

RIFT by Andrea Cremer

This book is...

For fans of the Nightshade series

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

On the List of "Amazing Prequels"

****Side note: Isn't the cover just awesome? Talk about fierce!

Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Ember Morrow is promised to a group called Conatus after one of their healers saves her mother's life. Once she arrives, Ember finds joy in wielding swords, learning magic, and fighting the encroaching darkness loose in the world. She also finds herself falling in love with her mentor, the dashing, brooding, and powerful Barrow Hess. When the knights realize Eira, one of their leaders, is dabbling in dark magic, Ember and Barrow must choose whether to follow Eira into the nether realm or to pledge their lives to destroying her and her kind.

With action, adventure, magic, and tantalizing sensuality, this book is as fast-paced and breathtaking as the Nightshade novels.

Review: 

So as I'm sure you all know, Andrea Cremer is not only the author of RIFT but of the Nightshade series, which is on my list of My Favorite All Time Paranormal Series. When I went to Comic Con this past July I was hoping to get my hands on an ARC, but alas I failed and waited until it was officially released.

I have one word to describe RIFT and that is BRILLIANT. "Brilliant" is not a compliment I bestow lightly, so I have broken down why RIFT was brilliant in a VERY orderly fashion, if I do say so myself:

Reason 1: World Building

World building is a particularly important aspect for me to consider in a book, and Cremer has certainly become a master at it. In the Nightshade series, I felt that, while the world Cremer created was great, she didn't explain it in the best way; sometimes facts and conversations were inserted awkwardly, etc. In Rift, this is not an issue whatsoever; everything was weaved together perfectly. I actually felt like I could have been in the stable with Ember and her horse or fighting that disgusting water horse, and I learned about the world in the same way Ember did. All Hail Andrea Cremer, World Weaving Queen!

Reason 2: Strong but Not Annoying Female Lead

Ember is a great example of a heroine who is strong but not without fault and also not annoying. That is a very jumbled and poorly worded description, but basically she is likable and relatable. Despite the fact that she is noble born and that she lives in a time hundreds of years before us, she still struggles with things people, especially women, struggle with today. One thing I've always loved about Nightshade was how Andrea Cremer highlighted the sexism that exists and has existed for years. In Rift, Cremer is still able to provide an enticing story  with a serious emphasis on serious issues. Essentially, it's nice reading about a character who does all this cool badass stuff in a world that doesn't really exist (to our own eyes at least) but still suffers what normal people go through.

The side characters are also very intriguing; I look forward to hearing especially more about Kael and Morag

Reason 3: Love Interest yeeee!

Oh Barrow, Barrow, Barrow. I like him. I like him A LOT. It was clear from the start that he was going to be the love interest, and I love that there weren't any love triangle games going on, at least on the side of Ember. While I appreciate a good love triangle, they are becoming a little cliche. Ember knows what she wants, in more than just her love life, and I like that! There is one scene (I won't get specific because I don't want to spoil it) where Ember really takes the lead in her relationship with Barrow. It is awesome because she doesn't wait around for him to push her into it, she does it because she wants to. I also really enjoyed the fact that there wasn't too much of a "Oh I can't want him, he's my mentor, I must resist my desire!"line going on with Ember. You go for it Ember!

Reason 4: Ties to Nightshade

While RIFT is a stand alone novel, it was still nice to make connections to Nightshade. In Rift, you basically learn the origins of the Keepers (well, not the full story) and the older version of the Searchers.  Personally, I really enjoyed learning more about the Searcher/Conatus side of things. In Nightshade series, I don't think this was the main focus, which is totally fine, but I'm glad Cremer wrote Rift to give more of a background

In all, RIFT is great, even better than any Nightshade book. I am anxiously awaiting for RISE, the sequel to Rift, to see just how things end up!

REVIEW: Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

I know I said I was going to post my Bloodlines review and my Golden Lily review a while ago, but better late than never. 

Now, if there's one thing you should know before reading this, it's how much I LOVED the Vampire Academy series. The world was interesting, the characters were interesting, everything worked. Even when I was disappointed in a character's decision, I at least never thought it was out of character.

Bloodlines.... not so much. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

And I really don't like giving negative reviews, but unfortunately this book deserved it :(

I was disappointed for a number of reasons:

First off, I just didn't like Sydney. I thought she was very annoying and quite frankly infuriating with all this nonsense over her fear of using magic, vampires, etc. I get that characters need time to develop, but Sydney's spinelessness and inability to break free of the Alchemist teachings were too much to handle for an ENTIRE book. I started reading The Golden Lily (aka book 2,) and while she may not be as spineless, Sydney is still struggling with this idea of magic and vampires as friends and it's getting REALLY old.

At the end of the day, I just kept thinking that Rose from VA was a much better narrator than Sydney. Rose is fierce, and the things she struggled with were just more enthralling than the boring and annoying issues in Sydney's life that Mead keeps rehashing over and over and over.

The only redeeming quality about Bloodlines, besides getting to see how Rose and Dimitri are doing, was Adrian. It was nice to have more focus on him; I just love his character. His snarkiness and vices make him seem so relatable and not to mention swoon worthy. However, once I started reading The Golden Lily, I also grew annoyed with him because I felt some of his actions were very out of character! His developing relationship with Sydney literally made me stop reading the book because I couldn't stand a lame character like Sydney getting together with such a fascinating character like Adrian. 

Bloodlines was a decent book but unfortunately it fell short of a lot of my expectations. Mead set the bar very high with the Vampire Academy series, especially with characters like Rose, Dimitri, Christian and Adrian, and I just found Bloodlines really hard to like. It didn't help that Bloodlines does not stand on its own. Mead might as well have just called it the 7th VA novel but with a different, weaker, narrator. This was another reason it was hard for me to not make comparisons with VA- Bloodlines itsn't really a different series!  Do yourself a favor and don't bother reading Bloodlines, and ESPECIALLY The Golden Lily if you want the good stuff from Vampire Academy to remain intact.

WOW it's been a while, plus things to look forward too in September

Wow guys, sorry, summer just seemed to creep out from beneath me! I can promise that I WILL try and be updating more regularly. Anywho, I'm off to school in a few weeks time, the winner of the Strange and Deadly ARC has been emailed, and my birthday is in less than a week!

In addition to my birthday, September also marks the release of a few notable books. The one I've been wanting to get my hands on the most is MY HEART BE DAMNED by Chanelle Gray. The story, as you can read from the Goodreads description below, sounds AWESOME:

If you're a Hunter, there are only three things you must know about the Damned. The Damned can't lie, can't live without a body, and can't leave you alone.

Amerie Carter has the blood of a Hunter, unfortunately. She is one of a rare line of women who, upon her sixteenth birthday, will come into extraordinary powers used to hunt the Damned; escaped souls from Hell who take up residence in human bodies. It's supposed to be her sweet sixteen, but Amerie has never dreaded a day more, and her worst fears are confirmed as the celebration turns tragic when her mother is killed.

Grief-stricken, Amerie vows to never hunt a day in her life. She's determined to hide behind normalcy, attending school, hanging out with her friends and working an after-school job at The Hut. All Amerie wants is to be left alone. But try telling the Damned that. The harder Amerie tries to ignore her powers, the more the Damned come looking for her.

When an attack leaves one of Amerie's friends in the hospital, and endangers the lives of her fellow students, she knows she has no choice: Hunt or Be Hunted. Thankfully, the gorgeous, secretive, and so-off-limits Marshall offers to train Amerie to take out her supernatural enemies. But training with Marshall means lying to her friends, her family, and confronting the mysterious circumstances surrounding her mother’s death.

Amerie soon discovers she’s not the only one with something to hide, Marshall's secrets might kill her before the Damned get the chance.

Pretty cool right? So hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on a copy, in addition  to all the other work I've got going on! I'm pretty active on Goodreads, but I need to start transferring my reviews to over here, so that's my goal for the next week or so!
Cheers!

Something Strange and Deadly ARC Winner plus more review stuff

The contest for the ARC of SOMETHING STRANG AND DEADLY is over- thanks to all who participated! A winner will be announced in the next week.

BLOOD KEEPER review will FOR SURE be up tomorrow and a review of BLOODLINES is also coming. Let me warn you, the BLOODLINES and GOLDEN LILY (book 2 of Bloodlines) is going to be a fairly unpleasant review. I haven't had a series disappoint me this much in ages and I HATE when that happens...

Okay, off to bed now
xxx

Blood Keeper review coming shortly!

I'm hoping to get my BLOOD KEEPER review up later tonight.... In the meantime, make sure you checkout the new giveaway! I have a copy of BLOODLINES by Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy) that I'm giving out!

GIVEAWAY: "Bloodlines" by Richelle Mead

The Vampire Academy series is one of my favorite paranormal series ever. While I'm not normally a fan of spin offs (I usually like the original main characters better and want to hear more about THEM) Richelle Mead does such an amazing job building her vampire world that of course I had to read BLOODLINES. The sequel to Bloodlines, THE GOLDEN LILY just came out this June, so once you finish reading Bloodlines, you luckily have a second book to start, because, let's face it, everyone hates waiting for books to come out...

Anyway, down to the business portion:

I will be giving away one copy of BLOODLINES. 

Here's what you have to do to enter:

1. Follow @SliceOffShelf on Twitter (click here) (If you are already following, don't worry about this one)
2. RT this tweet here. Additionally, you can tweet about the giveaway once per day for extra entries, just make sure you tag @SliceOffShelf!

The contest ends 7/29/12 at 11:59pm PST

Comic Con Adventures

I went to Comic Con for the first time ever this past weekend, and it was a blast! The Big Bang Theory cast was like 20 feet away from me at one point, so I basically died. I also got to check out a lot of cool panels. One was Paranormal Love Potion, which included Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss), Andrea Cremer (Nightshade), Tessa Gratton (Blood Magic), Aprilynne Pike (Wings), Kelley Armstrong (Thirteen), Sylvia Day (Crossfire), Marjorie Liu (Dirk and Steele) and Shawntelle Madison (Coveted). It was a reader's heaven pretty much.

Here's a (somewhat bad) photo of the panel. It was hard getting all of them to fit in the frame!

(L to R: Stephanie Perkins, Andrea Cremer, Marjorie Liu, Sylvia Day, Tessa Gratton, Shawntelle Madison, Aprilynne Pike, Kelley Armstrong)

I was also able to pick up an ARC of Tessa Gratton's new book THE BLOOD KEEPER. It's actually a companion novel to her previous book, Blood Magic. I finished reading Blood Keeper on the flight back and it was really good. Like REALLY good. Expect a review to come in the next day and another GIVEAWAY. 

Kelley Armstrong was also allowing people to purchase her new book Thirteen, which won't be released for another week!

All in all, it was pretty exciting stuff! Comments are welcome below!

GIVEAWAY: ARC of Something Strange and Deadly

It's my first giveaway ever, yayy!!! *pops party poppers*. For those interested (and you SHOULD be interested; to see why, check out my review of Something Strange and Deadly here), I am giving away.....

one ARC of SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY

I'm hoping the widget for Rafflecopter works, but if it's not working, here's what you need to do:

1. Follow Slice Off The Shelf on Twitter @SliceOffShelf (mandatory)
2. Follow this blog! (optional, but will give you extra entries)
3. Retweet the Giveaway tweet which can be found here (optional, but will give you extra entries)
4. Leave a blog post comment below about which book releases you are most looking forward to! (not Something Strange and Deadly though because OF COURSE you're looking forward to that...) (optional, but will give you extra entries)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

REVIEW: "Something Strange and Deadly" hits mark

SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY by Susan Dennard
Release Date: 7/24/12

This book is...

For fans of "The Infernal Devices" (without all the insane love triangle stuff)

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

On the List of "2012 Awesome Debuts"

Synopsis:
"Eleanor Fitt has a lot to worry about. Her brother has gone missing, her family has fallen on hard times, and her mother is determined to marry her off to anyone with a pulse. As if things couldn't get any worse, the Dead are rising in Philadelphia! Eleanor knows her brother is somehow involved, and she enlists the Spirit-Hunters to help find him. But her growing attraction to Daniel, one of the Spirit Hunters, threatens to derail her efforts. With her reputation on the line and her reputation hanging in the balance, can Eleanor find her brother and manage to stay alive?" 

Review
Susan Dennard's debut certainly packs a punch! The whole idea of zombies, corsets and all other things Victorian was a very entertaining combination that I actually found easy to get into.

Eleanor is also a very likable character. She's very adamant and independent -- Dennard definitely has the "writing a strong female lead" down to a pat. I'll admit that, in some instances, Eleanor's independence did annoy me because I felt she was so fiercely independent that she didn't see the consequences of her actions, but in the end it lent itself to her development as a character.

In terms of the love interest, Daniel, the dashing inventor is very swoon-worthy. He also seemed like a very realistic character; in other words he wasn't the ideal romanticized version of a man, which was nice.  Probably the best part of the story is a moment at the end when Eleanor has a conversation with Daniel; some very unexpected words are exchanged that I liked a LOT.

In all, there was plenty of action, fighting and intensity that made the book a quick read. I was also a fan of all the other Spirit Hunters, who I look forward to reading more about. I can't wait for book two!

**********
To win an ARC of SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY check out the Contest and Giveaways Page! 

Comment below!

What I Do

Hi everyone!

So first and foremost, I'd like to give you a sense of what this blog is. Basically, I review books.... Well, yeah that's it....

I'm fortunate enough to receive some ARC's from publishers and libraries, and I figure what better way to make use of them than to review! Most of my reviews will be spoiler free, especially if the book has not been released yet, but IF there ever are any spoilers, it will be noted at the top of the post.

In the next weeks, expect reviews of the following:

SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY- Susan Dennard (7/24/12)

THE BLOOD KEEPER- Tessa Gratton- (8/28/12)

MY HEART BE DAMNED- Chanelle Gray (9/12)

Also, expect an ARC giveaway of SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY in the next couple of days! See giveaway page for more info.

Follow the blog on Twitter for the most up to date info!

xxx