As I mentioned earlier, it's finals week from now until next Wednesday. So I'm purty swamped. Posting will be minimal. But the good news is that after the 20th I'm free!!!!!! I can read as much as I want! And I will! I'm like a dam ready to burst!

But until then, check out this cover!


This was the largest picture I could find. What do you think? Prized is the sequel to Birthmarked (Goodreads | Amazon), which was one of my favorite books of 2010. I LOVE the cover to this one, but I don't really feel like it matches the cover of the first book.

What say you?

I'm getting ready for finals, so not a lot of time for reading or posting, but here's this for now. Tee hee.

Hey squeakers! First off, the winner of the box of ARCs is: Erinberry!
And now for some REALLY exciting news!
Through some magical circumstances, I ended up with an ARC of the highly-anticipated Divergent by Veronica Roth! However, I already had the chance to read a copy thanks to my blog-buddy Resugo, so I'm going to give this ARC away!

Hurrah!

Y'all, this book is amazing. Seriously. You WANT to read it. You NEED to read it. For riz.

I'm going to make entering simple. You do NOT need to be a follower. However, you DO need to have a US shipping address. And all you need to do is comment on one of my reviews. Easy peasy. Please don't leave a comment that just says "great review!" or something like that. I have over 200 reviews for you to choose from, so I hope you can find one that actually inspires a meaningful comment. (To see reviews organized by title click here, to see them organized by author name click here) After you comment, just fill out the form! Also, please try to keep comments nice. The comment doesn't have to be positive. Just nice. If you disagree with my review, that's fine, and I'd love to hear why! Just keep it clean and kind.

Just so there's no confusion, I am giving away a finished copy of Divergent as well, but you can't win that one until may, it wouldn't arrive until mid-May. You could have this one as soon as mid-April!

Requirements:

• Must comment on a review
• Must fill out the form
• Must live in the US
• Must be 13 or older

Extra Entries:

• n/a. Everyone who comments on a review will have one entry

Additional information:

• Giveaway runs 4/8-4/15 at 7:59 MDT
• Winner announced 4/16

Release Date: March 25th, 2008
Genre:  Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 272
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

When Alexandra’s mother is slain by an unnatural beast, shadows fall on the once-lush kingdom. Too soon the widowed king is entranced by a cunning stranger — and in one chilling moment Alexandra’s beloved brothers disappear, and she is banished to a barren land. Rich in visual detail, sparked by a formidable evil, and sweetened with familial and romantic love, here is the tale of a girl who discovers powerful healing gifts — and the courage to use them to save her ailing kingdom.

Review: About 18 months ago I saw this book while at the bookstore with my grandparents and just commented "oh, that looks cool" and my grandfather (being awesome) bought it for me. It then proceeded to sit on my shelf all year, and disappeared into a box when I moved last April. My new shelves brought this book out of hiding exactly when I needed it.

As you might have been able to tell from yesterday's review, the last book I read left me feeling pretty... dark. I just felt gross and down in the dumps. So I picked up The Swan Kingdom. It was short, and seemed safe enough.

Oh. My. Word. This book is AMAZING. Honestly. It's like this fabulous combination of Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl and Heather Tomlinson's The Swan Maiden while still being TOTALLY original. I read the entire thing in one sitting because I just could. not. put. it. down. It's been a long time since I've read a book that has just been so purely lovely.

Some twisted fairy tale (TFT) plots don't stray at all from the original tale. And those are fine, but I never like them as much. I want the author to add something original to the tale, otherwise I would just read the short version. And while Marriott draws on "The Wild Swans" in this novel, the story is completely her own.  Every single element of the novel was expertly crafted to have the same, wonderful, fairy-tale essence as the original tale, but I was still kept on my toes.

I felt like I living inside this tale, and I never wanted to come out. The story was gripping, the love was so cute, and the end nearly had me crying tears of joy. I immediately purchased Marriott's second book and plan to dive into it post-haste.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure that it's taken me so long to get to this book for a reason. It was exactly what I needed to pull me out of the dark place my last book put me in. If you're at TFT addict like me, you must get The Swan Kingdom in your hands RIGHT NOW! It's golden!



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

I'm going to add this at the end of the post, because I didn't want it to disrupt the positive flow of the review. If there's one thing I don't like about this book, it's the cover. First of all, why is the girl in that position? Second, the MC's hair is RED, not black. Just something that irked me.

Release Date: February 1st, 2011
Genre:  Supernatural, Paranormal, Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 340
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

Riley Blackthorne just needs a chance to prove herself – and that’s exactly what the demons are counting on…

Seventeen-year-old Riley, the only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper, Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father's footsteps. The good news is, with human society seriously disrupted by economic upheaval and Lucifer increasing the number of demons in all major cities, Atlanta’s local Trappers’ Guild needs all the help they can get – even from a girl. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing crush on fellow apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving distressed citizens from foul-mouthed little devils – Grade One Hellspawn only, of course, per the strict rules of the Guild. Life’s about as normal as can be for the average demon-trapping teen.

But then a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, sudden tragedy strikes the Trappers’ Guild, spinning Riley down a more dangerous path than she ever could have imagined. As her whole world crashes down around her, who can Riley trust with her heart – and her life?

Review: This book is a GREAT story. I know many of you struggle with "demon" books and such because of religion. I am a very religious person, however, when I read books like this I don't see the "demons" as actual demons. I just see them as any other paranormal creature. And in this regard the story was awesome. It was original, gripping, and well written.

The romance in the book bugged me (I just had a hard time connecting with the love interests), but it wasn't at the forefront of the story. This story was about Riley and the things she went through, and that included her relationships, but was not dominated by it.

I also really wished that MORE had happened. I felt that this book didn't cover a lot of ground. I wanted more excitement, more big reveals! What I got was a lot of exposition.

If I was rating the book on story alone, I probably would have given it 4.5 stars. I'm sure that the next books in the series will cover all the things I felt lacked in this book. Unfortunately, I will not be reading the rest of the series.

Even taking the demon's out of the equation, The Demon Trapper's Daughter was a very harsh read. I was worried about this before reading so I asked some people how severe the profanity was, and was told by numerous people that it wasn't very bad. This is always a dangerous question, because I know profanity doesn't bother most people like it bugs me. There was a lot of profanity in this book. Just about every curse-word you can think of (frequent uses of the f* word). However, I continued to read it because the MC herself actually had a fairy clean vocabulary. Unfortunately, only about 70% of the book is told from her point of view. And nearly all people she interacts with are very crass. This is what brought my rating down to 2.5 flowers.

And so, the awesome story and main character was enough to make me finish this book, but the profanity was just too intense for me to read the rest of the series. I hope someone I know will read them, though, so that I can ask them what happens.

If profanity/demons don't bug you, then you should read this. It's a purty good story.

Apologies for two negative reviews in a row. tomorrow I'll be posting an UBER-positive review! So look forward to it!



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.