Reader Girls Blog

Reading level: Young Adult Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: HarperCollins (April 12, 2011) Summary: Strange things are happening in Maya's tiny Vancouver Island town. First, her friend Serena, the captain of the swim team, drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. Then, one year later, mountain lions are spotted rather frequently around Maya's home—and her reactions to them are somewhat . . . unexpected. Her best friend, Daniel, has also been experiencing unexplainable premonitions about certain people and situations. It doesn't help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret, and he's interested in one special part of Maya's anatomy—her paw-print birthmark. Our review: Yee naaldlooshii . When Maya  16, ventures to Nanaimo, Canada to get tattooed for her sixteenth birthday, a chance meeting with the shop owner's elderly relative has lasting repercussions.  The Navajo woman essentially calls Maya a witch and the word sti...

Today is the beginning of the FOOL FOR BOOKS GIVEAWAY HOP . Hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer , the hop runs from today, April 1st through tomorrow night, April 2nd. Over 230 blogs are participating so please show your support. Our giveaway is open Internationally and on the rules side, all we ask is that you are a follower and enter once. Okay, we're offering a new copy of the YA novel Across the Universe by Beth Revis. Summary from Goodreads : A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder. Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules. Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitant...

Reading level: Young Adult Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Dutton Juvenile (April 5, 2011) Summary: It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever. Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other. Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay , Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance. My review: I loved Gayle Forman's debut YA novel, If I Stay . Mia's story was heartbreaking, intriguing, melancholy and such a gorgeous read. Forman...

We're waiting for Lark by Tracey Porter. narrated by three friends, this story sounds unique and different and that appeals to us. There's something about the cover we really like, the tree branches and the position of the singing bird. Summary: When sixteen-year-old Lark Austin is kidnapped from her Virginia hometown and left for dead in a snowy forest, she leaves behind two girls who are shocked by the loss of their former friend. At the same time Eve must face the hole left by Lark’s absence, she also can’t shake the guilt that Lark’s death was her fault. Meanwhile, Nyetta is haunted by Lark’s ghost, who comes through the bedroom window and begs Nyetta to set her soul free. Eve and Nyetta realize it is their responsibility to uncover why Lark is trapped in limbo, but only by coming together to find the missing pieces of themselves can they bring peace to Lark. Told in alternating sections by each of the three heroines, Tracey Porter’s stunning narrative about love and ...

Let's see, second day of the work week. Check. List teaser from what we're reading. Check. This week's tease is from Chime by Franny Billingsley. "But it's my own blood!" I said, because that's how the Old Ones like it best--the personal touch. "And still warm." Here's the summary from Goodreads : Before Briony's stepmother died, she made sure Briony blamed herself for all the family's hardships. Now Briony has worn her guilt for so long it's become a second skin. She often escapes to the swamp, where she tells stories to the Old Ones, the spirits who haunt the marshes. But only witches can see the Old Ones, and in her village, witches are sentenced to death. Briony lives in fear her secret will be found out, even as she believes she deserves the worst kind of punishment. Then Eldric comes along with his golden lion eyes and mane of tawny hair. He's as natural as the sun, and treats her as if she's extraordinary. A...

Today we are delighted to be a part of The Trouble With Spells: The Witches and Warlocks Blog Tour . We have begun reading the first book of this series by Lacey Weatherford and are hooked ! We welcome the fabulous Lacey Weatherford. The Magic of Romance What is it about romance that has the power to reach out and grab a reader’s heart and leave them sighing in a puddle of delight? Is there a chemistry, a secret formula if you will, that automatically triggers those emotions, sending us into sensory overload? It would be nice if there were such a formula, waiting for every writer to tap into it and produce a book of perfection, just waiting for readers to fall and swoon over incessantly. (Sign me up for that please!) It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately, but that’s okay because if we didn’t know the bad, we couldn’t adore the good. As a writer I have learned to write to please myself. Don’t get me wrong, I for sure I want everyone else to like my work, and I hold my breath over ...

What are we anxiously waiting to read? Hm, there are soooo many upcoming titles we would like to read so making a decision this week was very hard. One book we can't wait to read is Nightshade, The Poison Diaries, Book 2 by Maryrose Wood. Read this summary and you'll see why: A dark, gothic tale of romance… and murder. Our heroine, Jessamine, has lost her faith in the men she loved, and her innocence as well. She turns to the dark side and plots to kill her father, using his own poisons, before becoming an assassin, a poisoner for hire. Can she recover from her heartache and reunite with her true love, Weed? Find out in this thrilling story where poisons, darkness and horror are a part of everyday life, and love is the only cure.(From Goodreads ) Nightshade will available on October 25 from HarperCollins books. A nd since we just learned about this one, we had to add on the next and final installment of Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, Book 4 simply titled Inheri...