Feature and Follow Friday {10}

Feature and Follow Friday is hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. This week's featured blogs are Reading Under the Willow Tree and On Starships & Dragonwings. 

This week's question is:

Who is your favorite villain from a book?

My answer:

I'm going to cheat here and name two. First is Warner from Shatter Me because he's hot and evil, and second is Julian from The Forbidden Game because he's hot and evil. Lol just kidding XD I love Warner because, uh, yeah, he's evil, but I just know underneath all that cruelty is a very complicated character, not to mention a tormenting past. As for Julian, he abducts Jenny with her group of friends and uses them to try to keep her in his world with him, but I know he just loves her so much, though in a very obsessive way. Yep, I "know" my beloved villains very much :))

Leave a comment if you follow and I'll be sure to follow back! Happy Friday, guys! :D

Waiting on Wednesday {14}: Me, Him, Them, and It

 

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, where bloggers post about much-awaited releases!

 

Title: Me, Him, Them, and It

Author: Caela Carter
Release Date: February 5th 2013

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Goodreads

When Evelyn decided to piss off her parents with a bad reputation, she wasn't planning to ruin her valedictorian status. She also wasn't planning to fall for Todd-the guy she was just using for sex. And she definitely wasn't planning on getting pregnant. When Todd turns his back on her, Evelyn's not sure where to go. Can a distant mother, a cheating father, an angry best friend, and a (thankfully) loving aunt with adopted daughters of her own help Evelyn make the heart-wrenching decisions that follow?

This one has me curious because I've never read a book about teenage pregnancy, and also because I personally know quite a lot of teenage moms. Yeah, I guess I'm just really curious, and it's also been getting positive reviews.

(cover and summary from Goodreads.com)

Cover Reveal + Giveaway: Bewitched - Mark Jay Harris

Title: Bewitched (The Thaumaturgy #1)

Author: Mark Jay Harris
Release Date: March 1st 2013
Publisher: InkSpell Publishing

Is it love or is it witchcraft? He’ll never find out if he kills her first.

The first time Darren saw Samantha, she was floating above his high school gymnasium during a basketball game, invisible to everyone but him. Next time he sees her, she's sitting in front of him in class, wowing his friends and causing unexplainable things to happen that only he seems to notice. But things really get strange (and complicated) when his dying grandfather tells him that he is part of an ancient order, the “Pessum Ire,” whose duty is to destroy witches. What does he do now, since he’s almost positive Samantha is a witch…and he’s crushing on her pretty hard?

Praise for Bewitched:

"Bewitched is spell-binding! A highly-unique page-turner that hooks you from the first paragraph. With complex characters and unexpected twists and turns, Harris delivers and leaves you hoping for more!" 

- Stephanie Keyes, author, The Star Child series

About the author:

Mark Harris lives in Smithfield Utah, a small town located in a beautiful valley in Northern Utah. His wife, Shaundale, and he have four terrific children, two girls and two boys and a fifth one due to arrive in November of 2012. Mark has taught English and Special Education and currently works from home teaching English to people from all over the world. Writing has always been his true passion since he was a grade schooler writing about mushrooms. "Bewitched" will be his debut novel. He has two others underway and will soon start on the sequel to "Bewitched," called "The Return of the Familiar." He hopes you enjoy his work because he is working on several series geared toward younger audiences.

Website

Giveaway!

{Blog Tour} Book Review + Top Ten Best Weapons Against the Living Dead + Giveaway: Wisteria - Bisi Leyton

Title: Wisteria (Wisteria #1)
Author: Bisi Leyton 
Release Date: August 15th 2012
 Publisher: Self-published
Goodreads | Lulu | Amazon | Smashwords

Sixteen year old Wisteria Kuti has two options—track the infected around the Isle of Smythe or leave the only known safe haven and face a world infested with flesh eating biters. But even with well-armed trackers, things go wrong and Wisteria ends up alone facing certain death, until she is rescued by the mysterious Bach. Uninfected, Bach is able to survive among the hordes of living dead.

Eighteen year old Bach, from a race known as The Family, has no interest in human affairs. He was sent here to complete his Great Walk and return home as a man—as a Sen Son. The Family regard humans as Dirt People, but Bach is drawn to this Terran girl, whom he has never seen before, but somehow knows.

Hunted by flesh eaters, cannibals, and the mysterious blood thirsty group called Red Phoenix, Wisteria and Bach make their way back to the Isle of Smythe, a community built on secrets and lies.

It might have been another case of my skim-through-the-blurb disease, but I honestly did not know what I was getting myself into when I opened Wisteria. Now, I can say that I am pleasantly surprised.

Right off the bat, we learn about the danger of Wisteria's world that is crawling with flesh eaters, but she chose to be useful to her community instead of keeping herself safe inside the Isle of Smythe, and I really admired her for that. Because of her job as a tracker, she was deadly with a gun—she had a sword, too, but she kept it as a last resort—making her a badass. But even with the undead, she also had to face the usual teenage problems: unrequited love, mean girls, and insecurities. These just served to endear her even more.

The pace is quite slow at first, but it picks up when Wisteria gets into danger and is saved by Bach, a gorgeous boy who feels an eerie sense of familiarity to Wisteria the moment he sees her. Coming from a race that is somehow immune to the flesh eaters and looks down on humans, he tries to keep Wisteria at a distance, but his concern for her often gets past his cold exterior. 

There are many layers to this story, from the flesh eaters to cannibals, secrets and betrayals, surprises and revelations, all happening in an excellently fleshed-out (no pun intended) post-apocalyptic world. I never found it hard to imagine or understand what was going on where and when, so there was no hindrance to the action and suspense that filled the story.

Although Wisteria's intermittent naivete and Bach's indecision irritated me, I think it just added to their roundedness as characters, making them as real as possible. And right after that big reveal as to their history, I just stormed through the pages until I got to that satisfying last one. Still, a lot of issues are left unsolved for the next book, which goes straight to my TBR list!

MY FAVORITE PART was, well, the ending XD

RATING:

 

Bisi Leyton's Top Ten Best Weapons Against the Living Dead 

10. Crossbow, but my aim is rubbish, so I’ll have to work on it. Another downside is I will need to top up my supply of arrows and at the same time carry a lot of arrows around. The good thing about crossbows are they’re quiet and can be used to take down zombies while the shooter remains in hiding. 

9. & 8. A Mace and an Ax because it sharp, silent and don’t require reloading. The challenge with these I might end up hurting myself.  

7. Barbed wire. Good for keep zombie and human scavengers out of my stronghold.

6. & 5. A Golf club and Baseball bat, great of smashing things and people and when I’m totally bored play some sport.

4. A bicycle, the greatest offense is a good defense and having bike means I can get out trouble a lot quicker in a world were fuels running out and where zombies are attracted to noise. So while a bike a long won’t save the day, having it means I might be able to escape to live and fight another day.

3. A good pair of shoes, because no matter what I got to be able to run.

2. Machete.

1. A crowbar. Although it isn’t sexy, it words as a weapon to attack and defend myself. A crowbar can also serve as a key to break into buildings for supplies.

About the author:

Bisi Leyton was born in East London in 1978. She grew up in London, Nigeria and the States, listening to the stories life and love from aunts, cousins and big sisters.

She lives in London, but has worked around Europe including France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium and the Czech Republic. She has a fondness for reading graphic novels.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

2013 YA + MG Time Travel Reading Challenge

The 2013 YA + MG Time Travel Reading Challenge is the only reading challenge I signed up for this year—well, aside from the Goodreads reading challenge, but really, who hasn't signed up for that? Anyway, I read Tempest by Julie Cross last December and fell in love with it, so I figured, why not try other time travel books?

After exhausting this awesome list, here are the books I plan to read for this challenge (I may not be able to read all of these, but I'm set on reading at least 7 books... which makes me a Time Slipper! XD)

Vortex by Julie Cross (of course!)

Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone 

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

The Locket by Stacey Jay

So Close to You by Rachel Carter

Timeless by Alexandra Monir

The Named by Marianne Curley

Through to You by Emily Hainsworth

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris

I won't be able to start until February, though, because January's already proving to be hectic >_<