Friday, June 28, 2013

Vengeance By Jamie Canosa (and a giveaway!)


Aiden's Angel extraordinaire, Jamie Canosa, (who made book trailers of awesome for Between and Hell Transporter) also happens to be a fantastic author! Her first book, Dissidence, came out last year (see my review here), and now the sequel is out!


Things aren’t always as they seem. In fact, in a world of secrets and lies almost nothing ever is, but Kaleigh made her choices and now she has to live with the consequences.

Haunted by her guilt, Kaleigh is forced to question everything she thought she knew. From friends and foes, to loyalty and love, she’s quickly losing faith in herself and those around her.

Everyone she cares about has been hurtled to the front lines, but can Kaleigh find the strength within herself to keep fighting? Or, surrounded by loss, deceit, and betrayal, will her fiery spirit finally be extinguished?

Dissidence ended on a massive cliffhanger, so I was eager to get my hands on the sequel to find out where on Earth the story was going to go from there. I had my theories, but I could not have been more wrong. A couple pages in, my jaw was hanging open. She didn't! Oh, yes, she did. And she walked me through the aftermath step by step, letting me steep in the agony and determination that can come from loss.

Canosa doesn't shy away from true feelings in this book, which was one of the many things I loved about it. Dystopians paint a picture of a ruined society, but humans are humans no matter the setting, and Canosa did a fantastic job of being real inside a dystopian world.

Kayleigh's voice is snarky and sarcastic throughout both books. She made me smile with her unflagging sense of humor, even when death was a near certainty. The action is non-stop and intense, but thankfully, not gory. In fact, the characters go out of their way to disarm and disable opponents without killing them, which I found a nice reprieve from the ultra violent themes popular today. Dissidence has the same feel and tension of Divergent by Veronic Roth. But Vengeance surpasses Insurgent by a mile, in my opinion!

If you're a fan of YA dystopian novels, you owe it to yourself to check out these books. And then you can say you knew her back before she became a NYT Bestselling Author!

Connect with Jamie on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads, and don't forget to follow her blog. Then enter the giveaway below so you can see for yourself what I'm talking about! Can't wait for the giveaway? Then pick up your copies of Dissidence and Vengeance now. You won't be sorry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, June 17, 2013

Awesomest Mini-Review Ever!

This is EXACTLY what I was going for when I wrote Between. I could not have said it better myself. LOVE!

Thank you so much, Shani Bell!

Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Importance of Being "There"

I have a friend who's entrusted me with a secret. It's nothing bad; it's just something she doesn't want other people to know, and I respect that. I haven't told anyone else and I'm not going to.

But when I mentioned to her that I was honored she'd chosen to tell me, she said, "It's because I needed to tell someone and you were there." At first, I laughed and teased her, saying, "Oh great, it's not because you love me and trust me or anything; it's not because I'm some amazing friend; it's just that I was there. Niiiiice." Chuckling, she hastened to clarify that she does love me and all, and we moved on to something new in our conversation.

But I've been thinking about what she said, and I've come to the realization that being there really does matter.

How many times have I gone onto Twitter to reach out to another human being who is connected and active online right at that very moment because I needed someone who was there? Most of the people I follow on Twitter are complete strangers to me, but being BFFs is not the requirement most times. I just want someone to be there to share life with at that particular moment, and just about any person will do. It's the magic of Twitter, really.

There's a reason that long-distance relationships are so difficult to maintain. It's the lack of thereness. My best friend lives five hours away and she and I have to work hard to keep our friendship alive because we can't always be there for one another. We can't just grab a cup of coffee and catch up. We have to carve out time together in order to nurture that relationship because being there is so important.

I've heard it said that showing up is half the battle, and I'm thinking it might account for more than half. The importance of simply being there for someone who has something to share can't be over emphasized. It's what connects us, makes us a community, and reveals the God-imprint in each of us.

Was there a time in your life when you needed someone to just be there and they were? What did that mean to you?

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Sign up for the Even In Darkness blog tour!


The third book in the Between series, Even In Darkness, came out on April 1st, and has gotten some great reviews already! I thought it would be fun to put together a blog tour for the new book so that readers who fell in love with Aiden MacRae before will know there's a new book with even more Aiden yumminess out now, and maybe even introduce some new folks to our hot Scot. :)

The blog tour will run from July 28 through August 3, which will hopefully give everyone enough time to fit it into their schedules. I've created a sign-up sheet where you can let me know if you're interested in participating. I'll collect responses on the sign-up sheet, then work with everyone on specific dates and posts.

If you have friends or social connections who might be interested in participating, please forward them the link to the sign-up sheet. The more, the merrier, of course!

Thanks to the lovely Lindsay Cox from Violet Hour Book Reviews for the awesome banner above! Please use the banner on your blogs to promote the upcoming tour, if you're going to participate!