Waiting on Wednesday (164)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that highlights future releases that we are excitedly anticipating.

By Marina Adair
Publication Date: October 13, 2015

Emerson “Emi” Blake dropped out of culinary school to care for her ailing mother, but she has bigger dreams than running St. Helena’s most popular pita cart. First on the menu: upgrade to a gourmet food truck. A new part-time job as a personal chef will definitely provide the funds, but it also forces her into close contact with her one and only one-night stand, Dax Baudouin, who’s daring her to try a second taste.

Former army Ranger Dax has a clear mission: come home, get healed, and get gone. Yet Emi’s tough-girl exterior and hidden soft side are even harder to resist than her mouthwatering baklava. After years of battles, he knows better than to try and rescue anyone—not that she’ll let him get close enough to try. Truth is, Dax is starting to think that Emi’s the one person who can save him…if he can just persuade her to give him another shot.






By Becca Fitzpatrick
Publication Date:  November 10, 2015

A teen is forced to make a fresh start after witnessing a violent crime—but love and danger find her anyway in this novel from Becca Fitzpatrick, theNew York Times bestselling author of the Hush, Hush saga.

Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska, is not her real home. This is not her real life.

After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.

But Stella was about to start her senior year with the boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.

As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks…





By Marie Lu
Publication Date: October 13, 2015

From New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu comes the second book in the exhilarating Young Elites series

Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all.

Adelina Amouteru’s heart has suffered at the hands of both family and friends, turning her down the bitter path of revenge. Now known and feared as the White Wolf, she and her sister flee Kenettra to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army of allies. Her goal: to strike down the Inquisition Axis, the white-cloaked soldiers that murdered her love, the Crown Prince Enzo Valenciano.

But Adelina is no heroine. Her powers, fed only by fear and hate, have started to grow beyond her control. She does not trust her newfound Elite friends. Teren Santoro, leader of the Inquisition, wants her dead. And her former friends, Raffaele and the Dagger Society, want to stop her thirst for vengeance. Adelina struggles to cling to the good within her. But how can someone be good, when her very existence depends on darkness?

Waiting on Wednesday (46)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that highlights future releases that we are excitedly anticipating.



By Marie Lu
Publication Date: January 29, 2013

June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have only one request—-June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.

It’s their chance to change the nation, to give voice to a people silenced for too long.

But as June realizes this Elector is nothing like his father, she’s haunted by the choice ahead. What if Anden is a new beginning? What if revolution must be more than loss and vengeance, anger and blood—what if the Patriots are wrong?

Legend by Marie Lu

*** ½

Description taken from back cover:

Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a military prodigy committed to her country.

Born into the slums of Republic’s Lake Sector, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal.

From different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths-until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered.  And Day becomes the prime suspect.

Now, caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival while June tries desperately to avenge Metias’s death.  But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together and the sinister lengths to which their country will go to keep its secrets.

I was lucky enough to snag an ARC of Legend via librarything.com.  I have been sitting on it for a little while as I have been a little nervous to read it.  Just in case you weren’t aware, I LOVE The Hunger Games.  Worse yet, THG was the first and only dystopian series I have read.  With that being my basis for comparison, I was afraid that my expectations would be too high and that they wouldn’t be met.  But this week, I decided to put my fears aside and moved Legend to the top of my to-be-read pile.  And I am glad that I did.

Let me get The Hunger Games comparison out of the way first.  The only similarity between the two books is that they take place in a dystopian society where the government negatively controls everything one way or another.  Other than that, throw all your other preconceived THG-based dystopian ideas out the window.  The two books are nothing alike and I couldn’t have been happier about that fact. 

There were a couple things that I really didn’t care for in this book.  First, as much as I love romance, I actually would have preferred the romance to be taken more slowly or removed all together.  Regardless of the events that take place in the book, I would have expected there to be a lot more distrust between Day and June.  Second, everything seemed to be a little underwhelming and I felt that a lot of the story was predictable.  With the exception of a couple scenes, nothing shocked or surprised me. 

But you know what? This still turned out to be a really fun novel.  Marie Lu’s skills/strengths are in developing her main characters and making a story move.  Maybe I don’t think June and Day should be each other’s romantic interest but that doesn’t mean I didn’t absolutely love them individually.  Day is a future-day Robin Hood which makes you want to root for him immediately.  June is a girl that is very driven and not afraid to use her extreme intelligence to reach her goals (it was probably the military aspect but she made me think of a young Honor Harrington).  They are both very strong characters which is always a plus with the Bibliojunkies.

And even though I found a lot of this story to be predictable, that doesn’t mean it was at all slow.  Lu did an amazing job of making the action flow quickly.  This along with the love of the main characters made it difficult to put the book down.  I admit to staying up until 4 a.m reading Legend.  I finally had to force myself to go to sleep even though I only had 40 pages left.  No matter how much I was enjoying the book, those adorable pesky toddlers would be up bright and early only a few short hours later.   

The only problem now?  I have learned the down-side of reading an Advanced Readers Copy…the wait is even longer when you are looking forward to the next installment in the series.  And I will DEFINITELY be looking forward to the sequel to Legend.

Nat