Cover Reveal... The Last Echo by Kimberly Derting!!

Earlier this week Kimberly Derting revealed the cover of her 3rd installment of her Body Finder Series....

Violet kept her morbid ability to sense dead bodies a secret from everyone except her family and her childhood-best-friend-turned-boyfriend, Jay Heaton. That is until forensic psychologist Sara Priest discovered Violet’s talent and invited her to use her gift to track down murderers. Now, as she works with an eclectic group of individuals—including mysterious and dangerously attractive Rafe—it’s Violet’s job to help those who have been murdered by bringing their killers to justice. When Violet discovers the body of a college girl killed by “the girlfriend collector” she is determined to solve the case. But now the serial killer is on the lookout for a new “relationship” and Violet may have caught his eye....

Coming out April 17, 2012

Pre-Order Your Copy Today!

Jewelry and book covers and notebooks... Oh my!

So... I love Etsy! I can find inspiration for many things and then go out to look and see what it would take to make all of those beautiful things I see. Then I come home.... and buy it from Etsy! Can anyone else relate?

There are so many amazing artists of all kinds who are inspired by the books that we all love to read and I just wanted to take some time to highlight them. Check out these amazing creations and then head on over to their stores and buy, buy, buy!!

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Check out Heather's blog too Fire and Ice!!

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There are so many more out there. Do you have favorites you like to shop from? Link them in the comments so that we can check them out!

Review: Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian

Not That Kind of Girl

by Siobhan Vivian

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Pages: Hardback, 322

Publisher: Push

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things.

But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Not when there are freshman girls running around in a pack, trying to get senior guys to sleep with them. Not when your friends have secrets they're no longer comfortable sharing. Not when the boy you once dismissed ends up being the boy you wants to sleep with yourself - but only in secret, with nobody ever finding out.

Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between.

High school is one of those times where you are trying to figure out who you are and are faced with pressure like never before (and that you never again face). Natalie Sterling is experiencing all of this while being her own worst enemy. While she is desperately trying to keep it all together, she finds her life crumbling around her. I have to admit that it took me a while to warm up to Natalie. She is a very self obsessed person and manipulates those around her quite often to get what she needs. Her relationship with Connor, however, brought her into a whole new light for me. Connor saw something in Natalie that she didn’t see in herself and desperately tried to get her to open up and see it too. The more he tried, however, the more she resisted and caused more trouble for herself. At the end of the novel, Natalie had begun to make her transformation and I like that it was one where she recognized there would have to be gradual process. I get tired of those books where the lead needs to change, does, and BAM! Their life is perfect without all the drama. Real life doesn’t work like that so I appreciate Vivian’s acknowledgment of that fact.

Natalie is a very relatable character to many because she does want to fit in, have her life in order and is protective of her best friend. She does, however, take it to the extreme which some cannot relate to. As much as I didn’t get her in the end, she is probably one of my favorite characters because she is so well written and real. I really appreciate the fact that I didn’t like her and now do all because of the writing. Vivian did a great job of showing the dynamics of a variety of relationships in a teenagers life (from best friend, the one we take under our wing, the guy we like and even our parents) and how important they are to even the most controlling of us.

Free Audiobook Downloads from SYNC

I have to start off by thanking Donna at Bite My Books for the heads up on this great deal!

June 23rd kicks off SYNC YA Literature into Your Earphones' YA and classic free audiobook downloads! Each week until August 17th, SYNC will make available one current YA read and a classic or summer reading book for free download. These freebies will only be available for their single allotted week so be sure to grab them!

To start off the downloads, this week's featured titles are :

SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater

and

ROMEO & JULIET by William Shakespeare

The rest of the schedule is as follows -

6/30 - 7/6

LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow

and

THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka

7/7 - 7/13

WHERE THE STREETS HAD A NAME by Randa Abdel-Fattah

and

A PASSAGE TO INDIA by EM Forster

7/14 - 7/20

THE LAST APPRENTICE: REVENGE OF THE WITCH by Joseph Delaney

and

BEOWULF by Frances B. Gummere

7/21 - 7/27

CHANDA'S SECRETS by Allan Straton

and

TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES by Thomas Hardy

7/28 - 8/3

ASHES, ASHES by Jo Treggiari

and

RESCUE: SHORT STORIES OF SURVIVAL FROM LAND AND SEA
by Dorcas S. Miller

8/4 - 8/10

IMMORTAL by Gillian Shields

and

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte

8/11 - 8/17

STORM RUNNERS by Roland Smith

and

THE CAY by Theodore Taylor

So mark your calendars and get ready to download!

In My Mailbox (45)

I know it has been a while since I have done and IMM and I am so sorry! Life has been busy and with no money and no books.... they only thing coming in my mail have been icky bills! I will be glad to post those and let you all help me pay off student loans if you like!!

But this week was a great week, so we are back on track. Thanks as always goes out to Kristi at The Story Siren for hosting this MME every week. Make sure to check out her post, add your linky and check out what everyone else has gotten this week! Leave me a comment too so I can head over your way.

Oh.... and don't forget about my contests!

The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma- 2 winners (ends 6/30)

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher- 2 winners (ends 7/7)

Now onto the goods for this week! Don't forget to leave me a message too so I can head over your way :)

For Review:

My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody

Withering Tights by Louise Rennison

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Fins Are Forever (Fins #2) by Tera Lynn Childs

Betrayal by Gillian Shields

Big Nate on A Roll by Lincoln Peirce

Don’t Breathe A Word by Holly Cupala

Variant by Robinson Wells

Guys Read: Thriller ed. by Jon Scieszka

Dark Eden by Patrick Carman

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Bought:

Leaving by Karen Kingsbury

Exclusively Yours (Kowalski Family #1) by Shannon Stacey

Undeniably Yours (Kowalski Family #2) by Shannon Stacey

Yours To Keep (Kowalski Family #3) by Shannon Stacey

Happy reading everyone!!

Review: Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell

Ten Miles Past Normal

by Frances O’Roark Dowell

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Pages: Hardcover, 211

Publisher: Anthem (Simon and Schuster)

Janie Gorman wants to be normal. The problem with that: she’s not. She’s smart and creative and a little bit funky. She’s also an unwilling player in her parents’ modern-hippy, let’s-live-on-a-goat-farm experiment (regretfully, instigated by a younger, much more enthusiastic Janie). This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie reach that “normal target.” She has to milk goats every day…and endure her mother’s pseudo celebrity in the homemade-life, crunchy mom blogosphere. Goodbye the days of frozen lasagna and suburban living, hello crazy long bus ride to high school and total isolation—and hovering embarrassments of all kinds. The fresh baked bread is good…the threat of homemade jeans, not so much.

It would be nice to go back to that old suburban life…or some grown up, high school version of it, complete with nice, normal boyfriends who wear crew neck sweaters and like social studies. So, what’s wrong with normal? Well, kind of everything. She knows that, of course, why else would she learn bass and join Jam Band, how else would she know to idolize infamous wild-child and high school senior Emma (her best friend Sarah’s older sister), why else would she get arrested while doing a school project on a local freedom school (jail was not part of the assignment). And, why else would she kind of be falling in "like" with a boy named Monster—yes, that is his real name. Janie was going for normal, but she missed her mark by about ten miles…and we mean that as a compliment.

Janie is one of those characters everyone can relate to. Not necessarily because we have walked into school with goat poop on our shoe and became known as “skunk girl,” but because we have all had a time when we are struggling to fit in. We don’t know who we are (because high school completely wrecks us all) and this novel completely captures those feelings through Janie. I read this one in a day because it was such an easy read and so captivating. The writing flows and the characters are so wonderfully written that you will find yourself loving them all… even the secondary characters whom we sometimes forget about! Though I loved Janie, it is the secondary characters and their stories which have stuck with me and given me a new voice within my writing (thanks Pritchard’s and Mrs. Brown!).

So many of today’s novels for teens focus on the relationships they have with their peers but this novel takes it to a new level. It is a coming of age story which I completely love and appreciate on so many levels. The fact that Janie and the other characters are written to showcase how life isn’t always easy but that we learn so much through those rough spots when we don’t even realize it. This will definitely be one that my students read again and again!

Frances doesn’t live too far from me but you can visit her HERE!

Review: Die for Me by Amy Plum

Die for Me (Revenants #1)

Amy Plum

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Pages: Hardback, 344 pages

Publisher: Harper Teen

In the City of Lights, two star-crossed lovers battle a fate that is destined to tear them apart again and again for eternity.

When Kate Mercier's parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life--and memories--behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art.

Until she meets Vincent.

Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate's guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he's a revenant--an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart,

she may never be safe again.

Don’t you just hate when you read the first to a new series and you get to the end of that novel and realize you have to WAIT for the next one? Well that is exactly how I feel about this amazing debut novel! Debut novelist Amy Plum has shaped a new way for us to view paranormal and her creativity astounds me. Paris definitely comes to life in this novel in a way that is great for those of us poor souls who have never been to the beautiful city. (After reading this novel, though, I definitely want to go!!) The fun with paranormal is that there are so many variations of the genre available, but with the creation of a new realm, Amy will suck you into a world of evil, romance, sword fighting and enchantment before you even realize it.

Kate has been dealt a rough hand when it comes to life. Finding herself suddenly parentless and moving to Paris, she doesn’t think that life will go on. She creates comfort in sitting at café’s on the streets of Paris reading her novels and relying only on herself to stay somewhat away from the complete devastation she could easily find herself sinking into. Finding someone who will help bring her completely out of this place is the last thing on her mind, and yet it is the one thing that she finds sitting there. Of course the relationship between Kate and Vincent couldn’t be a normal one but Kate welcomes its reprieve and finds that it is just what she needs. Vincent brings out in her qualities that she never thought she would find buried within herself and she does the same for him. This amazing debut will leave you breathless at times, amazed by the writing and drooling for more!!

Visit Amy HERE , follow her on twitter (@iHeartRevenants) and visit her on Facebook HERE. She is such a cool chick (hello… raised in the South and now lives in PARIS….)!!