A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton

These past three-and-a-half weeks have been a crazy haze of essay writing, editing, reading and revision. I have pretty much lost all sense of dates and days of the week, but there remains a ticking countdown in my head checking off the days and hours until my degree is finally over. I'm handing in four essays totalling 15,000 words in four days, my first exam starts in five days and the last exam of my academic career is in twelve. As much as I can't wait for the freedom, I also wouldn't mind if another couple of weeks materialised somewhere so I can revise some more!

Anyway, that's the reason why the blog has been dead for a month. A Dark and Twisted Tide was one of my most anticipated books for 2014 and is published today (8 May) and so here's my review. Now, back to the edits and revision ...


A Dark and Twisted Tide (2014) (Bantam Press)
Sharon Bolton
Grade: A-
Genre: gothic thriller crime
Sex scenes: MORE sexual tension
Source: NetGalley
Lacey Flint: (1) Now You See Me, (1.5) If Snow Hadn't Fallen, (2) Dead Scared, (3) Like This, For Ever, (4) A Dark and Twisted Tide

Fiction Reading Bingo Challenge 2014: A book by a female author 

Crime keeps coming to find former detective Lacey Flint. After her last big case, Lacey took the difficult decision of going back into uniform and taking life easy – or so she’d hoped. She’s now part of the Thames Marine Unit, getting used to living on a houseboat and her new peaceful lifestyle, but murder has other ideas. Swimming in the Thames one morning, Lacey comes across a body laboriously wrapped and preserved in some sort of burial ritual that the police are unable to identify. Lacey can’t help but get involved and her former team are more than willing to have her back.

You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

You Had Me at Hello (2012) (Avon)
Mhairi McFarlane
Grade: A
Genre: chick lit
Sex scenes: kisses
Source: library

Rachel Woodford and Ben Morgan. Met (whilst sober) during Fresher’s Week and inseparable for the next three years of their English course at Manchester University. Rachel is already in a relationship with Rhys, a guy from home, otherwise she would totally act on these feelings she’s got harbouring for her best friend. Ben, on the other hand, is carefree and single, with a new girlfriend every few months, cruising the relationship lane as is expected of university undergraduates. Yet, despite being thick as thieves for three years, the night after their graduation ball, all contact is severed completely.

The Elite by Kiera Cass

The Elite (2013) (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Kiera Cass
Grade: B-
Genre: YA dystopian
Source: NetGalley / own
The Selection: (1) The Selection, (2) The Elite 

In a future where WWIV rocked the world and the new country of Illéa lives under a brutal and unfair caste system, life is changing rapidly for 17-year-old America Singer. She was one of thirty-five girls picked for The Selection, an outdated process that was originally aimed at bringing the country together and garnering public support for the monarchy. Thirty-five girls have been whittled down to six, and America, a Five and the lowest caste left in the competition, has got all to play for …

Icons by Margaret Stohl

Icons (2013)
Margaret Stohl
Grade: B+
Genre: YA / dystopian
Source: NetGalley
Icons: (1) Icons

Nothing was the same after The Day. The Day when the Lords came, causing 13 Icons to fall from the sky, generating a powerful electromagnetic field that halted all electrical activity within a certain radius. The Day when 13 of the world's biggest cities became silent, dependent only upon the electricity generated by the Icons that the Lords permitted them to use. The Day that 1 billion lives came to an end.

Doloria Maria de la Cruz is an Icon Child, marked out as different by the tiny grey dot on her wrist, just “one small circle the color of the sea in the rain … [her] destiny.” Her parents and brothers died on The Day when she was just a baby, and she and her best friend Ro have been brought up together by Padre in the Grasslands, areas outside the cities, untouched by the power of the Icons and the control of the Lords and the Embassies. On the day of her seventeenth birthday, everything changes.

Cover Reveal: The Elite

I've read virtually no YA books in 2012, but The Selection by Kiera Cass is by far my favourite. I liked the cover when it appeared on NetGalley and while the summary sounded great, the cover was definitely my motivating reason for requesting it for review.

The cover for book two, The Elite, doesn't disappoint. The theme for The Selection was initally a great choice and so they've done well in following it and keeping with the theme, yet the colour scheme gives the book it's own character and independence. It's stunning.

I can only keep my fingers crossed that it's going to be available on NetGalley in the new year! Can't wait for April 2013!

FIRST CHAPTER PREVIEW OF TIFFANY REISZ'S 'THE PRINCE'!!!

Note my excitement.

I randomly checked Ms Reisz's twitter account yesterday and saw that there would be a preview of the first chapter, released today. It's beyond awesome. Check it out here.

We know that much of the book is set in Søren and Kingsley's childhood at the Jesuit boarding school where they met. The sample chapter as above begins as Kingsley arrives in his idea of hell and is pretending that he can't speak a word of English. Like most people, he is haunted by the beauty of the music flowing from Søren's hands, but terrified by the man himself:

Crossed by Ally Condie

Crossed (2011)
Ally Condie
Grade: B-
Genre: dystopian YA

Source: library
Matched: (1) Matched, (2) Crossed

When Society decides what you eat, what work you do and who you have children with, not everyone is going to blindingly obey. The vast majority have been indoctrinated to believe that this is the only path to follow, but underneath the surface, if you know where to look, dissenters exist aplenty. Society has its ways of controlling those who are more vocal in their dissent; those like Cassia are more aware of what will happen to them if they lash out and instead keep one ear open for any news to do with the Pilot who it is said will lead The Rising.

The Selection by Kiera Cass

The Selection (2012)

Kiera Cass

Grade: A-

Genre: YA dystopian

Source: NetGalley

The Selection: (1) The Selection, (2) The Elite

The Selection is a life-changing experience for all thirty-fives girls who are chosen, even if they don't win. It's the traditional means of finding a wife for the Crown Prince of Illéa whereby one girl is chosen from every province to live the high life of the royalty in the palace. As the prince spends more time with the girls, he’ll eliminate them until he’s left with one girl who will become his wife. A reality television Princess-finding process, as it were, since the people of Illéa tune in weekly during the Capital Report to watch the progress of the Selected and are just as enthusiastic - if not more so - about who will become Queen than the prince is. The Selection is open to all girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty, whatever their caste. An eligible girl would be crazy not to enter; America Singer is by this definition, crazy.