The Girl Who Fell by S.M.Parker - Review + Interview + Giveaway

Title: The Girl Who Fell
Author: Shannon Parker
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: March 1st 2016
Part of A Series?: Standalone!
I Got A Copy Through: Simon Pulse via Netgalley (Thank you!)
Blurb Description: His obsession.
Her fall.

Zephyr is focused. Focused on leading her team to the field hockey state championship and leaving her small town for her dream school, Boston College.

But love has a way of changing things.

Enter the new boy in school: the hockey team’s starting goaltender, Alec. He’s cute, charming, and most important, Alec doesn’t judge Zephyr. He understands her fears and insecurities—he even shares them. Soon, their relationship becomes something bigger than Zephyr, something she can’t control, something she doesn’t want to control.

Zephyr swears it must be love. Because love is powerful, and overwhelming, and … terrifying?

But love shouldn’t make you abandon your dreams, or push your friends away. And love shouldn’t make you feel guilty—or worse, ashamed.

So when Zephyr finally begins to see Alec for who he really is, she knows it’s time to take back control of her life.

If she waits any longer, it may be too late.

**GIVEAWAY**
Giveaway prizes courtesy of the author
Null where prohibited by the law
Open to residents of the United States only
**INTERVIEW**
Hi Shannon! Thanks SO much for agreeing to do this! It means so much to me - I really
loved The Girl Who Fell (as I've mentioned like twenty times by now).

Shannon: Thanks so much for having me on your blog! And I am beyond thrilled that you connected with The Girl Who Fell. I love when a book finds its readers!!

1. The Funniest Thing you've ever done: Channeled Sandy from Grease and sang “You’re The One That I Want”—ooh, ooh, ooh… at the top of my tone deaf lungs to my (horrified) hubs at our wedding.

2. Top Five Female Characters:
Lily Owens: The Secret Life of Bees
Lennie: The Sky is Everywhere
Mma Precious Ramotswe: The #1 Ladies Detective Agency
Sissy Hankshaw: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
All women: Women Who Run With The Wolves

3. Give us an #AuthorConfession #IAmCrippledWithSelfDoubt

And now, moving on to your masterpiece:

4. What inspired you to write about a relationship that isn't all that healthy?

First love is intoxicating. It is tempting and luscious and beautiful. But it is also so dangerous. You ask yourself: Can I trust this person with my heart? My body? My dreams? And there are plenty of books that scream YES to these questions. They are the books of Happily Ever After.

I wanted to write a story that explored the dangers of first love. What happens when you can’t trust the person you love? What happens when love turns toxic? And how does a strong and determined girl fall for a charming boy who is—at his core—awful and damaged (and damaging)?

I wanted to write this story because I think it is a reality for countless teens and I don’t think it is talked about enough.

I wanted readers to fall for Alec’s manipulation alongside Zephyr and maybe begin to understand how this type of “fall” can happen, even to the smartest, most driven teenage girl. How falling doesn’t mean you are weak. And that you shouldn’t feel shame. 

I wanted to write a book that tells girls that they always, ALWAYS have the right to regain their voice.

5. I think Gregg is the cutest new book boy I've read about for a while! *FANGIRLS* So, I'd love to hear Gregg's backstory - how he became a character in your mind (if that makes sense;P)

I’m a huge Gregg fan. He’s such a fierce and loyal friend to Zephyr. Plus, he’s a total wise-ass and I love that about him. His personality was created to offset the toxicity of Alec’s character. And he needed to be The Best because Gregg is something Zephyr is asked to give up once Alec becomes increasingly possessive. That had to feel like high stakes for Zephyr.

So I knew I needed Gregg for the story and I set about building his character by drawing on the very best traits of my male friends. The loyal ones. The fierce ones. The funny ones. The gentle ones. 

6. What advice would you give anyone in a relationship like Alec and Zephyr's?

Love should never hurt. 

**MY REVIEW**

This is the part of limbo we don’t talk about, how our individual futures don’t include each other.”

From the very first sentence, or maybe even before that, when I read the blurb and saw that gorgeous cover, I knew that not only what The Girl Who Fell something I HAD to get my hands on, but also that I’d love it! And in all honesty, it was SO much better than anything I had dared to expect!

“Crushing is safe,” she said. “It only involves one person… you. And you can be in control.”

Reading the entire book in one sitting, in the wee hours of the night, I can only say WOW! Just WOW! As a third person not in a dysfunctional relationship, I could see where everything was going wrong; how it was all a little too much and a little bit out of the bounds of normal or healthy. I could see it, and yet what I felt was so different.

Because Shannon Parker has created this set of circumstances where you believe everything that is
happening – no, I’m explaining this all wrong – where you see what it’s like to be in THAT relationship from the outside, and at the same time, you can COMPLETELY understand why everything that happens in that relationship is happening. From the “I need you and only you” to “I’ve only ever felt this way when I’m with you” and “You affect me more that I could say. I don’t deserve you,” you see it all slowly unfold before your eyes. How everything seems so reasonable, and then you look up and realise that her boyfriend just asked her to never talk to her best friend again, and Shannon Parker had YOU believing it!

And I swear, being someone that has always believed that friends are more important than boys, the fact that I could understood scared me. And that is just a testament to how GREAT this book is.
But then, all of that I expected, on some level. What I didn’t expect the book to give me, however was the good AND the bad of the relationship. How everything was perfect, how Alec was the sweetest guy in the world that any girl would be lucky to have, how he made her meals and gave her these tiny gifts oh- so- often. It was perfect, and it wasn’t. And for the first time ever, I feel like I can understand a bit of what really goes on in the relationship you’re always warning your best friend against. The world isn’t a black and white place, but shades of grey, and The Girl Who Fell only reaffirmed that!

I SALUTE YOU, SHANNON PARKER!

And I’ve gone rambling almost five hundred words without once mentioning my two new FAVOURITE secondary characters – Gregg and Lizzie! That chemistry was brilliant, that friendship perfect – just like everything about this book!

POINTS FOR: Gregg, Lizzie, Zephyr (the character and the name!), Alec, Finn (the CUTEST dog in the world), ice hockey, family, weddings, parks, picnics, accurate descriptions of what it’s like to be a high school senior and DID I SAY GREGG?!

POINTS AGAINST: NOTHING! Nothing at all. Seriously.

Now go. Go READ THE BOOK. GO.

BLOG TOUR: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Caravallo - Review + Favourite Quotes + Giveaway


Title: A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes #1)
Author: Brittany Cavallaro
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: March 1st 2016
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary, Retellings, Fiction, Romance, Thriller
Part of A Series?: Yes! Book 1 of 3 of the Charlotte Homes Series
I Got A Copy Through: Edelweiss Above The Tree Line

Synopsis: The last thing sixteen-year-old Jamie Watson–writer and great-great-grandson of the John Watson–wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s enigmatic, fiercely independent great-great-granddaughter, who’s inherited not just his genius but also his vices, volatile temperament, and expertly hidden vulnerability. Charlotte has been the object of his fascination for as long as he can remember–but from the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else.

Then a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Holmes stories, and Jamie and Charlotte become the prime suspects. Convinced they’re being framed, they must race against the police to conduct their own investigation. As danger mounts, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe and the only people they can trust are each other.

Equal parts tender, thrilling, and hilarious, A Study in Charlotte is the first in a trilogy brimming with wit and edge-of-the-seat suspense.


Let me just start by saying that Sherlock is my JAM! I am a HUGE HUGE Sherlockian. 221B is my dream home, and I would probably kick your ass at Sherlock trivia, and so when I heard about A Study In Charlotte, I knew I HAD HAD HAD to have it! The entire idea was SO ingenious, and reading the synopsis should make any good Sherlock fan run and buy it!

To be honest, I didn't quite know what I was getting into. I was hoping that ASIC would be good enough to compare to Sherlock, and Brittany Caravallo you have WAY surpassed what I would have considered a good book!

For the first 20% of the book though, I was a little frustrated, and all due to one fact: Charlotte Holmes is EXACTLY like her great great grandfather, Sherlock, and I was sitting there wondering what the point of this book was if we just took Sherlock, changed his gender, and through him in our time as a teenager. 

And then, once I could SO clearly see her as Sherlock's descendant, did the book really start to take shape. AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

Holmes and Watson are being framed for murder. Murders recreated in same way as the original Sherlock books. And all while enjoying this GREAT book, I was completely fangirling in my head. It was AWESOME! I'm not going to tell you much more, but I will say if you have your reservations about reading what sounds like a Sherlock Fanfic, trust me, It will leave you fangirling and COMPLETELY spellbound, but never once give you the imitation that it isn't something new and brilliant!

I will leave you with this, though: Caravallo manages to combine the finesse of a Sherlock novel and the excitement of a YA thriller seamlessly in A Study in Charlotte! READ IT!

Quotes: 

'There were a lot of answers to that not-question: I'm a Watson, it's generically impossible for me to suspect you or, in my imagination, you weren't ever a villain, you were always a hero.'

'It might have been a waste of time and money, but foe once, I understood it. Better to focus on pageantry than on death.'

'I learned the names of everything she played. She liked when I asked, and I liked to listen'

'You're questioning me about all there crazy crimes that I haven't committed, but someone wants you to think I've committed, and they've done such a good job of it that I almost believe I committed them too.'
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Follow the A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.
Brittany Cavallaro is a poet, fiction writer, and old school Sherlockian. She is the author of the poetry collection Girl-King (University of Akron) and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She earned her BA in literature from Middlebury College and her MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, she's a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she teaches creative writing, detective fiction, and lots of other things. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, cat, and collection of deerstalker caps. Find her at her website, brittanycavallaro.com, or on Twitter @skippingstones.



Stacking The Shelves #5 : The One With The Pretty Books!

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!
If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page!
PHYSICAL COPIES:
From Harper Collins International:
1. The Siren by Keira Cass: THE SIREN! EEE! I actually had a pre-order in, and then it showed up in the catalogue, and I had to request it!
BOUGHT:
1. The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury: I got this at the Scholastic Book Fair at my school last week, and it was SO GOOD!
2. Unhooked by Lisa Maxwell: I bought this on Amazon and also got AMAZING pre-order swag from Lisa Maxwell - including a MAP of NEVERLAND!
E-BOOKS:
From NetGalley:
1. OCDaniel by  Wesley King: This sounds SO good. I can't wait to start reading it!

BLOG TOUR: Love Me, Love Me Not by Alyxandra Harvey - Review + Giveaway


Love Me, Love Me Not by Alyxandra Harvey
Publication Date:  February 22, 2016
Genre:  YA Fantasy
Blurb Description: Dating isn’t easy when you’re in the middle of a blood feud.
Anastasia Vila’s family can turn into swans, but just once she’d like them to turn into responsible adults.
After hundreds of years, they still cling to the blood feud with the Renard family. No one remembers how it started in the first place—but foxes and swans just don’t get along.
Vilas can only transform into their swan shape after they have fallen in love for the first time, but between balancing schoolwork, family obligations, and the escalating blood feud, Ana’s got no time for love. The only thing keeping her sane is her best friend, Pierce Kent.
But when Pierce kisses Ana, everything changes.
Is what Pierce feels for her real, or a byproduct of her magic? Can she risk everything for her best friend? And when the family feud spirals out of control, Ana must stop the fight before it takes away everything she loves.
Including, maybe...Pierce.
This Entangled Teen Crave book contains language, violence, and lots of kissing. Warning: it might induce strong feelings of undeniable attraction for your best friend.

Purchase Links:


Alyxandra Harvey lives in a stone Victorian house in Ontario, Canada with a few resident ghosts who are allowed to stay as long as they keep company manners. She loves medieval dresses, used to be able to recite all of The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson, and has been accused, more than once, of being born in the wrong century. She believes this to be mostly true except for the fact that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice cream. Aside from the ghosts, she also lives with her husband and their dogs. She likes cinnamon lattes, tattoos and books.

Connect with the author:  Website | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads

**GIVEAWAY**
a Rafflecopter giveaway

**MY REVIEW**

It was only after I signed up to be on the Blog Tour for Love Me Love Me Not did I find out that it was a retelling of another story – which sort of made it lose its ‘WOAH! Original’ factor, but kept me at the same amount of excited, because I adore retellings.

There has been only one other book I’ve read about wings or feathers or birds and it was not a good experience for me (See Feather Bound) so I was a bit sceptical when I read the synopsis, but this was an Alxyanrda Harvey novel, and I’ve read a couple and really liked them, so I thought “Why not?”

I love taking chances on books that I normally wouldn’t put at the top of my TBR, but I am SO glad that I did with this one! Don’t get me wrong, it has a few flaws, but it was a good  book nonetheless.
Anastasia Vila comes from a family that can turn into swans. Before a Vila can turn into a swan they have to fall in love first, which is Ana's main problem. She wants her wings, but she also wants to get through school, where her best friend is in love with her. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I’m a complete sucker for best friend romances, and this one was no exception, except for the fact that they never felt like friends, just already in the cat and mouse game stage. Which kind of sucks, but I can deal.

I guess what I liked the most about this book was that it wasn’t just a romance, but had the most bizzare twist! I mean, SWAN WINGS? Fall in Love, and sprout wings. WOAH.

I’m not going to tell you what happens, but suffice it to say, if you’re looking for something different and out of the box, this should be it!  

BLOG TOUR: Bluescreen (Mirador #1) by Dan Wells - Promo Post + Giveaway


Bluescreen (Mirador #1) by Dan Wells
Publisher: Balzer & Bray
Release Date: February 16th 2016
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Fantasy, Action, Teen

Synopsis: Los Angeles in 2050 is a city of open doors, as long as you have the right connections. That connection is a djinni—a smart device implanted right in a person’s head. In a world where virtually everyone is online twenty-four hours a day, this connection is like oxygen—and a world like that presents plenty of opportunities for someone who knows how to manipulate it.

Marisa Carneseca is one of those people. She might spend her days in Mirador, the small, vibrant LA neighborhood where her family owns a restaurant, but she lives on the net—going to school, playing games, hanging out, or doing things of more questionable legality with her friends Sahara and Anja. And it’s Anja who first gets her hands on Bluescreen—a virtual drug that plugs right into a person’s djinni and delivers a massive, non-chemical, completely safe high. But in this city, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, and Mari and her friends soon find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that is much bigger than they ever suspected.

Dan Wells, author of the New York Times bestselling Partials Sequence, returns with a stunning new vision of the near future—a breathless cyber-thriller where privacy is the world’s most rare resource and nothing, not even the thoughts in our heads, is safe.

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Follow the Bluescreen by Dan Wells Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.
Dan Wells is a thriller and science fiction writer. Born in Utah, he spent his early years reading and writing. He is he author of the Partials series (Partials, Isolation, Fragments, and Ruins), the John Cleaver series (I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don't Want To Kill You), and a few others (The Hollow City, A Night of Blacker Darkness, etc). He was a Campbell nomine for best new writer, and has won a Hugo award for his work on the podcast Writing Excuses; the podcast is also a multiple winner of the Parsec Award.

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BLOG TOUR: After The Woods by Kim Savage - Guest Post + Review + Giveaway


After the Woods by Kim Savage
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: February 23rd 2016
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller, Realistic Fiction, Suspense, Horror
Rate: 4 STARS!

Synopsis: Would you risk your life to save your best friend? 

Julia did. When a paroled predator attacked Liv in the woods, Julia fought back and got caught. Liv ran, leaving Julia in the woods for a terrifying 48 hours that she remembers only in flashbacks. One year later, Liv seems bent on self-destruction, starving herself, doing drugs, and hooking up with a violent new boyfriend. A dead girl turns up in those same woods, and Julia’s memories resurface alongside clues unearthed by an ambitious reporter that link the girl to Julia’s abductor. As the devastating truth becomes clear, Julia realizes that after the woods was just the beginning.

READ ON FOR A REVIEW, GUEST POST AND GIVEAWAY!