June Reads 2016 *Day 8*

Another month has come and gone and I’ve managed to read two more books in that time. I am happy that I am still a book ahead on my Goodreads goal of reading 25 books in 2016. As I am writing this, I finished an ebook and am almost done with a book from my personal library. I am hoping to read at least four books in July and almost two books down is a good start to the month at only a week in. Here’s what I read in June:

L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this story. I feel like it is very unique and not just a celebrity endorsement. I don’t know how true this book was to her life story or TV show, but I enjoyed it. I look forward to reading the next book. I also have the first two books of the spin off series. I will definitely be reading them soon now. All of the characters are dimensional for the most part. People are complicated and Lauren Conrad got that part right. I found it to be believable that this could happen, however unlikely as it sounds. It was witty without over doing it and I cannot wait to read the next twisted web of lies and half truths.

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I absolutely LOVED this book to DEATH. It was laugh out loud funny and highly entertaining. I could really relate to all of the cringe worthy moments. I am also drowning in debt, but I don’t spend like her. My debt are all student loans and a car payment. I would never want to be in debt over a pair of Jimmy Choos! I can pay for those by saving up. Her spending was ridiculous, which was partly why this book was so fun. That being said, I found Rebecca to be petty at best and downright childish at worst.

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Now that I’ve reviewed these on Goodreads, I found out that I’m one book behind! It’s funny how in 30 minutes, I fell a book behind. Goodreads is strange. LOL. What have you been reading lately?

With Love ❤

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Saving Angel

Saving Angel by J.L. Weil
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Plot: Angel moves across the country and meets her next door neighbors for the first time. Nothing is ever the same since. She becomes best friends with Lexi and falls for the charming and arrogant Chase. She also discovers that their whole family is not what they seem and that Hell may be closer than she ever thought before. Being chased by rapid hellhounds and demons may just be the beginning of her new life; that is, if she can survive the chase.

Key Characters: Angel has to be hands down one of my favorite characters crafted ever. I love her fierceness and her vulnerability. Out of all of the female characters that I have ever read about, I relate to her the most. She is the perfect balance of quirky and normal. She has her own mind, ambitions, and goal. She also doesn’t let Chase kick her around, but she can’t help but like him, even when’s he’s a major jerk. It’s called being stupidly, foolishly in love. I really love Angel.

Chase is the perfect jerk guy that you love to hate and hate to love. You think that she could do so much better, but then, you find out that they are actually perfect for each other. They are suitably matched. They play off each other’s strengths…and weaknesses. I couldn’t help but love Chase,too.

Lexi is the bubbliest person ever written about. She could give Luna Lovegood a run for her money. She is the sweetest little thing, but watch out when she gets mad. She gets REALLy mad. lol

Travis is a tragic character in this story. You cannot help but compare him to a lost puppy. I want to learn more about him and I hope that the story will elaborate on him and what went on.

Likes: I love the unique story and plot line. I have never read anything like this one before and I will be reading the next in the series. I actually plan on buying one kindle book every month from a series that I have enjoyed reading on my kindle. This way, it ensures that I continue to read a great series that I love. I start so many series, but never finish them. This will help me finish the digital ones that I love that aren’t that expensive. The next one in this series is 3.99. A little more expensive than what I usually see, but I will buy it. Four dollars for a digital book isn’t bad, especially when you can keep it forever in your virtual library. I also really like the relationships between all of the characters and the secrecy. I feel fully immersed while reading this book, which is a truly great feeling.

Dislikes: I don’t like that there isn’t a lot of world building. I want to really know what this town looks like and feels like. I would have appreciated more descriptions, so I could have pictured what the world looks like that the characters live in. I don’t get a real sense of that. The setting is one of the most important aspects of a book to me and I found this one to be sorely lacking. Hopefully, the next book is better and worth the four dollars spent.

Overall Opinion: This book is almost perfect, if it weren’t for the lack of world building, this book would have been a solid five stars. I highly recommend reading this. It is currently for free on amazon.com, just search the name of the book and it is right there. I look forward to learning more about all of the characters and seeing Angel and Chase’s relationship blossom even more. I just love books were the main characters hate each other and love each other at the same time, don’t you?

4 out of 5 stars

With Love,

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I Have A Confession…

Heya Aspiring Gurus!

I have a confession to make. I love writing. I am a writer. I would love to share my writing with all of you and to hear your honest but polite feedback. Would you guys be interested in reading this on my blog? I will uploading a post after this one with a sample of a little book that I am writing. A little back story to the piece is that it was inspired by a Goodreads group that I role play in and it is loosely based off of a character in a different book that I am writing as well. My writings are usually supernatural in nature, but I write poems as well. Would you guys be interested in reading my poems as well? I would really love to share this different side of me with all of you. Let me know what you think in the comments section below! I would love to hear from you guys and thank you so much for reading.

With Love,

Selena Hannah xoxoxo

The Next Big Thing

It feels like such an accomplishment to be writing this blog post for The Next Big Thing and to know that my name is forever linked to some of my favorite Indie authors is a little overwhelming. Okay and I’ll admit a bit flattering. Although, I would be a bit more flattered, if I was connected to Jon Etheredge and his Goodreads blog: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5116484.Jon_Etheredge.

Now, I feel a bit more flattered. A thank you is in order for Sabine A. Reed for choosing to link to me as one of her five author tags. She has a new book that readers might want to check out. So, here is a link to her blog to see her NBT that she is working on for all of her reader fans: http://sabineareed.com/.

So, without further ado, I would like to introduce my work in progress that will be published either the end of the Summer 2013 or Winter 2013: Finding You (Síth Souls Trilogy #1)

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

1. What is the working title of your book?

Well, like I stated above the title is Finding You, which is a part of the Síth Souls Trilogy. I named my book Finding You, because it is about the male protagonist finding his one true love, but also in the process, he finds out about himself and that good and evil is not so black and white. The name of the trilogy is Síth Souls, because the Gaelic word for faerie is Síth and the series deals with the concept of the rarity of Síth souls.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was actually inspired by a role playing group here on Goodreads. I was role playing this character and his life. The other players on Goodreads acted in with their own characters and those interactions inspired this book and the whole series. I feel compelled to give this male protagonist a different ending and I wanted to discover what would happen, if he took the road not taken.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

My book’s genre is fantasy, but it has some dark paranormal elements to it. It is also action packed and very dramatic. I wanted to take the lives of ordinary people and punch it up to an almost unrealistic degree. I wanted to mix in all of my favorite paranormal aspects into one. It has faeries and their realm, but it also has normal humans mixed in with some gifted ones. And what is a paranormal book without a shape shifter? My novel is a mix of everything including romance. It has a very strong romantic element, but if I had to limit my book to one phrase it would be ‘troubled paranormal romance’.

4. Which actors would you chose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

*laughs a little at this question, then pulls out the character profiles*

Well, for Noel Holland, I would want the actor that plays Noel on PLL(Pretty Little Liars) to play him, because they both have that dark mysterious quality to them. I want Victoria Justice to play Allie and Arianna Grande as a blonde to play Serena. Gus would be played by Gregg Sullen and Fiona would be played by Selena Gomez. There are so many characters that I will short hand the rest. Hannah = Ashley Benson; Lolita = Miley Cyrus with long red hair; Katherine = Sarah Hyland. The list will become extremely long, if I did everyone and no mystery.

*smiles*

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

*takes a deep breath*

Prince of Summer Shadows, Noel Holland finds himself falling in love only to lose it, until he escapes Otherworld and meets an ungifted human named Allie, whose naivety might cost Noel more than his heart, but his life.  

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Once I finish the last three chapters of the book and looked over the manuscript, I will try to find an agency to represent me, but this is a difficult thing to do in the publishing world. If worse comes to worst, I will self-publish my work so that my fans and readers will be able to enjoy my writing. I will probably self-publish in an eBook first, before print.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Well, as you know, I am still not done with it. I worked on my book in the Summer of 2012 and have yet had time to go back to complete it. Between work and college, finding time to write is difficult. I am going to try to complete it during the winter/spring, but will probably finish in the beginnings of Summer. It will be edited and everything by the end of 2013, so that it can be published in the same year. So far, it has taken me two full months to write 400 pages. I expect 50 more pages for the ending to write. Then with editing and cuts, the novel will be around 400+ pages.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I would compare my book to the Wicked Lovely series, because it has the troubled romance and a certain darkness to it. I do not believe my book to be quite so dark, but the point of view is by the Síth Prince and I hope I do him justice by making him a little cold like the otherworldly characters in that series. The female characters are strong and fierce. They have a bit of fire in them, but of course, some of them are bitchy and manipulative, while others are caring and thoughtful. I crafted my female characters to be realistic, but also a little clichéd.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book?

A Goodreads role playing group inspired me to write this book. I am writing specifically for them and I hope to make them proud. I took a very creative license with this story, because I did not want to be taking anyone else’s ideas but my own. So, the book is very different than from what actually happened in the role playing group.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Well, there are a couple of blood scenes, so readers beware. The book contains course language, allusions to other works and pop culture references, and at times, innuendo. This book is very descriptive, because that is something I enjoy as a reader. There is drama and a whole new futuristic world that no writer has ever written about before or at least, I don’t think so. I have never read of a book that made a star-crossed lovers theme with a faerie and a human, a paranormal mafia, a faerie realm that has a Shadow court and Light court, a school for Troubled Gifted Youth with one paranormal power each, and a backstabbing friend lurking in the shadows as the world they call earth crumbles into a turbulent war between paranormal creatures and the humans that want to use them and crush them.

These are some fellow Indie authors to keep your eye out for:

1. Margaret Aranda: http://www.drmargaretaranda.blogspot.com

2. Devorah Fox: http://devorahfox.com

3. A.M. Hartsock: http://www.amhartsock.com

4. Marian D. Schwartz: http://mariandschwartz.com

5. Jaq D. Hawkins: www.jaqdhawkins.co.uk

Thank you to all of my readers for reading this!

With Love,

~Hannah Andronic ~The Social Butterfly~

A Rewarding YA Read

Vanished: When Lightning Strikes & Code Name Cassandra by Meg Cabot

I promise to be brutally honest with my opinion, but it should not be taken as fact. Any reader should read it for themselves, before they decide if this book has any merit or not. Do not judge this book biased solely on my opinion. If you do, you might miss out on a great read. You never know. It could happen.

So, this book called Vanished is actually two separate books in one. Too bad Goodreads will not recognize this book as two separate ones in my book goal for 2012. Oh, well! Anyways, I will separate and judge each book and their elements separately and then average the stars I give for each book and divide it by two to get the average for the book as a whole. I am using math. Who knew?!

WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES: 4 ¾ Stars

1. Strong Main Character/ Female Heroine: Let me start off by saying how much I love the character Jessica, better known as Jess. She is amazing and totally fearless. She is everything you want in a female lead. She is bold, strong-willed, headstrong, stubborn, and most of all, has a hilarious sense of humor. She is often sarcastic and snarky, but underneath that distancing persona, is a girl full of passion and love….for her family and Rob. She is a character worth reading about and knowing more about. I cannot wait to follow her adventures to her second book. 5 out of 5 stars

2. Strong Minor Characters: I cannot say that I found the minor characters in this book very fascinating or worth knowing about other than a select few. Ruth is not one of these characters. I find her more annoying than smart or brilliant. She seems like a friend that Meg Cabot just stick in there so that she could have her drive Jess around and be the driving force behind the lightning incident. Douglas is an interesting character in the book, because of his mental condition. Otherwise, I would not find him as fascinating. He provides comic relief as well as dramatic scenes. Rob is a mysterious character that is super hawt and the bad boy in this book. All books need a bad boy and this one takes the cake. He is mysterious, but caring. Jess can never figure him out, but I think I have an inkling about him. I also think I know why he is on parole. Sean is a sweet little kid with a troubled past and he added so much to the novel that I wish he would be in the second book, but I know another little child will replace him and it makes me sad. He provided a lot of comic relief to the story. The detectives provide suspense for the novel, but I do not really see them as minor or supporting characters. I see them as plot characters, characters that keep the plot moving forward and are the antagonists of Jessica. 4 out of 5 stars

3. The Setting: I love it when the setting is constantly changes. They are at school, at the football field, at home, at a bar, on the road, at a military base, at the mall, at a random house, at the train station, and etc. There are so many different changes of scenery, so it kept the whole plot very fresh and new. It did not change so much that I thought I was lost, but it changed so much that I had to keep reading to see where else the book was going to take me. It kept my interest. 5 out of 5 stars

4. The Plot: The story is interesting and fresh. Out of all the books that I have read about lightning strikes, I have never read about anyone ever getting powers from it. Usually, they switch bodies with someone else. So this unique plot twist, kept me reading the book and the fact that it included missing children that were getting found touched my heart. But like the book says, “Not everyone who is lost wants to be found” (back cover). 5 out of 5 stars

CODE NAME CASSANDRA: 4 ¼ Stars

1. Strong Main Character/ Female Heroine: I am still in love with Jess and no, not in that way. She is such a strong-willed character that I can relate to her more than most other characters that I read about. She is as close to normal as a fictional character can get with a special ability to find and locate missing children. I love her sarcastic sense of humor that relieves the tension in any stressful situation. Meg Cabot really knows this character well and how she would normally act. Cabot just keeps improving her characters with each and every installment that I want to read the next till I finish the series completely. 5 out of 5 stars

2. Strong Minor Characters: I still do not like the character of Ruth, but I like her a little better than last time. Rob is just as hawt as ever and I continue to love him as a great romantic character for Jessica. I hope their romance will actually get somewhere by the end of the series. I love the sexual tension in this book between the two of them. It keeps me reading the series, if the two characters that are destined for each other, love each other at the very end of the book or near the end of the series. I hate insta-couples! That never happens in real life! I wish I could have had more of Douglass. He is a character that I really wish to know more about and delve into his past. I did not like the little kids in this book as much as I loved Sean in the first book, but they kept me entertained enough to keep reading. I wish I would have seen a little more of the detectives in this book. 3 out of 5 stars

3. The Setting: Constantly changing in the first book, I love how the second book settles down a little bit at the camp. It still took you all over the camp, but there was not a lot of travel involved. So, I could concentrate more on what is occurring in the book and less on where the characters actually are in the book. The book takes me through the general summer, Jessica’s house, the camp, the woods, the cave, the cabins, the lake, the pool, the music center, the camp hall, the cafeteria, into the city, to McDonald’s and much, much more. I enjoy reading about all the different places that Jessica goes to. It creates quality entertainment like when you are watching a movie or your favorite tv show. 5 out of 5 stars

4. The Plot: The plot is not as entertaining as the first one. This one is generally centered on the camp and the detectives have a less active role that leaves the reader unsatisfied. I was hoping for more chasing Jessica about, but it was not like that at all. In fact, this one is less crazy and adventurous as the first, but I still enjoyed it. There was still so much mystery and intrigue. Plus, some more sexual tension with Jessica and Rob. I still craved more chaos, though. I enjoy a good chaotic read. 4 out of 5 stars

Overall, I give this entire book 4 ½ stars. I will continue to read the series, since I found it very well written and enjoyable. I believe that it would be more reflective, if I label this review as four rather than 5 stars, but this book is more than four, but less than five. There is always room for improvement.

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