Angieville

It's taken me forever to get around to reviewing this one, and I feel bad about that, because I don't want that lag time to be a reflection of my reaction to it. At all . This is actually the second Kristan Higgins book I read immediately after inhaling All I Ever Wanted a few months back. It's also her newest publication, and I was interested to see if I liked her new stuff as well. You know how sometimes you really connect with an author's work from a certain "period," if you will? And then some of their other works don't quite do it for you? I really hoped this wouldn't be the case with Higgins. Given how blissfully I fell into my first of her books, I had all sorts of appendages crossed for more of the same. I knew she had a huge fan following, but I also knew that (much like Jennifer Crusie or Julie James ) people seem to really have their favorites and the ones they just didn't like much at all. Case in point, I thought  All I Ever Want...

I feel a bit like I'm drowning looking at these three watery covers. But I'm kind of drawn to them as well. I love the font on New Girl and the other two are creepy and grand in their own way. I've never read anything by any of these authors. All three due are out in the first half of next year, and I'm interested to find out more. When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellison Eerie cover, no? And the contents sound fairly grim as well, but in a most intriguing way. Arranged marriages, fake deaths, vampires, magic from the ocean, and washing dishes in the slums. As Abed would say, "Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool." Due out February 28th. New Girl by Paige Harbison This one caught my eye because it's a contemporary retelling of Rebecca . I know! The mind boggles at the possibilities. Set at the prestigious Manderley Academy (lol) where the "new girl" is trying to fit in in a world where the name Becca Normandy is on everybody's lips. Aw...

This cover. This cover is in the running for my favorite cover of the coming year! I love it that much. And I love the title. And, even more than both of those put together, I love the premise of a sci-fi/cyberpunk retelling of Cinderella with a cyborg as the main character. You should have seen my face when I first found out about Cinder . It's like Marissa Meyer asked me for my list of all that is good and then slapped them together into this book. Add to that the fact that it's the first in a quartet (oh, how I love quartets, see this one , and this one , oh, and this one over here ), and the name of the series is the Lunar Chronicles. I don't know . . . it kind of seemed like this book and I were a match made in heaven. I've been reading sci-fi for as long as I can remember, and I feel like we don't get enough of it these days in young adult fiction. So I would have been on board for that aspect of the book alone. But a sci-fi/fairy tale mashup? Fuggedabout i...

R etro Friday   is a weekly meme hosted here at  Angieville  and focuses on reviewing books from the past.  This can be an old favorite, an under-the-radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out of print, etc. I first read A Woman of the People for an assignment in my 7th grade English class in San Antonio as part of our Texas literature unit. I loved it then. I really did. And I wasn't expecting to. I had recently moved to the Lone Star state from the island of Sicily and things were . . . a little different. Which is a really understated way of saying I was hopelessly unequal to the task of handling the differences between living in Italy and living in Texas. On top of that it was 7th grade, and 7th grade, as you know, is hell. I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. I wasn't comfortable back in the states. And I certainly wasn't comfortable at the middle school with its walls that felt as though they were closing in on me a little close...

Oh. Holy. Crap.

R etro Friday   is a weekly meme hosted here at  Angieville  and focuses on reviewing books from the past.  This can be an old favorite, an under-the-radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out of print, etc. I ran across Carpe Diem around four years ago in the Feiwel & Friends catalog. They had the excellent good sense to reprint the wonderful President's Daughter series by Ellen Emerson White, and I wondered what other YA titles they had on the docket at the time. My eye was drawn to this cover right off the bat, and I still think it's just perfect for the book. I love the slightly faded parchment look of it. With the silhouette and the hair and the style it could be anything really. In this case, it's a contemporary novel about a girl who goes on the trip of a lifetime and who's priorities are rearranged a bit as a result. I never hear very much about the book around the blogosphere and I wonder if it just sort of flitted and fl...

Okay. I'm not saying that this blog is necessarily going to become a repository for all things Robin Hood. Not as such . But you are all familiar with my . . . what's the word . . . thing . . .   for thieves. And Robin is perhaps the thief I've loved the longest. So it should come as no surprise when I say that I was filled with glee when I first heard about A. C. Gaughen 's upcoming retelling-- Scarlet . I liked the cover and, without running down too many spoilery details, I looked forward to the focus on Will Scarlet and the fact that it hailed from a debut author. All of these things add up to that most wonderful of things--possibility. I've reviewed both my favorite Robin Hood retellings for past Retro Friday reviews. And I've read quite a few more. They have all been interesting reads aimed at a variety of types and ages of readers. This particular one is being marketed YA, and I wondered idly, as I anticipated the book, what form my beloved charact...

It's covertastic around these parts lately! This time in a very good way. Here you have the absolutely gorgeous cover for Diana Peterfreund 's upcoming novel For Darkness Shows the Stars . My excitement for this post-apocalyptic retelling of Persuasion (yes, you have my permission to swoon from the sheer awesome) has been building for some time now, and I am thrilled to finally see the actual cover. I love it. Love the sweep of the dress, the stars, the font, her hair. Love it all. Your thoughts? For Darkness Shows the Stars   is due out June 12th.

So I was prowling the shelves of my local bookstore, and I found myself (as I often do) trailing my fingers along the spines of Tamora Pierce 's Alanna books. When what to my wondering eyes did appear but a new set of covers on my beloved old books. I pulled them out quickly, eager to see what kind of artwork they'd gone with this time. For the record, I own three different editions of this series: my original copies from way back when, the interesting mini-hardcovers they put out several years ago, and the somewhat more recent, fun black paperbacks Simon Pulse published. But I am nothing if not open to a possible fourth set. These are the new covers of the first two and fourth books: Not too bad, right? A little generic. I mean, the halo thing is all right, and she has a kind of Peter Pan quality on the first one that is charming and will hopefully bring in some new young readers. So not too bad overall. Unfortunately, this is the cover of the third book: Whaaa . ...