Down the TBR Hole 11

Ash:

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen

For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the mountain. When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she realises that the trolls are relying on her to break the curse.
Cécile has only one thing on her mind: escape. But the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time…
But the more time she spends with the trolls, the more she understands their plight. There is a rebellion brewing. And she just might be the one the trolls were looking for...

I don't remember anything about this book or cover. And it doesn't seem interesting to me. So it's going away.

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

Near an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden.

In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.

When the garden is discovered, a survivor is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers. But the girl, known only as Maya, proves to be a puzzle herself.

As her story twists and turns, slowly shedding light on life in the Butterfly Garden, Maya reveals old grudges, new saviors, and horrific tales of a man who’d go to any length to hold beauty captive. But the more she shares, the more the agents have to wonder what she’s still hiding...

This one looks good. I love a good horror. 

Pawn by Aimee Carter

YOU CAN BE A VII. IF YOU GIVE UP EVERYTHING.
For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country.
If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter.
There's only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed …and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose—and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.

I wanted to read this one for a long while. But I'm kind of over it. So off it goes too.

Jenn-

The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum

His past. Her future. Can love bring them together in time?
Abby's senior year of high school is going according to plan: good friends, cute boyfriend, and college applications in the mail. But when Dante Alexander, foreign-exchange student from Italy, steps into her life, he turns it upside down. He's mysterious, and interesting, and unlike anyone she's ever met before. Abby can't deny the growing attraction she feels for him. Nor can she deny the unusual things that seem to happen when Dante is around. Soon Abby finds herself drawn into a mystery whose roots reach into sixteenth-century Florence, and she uncovers a dangerous truth that threatens not only her future but the lives of those she loves.

I'll get rid of this one. 

The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen
 

Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn. Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions. White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups. This is Manhattan, 1899. Beautiful sisters Elizabeth and Diana Holland rule Manhattan's social scene. Or so it appears. When the girls discover their status among New York City's elite is far from secure, suddenly everyone--from the backstabbing socialite Penelope Hayes, to the debonair bachelor Henry Schoonmaker, to the spiteful maid Lina Broud--threatens Elizabeth's and Diana's golden future. With the fate of the Hollands resting on her shoulders, Elizabeth must choose between family duty and true love. But when her carriage overturns near the East River, the girl whose glittering life lit up the city's gossip pages is swallowed by the rough current. As all of New York grieves, some begin to wonder whether life at the top proved too much for this ethereal beauty, or if, perhaps, someone wanted to see Manhattan's most celebrated daughter disappear... In a world of luxury and deception, where appearance matters above everything and breaking the social code means running the risk of being ostracized forever, five teenagers lead dangerously scandalous lives. This thrilling trip to the age of innocence is anything but innocent

I'll keep these ones.

Abandon by Meg Cabot
 

Last year Pierce died, just for a moment. And when she was in the space between life and death, she met John: tall dark and terrifying. There's a fierce attraction between them, but Pierce knows that if she allows herself to fall for John she will be doomed to a life of shadows and loneliness in the underworld.

I'll keep this one for now as well.

Review: The Lovely and the Lost by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Title: The Lovely and the Lost

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publishing Date: May 7th, 2019

Pages: 328
Audio Length: 8 Hours and 29 Minutes

Genre: YA Mystery 
TW: Mention of abuse

Series: Standalone

Source: Audio

 

Kira Bennett’s earliest memories are of living alone and wild in the woods. She has no idea how long she was on her own or what she had to do to survive, but she remembers the moment that Cady Bennett and one of her search-and-rescue dogs found her perfectly. Adopted into the Bennett family, Kira still struggles with human interaction years later, but she excels at the family business: search-and-rescue. Along with Cady’s son, Jude, and their neighbor, Free, Kira works alongside Cady to train the world’s most elite search-and-rescue dogs. Someday, all three teenagers hope to put their skills to use, finding the lost and bringing them home.
But when Cady’s estranged father, the enigmatic Bales Bennett, tracks his daughter down and asks for her help in locating a missing child—one of several visitors who has disappeared in the Sierra Glades National Park in the past twelve months—the teens find themselves on the frontlines sooner than they could have ever expected. As the search through 750,000 acres of unbridled wilderness intensifies, Kira becomes obsessed with finding the missing child. She knows all too well what it’s like to be lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival, alone.
But this case isn’t simple. There is more afoot than a single, missing girl, and Kira’s memories threaten to overwhelm her at every turn. As the danger mounts and long-held family secrets come to light, Kira is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her adopted family, her true nature, and her past.

What made me pick this book up:
Jenn told me to.

What did I like about the cover:
What a gorgeous cover. The colors are beautiful and I love the trees/mountains/clouds.

What made me read this book:
Every month Jenn and I are going to challenge each other to read certain books. This was what she challenged me to read this book.

What did I like the most:
Okay so let me just say that I was totally like "I don't think I like Jennifer Lynn Barnes, wah wah blah blah". So Jenn was like well just try it.
So I did.
And I texted her about 3/4 of the way through and said "You were right, I was wrong". Because I FELL IN LOVE with this book y'all. I did NOT want to stop reading it. I wanted to curl up in this book and let it read it to me ALL NIGHT LONG.

Okay, deep breaths. 

What did I like about? The dogs! I loved reading about the relationships with the dogs and their handlers. I loved seeing what they can do, and how their training was being used. I feel like JLB did a lot of research on not only dog training, but also search and rescue. 

Which brings me into another thing I loved. This book was written so well. I felt like it correctly portrayed PTSD and anxiety. I feel like it did well in the fact that it would help others *like myself* who have severe PTSD in showing that we aren't alone. That she understands that it's real and it sucks and we can live with it and learn to cope and get better. 
This book had an amazing pace. It was never slow and boring, but it wasn't always BAM BAM BAM GO GO GO so that I was feeling like I was in a whirlwind like I've felt with some other books. It was just perfectly paced. 
I definitely felt like it was realistic and not so far fetched that it felt like fiction.

I loved all of the characters. Kira had something traumatic happen to her, but she doesn't allow that to keep her from living her life or from helping others. She uses what she went through to give her strength.
And her brother, Jude. Oh my lord, Jude. I was in love. He was sweet and goofy and funny and sweet and I need him in my life. 
I loved Cady. I loved Bales. I loved everyone.

The mystery was amazing. The tension was legit. It was all so good. 

This book gave me so many emotions. So. Many. Emotions. Guys. Guys. Seriously. 

What didn't I like:
There wasn't really anything I didn't like. I do wish we got to see more of her childhood and her living out in the wild, and I wish it kind of went more into what she went through and how she was found. 

I also cried. And I hate crying. And I cried A LOT in this book. 

Would I read the rest of the series/more from this author?
YES

Jenn was right, I was wrong. I needed this book in my life.

“I understand now. The three of you share a single iota of common sense. I'm just a little unclear on which one of you has custody of it now.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Lovely and the Lost

Jennifer Lynn Barnes (who mostly goes by Jen) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has been, in turn, a competitive cheerleader, a volleyball player, a dancer, a debutante, a primate cognition researcher, a teen model, a comic book geek, and a lemur aficionado. She's been writing for as long as she can remember, finished her first full book (which she now refers to as a "practice book" and which none of you will ever see) when she was still in high school, and then wrote Golden the summer after her freshman year in college, when she was nineteen.

Jen graduated high school in 2002, and from Yale University with a degree in cognitive science (the study of the brain and thought) in May of 2006. She'll be spending the 2006-2007 school year abroad, doing autism research at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.