Follow Friday # 35 and Weekly Wrap-Up

Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Rachel of Parajunkee and Alison ofAlison Can Read!

Featured Blogs -

Q: What book do you think would make a great Halloween movie? Please explain in graphic detail of goriness...

A:  I am not good at explaining detail of goriness but I think there are  many great zombie books out there that would make a great movie...  Here are a few...

Weekly Wrap up... This one is for two weeks... 

12 Days of Christmas Blog Event Sign Ups

New Giveaways:

Happily Ever After ends 10/14 

Something Wicked Comes #1 ends 10/31

Cover Reveal Giveaway: Aftermath by Jenna-Lynn Duncan ends 10/31

Rise of the Infected by Monique Morgan ends 10/13

Giveaway Winners:

Final Life by Rose Garcia - Entry#7 Stacy R. 

Return to Arèthane by Kelly Riad- Entry #40 Brittney W.

Highland Series by Shari Richardson- Entry# 13-Hope

Forsaken by Kristen Day - Entry #157 Ariel A.

Entry #107 Jennifer R.

Entry #54 Richard R.

Entry #652 Holly L.

Entry #282 Michelle M.

Entry #59S haron B.

Entry #326 Jenea W.

BlogFest 2012- Entry #93Cassandra H.

The Last Year Blog Tour: Entry #354Stephanie

Entry #294Nora-Adrienne D.

Entry #450Lissette M.

Blog Tours and Reviews: 

Review- The Diviners by Libba Bray

Blog Tour and Review: Whispers in Autumn by Trisha Leigh 

Blog Tour: The Rebel Princess by Anne M. Strick

Blog Tour and Review: Going Under by Georgia Cates

Promo and Book Blast: Clutch by J.A. Huss 

Fledge by J.A Huss 

Cover Reveal: Rise of the Infected by Monique Morgan

Promo Blitz: 6 Seconds of Life by Tonya Fitzharris

Blog Tour and Review: My Boyfriend Merlin by Priya Ardis

Cover Reveal: Giveaway: Aftermath by Jenna-Lynn Duncan 

Review: Eve and Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate

Review: Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Weekly Features:

In My Mailbox and Stacking the Shelves

Teaser Tuesday and Top Ten Tuesday

WoW and W.W.W. Wednesday

Review: Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: Team Human
Author: Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publishing Date: July 3rd 2012
Pages: 352
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook

Goodreads Summary:
Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn't mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It's up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

Review:

This was a very fun story. It is not your normal vampire/human love story. I was a little reluctant when I started, fear of the book making fun of my paranormal romances (because of the title). I was pleasantly surprised on how much I enjoyed the book.

The story is from the POV of Mel, a very anti-vampire teenager who lives in a town full of vampires. In fact her town is known for the vampires and there are rules that they vampires must abide by. There are blood banks and psychologist and neighborhoods just for the vampires. Mel has two best friends: Cathy who is intrigued with vampires and Anna who despises vampires. Everything is fine Mel’s life until a vampire, Frances, enrolls in their school and Cathy falls head over heels in love. Mel is completely against them dating and decides to intervene. During the process, Mel meets Frances’ family which consists of a human named Kit who wants to be a vampire. Mel soon learns that Cathy has agreed to turn for Frances and that is when Mel loses it. Mel must either stop Cathy or come to terms with the idea of a vamp as a best friend… oh and to top it off, Mel falls for the vamp wannabe.

The book is full of so much humor; I was giggling, laughing, and snorting my way through the book. It’s not all laughs though, there are some serious, well as serious as you can get, issues in the book. It was a very quick and light read. I found it nice to have the opposing side to the paranormal romance for once. The vampires wasn’t all dreamy as usual, he wasn’t yuck or anything either. The story was not from the POV of the girl who was melting for the vampire, and the main character was a nice change of pace with her anti vampire attitude.

Speaking of characters, there was a nice slew of them in this story. The main character Mel was pretty cool for the most part. She had her issues, she thought she knew best for everyone but she did what did with the best intentions in mind. She is very loyal to her friends and would do whatever she had to for their well being. She did have some problems with seeing outside her own little glass box but she learned in the end. I really liked Kit, he was my favorite. A very sweet boy who was raised by vampires, interesting huh? He had a good outlook on most things given the life he has had. He was open to listening and learning and was really quite funny, totally clueless to the way humans really lived. Frances was kind of in the background and blended in a bit. Anna was a very sweet girl that has been dealt a pretty crappy hand and Cathy was a little annoying but eventually won me over in the end.

In the end I was quite pleased with the book and found it was pretty complete with humor, mystery, and a little bit of growing up.

Rating:

Book Trailer:

Book Blast: Fledge ( Just Junco #2) by J.A. Huss

Fledge (I am Just Junco #2) by J.A. Huss

October 1st 2012

Genre: Sci-Fi

Book Blurb:

Well-trained soldier or genetically engineered monster? 

Junco Coot can’t even remember her trip off Earth; she was too busy being morphed into her new avian body. But reality hits her hard when she wakes up to find her new life is not what she expected. Not even close. 

Tier is on trial for treason, the avian president wants her dead, her new military team is hostile, her body is being taken over by an illicit AI, and her only friend is a ten-year old throwaway boy.

In most places the avian Fledge ritual would be nothing more than mass murder, but here in the capital city of Amelia, it’s called growing up. Junco has two choices: fight to the death to prove her worth, or get sent back to Earth in the hands of her enemies.

In a foreign culture and surrounded by people she can’t trust or count on, Junco must find a way to save herself and Tier without losing her immortal soul in the process.

Trailer:

About the Author:

J. A. Huss never took a creative writing class in her life. Some would say it shows. Others might cut her some slack. She did however, get educated and graduated from Colorado State University with a B.S. in Equine Science. She had grand dreams of getting a Ph.D. but while she loves science, she hated academia and settled for a M.S. in Forensic Toxicology from the University of Florida.

She’s always packing heat and she is owned by two donkeys, five dogs, more chickens and ducks than she can count, and of course, the real filthy animals, her kids. The I Am Just Junco series was born after falling in love with the ugliest part of Colorado and the Rural Republic is based on the area of the state she currently resides in, minus the mutants, of course.

Links: Website/Blog/Facebook

Review: Eve and Adam by Michael Grant Katherine Applegate

Title: Eve and Adam
Author: Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publishing Date: October 2nd 2012
Pages: 291
Genre: YA Sci/Fi
Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC Print Copy

Goodreads Summary:

In the beginning, there was an apple—

And then there was a car crash, a horrible injury, and a hospital. But before Evening Spiker’s head clears a strange boy named Solo is rushing her to her mother’s research facility. There, under the best care available, Eve is left alone to heal.

Just when Eve thinks she will die—not from her injuries, but from boredom—her mother gives her a special project: Create the perfect boy.

Using an amazingly detailed simulation, Eve starts building a boy from the ground up. Eve is creating Adam. And he will be just perfect... won’t he?

Review:
I was really happy to get my hands on an ARC copy of this book. The synopsis sounded really intriguing, different, exciting, and I just adore the cover. So far it has everything I need to start a book. I dove into thinking I knew what was going on but really I didn’t. It really wasn’t what I expected but was still a great read.

The story is about Eve, Solo, and a corrupt research company. The story is told from both Eve’s and Solo’s point of view. Eve is in a terrible accident, Eve’s mother takes her to her research company’s facility instead of a hospital. Right off that seems kind of strange as it should seem strange. While she is recovering her mother gives her the task of creating the perfect boy with new software the company is testing out. Hmmm, sounds fun. While she works on this boy, things begin to get weird and dangerous. She meets a boy named Solo who lives in the facility. He lost his family at a very young age, his family was associates of Eve’s mothers, and so he was taken in and taken care of. Solo is not happy here, he is up to something. He is determined to bring the company down. He thinks he has it all figured out. He befriends Eve and they hang out a little. Eve is very wary of him but also drawn to him, intrigued by him. In the meantime, Eve’s best friend’s boyfriend is in trouble with a dangerous gang of thugs and Eve and Solo decides to help. During the rescue mission, Eve finds that the facility and her mother, even Solo, hold all kinds of secrets and knowing these secrets can be very dangerous.

I really liked the writing the style, the characters, the setting, and the plot of this story. The writing style was just up my alley. It was a quick read but kept me interested with every page. The plot is a new one for me with an old conspiracy thriller vibe. The only downer I had with the book.. I thought the story would be more about Eve and Adam and really it wasn’t. Adam was not a big part of the book at all and that bummed me out a bit, but on the bright side, Solo was just amazing.

Speaking of Solo, he was just an amazing character. He had the bad boy thing going on full of mystique and darkness but always showing that sliver of goodness. He just couldn’t help doing the right thing, even when it felt wrong to him. Eve was definitely the good girl with a passion to be bad. She always did the right thing, do what she is told, and not really question anything. She lived vicariously though her best friend who was full of life, parties, trouble and problems. The number one problem she had was her dead beat boyfriend. This boyfriend is what brings us the trouble that engulfs Eve and Solo. The characters are definitely the best part of this story. They are lively, fun, and very real, they are what make the story.

The world that the authors created for this book was very high tech and advanced, it had a real cold edge to it which brought the feel of the plot. Just because the science is there enabling us to do some amazing things does not mean it is what we should be doing. There was a big solid red warning line between the coldness of the scientist and the softness of the main characters.

Overall it was a great read and I was very happy and satisfied at the end.

Rating: 

Cover Reveal Guest Post and Giveaway: Rise of the Infected by Monique Morgan

Rise of the Infected by Monique Morgan
Releases October 31st

Book Blurb:

River Black lives in a world where only the strong survive. The earth has changed to a brutal climate and the survivors will do anything to live. The eastern continents unleash a biochemical weapon on their enemies, and directly onto River’s world. She will have to leave her quiet existence in the forest and venture to the slaver fortress and further beyond, into the deepest part of the surviving cities. If she doesn’t die first, or rise infected…

Excerpt:

Aspen was the first to speak, all of us still slightly in shock at what we had just witnessed.

“We have to clear out the house. I don’t know if all of them left, or if some of them got in, but we have to know for sure,” he said, the urgency in his voice clear.

“I’ll take upstairs,” I responded immediately, wanting to get a familiar perch from above, and recalculate our current situation.

The fire still burned in the pit in the entryway, illuminating the three of us as I walked up the curved stairs. I quickly lost sight of them, the wall turning smoothly into a hall. The hallway was covered in shadows, the dying embers of fire pits casting light through the open doors of the rooms.

“Hello,” I called out weakly.

I didn’t like the idea of going blindly into each room, possibly ambushed at any moment. It would be better to draw them out into the hall, and cut them down as they ran towards me.

I waited, my body tense and fluid at the same time, ready to spring if needed. But nothing came. I spoke louder a second time, my ears straining as my voice traveled down the hall. Once again nothing came out of the rooms and I walked forward, entering each one and searching every corner, my rifle always ready.

A few were bedrooms, which I frowned upon. It was a bad omen to have bedrooms aboveground. It was obvious that the townspeople had become lazy. I entered one more room that was a study, a desk crammed into the corner, covered in books. Even in the most stressful situation, I found myself becoming excited at the plethora of reading material that was before me. It was rare to see one book, let alone dozens.

The last thing in the hallway was the stairs leading to the final floor. Once again I walked the smooth curve of the stairwell, the stone giving off a sense of protection, although it would do nothing to help me if I was attacked by the infected.

It was dark down the long hallway, only one room at the far end giving any light, the rest of the doors closed. Once again I called out and waited, keeping my eyes on the farthest room. I was greeted only by the sound of my own voice.

Taking a breath, I pushed open the closest door, holding my gun out in front of me. I knew the moment I stepped in the room that I was not alone, there was a presence in the room, a presence in turmoil. I could almost hear the chaotic thoughts, trapped and angry. I knew when I heard the low animalistic growl, that I had walked into the room of one of the infected.

My shoes slipped on the floor as I walked towards the sound, a trail of blood beneath me, as though someone had dragged themselves to the door and shut it. I walked around the bed towards the continued hissing, expecting the creature to come sprinting at me. But it remained in the corner. I walked closer, and finally saw white gleaming eyes as it stared at me, a hideous grin on its face.

It was a woman, or what was left of a woman.

These rooms were bare compared to the extravagant rooms below. I could only imagine the ones belowground. Logic would say that they belonged to servants, possibly even slaves. It was clear that even with the thick window covering the rooms would quickly get hot during the extreme heat. It would be torturous to be forced to live up here. On a beautiful day like this, they had all probably had their windows open, the first to succumb to the plague that had been dropped upon us.

I almost tripped over the two severed legs that were littered on the floor. It looked like someone had taken an axe to them, and the brutality of the scene shocked me. Instead of dying, the woman’s wounds had almost healed, the blood stopping its flow.

The growling increased as the woman dragged herself by her arms towards me. Her mouth had started the rabid chomping that seemed a telltale trait of the infected. Bloody fingers reached for me, just as I lifted the rifle once again and placed it to the woman’s temple, pulling the trigger with a quickly flick of my finger.

I took a closer look at the carnage around me, the bloody legs and the limp body of the infected woman. “Yup, looks like a Zombie to me.”

I wiped the blood from my boots in the hallway, leaving a creepy trail of red footprints. There was one more room before the open one at the end, and my hairs rose as I pushed open the next door. I was greeted by silence, the room empty. Even the shutters were closed, and from the dust on the furniture I could tell it had been some time since anyone had been here.

I moved back out into the hall and walked towards the last room, the light was not coming from a burning pit but from an open window, the sun shining into the room. My trigger finger tensed once again, concentrating on everything in front of me. The first thing I saw was the bed, covered in blood. Another servant was there, axe marks evident on her body.

But this one was clearly dead, its head lying a few feet from the body.

“I doubt you will be getting up,” I said, and that’s when I realized there was someone else in the room.

It was another woman, her hair dark and her clothes fine. She was not some servant, but a mistress of the house. She was young, not much older than I was, and she carried an axe that dripped blood onto the floor as she stared at me.

Look for Rise of the Infected

October 31^st 2012

 

To learn more about the author visit moniquemorgan.com

Guest Post:

Why Zombies? By: Monique Morgan 

Rise of the dead is far different than my other books. It is a YA book, and its Action and Adventure like the others, but something far different.

I have always had a LOVE for zombies. I have watched pretty much every zombie movie ever made… yes even zombie strippers!:) And I absolutely love zombie books. I enjoy promoting what I love, and I happily snap up new indie books when they are released. I am one of those weird people who has a zombie dream and wakes up sorry that it ended.

But all of my love for zombies didn’t make me want to write about them until recently. I had just finished Pursuer, and I was right in the middle of Dreamer, when I could not write another sentence. I couldn’t not write anything else until I got this story out that was spinning around my head.

My favorite movie has to be Dawn of the Dead, for one main reason. Zombies were not slow moving duds, they were fast and deadly. It’s far scarier to have a rabid creature snapping at your feet, just dying to taste your flesh. 



I also loved Land of the Dead, because of another evolution in zombie lore. These zombies actually began to develop higher levels of thinking. What’s more exciting than combining the speed of a predator with the calculating mind of what I like to call the infected. 

Rise of the Infected does exactly this. In the book there are two types of infected. There are the normal infected who move and act like the more main stream zombie, and then there are the screamers, a mutated representation of the infected, far more deadly than can be imagined.

This book starts the journey into a new type of zombie, and into the world of River Black. 

Giveaway: 

I am really excited about this book! I just love the cover and it sounds so exciting. I can't wait to read it!!!

Here is a chance to win signed swag and a free e-copy of Rise of the Infected. 

The Giveaway

Win signed Rise of the Infected swag: signed cover photo and signed bookmark

 

Win signed cover photos of all of Monique Morgan’s books: Pursuer, Dreamer, and Rise of the Infected.

 Win a e-copy of Rise of the Infected when it is released October 31^st 2012, and all signed swag!

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