Tournaments and prices

So I thought I'd get this out, before my free time fades away again...
We all remember the fabulous  First Annual YA Sisterhood Summer Crushin' Tournament that the lovely bloggers of the YA Sisterhood did last year. Of course the amazing Jace Wayland from the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare won. I have to add: He had some tough competition!
And now the YA Sisterhood hosted another tournament: The Tournament of Heroines. Make a guess who the winner is? Clary Fray from the Mortal Instruments! I don't want to spoiler anything but that has to mean something :)
So my congratulations go to Cassandra Clare for creating such wonderful characters, which I adore myself, and to the YA Sisterhood for coming up with such a great idea.

Other news regarding this challenge: Rachel Hawkins the author of the Hex Hall series promised her readers two bonus chapters if her character Sophie would win the first round against Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. And since Sophie won the first chapter is now online on Rachel Hawkins blog. To read it just click the link :)

To find out more about the YA Sisterhood and there tournaments visit their site.
Greetings to all of you. I hope we see each other soon
KJ

House of Night and other Cast' updates

Hello everyone
I know I'm really late with this, but I wish you all a wonderful new year :)
I've been off-line for a long time now and I still don't know when I'm coming back.
But since the pile on things I should update you about grows bigger and bigger, seems like the world's not off-line, I thought I might use a little bit of free time to get some things done here. So I thank todays tv-program for beeing really bad and making me turn the damn thing of. And I think YOU since you're still reading this, though I've been away so long.

So today we focus on the House of Night series by PC and Kristen Cast, since they're going to celebrate a new release in a few days. We all know that the House of Night series consist right now of 9 books starting with Marked. There is a comic series which takes place between the books and a Spin off series which describes the past of some of the characters.
This Spin off started in 2011 with the novella Dragon's Oath and continues now with Lenobia's Vow which will be released on January, 31.
So here is the official description taken from Goodreads. You can read the full description here.

[...]In a small southern town at the turn of the century, young Lenobia is developing into a beautiful young woman with ideas of her own. But when she is Marked as a fledgling vampyre, her world turns upside down, and she is drawn to the musical streets of New Orleans. There, she learns of the city’s dark underbelly, ruled by powerful black magic. As Lenobia experiences her first love – and loss – and discovers a passion for horses to sustain her, she must come face-to-face with Darkness itself. And she may not escape without scars. [...]

So am I excited about this book? Well I really like the series but I didn't have time to read the first novella, so I guess I have to wait until my to-read-pile gets a lot smaller before I can find out if this book is something for me. Anyway the cover is as gorgeous as the others were before. I didn't expect anything else from the Cast duo and I'm sure whether I like the book or not, it will be well written. What about you? Have you read any of the series? Would you recommend it to others?

In other news PC Cast announced on her website lately that she is working on a romance novella right now. The book will be published in a duology with Gena Showalter the author of books like the Lords of the Underworld. And Kristin Cast celebrated her wedding and I wish her all the best :)
For more information on PC Cast and her books go and visit her official site. 
Have a nice week full with words
KJ

More and more amazing covers!

The world of books and stories is full with amazing and gorgeous covers.
And this week there are even two new covers for us to judge (though we all know you can't judge a book by it's cover. But honestly who can stop doing so?), swoon over or simply stare at it.
First of all we have:

It's the cover for Endlessly the third book in Kiersten Whites trilogy about the young Evie. It will be published by Harperteen on July 24th, 2012. To learn more about the fabulous Kiersten White read her blog Kiersten Writes.

To learn more about Evie and her adventures go to this post to learn a little more about the first book in the series Paranormalcy.

So to finish our little agenda here comes part one, the judging: I really like the color of this book. It's a beautiful purple and it fits with the others. I also like the fact that they used the same model for all three covers.
And know I leave all fans of the series (and everyone who wants) alone for a minute so you can start with the swooning and staring.

For everyone else our little journey through cover-world continues with another pretty one:

This is the cover for fated by Alyson Noel. In this book the author introduces us to a new YA series called the soul seekers. Alyson said on her blog (which you can visit here) that she got inspired for the book on a vacation in New Mexico. The book will be published in may 2012, followed by the other books Echo, Mystic and Horizon, coming in 2012 and 2013.

Alyson Noel said in an interview that the series will be a supernatural Ya series, exploring "themes of Shamanism and the ability to walk through the Upperworld and the Underworld and to walk amongst the dead. It’s about a 16-year-old girl..."


I think the girl on the cover is really pretty and since I love the characters Alyson Noel is creating I cannot wait to meet the one she's representing. And I would love to have those dreamcatcher-earrings. The crows in the back give everything a mysterious feeling.

Alyson Noel is the author of the Immortals series and the spin of the Riley Bloom series. She also wrote many stand alone novels like Art Geeks&Prom Queens.

Are you eager to get your hands on those books? Have you read any of the series and more important, what's your opinion on them? 

Share your thoughts and keep reading books that make you love and cry
Greetings
KJ

Cover released: Destined by Aprylinne Pike.

First of all I'm announcing that I, since I cannot post often, am going to post at the beginning of each month.

In time for Halloween Aprilynne Pike released the cover for her new novel Destined.

And how beautiful is this? But it is actually not the final cover. They are going to change the blurb.
Destined is the the fourth book in her Wings series. It will be published on April 28, 2012 by Harperteen

Wings was first published in 2009 and for those of you who don't know this series here is a short and official synopsis for the first book:

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful--too beautiful for words.
Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

Laurel discovers she is a faerie, sent among humans to protect the gateway to Avalon. Thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a human and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to each world. In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

For more information on Aprilynne Pike visit her official site.
Greetings and a week full with words
KJ

bookish news...

So to catch up a little on what happened while I'm gone here are five news from the world of books:

1. Aprilynne Pike announced the title of the fourth book in her Wings series: Destined! And she also finished the first draft of the first book in her new series. To learn more about all that and even more go over and visit her blog Apparently!
Destined will be on sale in summer 2012 and don't confuse it with the new House of Night book by Kristin and PC Cast.

2. The Hush Hush Saga by Becca Fitzpatrick will have a fourth book! The series was planned as a trilogy but there has been a change of plans. To learn  more about the series go and visit her site or USA Today for an exclusive excerpt of chapter one of Silence, the third book in the series.

3. The release date of Hallowed by Cynthia Hand was moved. But don't be scared it was moved up not down. The new release date is January 17, 2012. Hallowed is the secquel to her debut novel Unearthly and is published by Harperteen.

4. Jenna Black, author of Sirensong and Dark Descendant, has signed a new book deal for a YA-dystopian Trilogy. The first book in this new series, tentatively titled Replica, is scheduled for 2013. To learn more about Jenna and her books go and visit her site.

5. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr has finaly a director. Mary Harron is said to have signed the contract. Which brings Wicked Lovely a lot nearer to being made into a movie! Yay :) In other Melissa Marr news: I announced earlier this year that Melissa Marr was teaming up with one of my favorite authors Kelley Armstrong to write a new series, The Blackwell Pages. Now Melissa Marr announced that they soled the rights to this trilogy in several countries. To learn more about the project visit my earlier post and to learn more about Wicked Lovely visit Melissa Marrs official site.


More informations about the books and authors mentioned in this post are still to come :)
Until than I wish everyone a great weekend full with words
KJ

City of Bones review and other stuff

First of all my apology for not posting something in... oh wait almost two months passed by? Where did all that time go?
I`m not explaining why I stopped visiting my little baby girl, known to you as this blog because

1. The reason is personal
2. I don't think you are really interested in the details
3. (and most important) I don't have a good reason... and I'm a little bit ashamed :(

Sadly I can't promise you that things will change after today. You just have to wait a little longer until I re-organized my life and everything is heading back to normal. I can just say that I am really honored that so many of you are still visiting my lovely babe.
     
                                                                                                                        

And now back to the important things: BOOKS

I'm sure you all know the amazing series The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. If you don't know them learn more about them in this little post. 
So with all the buzz going on with one of the main characters and him winning the 1st Annual Summer Crushin' Tournament on The YA-Sisterhood,I had to check this Jace guy out and make sure he is really crush material. And oh boy, I can understand why he owned that tournament.
But before we dig deeper into psychology and how many crush worthy book boyfriends are really out there we will continue with a little review of the book.


City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

City of Bones is no doubt a must-have for all fans of contemporary fantasy.

Set in modern day New York City, the book takes the reader and the main character Clary into the mesmerizing and really dark world of the shadow hunters.
Clary meets some of them in a club and is drawn to them immediately. Little does she know in which way she is linked to that circle of hunters fighting of evil creatures of the night.

As Clary digs deeper into her history the readers is lured into a wonderful world full with pretty elves, unicorns and dangerous demons, werewolves and vampires.
Though the author uses normal fantasy creatures she doesn't need to use any clichés to make them come to life within the pages.

The only negative thing about this book (besides that the mysterious Jace Clary meets on her adventures is not real) is the fact that the reader solves the mystery after a few chapters while protagonist Clary seems totally clueless throughout the entire book. I found myself more than once screaming at her: "Why don't you get it? It is right there, right before your eyes"

A thrilling story that makes you want more, good this is only the beginning of the series.

View all my reviews