Review + Giveaway: The Secrets We Kept by Lily Velez

Book & Author details:

The Secrets We Kept by Lily Velez
Publication date: November 8th 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult

Synopsis:

One year. That’s how long it’s been since childhood sweethearts Sully Graham and Cadence Gilbertson broke up, since one adoption and one out-of-state move turned their worlds upside down.

Suddenly, Cadence is back in New York City, but something’s different about her. The light in her eyes, the music in her laughter, the warmth in her smile—all of those things have entirely vanished. In their place stand the makings of a girl Sully can’t even begin to recognize, much less understand.

Blog Tour: Forgetting August by J.L. Berg

About FORGETTING AUGUST

She can forgive, but can she forget?
Some days, Everly still thinks she sees him. In the food court at the mall, or in a car speeding past as the light changes. It only lasts a second, but when it happens, she slips back to a time when she was ruled-and nearly ruined-by August Kincaid. And it doesn’t matter that she’s moved on, that she’s about to marry another man. In those moments the only thing she can do to regain control is take a deep breath and remind herself that August can’t hurt her-because he’s in a coma. Except that he’s not anymore.

Review: Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares

Lily loves Christmas.  She carols, hangs lights, and is positively dripping with the holiday spirit.  But, this year, her parents are gone for the holidays and she’s stuck at home with her less than attentive older brother and his even less entertaining boyfriend.  When Lily’s brother not so nicely suggests that she “get a life” and leave him alone, she is obliged to honor his request.  He gives her the idea to make a new friend in a way she never would have thought of on her own.

Dash’s parents are both out of town for Christmas, leaving him to his own devices and blissfully alone during the worst time to live in New York– the freak-show that is the holiday season.  On a routine visit to his favorite bookstore, Dash comes across a mysterious red note book with an even more mysterious message:

“I’ve left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.”

This one, seemingly innocuous message sends Dash and Lily on a scavenger hunt beyond anything either of them could have possibly imagined; leading them to discoveries about themselves, each other, and the holiday season itself.

Review: Dead Ringer by Jessie Rosen

When Laura Rivers moves from California to New Jersey and steps foot into Englewood High School, she’s ready to reinvent herself and start a new life.  But when she gets out of her car to greet her new life on her first day of school, rather than welcoming smiles from her classmates, she’s met with looks of confusion, shock, and worst of all, fear.  As it turns out, Laura holds an eerie resemblance to Sarah Castro-Tanner, a girl from Englewood who committed suicide two years earlier, shaking her school and tight-knit community of wealth and privilege to their core.

The one bright spot to Laura’s troubling start at EHS is Charlie; a soccer star, and school heart-throb.  When Charlie shows interest in her and his group of friends finally start to accept her as one of their own, Laura’s life is finally starting to look up.  But when somebody begins cyber-stalking Charlie and his friends, causing wide-spread panic, fear, and paranoia, questions are raised about the death of the girl who Laura so closely resembles.

Review: Tarnished by Kate Jarvik Birch

When we last left Ella, having realized that the perfect life she was bred for was anything but, she escaped captivity and had managed to cross the border into Canada, where asylum is offered to human “pets” such as herself.  Excellent….right?  Well… not so much.  As with everything else in Ella’s life, there’s a caveat to her freedom.  In the process of seeking refuge, Ella was forced to leave behind Penn, her former owner-turned-love of her life.  She watched from just across the border as Penn was dragged away by American police, back to the hell that is Ella’s former and Penn’s present home.  What happened to him from there is anyone’s guess.

To add insult to injury, back in the US, Ella’s high-profile escape is causing a ripple effect that nobody could have anticipated.  Pets are turning up dead, dismembered and disfigured all over the country.  When help comes from the most unlikely of sources, Ella takes the opportunity to return to the states, risking everything to reunite with Penn, and in the process, discover and expose who or what is killing pets like her.

Review: Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch

We all know there’s no such thing as “Perfect”; but in Ella’s world they try, maybe a little too hard.  Ella was born and raised in a kennel, but she’s not a dog.  She’s a human; born in a lab, and raised to be the perfect “pet”.  Ella spent the first 16 years of her life learning how to pose, speak, and perform in order to be bought and spoiled as the perfect family companion.

She is overjoyed when she’s purchased by a congressman and his family and couldn’t be happier about her new home and surroundings.  She’s suddenly surrounded by beautiful things, shown and given more than she could ever have dreamed, and is perfectly poised to live a contented life of luxury.  But when things aren’t what they seem and Ella is suddenly feeling things and thrust into situations that she was not bred to have any idea how to navigate, her world takes a sinister turn.  Ella is forced to make a decision to stay and adapt to the horror that has become her life, or leave, and experience the freedom that she never thought she wanted, but may be what’s best for her and those she cares about.

Review: Things I Can’t Explain (A Clarissa Novel)

*I received this novel as a digital ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

At 14, Clarissa explained it all: life, family, school, boys…She had an answer for everything.  She had a reptilian pet named Elvis, a super cute best friend, Sam, who climbed into her bedroom via a ladder, and her very own TV show.  We loved her and knew that if there was anything about life that we didn’t understand, we could simply turn on Nickelodeon and Clarissa could explain it to us using her trusty dry-erase board and lovably snarky attitude.