Small Talk

Let's catch up, shall we?

I cut my hair 

(can't say I like it, missing my long locks)

I read The Willows: Haven for an ARC Tour

(review in September)

I finished setting up my classroom

Some very soon to be read books and reviews to look for:

New England Witch Chronicles by Chelsea Bellingeri

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were an embarrassing stain on America’s revered past. Innocent people were persecuted at the hands of a few over-zealous puritans. But what if there were real witches during those colonial hunts? What if there are witches in present day New England? That is what Alexandria Ramsey’s crazy grandmother believes. Grandma Claudia claims Alex descends from a long line of New England witches. Modern day witches in Hazel Cove, Massachusetts? Unlikely, but strange things are occurring in the weeks preceding Alex’s seventeenth birthday, which also coincides with her family’s annual Halloween party. Alex is haunted by bizarre reoccurring nightmares of a man chasing her through the Hazel Cove Cemetery. On a few occasions, when her emotions have spiraled out of control, inanimate objects have shattered around her. But that’s just a coincidence, right? Alex isn’t so sure, especially after a local girl, who supposedly dabbled in witchcraft, was killed in the nearby forest. Alex knows something strange is happening to her. With the arrival of a new boy in town, the mischievous James Van Curen, who is making her life difficult and causing problems between Alex and her best friend, Peter, Alex feels like her entire world is on the verge of chaos. Could Alex really be a witch? Is it possible Hazel Cove will become a battleground for modern day witches and witch hunters?

Nowhereville by Sean Campbell

After his mother's death, sixteen year old Seth Bradley chooses to leave behind his friends, his school, and his entire life within the rusted, broken down space station Ticonderoga. With his sister Jenna in tow, he sets out to join a father he barely knows in the orbital city of Grass Valley, a monument to human achievement floating three hundred miles above the Earth. He's never seen the open sky before. Never seen a robot either, until he meets Anne, a strange, quiet shopgirl that no one ever seems too bothered to notice. Ava Morales is a girl with a mysterious and violent past. The soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Mars sing praises to her name, but to her family she is a terrible secret. She is considered a terrorist by the Allied Nations of Earth, but to others still, she's nothing more than a troubled teenager, on her way to becoming a permanent resident of the Grass Valley prison system. When Grass Valley is caught in the crossfire of an all-out war between Earth and Mars, Seth, Jenna and Anne must work together to survive as they find themselves trapped in a world that is literally crumbling around them. Meanwhile Ava unexpectedly finds herself alone and finally free in a chaotic, hostile city torn apart by conspiracy and fear. A city where, maybe, she has a chance to finally live in peace. A city in ruins, lost to the blackness of space. A city with secrets all its own.

Swirls by F. A. Hershey

Sixteen-year-old Julia finds herself leaving her London life behind to move with her parents to the Amazon jungle. A native descendant, she becomes familiarized with her own roots for the first time in her life. However, she never imagined she is about to discover much more than her own past but also just how crowded our little planet is... This is a present time sci-fi/ fantasy story about trust, friendship, love and self-discovery.

Fangs for Nothing by Adrianne Ambrose

Grab some garlic and start sharpening your mother's wooden spoons because there are vampires living in the most unlikely of places. I've always wanted to meet a vampire. Not to stake some poor bloodsucker as he sleeps in his coffin or have some sexy vampiress bite me on the neck, but just to see a creature so rare and infamous. What can I say? Some people want to sail to Easter Island, others want to fling themselves out of an airplane, I want to shake hands with a vampire. Well, maybe I should prioritize getting a girlfriend first, but a vampire sighting is pretty high up on the list. Trust me, a lot of kids my age dream about it. Like my two best friends, Rini and Xander. We spent half the summer searching the most notorious cities in the United States for the undead, but so far, no luck. That’s why it came as a total shock to discover a living, breathing vampire in our hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. (Okay, so he’s more undead and not breathing, but you get the picture.) At first we were kind of excited, but then pretty freaked because it turns out our new fanged friend has a hold on the city's teenage population and a specific thirst for their blood. Which, in a word—bites.

The Marked Son by Shea Berkley

Seventeen-year-old Dylan Kennedy always knew something was different about him, but until his mother abandoned him in the middle of Oregon with grandparents he's never met, he had no idea what. When Dylan sees a girl in white in the woods behind his grandparents' farm, he knows he's seen her before...in his dreams. He's felt her fear. Heard her insistence that only he can save her world from an evil lord who uses magic and fear to feed his greed for power. Unable to shake the unearthly pull to Kera, Dylan takes her hand. Either he's completely insane or he's about to have the adventure of his life, because where they're going is full of creatures he's only read about in horror stories. Worse, the human blood in his veins has Dylan marked for death...

Saved by Allegra Skye

In SAVED (Book #1 of the Shadow Vampires), Keira and Amanda, twins, move with their family to a new town, and start their senior year at a new high school. But though they are twins, the girls have different fates. Amanda, beautiful, popular, is sought out by everyone. Keira, who has always lived in Amanda's shadow, is smaller, awkward, different. Even her mother, who is so close to Amanda, doesn't know what to make of her other daughter. Keira turns to books, and to her journal, for solace, and to find out about other worlds. Amanda makes friends easily at the new school, and quickly finds a boyfriend, while Keira is left alone, an outsider. But very quickly, it is clear that something strange is going on in Everstock. The town and the school are very divided. The popular, rich kids act as if they own the school and have nothing to do with the other kids, who are poorer and live in a different part of town. Not only are the kids meaner here, but an unknown infection has gripped the town, with more and more people going to the hospital. Something here is terribly wrong. But things change suddenly, as there is a terrible accident involving the twins. Not only are Keira and Amanda's lives changed forever, but a new dimension of life begins to open to Keira. As Keira recovers, she begins to change in ways she can't expect, receiving new and mysterious powers that no one can possibly understand. At the same time, a gorgeous, mysterious new boy, Cooper, appears at the school, who grips her imagination, and who refuses to tell her what secret he is hiding. As Keira and Cooper grow closer to each other, it soon becomes apparent that destiny has brought them together-and that they may each have to sacrifice it all if they want to stay together...

Kind of a random post, just wanted to update a bit. More to come!