Life of a Random

The beast raged; it punctured the air with its spite.  But the girl was fiercer. Tea is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for  necromancy makes her a bone witch, who are feared and ostracized  in  t he kingdom.  For theirs is a powerful, elemental magic that  can reach beyond the boundaries of the living—and of the human. Great power comes at a price, forcing Tea to leave her homeland to  train under the guidance of an older, wiser bone witch. There, Tea puts  all  of her energy into becoming an asha, learning to control her  elemental magic and those beasts who will submit by no other force.  And Tea must be strong—stronger than she even believes possible.  Because war is brewing in the eight kingdoms, war that will threaten  the sovereignty of her homeland…and threaten the very survival  of those she loves. The Bone Witch has been a highly anticipated read for me for a wh...

Pages: 313 Published: Aug. 1, 2016 Genre(s): YA, Fantasy, Mythology Source: NetGalley/eARC Cover Rating:  🌟🌟🌟 (Ehhh... I'm in LOVE with the wings, but I think the fonts could use some tweaking and I'm not a huge fan of the empty spaces.) There were several things that made me want to read this book... the fact that it has a blurb that never once actually mentions the main character's name. WHAT. Insanity. Who is this person? I need to know now.  There's a labyrinth. I mean, labyrinths practically equate to adventure if we're being honest here. And the angel wings on the cover. Angel wings are cool. Really cool. All that and what I'm trying to say is--I pretty much knew nothing about this book before reading it. Which leads me to saying it. was. amazing. Everything about it was unexpected and quite uniquely original. PROS: The history of the mc's civilization. If anyone starts mentioning Greek mythology and de...

Dorothy Must Die   by Danielle Paige Publication Date: April 1, 2014 Publisher: HarperCollins Format: hardcover Source: my sister Pages: 452 ~~ I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero. But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado - taking you with it - you have no choice but to go along, you know? Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little bluebirds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still a yellow brick road - but even that's crumbling. What happened? Dorothy. They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe. My name is Amy Gumm - and I'm the other girl from Kansas. I've been recruited by the Re...

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill  @Breaking the Spine where we talk about books that have yet to be released that we REALLY WANT RELEASED.  Publication Date: February 24, 2015 Publisher:  Tor Books Pages: 400 Series: A Darker Shade of Magic #1 Genre(s): I'm not completely sure if it's YA or Adult at this point. Fantasy, Sci-Fi (like time traveling). Kell is one of the last Travelers—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes—as such, he can choose where he lands. There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there’s Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne—a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London...but no one speaks ...

Publication Date: April 1, 2014 Publisher: Strange Chemistry Pages:  469 Source: Library Format:  ebook Series: The Malediction Trilogy #1 (I don't know what that means but it sounds really cool.) Note: I have an obligation to put the blurb here but I would recommend reading the book without reading this. You won't regret going into it blind! :) Here's what you need to know: troll prince + human girl + witch curse + kidnapping + a city under a mountain. Oh, yeah. It's as good as it sounds. ;) You can read my review though because I didn't put even the slightest spoilerly thing in it.  For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the ruins of Forsaken Mountain. Time enough for their dark and nefarious magic to fade from human memory and into myth. But a prophesy has been spoken of a union with the power to set the trolls free, and when Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she learn...

Let's just pretend that today is June 27 ... Series: #4 in the Blood series Publication Date: June 27, 2014 Publisher: Createspace Pages: 306 Genre(s): New Adult, Paranormal Julia's sworn enemies are safely sequestered in a prison of the fey and her forever mate has been chosen. Not by blood, but by a circumstance shaped from coincidence. However, it's not enough to save Julia and the others who came from Alaska their fate by the hand of the Alaska den, whose reacquisition has come alarmingly full-circle to capture them. Tharell of the fey aligns with the Singers, Were and remaining vampire to take back the one Queen who could stop the interspecies wars and establish a truce of genetics that would free all the groups from extinction and conflict. Can they rescue Julia and her allies before it's too late? Will the Red Were's lineage prove to be the catalyst of victory against a corrupt pack that's grown too debauched by greed ...

Publication Date: April 8, 2014 Publisher: HarperTeen Pages: 416 Source: Library Format: Hardcover   In the Forest of the Dead, where the empire’s worst criminals are exiled, twin sisters Moria and Ashyn are charged with a dangerous task. For they are the Keeper and the Seeker, and each year they must quiet the enraged souls of the damned. Only this year, the souls will not be quieted. Ambushed and separated by an ancient evil, the sisters’ journey to find each other sends them far from the only home they’ve ever known. Accompanied by a stubborn imperial guard and a dashing condemned thief, the girls cross a once-empty wasteland, now filled with reawakened monsters of legend, as they travel to warn the emperor. But a terrible secret awaits them at court—one that will alter the balance of their world forever . ~~ First of all, this cover is SO gorgeous. I didn't realize it at first glance but the cover's background is a dark forest (I originally thought...

Publication Date: October 1, 2012 Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books Pages: 368 Source: library Format: Hardcover "I was sixteen the first time my grandmother died . . ." Sarah Parsons has never seen Amber House, the grand Maryland estate that's been in her family for three centuries. She's never walked its hedge maze nor found its secret chambers; she's never glimpsed the shades that haunt it, nor hunted for lost diamonds in its walls. But all of that is about to change. After her grandmother passes away, Sarah and her friend Jackson decide to search for the diamonds--and the house comes alive. She discovers that she can see visions of the house's past, like the eighteenth-century sea captain who hid the jewels, or the glamorous great-grandmother driven mad by grief. She grows closer to both Jackson and a young man named Richard Hathaway, whose family histories are each deeply entwined with her own. But when the visions start to threate...

I really don't think I need  to write an intro each time, but I will, today anyways, because I want to. Yes, I know, it's a very good reason. ;) You may or may not know that this is the day of the week that I have to go out into the night and attend a dual-enrollment class at the local community college. It's very challenging and bound to get more so, but I enjoy it (watch me say that when I'm preparing for mid-terms).  Also, I've been looking around at the groups on Goodreads and found out that there are actually groups that are just for role playing. I think that they make other groups too, as locations for the role players to hang out? I'm not sure. The whole thing's new to me. Anyways, I joined one and I'm trying to think of the perfect fantasy species that I would like to be.  I  love YA fantasy, but I only know of a few species-- pixies, fairies, werewolves, werecats, shapeshifters, vampires, mermaids, banshees...I think that's p...

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do. Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life. To be honest with you, I didn't like this book for the first few chapters. I thought it was neat that it started out in the country and that Mila was a normal girl because that's unusual for sci-fi, but the author took too long showing us Mila's normal (or not so normal) life. Until chapter fourteen. From there, the chase picked up and it's non-stop action and finding...