Waiting on Wednesday: Burn Bright

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week, I'm waiting on Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres. The cover makes it look so delightfully dark and creepy (I don't read enough dark and creepy. I like dark and creepy), and the summary is just awesome. But don't take my word for it...here, cover and description:

Description from Goodreads:
In Ixion music and party are our only beliefs. Darkness is our comfort. We have few rules but they are absolute . . .

Retra doesn’t want to go to Ixion, the island of ever-night, ever-youth and never-sleep. Retra is a Seal – sealed minds, sealed community. She doesn’t crave parties and pleasure, experience and freedom.

But her brother Joel left for Ixion two years ago, and Retra is determined to find him. Braving the intense pain of her obedience strip to escape the only home she’s ever known, Retra stows away on the barge that will take her to her brother.

When she can’t find Joel, Retra finds herself drawn deeper into the intoxicating world of Ixion. Come to me, whispers a voice in her head. Who are the Ripers, the mysterious guardians of Ixion? What are the Night Creatures Retra can see in the shadows? And what happens to those who grow too old for Ixion?

Retra will find that Ixion has its pleasures, but its secrets are deadly. Will friendship, and the creation of an eternal bond with a Riper, be enough to save her from the darkness?

Listen well, baby bats. Burn bright, but do not stray from the paths. Remember, when you live in a place of darkness you also live with creatures of the dark.

*****

I just think this sounds like the kind of book that would draw me in and be so much fun to read. Possibly a do not read after dark book? Hm... Anyway, Burn Bright releases March 1, 2011, so I'll be looking for it then!

What are you waiting on this week? Leave a link in the comments and I'll come visit!

From Bad to Cursed

Katie Alender, author of Bad Girls Don't Die (which was delightfully creepy and also generally awesome), posted on her blog today a picture of the ARC and the jacket copy for the sequel, From Bad to Cursed.

She's trying not to spread the picture of the not-quite-final cover all over the internet, so I'll let you click here to see her original post with the picture and her comments, but I will post the jacket copy here:

From Bad to Cursed
Alexis is the last girl you’d expect to sell her soul. She already has everything she needs–an adorable boyfriend, the perfect best friend, and a little sister who’s finally recovering after being possessed by an evil spirit, then institutionalized.

Alexis is thrilled when her sister joins a club; new friends are just what Kasey needs. It’s strange, though, to see how fast the girls in The Sunshine Club go from dorky and antisocial to gorgeous and popular. Soon Alexis learns that the girls have pledged an oath to a seemingly benevolent spirit named Aralt. Worried that Kasey’s in over her head again, Alexis and her best friend Megan decide to investigate by joining the club themselves. At first, their connection with Aralt seems harmless. Alexis trades in her pink hair and punky clothes for a mainstream look, and quickly finds herself reveling in her newfound elegance and success.

Instead of fighting off the supernatural, Alexis can hardly remember why she joined in the first place. Surely it wasn’t to destroy Aralt…why would she hurt someone who has given her so much, and asked for so little in return?

I can't wait to read this! Also, if you go and look at the cover - isn't it awesome?

Review: Halo

Title: Halo
Author: Alexandra Adornetto
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Pages: 484
Series: Halo #1
Rating: 4.5 stars
From the book jacket: 
An angel is sent to earth on a mission. But falling in love is not part of the plan.


Three angels -- Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and most human -- are sent by Heaven to bring good to a world falling under the influence of darkness. They work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments.


Then Bethany meets Xavier Woods, and neither of them is able to resist the attraction between them. Gabriel and Ivy do everything in their power to intervene, but the bond between Xavier and Bethany seems too strong.


The angels' mission is urgent, and dark forces are threatening. Will love ruin Bethany or save her?

----------

I have to start off with a little bit of cover love. I absolutely adore this cover. I'm not sure what it is about it that makes it so amazing, but it is seriously one of the most gorgeous book covers I can think of. Beautiful.

And of course, it helps that the story inside is also wonderful. I love Bethany as a protagonist. She is so wonderful and relatable and she just feels so genuine, even though she's an angel. Also, if anyone is worried about this book getting "too preachy" since it's about angels...quit worrying. Yes, obviously talk about God is involved, it's about angels, but it's not trying to convince anyone to convert.

Anyway. Back to how Bethany is a fantastic protagonist, and Xavier is an excellent love interest. (He really is, and he's totally human and non-stalkerish, too. I want my own Xavier Woods.) And have I mentioned that Bethany is just a wonderful character? And Gabriel and Ivy are great too, and Molly, and Jake...Alexandra Adornetto does characters well. Very well.

And the plot was also quite awesome. There were some things that I definitely predicted, but other things that had me wondering, and it sucked me in - I needed to keep reading it until I finished. I also think it wrapped up this storyline nicely enough as a stand-alone but also set itself up well for a sequel (which, by the way, I am dying to read). There were moments where I couldn't help drawing some rather unfortunate parallels to my least favorite part of Twilight, but they were few and far between. And Bethany and Xavier are a much better couple than...well, actually, a better couple than a lot of YA couples.

In places, the writing was a little awkward, but those moments too were few and far between. I noticed them, but they didn't detract from my love of the story. And the characters. I swear, I could go on all day about how much I adore Bethany and Xavier (and Gabriel and Ivy), except that you'd all get bored and tell me to shut up.

To sum up: Do not hesitate. Go read Halo now. You won't regret it. :)

Title Code

Ally Carter posted on her blog yesterday the title to Heist Society #2. Well, sort of...

This post contains a code. Your mission: crack the code and figure out the title of the sequel to Heist Society. (If you haven't read Heist Society, I don't know what you're waiting for. It was an excellent book. You can see my review here.)

I solved it (it is an excellent title), and you can too! Good luck!

Books from Before

...before the blog, that is.

My reading time has been somewhat limited lately (oh my goodness, college applications and calculus are working together to eat my soul. Seriously), but there are so many wonderful books that I read before I started Bookworm Boulevard that I haven't been able to post about! So today (and this may possibly become a regular feature), I'm going to tell you about one of these lovely Books from Before.

Today I shall be telling you about the wonderfulness that is Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass. I actually posted a little about this on a short-lived, private blog over the summer about a month before I realized that a full-on book blog was an option, so I'm just going to share with you the Goodreads description of the book and my writing about it from before:

From Goodreads:
Nimira is a music-hall performer forced to dance for pennies to an audience of leering drunks. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to do a special act - singing accompaniment to an exquisite piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets stir. 

Unsettling below-stairs rumours abound about ghosts, a mad woman roaming the halls, and of Parry's involvement in a gang of ruthless sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. When Nimira discovers the spirit of a dashing young fairy gentleman is trapped inside the automaton's stiff limbs, waiting for someone to break the curse and set him free, the two fall in love. But it is a love set against a dreadful race against time to save the entire fairy realm, which is in mortal peril.

From Becky:
[MAGIC UNDER GLASS by Jaclyn Dolamore] was such a good book. Beautifully written, like Jane Austen infused with sorcery, and it's so poetic and magical and it's a wonderful love story and it's so great.

Nimira is a dancing girl in a poor city, seeking her fortunes after her father's fall from grace. She gets the opportunity to go live with and work for a sorcerer, Mr. Hollin Parry, and sing with his automaton. But the automaton is more alive than anyone realizes, and Nimira may be the only one who can save him. MAGIC UNDER GLASS is a beautiful love story about a girl torn between "a man she does not love and a man she cannot have" (from the jacket cover) and it was so good and so sweet and oh my goodness everyone should read it because it was fantastic.

You can find out more about the author and the book at Jaclyn Dolamore's website. There is a sequel in the works, MAGIC UNDER STONE, but there isn't a release date available yet. Definitely read this book, you guys, it was awesome.


And I can now edit this to say that she also has another book coming out before Magic Under Stone, entitled Between the Sea and Sky, which I posted about for WoW a while ago.


If you haven't read Magic Under Glass, definitely give it a try. It is beautiful and excellent and made of awesome.

One Word: Love

Today, I'm coming to you guys with something completely unrelated to books. Today is To Write Love on Her Arms Day, and this is my spiel about why TWLOHA is important and why you should all take a few moments to write four little letters on your arm today.

To Write Love on Her Arms is a nonprofit organization based in Florida dedicated to helping those who are dealing with depression, self-injury, addiction, and suicide. The website, www.twloha.com, describes their mission with these words:

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.  TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

The idea of TWLOHA Day is for people to write the word "love" on their arms to raise awareness and spread the message of love to people who need it. I'm gonna get on my soapbox for a minute here: It seems to me like people spend an awful lot of time joking about these sorts of things - every day at my school, I hear people making sarcastic comments about how a hard test made them want to slash their wrists or how they "raped" - did well on - some sort of assignment. There are an awful lot of people out there who think suicide, self-injury, and depression are funny. I can't speak for those people - I can't say they have never been around it or don't understand what it means - but I can say that these things they are joking about are real issues, and I can say that they are not something to laugh about.

Are you ready? I'm about to bring my personal life onto the blog, which I can assure you will not happen often. TWLOHA matters to me because I see these issues every day at school. Someone that I was very close to attempted suicide last year. I see people every day who have dealt with or continue to deal with depression and self-injury, and I have experienced first-hand the relief of knowing that there are people out there who care. Maybe not everyone will take it seriously; maybe it is not what everyone needs. But I have seen the hope and love that TWLOHA shares help someone, and I know it can make a difference. This is something that really matters.

No life is worthless. No one should ever be made to feel like there is no one out there who cares about them, like they have nothing left to live for. No one should ever have to feel like they are completely and utterly alone. TWLOHA exists to let people know that there is always someone who cares and someone to talk to. There is always a reason to keep on living.

I'm writing "love" on my arm today. And you should too. Thanks for reading. ♥

Review: 13 to Life

Title: 13 to Life
Author: Shannon Delany
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 308
Series: 13 to Life #1
Rating: 4 stars
From the back cover: 
Everything about Jessie Gillmansen's life changed when her mother died. Now even her hometown of Junction is changing. Mysterious dark things are happening. All Jessie wants is to avoid more change. But while showing a hot new guy around Junction High, she's about to discover a whole new type of change. Pietr Rusakova is more than good looks and a fascinating accent -- he's a guy with a dangerous secret. And his very existence is sure to bring big trouble to Jessie's small town. It seems change is the one thing Jessie can't avoid.

**********

I really dislike the summary of this book. (I do, however, love the cover - the way the moon is the center of the eye? It's awesome.) The summary makes the book sound completely cliched and stereotypical, and it doesn't really talk about what the story is about. BUT! The story inside the book is awesome.

Jessie, a reporter for her school paper, has taken an interest in the "Phantom Wolves" that were supposedly haunting the nearby city of Farthington. So when she starts seeing wolves - big wolves - in her small-town home, Junction, she's naturally somewhat freaked out. And if that's not enough to be getting on with, she's been assigned the job of showing new-boy Pietr Rusakova around school. Pietr, Jessie finds, is impossibly annoying, incredibly mysterious, and more appealing than he should be. She's drawn to him, but she can't explain why. Instead, she pushes him towards her friend Sarah, who is clearly interested in him. Big mistake, especially because Sarah is showing hints of turning into the ice queen she was before the accident. The same accident that killed Jessie's mother.

It took me a while to figure out what exactly the relationship between Jessie and Sarah was. I couldn't decide whether they were friends or enemies or what, but once I got it, it made sense. And I loved the relationship between Jessie and Pietr -- they don't immediately hate each other, and it isn't love at first sight. It develops somewhat more normally than that, which was a very pleasant change from a lot of YA. I felt like Jessie was really slow to make the connection to Pietr's secret, but that was probably just dramatic irony at its finest, and I loved the awesome new twist on werewolf mythology. But what really made me love this book were the characters.

Jessie can be a bit slow at times, but she's a wonderful protagonist. Personally, I would have liked to see more of her best friend, Amy. And Sarah...I'll be interested to see what happens with her in the second book. Weird Wanda, Jessie's dad's girlfriend, makes another interesting addition to the novel, and Pietr's whole family is just wonderful. Max cracked me up so much, and I would love to hang out with Catherine sometime. And then, of course, there's Pietr. Add one more name to the list of "Amazing Fictional Guys." He's sweet, he's protective, he has a sense of humor, he's not a stalker (unlike too many YA guys now), and he's just overwhelmingly real. I love Pietr. And Jessie. And the two of them together.

Parts of the novel were predictable, other parts were a little confusing, but it was absolutely worth reading anyway. J'adore this novel. (Someone check my French? I take Spanish.) It was excellent and wonderful and lots of fun, and I cannot wait to read the sequel, Secrets and Shadows, which I believe comes out in February. 13 to Life was engaging, funny and dark in equal measure and in all the right places, and I just loved it. Well worth your time!

Links: 
Shannon Delany's website
Shannon Delany's blog