Title: Linger (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #2)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: July, 2010 by Scholastic
Pages: 420
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Grace and Sam found each other, and now, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love — the light and the dark, the warm and the cold — in a way you will never forget.

Final Thoughts:
Having just read Shiver two days ago, I feel like this one let me down slightly. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the book, it’s just that this time around Grace and her parents started to annoy me a little. I raced through Linger a lot quicker than I did with the first book. The on-edge style plot had me getting very little sleep as I kept on telling myself one more chapter, until 3am reared up on me and I just had to force myself into shutting the book.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current read and share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

I’m almost finished this one. I’ve been racing through the series at moment so I should be moving on to Forever tomorrow. I’m in love with these characters and this temperature-sensitive world of werewolves.

I crept into the bed, the sheets cool under my hands as I edged towards the side of the mattress that met the wall. The hall went dark and I heard Sam sigh – a weighty, shaky sigh – before I heard the floorboards creak with his steps. The room was just light enough for me to see the edge of his shoulders as he climbed into the bed with me.

– Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, page 352.
Published in July, 2010 by Scholastic.

Title: Shiver (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: January, 2009 by Scholastic
Pages: 434
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Grace and Sam share a kinship so close they could be lovers or siblings. But they also share a problem. When the temperature slips towards freezing, Sam reverts to his wolf identity and must retreat into the woods to protect his pack. He worries that eventually his human side will fade away and he will left howling alone at the lonely moon. A stirring supernatural teen romance.

Final Thoughts:
Wow. If you’re like me and you love the I-can’t-breathe-without-you type romances, you need to read this. That’s if you haven’t already, I’m a bit behind on starting this series. But I do have the added advantage though. I have all three books here, so I don’t have to endure the torturous wait in between each of them. Shiver is a werewolf book, although it’s handled differently than any of the others I’ve come across, and I like it. It’s fun, it’s emotional, but most of all, it’s addictive. Why I chose to pick this up right before bed time is beyond me. You need to clear out your schedule because it will pain you to put this book down when sleep creeps up on you.

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, which allows bloggers to share what books they’ve received in the past week. They can be from stores, contests, tours or publishers!

• Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers (borrowed from Brittany)
• Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres (purchased)
• Bloodspell by Amalie Howard (purchased)
• Lament by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Forever by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Wildefire by Karsten Knight (purchased)
• Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton (purchased)
• Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll (purchased) – My review
• The Watchtower by Lee Carroll (purchased)

Finally my UK copies of Shiver and Forever arrived. I also went and picked Lament and Ballad. I’m going to try and get through as many of Maggie’s books before her workshop at Brisbane Writer’s Festival in September. I can’t wait to go to that. I borrowed Personal Demons off a friend and I’ll be getting to that in September. I’ve heard some not so great things about it, so my expectations aren’t very high, but we’ll see. Bloodspell, Wildefire and Angelfire are ones I ordered from Book Depository and they arrived in only 5 days. I’ve been meaning to order them for a while so it’s good to have them on my shelf. Hopefully I get time to read them soon. I read Black Swan Rising last month when I stumbled across it at my local library. It was one I really enjoyed, so now I finally have myself a copy, plus the recently released sequel The Watchtower. Hopefully it’s just as good. There’s just too many books I want to read that I can’t pick from. If you’ve read any that you think I should put at the top of my list, let me know.

Here are my reviews from the past week:
Skovron, Jon, Misfit
Zevin, Gabrielle Birthright #1, All These Things I’ve Done

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!

Follow Friday is a meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read, where people spread the book love by following around the blogosphere! The featured blogs this week are Belle Books and Stuck In Books, and this week’s question is:
If you could write yourself a part in a book, what book would it be and what role would you play in that book?

Well I’d love to be in The Demon’s Surrender, the characters are snarky and nothing short of amazing. While I do love each and every one of them, I think their lives are way too dangerous for me. The ever-impending prospect of death via demons or crazed magicians, or demons working with crazed magicians. No I’ll stay where I am or maybe just pop in and give Jamie a hug and then get the hell out of there before Nick starts menacing me with his giant sword. I actually wouldn’t mind writing myself into Hush, Hush or probably Crescendo. I’d make myself one of Patch’s friends so I could worm my way into Nora’s life. Then when she’d invariably do something stupid, I’d slap some sense into her, and maybe teach her how to read street signs.

I just finished reading Gabrielle Zevin’s All These Things I’ve Done and loved it, you can check out my review here. It’s a dystopian set in a world where chocolate and caffeine have become illegal. I highly recommend you check it out. Since posting my review, the people at Macmillan Audio have contacted me to host a giveaway for the upcoming Audiobook release. I wanted to make it international, so it’s going to be a digital giveaway. Macmillan will send you the audio file for All These Things I’ve Done if you win. Just remember to fill out the form below. And to get you in the mood, here’s a teaser:

“What did you do wrong?”
“Multiple choice,” he said. “A. A few choice comments I made in Theology. B. Headmaster wants to have a chat with the new kid about wearing hats in school. C. My schedule. I’m just too darn smart for my classes. D. My eyewitness account of the girl who poured lasagna over her boyfriend’s head. E. Headmaster’s leaving her husband and wants to run away with me. F. None of the above. G. All of the above.”

– All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin, page 21.
Published in September, 2011 by Macmillan.

Giveaway now closed. Winner will be emailed.

Title: All These Things I’ve Done (Birthright #1)
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Published: August, 2011 by Pan Macmillan
Thanks: Pan Macmillan, AU
Pages: 354
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

It’s 2083. There’s a chocolate prohibition, and New York City is a very changed place. Art museums are now dance clubs, books are musty relics of the past, water is strictly rationed, and the mafia ruled black market consists of chocolate and caffeine.

And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city’s most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.’s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she’s to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight – at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.

Final Thoughts:
I loved this book. But you could probably already glean that from my five star rating. I don’t hand those out often, so you should know that this one was worth it. Sure, it’s probably going to be known as the ‘chocolate dystopian’, but that’s not what makes this book so good. It’s the wonderfully written range of characters that bring this story to life. All the rest is just a… well, not-so-pretty background to the life that is Anya Balanchine.