Day: February 3, 2015

Lightning Review: Faking It by Cora Carmack

Posted February 3, 2015 by Holly in Reviews | 2 Comments

Lightning Review: Faking It by Cora CarmackReviewer: Holly
Faking It by Cora Carmack
Series: Losing It #2
Also in this series: Finding It
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: June 4th 2013
Genres: Fiction, New Adult
Pages: 352
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Mackenzie "Max" Miller has a problem. Her parents have arrived in town for a surprise visit, and if they see her dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings, they just might disown her. Even worse, they’re expecting to meet a nice wholesome boyfriend, not a guy named Mace who has a neck tattoo and plays in a band. All her lies are about to come crashing down around her, but then she meets Cade.
Cade moved to Philadelphia to act and to leave his problems behind in Texas. So far though, he’s kept the problems and had very little opportunity to take the stage. When Max approaches him in a coffee shop with a crazy request to pretend to be her boyfriend, he agrees to play the part. But when Cade plays the role a little too well, they’re forced to keep the ruse going. And the more they fake the relationship, the more real it begins to feel.
The hot new, New Adult title from New York Times bestselling author of Losing It, Cora Carmack.

This was a stellar read. I was more invested in the characters than I expected to be. Max was everything I love in a heroine; strong, outspoken and in tune with herself yet also vulnerable.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Cade after seeing him in the last book. He ended up being the perfect mix of Golden Boy and Bad Boy. He was the perfect match for Max, though it didn’t seem like it at first glance.

I was a little disappointed in the end. I kind of wish there had been further resolution with her family. Or maybe a smackdown with her sister-in-law.

Aside from that, this is an excellent read.

4.25 out of 5

Reading Order:

four-half-stars


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Giveaway: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Posted February 3, 2015 by Rowena in Giveaways | 5 Comments

Kristin Hannah’s THE NIGHTINGALE is out TODAY and our friends over at St. Martin’s Press have given us a copy to give away here on Book Binge.

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In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real–and deadly–consequences.

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah takes her talented pen to the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

I’ve seen some early reviews from people who really enjoyed this one so if you want a chance to win your very own copy, enter through the Rafflecopter widget below. Just let us know why you’re interested in winning this book and you’ll be entered! The giveaway will run until Friday, January 13, 2015. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only, sorry.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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About the author: Kristin Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including Winter Garden, True Colors, and the blockbuster Firefly Lane.

Her novel Home Front has been optioned for film by 1492 Films (produced the Oscar-nominated The Help) with Chris Columbus attached direct.

Kristin’s next release is the highly anticipated The Nightingale, which will be in stores on February 3, 2015.

Kristin was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When she was eight years old, her father drove the family to Western Washington which they called home.

After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. “But you’re going to be a writer” are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on a novel. After her mom’s death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper and research they’d collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.

Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she’d read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That’s when her husband reminded her of the book she’d started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she’d finished a first draft and found an obsession.

The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred her to try harder, work more. In 1990, Kristin got “the call,” and in that moment, she went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and has never looked back. In all the years between then and now, she has never lost her love of, or her enthusiasm for, telling stories. Kristin feels truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. Her novel, Firefly Lane, became a runaway bestseller in 2009, a touchstone novel that brought women together.

This book is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.


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Harper Lee to Publish “To Kill a Mockingbird” Sequel

Posted February 3, 2015 by Holly in News, Promotions | 1 Comment

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

More than 50 years after “To Kill a Mockingbird” was released, Harper Lee is publishing her second novelGo Set a Watchman, which is slated for a July 2015 release, features Scout returning home as an adult.  According to the publisher:

“Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus,” the publisher said in an announcement to the AP. “She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.”

Per a statement released to AP, Lee says this is a book she wrote before “To Kill a Mockingbird“.

“In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called `Go Set a Watchman,'” the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper. “It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became `To Kill a Mockingbird’) from the point of view of the young Scout.

“I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn’t realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this novel is received. What are your thoughts? 

 

Preorder Go Set a Watchman now. Amazon | Barnes and Noble


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Guest Review: Rough Justice by Sarah Castille

Posted February 3, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: Rough Justice by Sarah CastilleReviewer: Tracy
Rough Justice by Sarah Castille
Series: Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #1
Also in this series: Beyond the Cut, Sinner's Steel
Publisher: Macmillan, St. Martin's Paperbacks
Publication Date: February 3rd 2015
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

IT TAKES A GOOD, STRONG WOMAN

Raised in a motorcycle gang, tough, beautiful Arianne Wilder has always dreamed of a normal life. But no sooner does she escape her father's domineering grasp than she wakes up to find herself in a rival gang's clubhouse—at the mercy of the dangerously sexy Jagger Knight.

TO TAME A MAN WHO'S HELL ON WHEELS.

The alpha leader of the notorious Sinner's Tribe, Jagger Knight is all muscle, all biker, and all man. But somewhere inside this hard, tattooed outlaw, Arianne senses a kindred spirit—and she can't ignore their tempestuous attraction. Can she beat him at his own game in a revved-up blaze of glory? Or will their passion spark a war that's the end of the road for them both?

Tracy’s review of Rough Justice (Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club #1) by Sarah Castille

Jagger is the president of the Sinner’s Tribe MC. The book starts off with his clubhouse being burned to the ground and guns being stolen off of their property. They are one-percenters which means that they don’t follow the civilian laws. When they catch a motorcyclist in the thick of the fire they are shocked to find out that it’s a woman. Jagger is attracted to her but won’t touch her, nor let anyone else touch her, until they find out what she wants. She has a Black Jacks MC patch on her vest so they knows he’s from a rival club – but did she set the fire?

Arianne aka Vexy is actually the Black Jacks MC president’s daughter. She grew up in the club and knows the rules. She also will do just about anything to get her and her brother out of town and out of her father’s life. They’ve been beaten and tossed around enough and she’s done. She wants a “normal” life and no one – not even the sexy Jagger – is going to stand in her way. That’s of course until she finds herself falling for the man and then she’s got to figure out if it’s better for her to stay or leave and what that will mean for her heart.

As MC books go this was toward the top of the list for me. I liked so much about this book it was ridiculous.

Arianne was a confused woman and she may have vacillated just a bit too much for my liking but really, she was in a crap position when it came to life. She’d had so little say in her life from the first moment and just wanted to be clear of the biker world forever. That being said she WAS a biker chick through and through. She loves her brother and knows that he’s a good person but their father’s influence ends up going too far and he falls…hard into the Black Jacks MC. It was heart breaking for me to read about Arianne and her brother as I felt so much for both of them.

Jagger – wow, what a guy. Yes, he’s the president of an MC but he was a good guy – for an outlaw. 🙂 He truly cared about his MC and took care of them as he should as best he could. He was a bit bowled over by Arianne and it swayed his judgment some, but hey, it’s a romance novel – he’s supposed to be bowled over, right?

The world that Castille created was tough, gritty, harsh and brutal but despite that I really enjoyed the story and can’t wait for the next one in the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5

This title is available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

four-stars


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