V is for Virals series by Kathy Reichs

 

For 2013's A to Z Challenge, I am talking about book series, particularly some favorite series as well as series I've been waiting to read for a LONG time.

V is for Virals series by Kathy Reichs

I love Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan series, even though I’m a bit behind in the last few of the series. When I heard she was writing a YA series, I got really excited. I have the first two books, but I haven’t had a chance to read them yet. *sighs* The story of my life, it seems! But I can’t wait to read them.

Tory Brennan, niece of acclaimed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (of the Bones novels and hit TV show), is the leader of a ragtag band of teenage "sci-philes" who live on a secluded island off the coast of South Carolina. When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.

As the friends discover their heightened senses and animal-quick reflexes, they must combine their scientific curiosity with their newfound physical gifts to solve a cold-case murder that has suddenly become very hot if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent.

Fortunately, they are now more than friends they're a pack. They are Virals.

P is for Paradise Reclaimed series by Aubrie Dionne

 

For 2013's A to Z Challenge, I am talking about book series, particularly some favorite series as well as series I've been waiting to read for a LONG time.

P is for ... Paradise Reclaimed series by Aubrie Dionne

Aubrie is not only a good friend of mine, but she's an amazing author. I just love her books filled with action, exotic places, and sweet romance. Her Paradise Reclaimed series is awesome! 

Andromeda has spent all seventeen years of her life aboard a deep space transport vessel destined for a paradise planet. Her safe cocoon is about to break open as Paradise 21 looms only one month away, and she must take the aptitude tests to determine her role on the new world and her computer assigned lifemate. As a great-granddaughter of the Commander of the ship, she wants to live up to her family name. But, her forbidden love for her childhood friend, Sirius, distracts her and she fails the tests. The results place her in a menial role in the new colony and pair her with Corvus, “the oaf”.

But when Andromeda steps foot on Paradise 21, her predestined future is the least of her worries. Alien ghosts from a failed colonization warn her of a deadly threat to her colony. And when Sirius’s ship crashes on the far ridge in an attempt to investigate, she journeys to rescue him with Corvus.

Andromeda now must convince the authorities of the imminent danger to keep her protect her new home. What she didn’t expect was a battle of her own feelings for Sirius and Corvus.

Can she save the colony and discover her true love?

Click here to read my review of Colonization.

Nova Williams has lost her one shot at Lieutenant hood and at love. Lieutenant Crophaven has promoted her rival, Andromeda, all because her lifemate, Sirius, sacrificed their mission to win back Andromeda’s love.

While sneaking out to prove Andromeda is a fake, Nova finds an alien ship hovering over their colony. Lieutenant Crophaven assigns her to a reconnaissance mission, giving her a second chance to redeem herself. Sirius must fly her and a research team to the vessel to decide if they are a threat. Thrown together with the lifemate that betrayed her, she battles with her own jealousy while her team battles for their lives.

Can she forgive Sirius in order to save her team and warn her colony?

M is for Mindjack Trilogy by Susan Kaye Quinn

 

For 2013's A to Z Challenge, I am talking about book series, particularly some favorite series as well as series I've been waiting to read for a LONG time.

 

M is for ... Mindjack Trilogy by Susan Kaye Quinn

I read Open Minds early January of this year, and man, I just loved it. The writing and storyline sucked me in, and I didn't want to stop reading. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to read the rest of the series, even though I promptly bought all of them after finishing Open Minds.

When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

When you control minds, only your heart can be used against you.

Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders’ fears and strips jackers of their rights. While some jackers flee to Jackertown—a slum rife with jackworkers who trade mind control favors for cash—Kira and her family hide from the readers who fear her and jackers who hate her. But when a jacker Clan member makes Kira’s boyfriend Raf collapse in her arms, Kira is forced to save the people she loves by facing the thing she fears most: FBI agent Kestrel and his experimental torture chamber for jackers.

 

When your mind is a weapon, freedom comes at a price.

The final installment of the Mindjack Trilogy is here!

Four months have passed since Kira left home to join Julian’s Jacker Freedom Alliance, but the hole in her heart still whistles empty where her boyfriend Raf used to be. She fills it with weapons training, JFA patrols, and an obsessive hunt for FBI agent Kestrel, ignoring Julian’s worries about her safety and repeated attempts to recruit her for his revolutionary chat-casts. When anti-jacker politician Vellus surrounds Jackertown with the National Guard, Kira discovers there’s more to Julian’s concerns than she knew, but she’s forced to take on a mission that neither want and that might be her last: assassinating Senator Vellus before he can snuff out Julian’s revolution and the jackers she’s come to love.

A is for Across the Universe series by Beth Revis

 

For 2013's A to Z Challenge, I am talking about book series, particularly some favorite series as well as series I've been waiting to read for a LONG time.

A is for ... Across the Universe series by Beth Revis

Beth Revis is a goddess. As soon as I picked up Across the Universe, I devoured it within a day and already wanted book two, A Million Suns. As soon as A Million Suns came out, I was reading it, and then I couldn't wait to get my hands on Shades of Earth. Whenever I read these books, they make me want to strive to be a better writer. My sister and I even drove three hours one way for her book signing. It was awesome.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Click here to read my review of Across the Universe.

Godspeed was fueled by lies. Now it is ruled by chaos. 

It's been three months since Amy was unplugged. The life she always knew is over. And everywhere she looks, she sees the walls of the spaceship Godspeed. But there may just be hope: Elder has assumed leadership of the ship. He's finally free to enact his vision - no more Phydus, no more lies.

But when Elder discovers shocking news about the ship, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on Godspeed. They must work together to unlock a puzzle that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier, unable to fight the romance that's growing between them and the chaos that threatens to tear them apart.

In book two of the Across the Universe trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis mesmerizes us again with a brilliantly crafted mystery filled with action, suspense, romance, and deep philosophical questions. And this time it all builds to one mind-bending conclusion: They have to get off this ship.

Click here to read my review of A Million Suns.

Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceship Godspeed behind. They're ready to start life afresh--to build a home--on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience.

But this new Earth isn't the paradise Amy had been hoping for. There are giant pterodactyl-like birds, purple flowers with mind-numbing toxins, and mysterious, unexplained ruins that hold more secrets than their stone walls first let on. The biggest secret of all? Godspeed's former passengers aren't alone on this planet. And if they're going to stay, they'll have to fight.

Amy and Elder must race to discover who--or what--else is out there if they are to have any hope of saving their struggling colony and building a future together. They will have to look inward to the very core of what makes them human on this, their most harrowing journey yet. Because if the colony collapses? Then everything they have sacrificed--friends, family, life on Earth--will have been for nothing.

FUELED BY LIES.
RULED BY CHAOS.
ALMOST HOME.

Teaser Tuesdays: LIBERTY by Annie Laurie Cechini

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
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


Liberty was an awesome read, and I just loved the descriptiveness of this teaser.
 

 

33% of ARC PDF

We landed in the middle of a cracked cobblestone street far narrower than I would have thought possible. Humidity sucked the sweat from my pores and the air was so thick I practically had to chew and swallow it first in order to breathe. 

What's your teaser? Feel free to leave one or a link to one in the comments.

Book Review: LIBERTY by Annie Laurie Cechini

Title: Liberty

Author: Annie Laurie Cechini

Publisher: Rhemalda Publishing (February 1, 2013)

Format: PDF ARC Novel

Source: Publisher

Genre: YA Science Fiction

A STOLEN VIAL
Eternigen is the miracle drug that allows humans to travel in deep space. Seventeen-year-old space captain Tabitha “Dix” Dixon has the only vial of Eternigen in existence.

A RELENTLESS ENEMY
Eira Ninge always gets what she wants. She wants the Eternigen, and she’ll do anything—and kill anyone—to get it.

A DEADLY CURSE
Since Dix stole the vial, everyone she loves seems fated to die. When young resistance messenger Jordan Berrett steals her heart, she has to decide if it’s worth risking his life to let him get close. When Dix is involved, even falling in love can turn deadly.

A CHANCE FOR FREEDOM
If Dix can get her hands on more Eternigen, she and her crew can escape the solar system, leaving her dark past behind. But getting the Eternigen won’t be easy, and the bodies keep piling up. In the end, the cost of freedom may be too high.

Review: Annie Laurie Cechini’s Liberty rockets into space with an endearing cast, amazing worlds, and a storyline that leaves the reader breathless and begging for more!

Cechini breathes life into every single character. I cared about them and couldn’t stop reading. The villain is delightfully vindictive as well and keeps the characters on their toes. At first, I thought Tabitha, the main character, sounded a bit old for her seventeen years, but as the book progresses, I understood why. Tabitha has responsibility thrust upon her, and I love how she starts out as a tough girl and slowly shows her vulnerable side.

Liberty is space opera at its best. Besides the characters, the worldbuilding is phenomenal. I love the idea of terra-forming planets into habitable ones. Each planet took on their own characteristics, and I must say I would love to live on Venus or Neptune. Terra-forming is also refreshing when so many other science fiction focuses upon traveling to planets that are already like our own.

With the fast-paced plot, the story kept me guessing at every turn. The writing is stellar. I found myself snickering along with the humorous lines, and then I cried when a certain character didn’t quite make it. The best books cause those reactions, though. And the ending—wow! I really do hope a book two is in the works or a companion book. I just want to keep delving more in the world Cechini created.

I would recommend Liberty by Annie Laurie Cechini to fans of Firefly and Star Wars.

 

Five Bookworms = I loved it!