Cover Reveal: Vengeance Bound by Justina Ireland

Today I've got a cover reveal for y'all! Vengeance Bound by Justine Ireland will be released on April 2, 2013, from Simon & Schuster.

Want to know more? Check out the description and links:

The Goddess Test meets Dexter in an edgy, compelling debut about one teen’s quest for revenge…no matter how far it takes her.

Cory Graff is not alone in her head. Bound to a deal of desperation made when she was a child, Cory’s mind houses the Furies—the hawk and the serpent—lingering always, waiting for her to satisfy their bloodlust. After escaping the asylum where she was trapped for years, Cory knows how to keep the Furies quiet. By day, she lives a normal life, but by night, she tracks down targets the Furies send her way. And she brings down Justice upon them.

Cory’s perfected her system of survival, but when she meets a mysterious boy named Niko at her new school, she can’t figure out how she feels about him. For the first time, the Furies are quiet in her head around a guy. But does this mean that Cory’s finally found someone who she can trust, or are there greater factors at work?

As Cory’s mind becomes a battlefield, with the Furies fighting for control, Cory will have to put everything on the line to hold on to what she’s worked so hard to build.

Amazon | Goodreads

And because I know that you are really here to see the cover, here it is!

What do you think? Like it? Hate it? I particularly love the white background with all of the statues and that red title font. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Thanks to AToMR Tours for hosting the cover reveal for Vengeance Bound.

Review: Defiance by C.J. Redwine

Title: Defiance
Author: C.J. Redwine
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: August 28, 2012
Series: Defiance #1
Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Source: Edelweiss

Within the walls of Baalboden, beneath the shadow of the city's brutal leader, Rachel Adams has a secret. While other girls sew dresses and obey their male Protectors, Rachel knows how to survive in the wilderness and deftly wield a sword. When her father, Jared, fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector, her father's apprentice, Logan—the same boy Rachel declared her love for two years ago, and the same one who handed her heart right back to her. Left with nothing but a fierce belief in her father's survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself. But treason against the Commander carries a heavy price, and what awaits her in the Wasteland could destroy her.

At nineteen, Logan McEntire is many things. Orphan. Outcast. Inventor. As apprentice to the city's top courier, Logan is focused on learning his trade so he can escape the tyranny of Baalboden. But his plan never included being responsible for his mentor's impulsive daughter. Logan is determined to protect her, but when his escape plan goes wrong and Rachel pays the price, he realizes he has more at stake than disappointing Jared.

As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can't be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making.

At first I was pretty lukewarm about Defiance, but by the end I became a bit more engrossed. In the early parts of the story, the main characters fall a little flat, but that progressively gets better as the book goes on. Secondary characters remain pretty flat throughout the novel, though, and it is difficult to make any kind of connection with any of them. Because of this, certain events within the story do not affect me as much as they were meant to. But the villain is vile, power hungry, and appropriately detestable, which is awesome, because who doesn't love to hate a loathsome bad guy?

The plot isn't anything new, which hurts its excitement factor a little. It feels recycled. The setting and situation are moderately interesting, but if you read a lot of fantasy and/or dystopia then the setting as well as the plot will feel like more of the same. The wanting for character development is stronger when the plot is formulaic, and I think that a little more depth where the characters are concerned could have gone a long way toward making the story less pedestrian. I would've liked more of a build up of evidence in the relationship development of Rachel and Logan, for example, as well as more of a presence from the supporting characters. There is a lot of telling going on, but not all that much showing, particularly where Rachel and Logan's relationship is concerned. With regards to the worldbuilding, it is not clear whether this is a second world or a post-apocalyptic version of our own, leaving the rules of this world ambiguous at best. I would have appreciated more information on exactly what happened to take this world from its before to its after.

The pacing starts off a little slower than I'd have liked. Almost half of the book involves Rachel and Logan preparing themselves for the second half of the book. I wanted it to get to the adventures, already. But once events finally start moving forward, the pacing (and my enjoyment) picked up quite a bit. I would have loved for this to happen sooner and for more time to be spent on this phase of the story because to me it is far more interesting than just about everything that was happening in town. That being said, one way or another, by the end I found myself enjoying Rachel and Logan and their story. I still wanted more from it, though.

I wanted to love Defiance. I really, really, really wanted to head over heels adore the shit out of it. I had mega-high hopes and they just weren't met. I still like it, just not in a way that makes me super enthusiastic. And I think that my high hopes worked against this book. But again, by the end I was kinda sucked in by it. I liked it enough to continue with the series, so my opinion falls somewhere between "it was okay" and "liked it".

Favorite Covers: August 2012

Here are some of my favorite covers for August 2012: The Foreboding Edition

Touched by Cyn Balog
I like a lot of things about this cover: the colors, the wispy tendrils, the creepy font, the distorted background. I don't know what the heck is going on, but aesthetically it's pretty awesome.
Amazon | Goodreads

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
Look at all of the creepy! And Anna is like, "Here, Cas, come hold my hand while I stand barefoot on the sharp, craggy ledge of this pit of viscous, fiery lava souls that are trying to grab at me and drag me down into some Hellish DOOM," and I like that.
Amazon | Goodreads

The Raft by S.A. Bodeen
I like this cover because it looks all stormy and foreboding and dark, and the girl is laying on her contrasting yellow life raft with that appropriate expression on her face. I like the font because it reminds me of the stenciled words that are all over cargo. And I like that you can look at this cover and know exactly what this book is going to be about. Survival, huzzah!
Amazon | Goodreads


Do you also like any of these covers? Are there any that you're tempted to buy for the cover alone? What new little works of art will you be picking up for your shelves this month? Let me know in the comments!

Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: August 7, 2012
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Source: NetGalley

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men—thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

This book! I do have a couple of (minor?) complaints, but I thoroughly enjoyed Throne of Glass, and the characters completely won me over!

I love that Celaena is both kick-ass and girly-feminine. I'm sick of seeing heroines defy the patriarchal paradigm or break free of womanly constraints in a man's world only to reject so many things about their femininity in the process, shunning dresses or long hair or other things that would be considered "girlish" or "feminine". Not that I have a problem with girls rejecting these things, but must EVERY paradigm-defying heroine also be a tomboy?  I am beginning to view that trope (or is it a cliché?) as a suggestion that being more like a boy is preferable to being an empowered female - as though there's something less acceptable about anything delicate or pretty. To see Celaena embrace both her power and her femininity is honest and refreshing. Why can't girly girls be badasses? Why should embracing one's femininity and beauty mean that one can't also be physically strong? It doesn't, and Celaena is a perfect example of that. She loves dressing up, reads romance novels, suffers PMS, and is nowhere near devoid of emotions and feelings even though she's a contract killer. And she can still kill a man with her bare hands. She's confident to the point of occasional arrogance. She's the girl version of the cocky rogue, and I absolutely love it. Will her overconfidence get her into trouble? Probably. It has the potential to be a fatal flaw if she isn't careful. But you'll never see me complain about it.

Chaol and Dorian. I love these two! Dorian looks at Celaena and sees her sensitivity, vulnerability, and captivity. Chaol looks at her and sees her skill, cunning, and killer-instincts. Each sees something of himself within her. The prince sees someone who has suffered loss and been placed at the mercy of the king. The commander sees a dangerous warrior. They both care for her, but neither of them is getting the whole picture yet. Personally, I'm in favor of Chaol because he is not blind to the cruelest parts of her but cares for her anyway.

Celaena is the focal character, but the narration occasionally slides from the perspective of Celaena into that of a handful of other characters, the most important of those being Dorian and Chaol. The setting is almost exclusively restricted to the castle. I wish we'd have gotten to explore the world a little bit more because it is interesting enough for me to want more of it, but I also like that this adds to the containment that Celaena is feeling. She's a prisoner, after all. The tournament is not quite as exciting as I would've liked it to be. It feels more like a means to an end and a way to draw out Celaena's journey from the prison to her current station. I wish that it'd have either been more of a focal point or that it'd have been bypassed much quicker so that things could just carry on. The other thread of the story involves a killer who is running around maiming the tourney competitors. I felt like the mystery of who was ultimately behind this was rather obvious and I wasn't at all surprised by any of the ways that this plot line developed, since it turned out pretty much exactly how I figured it would. A good portion of the plot in this book is predictable (at least it was to me). There are some pretty obvious hints regarding Celaena's pre-assassin identity (at least, I think it's pretty obvious - I guess I'll have to wait to see if I'm right or if I totally am getting fooled, but based on how my other predictions have gone so far I'm going to go with obvious). But none of this did much to mar my enjoyment of the story, which remains fun despite any predictable outcomes.

The quality of the writing is at times inconsistent. Some paragraphs had me reveling in the words and enjoying every engrossing second of it, and others sort of put me off because the wording felt amateurish or cliché. It was up and down. A few things that happen in the text are completely random. For example, out of nowhere (and fairly late into the story), Celaena suddenly misses this guy that was never mentioned or hinted at or even thought about previously in any of her reflections on her past (and there were enough musings for him to come up at least once). For something that is of such major import to Celaena, it was totally out of left field and, whether he was added late or outtakes removed any previous mention of him, I think that there should have been a sentence or two added back in to supplement his appearance in Celaena's thoughts, in order to reduce the WTFery that was bouncing around in my head at Celaena's sudden longing for some person who is never properly introduced to the reader.

Despite my niggling complaints, I like Throne of Glass quite a bit. The characters commanded my attention and adoration, and the environment and story sucked me in regardless of the fact that I find some of the major plot points to be predictable. The love triangle doesn't bother me in this story because it is handled in a way that (at least so far) makes it pretty clear that one is a friendly and fun yet shallow infatuation, and the other has the potential to be a deep-rooted love based on mutual understanding and a (very) hard-earned trust. I will be anxiously awaiting the sequel, because it seems like book two will be going very interesting places.

Review: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Title: Seraphina
Author: Rachel Hartman
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: July 10, 2012
Series: Seraphina #1
Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Source: Random Buzzers

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift - one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

There are so many reasons that I love Seraphina that I'm certain I cannot adequately express them all. There's the exquisite dragon lore, the musicality, the erudite scholars and philosophers, the engrossing world, heartfelt and believable characters, the social commentary... I could go on for some time.

Seraphina is a respectable heroine who is struggling with her identity. Her struggles to accept herself make her sympathetic and her willpower makes her easy to like. Half in and half out of multiple worlds, she straddles the lines between human and dragon, nobility and commoner, science and art. Her unique point of view lends readers the perfect perspective to see clearly and from every angle the realm in which she resides.

The supporting characters are all amazing. Everyone has their faults, their strengths, their own personalities. They're all very human (even the dragons, though they would be annoyed to hear it). I particularly love Orma. But Kiggs, Glisselda, Lars - all of the characters, really - are perfectly written, with such wonderful depth and motivation, especially for secondary characters, and all of them come across as completely authentic and appropriately lovable (or loathable, as the case may be).

The setting is flawless and the world building is executed extremely well. Goredd is a fleshed out world complete with social castes, politics, warring factions, civil unrest, prejudices, religion, philosophy, magics, music, and technology. The pacing is perfect and the writing is absolutely gorgeous. This book is a seriously fun fantasy filled with mystery, danger, discovery and self-acceptance. But that isn't all it is. The tensions between humans and dragons allow for some great commentary regarding Otherness and I wished so badly that I had been able to read this when I was taking a capstone course on The Other in college. I gleefully absorbed ALL THE THEMES.

Seraphina is an impressive debut. I couldn't find a single thing in it to complain about! I highly, highly recommend it to fans of high fantasy, dragons, fun books with a literary quality to them, or fans of anything, really, because if you can't find something to love in Seraphina, then I don't really know what to tell you.