Books Beauty Bling

 I started this series a while ago, and was hooked. Lia is a princess who is set, by her parents, to marry a prince from a neighboring country. She's less than thrilled by this edict, and instead of submitting, runs away with her lady-in-waiting, Pauline. The first book sees them on the run, and hiding out from bounty hunters they've been told were sent by Lia's father. Assuming new identities, they find work at an inn, and when they meet two young men at the inn, things go from bad to worse. Neither men is who they seem, and this spells trouble for everyone. I don't want to spoil anyone, so I won't go into what happens in the rest of the book, or book two, but if you're a fan of badass ladies, who are fiercely loyal, and like to buck tradition, this is a great series for you.  I will say, in parts of the book, I think the author is alluding to the fact that the Remnant (those chosen after an apocalypse wipes out all of society,) is the United States, and ment...

Ah, Young Adult novels. Is there anything more traumatic than finishing a novel, and realizing it's got a second book? How about finishing the sequel and realizing this series is actually a trilogy. This is what happened to me with The Girl at Midnight and The Shadow Hour by Melissa Grey. I picked up the e-book of The Girl at Midnight recently because it had been recommended to be by Amazon, and it was $1.99. I have to be honest, I was not expecting to be completely drawn in immediately, let alone so broken hearted at learning I would need to wait until Summer 2017 for the final book, The Savage Dawn. *le sigh* I want to hold off on doing a true review until I've read all three, but, I can absolutely tell you that I adore the world that Melissa Grey has created, and the main character, Echo reminds me in the best ways of Karu from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor. Both are strong if somewhat reluctant warriors with difficult childhoods who find family an...

Margo "Grots" Oppenheimer has had a rough year. The previous Fall, her grandfather passed away suddenly, her secret boyfriend dumped her, her brother moved away to university, and her father, already a quiet man, became even more withdrawn. So, Margo did her best to push through, and follow all the steps laid out in a pamphlet from the hospital on what to do after someone dies. Cleaning out of possessions, organizing the funeral details, etc. Somehow, though, she still finds herself losing hours, and conversations. Margo is a smart girl, off the charts smart, so when she begins to notice experiencing "wormholes," "screen wipes," and "reboots," in her daily life she takes her math and science and attempts to solve for x, so to speak. Using her grandfather's diaries, and her own scientific notation, Margo spends the summer skipping through timelines and realities in some pretty charming, if sometimes confusing, examples of magical realism. Thr...