Angelfall by @Susan_Ee

Rating: 5 out of 5 starsPublisher: Feral DreamPages: 283Summary:
It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.


I downloaded ANgelfall onto my Kindle after seeing an advert for it on my commute to work on the Tube, the title and cover attracted me along with the fact it's been a while since I last read a book based around angels (I love the Hush and Fallen series. Angelfall opens six weeks after the apocalypse and follows the story of Penryn, a young girl who not only has to protect herself but her disabled sister and ill mother in the After World. She does everything she can to protect and shield them but on the way to move somewhere safer it all goes awry. Penryn happens upon a group of menacing angels who proceed to leave one angel, Raffe, wingless and kidnap her sister causing her mother to run.

After this Penryn is left with (what she believes to be) a dying angel in the form of Raffe. She quickly comes to realise that he is capable of healing and uses him to get what she wants. The return of her sister. After helping Raffe back to health and getting him out of a foreboding situation she makes him help her. What follows on from there is a journey through a world filled with supernatural problems and with a resistance running under it.

I really enjoyed reading Angelfall, I guess my favourite thing about it was that everything happens post apocalypse whereas normally the aim in the angel books I've read is to stop the impending apocalypse. This brings a great angle to things because it makes everything that much harder and makes the human characters even more determined to change the world back to how it once was. This is exactly what Penryn is like, you can fell how much she wants to get her world back and will do anything (including going right into the heart of the angel's world) to not only save her sister but to save her world. Her development in the further books is going to be a great thing to read and I can't wait to see how her feeling for Raffe develop and the effect they have on her.

And then there's Raffe. Yes I have another angel book boyfriend. I wanted kiss and kill him all at once. I think he does genuinely care for Penryn and he proved that at the end of this book. I won't ruin it but he does something for Penryn that, in my eyes, he would never have done if he didn't genuinely care for her and want to be with her. In this world angel/human relationships are frowned upon and Nephilim are a very different species all together, so again, this poses a very interesting plot for the future books.

Raffe develops into a very interesting character in this book and exactly how he uses this is going to be great to read. He is essentially left an outcast by the end of this book but I think his position will save him. All in all Angelfall was a great book and a strong opening to what I think will be the next big angel trilogy to hit our shelves. I've already pre ordered book 2 and can't wait to get it on my Kindle in October.

Down London Road by @SYoungSFAuthor‎

Rating: 4 out of 5 starsPublisher: NALPages: 375
Johanna Walker is used to taking charge. But she’s about to meet someone who will make her lose control....

It has always been up to Johanna to care for her family, particularly her younger brother, Cole. With an absent father and a useless mother, she’s been making decisions based on what’s best for Cole for as long as she can remember. She even determines what men to date by how much they can provide for her brother and her, not on whatever sparks may—or may not—fly.

But with Cameron MacCabe, the attraction is undeniable. The sexy new bartender at work gives her butterflies every time she looks at him. And for once, Jo is tempted to put her needs first. Cam is just as obsessed with getting to know Jo, but her walls are too solid to let him get close enough to even try.

Then Cam moves into the flat below Jo’s, and their blistering connection becomes impossible to ignore. Especially since Cam is determined to uncover all of Jo’s secrets …even if it means taking apart her defenses piece by piece.
Down London Road is Samantha Young's novel On Dublin Street (you can read my review of that book here) and follows the story of Johanna Walker (those of you who have read ODS will remember her), a troubled young woman who feels worthless and unworthy of love while trying to protect her little brother from growing up with an alcoholic mother.

From reading that review you can probably tell I was just a little excited to finally get a copy of Down London Road onto my Kindle. The wait was excruciating I tell you! When it finally arrived I finished off my previous read and dove straight in.

When we first meet Jo she is dating Malcolm, an older man who can offer her the security she craves but the passion just isn't there. She knows it and Malcolm knows it too. She goes along with the motions until she meets a certain someone. That certain someone is a tattooed, rude and obnoxious man by the name of Cameron McCabe, Jo immediately hates him but can't deny the attraction she feels toward him and neither, as we learn later, can he.

What follows is the development of a beautiful relationship, they both open up to each other in ways they never have with others, letting themselves into each others lives and learning that they both need to be together. For Jo this need goes so much deeper, Cam makes her realise, that despite what she grew up believing, she is worthy of love and protection. That there is a way out of the situation she's in with her mother and most importantly, a way to protect Cole.

As always with Samantha's books her male lead cuts for a hawt character, I mean, seriously?!?! I thought Branden was hot but Cam beats him hands down for me. Some of the things he said to Jo had me melting into a pile of goo, he truly loves her. Oh and the sex was pretty damn awesome too. Plus the way he was so prepared and eager to take Cole under his wing, the fact that Jo had a teenage brother she cared for full time didn't bother him at all.

The came the inevitable twist at the end and if I didn't love Cam before than (despite some of the STUPID stuff he'd pulled I did now. Seeing him like that with Jo was just perfect, totally perfect and a great end to the book. You will love this man and have I new book boyfriend by the time you get to the end of this.

I guess my main gripe with this book was some of the vocab, especially during the sex scenes, it made me cringe a little but I managed to look past it since Cam was being so damn hot.

If Samantha writes another book in this series I will definitely be reading it.

The Photo Traveler by @arthurjgonzalez

Rating: 4 out of 5 starsPublisher: Fahrenheit PublishingPages: 418
Seventeen-year-old Gavin Hillstone is resigned to being miserable for the rest of his life. Left alone in the world after his parents died in a fire when he was four, he was placed in foster care, which for him meant ending up in an abusive home with an alcoholic adoptive father.

Gavin’s only escape is in taking and creating images. His camera is his refuge from the unending torture and isolation of daily life in his “family.”

Until he learns by accident that he isn’t alone in the world after all. His father’s parents are still alive and living in Washington DC.

When he takes the plunge and travels 3,000 miles to find his grandparents, he learns that they—and he—are part of something much bigger, and more dangerous, than he could ever have imagined. Something that has always put his family at risk and that will now threaten his own life, while forever changing it.

He learns that he is one of the last descendants of a small group of Photo Travelers—people who can travel through time and space through images. But his initial excitement turns to fear, when he soon discovers that he and his grandparents are being pursued by the fierce remnants of a radical European Photo Traveler cult, the Peace Hunters. What Gavin has, they want!

His adventure will take him to past eras, like The Great Depression and the Salem Witch Trials. Gavin will have to discover who he really is and must make choices that spell the difference between life and death for himself, for the relatives he now knows and loves, and for the girl he will come to love.

For Gavin Hillstone, life will never be the same.

Shortly after I started this site I came across The Photo Traveler as soon as I read the synopsis Arthur was kind enough to gift me an ARC to read in return for a review. This week I finally got around to reading it and as soon as I started I couldn't put it down. I haven't read many pure sci-fi books and I found myself really enjoying it.

I think that was mainly down to the lead, Gavin, I connected with him from the first words I read. He's had the worst luck in the world, his parents are dead, he lives with an abusive adoptive father and uses his attachment to photography to escape but what he doesn't know is that there is a reason he's so connected to photography.

After ruuning away and to his biological grandparents he learns he is a photo traveler, a unique and rare community who are able to travel to anywhere in the past by reciting a chant to a picture of that time. I loved this concept, I think we all have that one picture from historical times that we'd love to jump into so getting to read about people who can do it was amazing. Of course there are rules, it has to be a real picture and they mustn't mess with the past.

Although it all starts out well enough with Gavin getting to finally know his parents and starting a friendship with Mario (who I adore by the way. It turns into him not only having to protect himself but also his grandparents and only family, Bud and Estelle. He has to protect the vials they own from two so called peace hunters who are after them. This aspect of the story was great and how it developed was heartbreaking and satisfying at the same time. I think having this threat helps Gavin to realise his ability to protect himself and his family and he'll stop nothing at doing so.

Tied in with all this Gavin is Gavin's frequent trips to Mario's dead cousin, Alanna, he sees her picture and feels an instant connection, at first I wasn't sure about this and how it would develop but Arthur used it in exactly the right way and I can't wait to see the outcome of that relationship in the books to come. Alanna and Gavin really did seem to belong together but whether they will get together remains to be seen.

Every sci-fi book needs a great villain and The Photo Traveler started to build up to just this and as the series develops I can't wait to learn more about the villain of this tale.

Paper Towns by @realjohngreen

Rating: 4 out of 5 starsPublisher: Dutton JuvenilePages:

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows.
After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.
Before I start this review I have to admit something. I love John Green's books. I love every word of this man's that I have ever read. There I said it. Now onto my review.

Paper Towns is the third book of John Green's that I've read, my first was Looking for Alaska and then The Fault in our Stars. I adored both so I knew I'd love Paper Towns and I wasn't wrong. Paper Towns follows Quentin's (or Q as he's known to his friends)search for Margo. The girl he's been in love with since the day they met as children and used to be good friends with but then they grew up and grew apart. Q admired Margo from afar until one night she sneaks into his room and whisks him away on an adventure around Orlando in the middle of the night to avenge those who have wronged her. The next day she disappears and so begins Paper Towns.

I think my favoruite part of Paper Towns was the adventure that Margo and Q share. I found myself laughing out loud while reading it and smiling that an insane person. They made me feel happy to my core and they got on so well together. Margo came out with some great lines during this time and I loved reading Q's internal thoughts of their encounter. So worth a read. He really is a great narrator. Even when he's at his lowest in his search for Margo he never loses hope and you feel that even though he's convinced he won't find her alive.

As the story progresses Q becomes more and more convinced he is the only one who can find Margo and I loved that in him, when everyone else has given up he hadn't. He was so very determined to find her and get her back. It is this that propels him forward and gets him to enlist the help of his hapless friends: Radar and Ben. Those two were great fun to read with Radar's rant about black Santa's and Ben's over use of the word "honeybunny", I think I should hate them but I couldn't. They were just too adorable. They both help Q in their own special way and without them Q would never have got as far in the search for Margo as he did.

In the end this search leads the boys plus Lacey on an epic road trip once Q realises the connection between the search for Margo and Paper Towns. What ensues is good, clean fun in the search for Margo, the pit stop timed gas stops were a hoot as was the twist on I Spy they continually played.

In the end Q finds Margo and I don't want to ruin it but I loved the ending, it wasn't what I expected but it was amazing. I think by the time we get to the end Q is aware that this is what's going to happen and he's prepared himself for it. All in all I loved this book, it was so much fun to read and I'd recommend any lover of YA to give it a go.

Blog Tour | Review and Giveaway: Code Red by @AmyNoelleWriter

Rating: 4 out of 5 starsPublisher: The Writer's Coffee Shop
After getting hurt in college by a gorgeous man, Nicole Magette vowed never to risk losing her heart again. Now she lives a structured and satisfying life. Her work is easy, her friends are her family, and the only consistent men in her life are her two cats, Winchester and Huntington Peabody the Third. She doesn't date, and she hooks up only with losers-men she has absolutely no risk of falling for. But if she finds herself in danger, she has her old failsafe in place-the Code Red. In college, she and her four best friends came up with the system as a way to keep away the good-looking bastards that might worm their way past their carefully constructed walls. Seven years later, three of her friends have succumbed to their last Code Reds and are happily married. Now it's just Nicole and her closest friend, Jen, who are still on their own, and Nic is just fine with that. That is, until Joshua Daniels is transferred to Nicole's office from New York and assigned to work with her on a special project. He's everything she's avoided and everything she claims she doesn't want, so why can't she get him out of her mind? He's persistent, dangerously handsome, and sexy as sin. In other words, he's her worst nightmare. She turns to her friends to help her resist Josh's considerable charms and the inescapable draw she feels every time she gets near him. Can the Code Red save her this time, or will Josh send her perfectly balanced life into chaos?
A few months ago TWCS kindly gifted me an ARC of Code Red by Amy Noelle. Back in March I read it to get ready for this blog tour and oh my did I adore it. After Nicole Magette is cheated on a gorgeous man in college with various different girls she teams together with her existing friends and some of those girls to create Code Red. The premise is simple, when the girls fear a man could be bad for them they implement Code Red. It's worked thus far for Nicole, who keeps men at arms length and treats sex just like a man does. Wham, bam, thank you maam. SHe keeps life simple by living with two cats and sticking to her well practiced routine.

It's all going swimmingly until Joshua Daniels turns up at work from their New York office. He's wearing a suit, he's charming and above all else he's hot. Really, really hot. Nicole, fearing the worst, instantly instigates a Code Red. Except as time goes on her friends don't support it because they can all see that Josh and Nicole work really well together.

There are many reasons I loved Code Red. My favourite thing about it is it could have so easily been your typical boy meets girl with issues romance but it isn't. Amy develops a lovely story with these two, showing the development of their relationship and both their attitudes to relationships. I have to say that at one point I really wanted to knock their heads together and there was one point where I wanted to punch Josh' lights out but I digress.

Oh and another thing, I adored the UST. I thrive on it and I love a book that manages to convey UST well. Code Red did just that. I felt every moment of sexual tension between Josh and Nicole. I remember tweeting numerous times that the UST was killing me! ANd when it finally gets resolved? WOW! It was so worth the wait.

TWCS has kindly gifted a copy of Code Red for me to giveaway to one lucky reader, it is a worldwide giveaway and closes at midnight on 10th May so get your entries in via the rafflecoptor below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


In case you don't win, here are the purchase links for Code Red: (Amazon US) | iTunes | TWCS

Make sure to visit A Diary of a Book Addict tomorrow for the next blog tour stop, where you'll find a review plus playlist and also visit The Fictionators for an interview, exclusive excerpt, and giveaway.

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

Rating:3.5 starsPublisher: Atria BooksPages: 448 pages
I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

I feel like I'm in the minority with this book. I wanted to love this book, I wanted to start it and get sucked in but I didn't. Don't get me wrong, I liked it but it just didn't grip me like I expected it to, like books like this normally do. It started off well and I thought it would but then it didn't. I wasn't until I got to the 80% mark that I was unable to put the book down.

So I guess I should go onto what I loved. I loved the characters, they were so well developed and all played their part in rescuing Natysa from her self imposed hatred. They slowly helped her to deal with her issues and start her life again before she really started to do it herself and realise that she was taking the steps she needed to. I think that if she hadn't had them around her what she was faced with toward the end of the book would have played out very differently. As always, a book once again made me fall in love with a douche, Drew Leighton, I should hate it but Natysa makes me love him, so does Josh.

There are moments I adored in this book, like Natsya's chair in Josh's garage. It's his way of telling her that he's letting her in, letting her be around and then there's those moments when Drew is a total sweetheart and you can see the real him behind the douche he appears to be. I think in a way Natsya saves him, just like she saves Josh and they both help to save her.

My favourite thing was the end, I thought that was coming in the long run but to hear it from Natysa made me smile and I think it would have given Josh hope to believe in what he thought was just his grandfather's drugs talking. That was the best way that he could have been saved. It really was.

Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11) by J. R. Ward

Qhuinn, son of no one, is used to being on his own. Disavowed from his bloodline, shunned by the aristocracy, he has finally found an identity as one of the most brutal fighters in the war against the Lessening Society. But his life is not complete. Even as the prospect of having a family of his own seems to be within reach, he is empty on the inside, his heart given to another....

Blay, after years of unrequited love, has moved on from his feelings for Qhuinn. And it’s about time: The male has found his perfect match in a Chosen female, and they are going to have a young—just as Qhuinn has always wanted for himself. It’s hard to see the new couple together, but building your life around a pipe dream is just a heartbreak waiting to happen. As he’s learned firsthand.

Fate seems to have taken these vampire soldiers in different directions... but as the battle over the race’s throne intensifies, and new players on the scene in Caldwell create mortal danger for the Brotherhood, Qhuinn finally learns the true definition of courage, and two hearts who are meant to be together... finally become one.
Rating: 4 out of 5 starsPublisher: HachettePages: 591
Lover at Last is the 11th book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series and has been the most antipcipated by fans of the series. For a number of books we've seen the sexual tension between Qhiunn and Blay simmering away underneath their decades old friendship. When the Warden announced they were the central couple of the book we all jumped for joy. We were finally getting to see these two together and the Warden was pushing the mainstream with a m/m book.

And my did I love it. At times I seriously wanted to bash these boys heads in and lock them in a room to just talk and get it all out there. Although, given the way there first sex scene went they may not be the best way to go about it. You'll see what I mean when you read it. While I'm on the subject of those scenes there was one HUGE issue I had. No lube. I mean I kind of get why the Warden didn't go there but really? Yes there big, blury warriors but that's still gotta hurt! Especially in Qhuinn's case... It just didn't fly with me.

Although, the sex wasn't the bee end and all end. There were seem endearing scenes in this book. There are so many I could read again and again and never get sick of. Especially the epilogue, Qhuinn seems like a totally different person in that. One of my favourite quotes has to be this:

"Thank you... for the ten thousand kind things you've done"

It just broke my heart and made me love Qhiunn even more, through the ten previous books you know the guy has had it tough but you have no idea until you read this. I mean the prologue just broke me. I cried within seconds of beginning the book. You also learn just how much Blay has meant to him and to his life. He really did save him in so many ways. Yes, he was an idiot about it but he's always really known Blay was who he belonged to.

Lots of people have been against the whole Layla's pregnancy but I really love it before being with Blay it was Qhuinn's way of creating the family he had always wanted. Now he not only has that, but the love of his life, too. He also has a whole other kind of family thanks to Wrath and Saxton. I loved that entire sequence in the book from when they come to get him to while it's going on, you can tell how much it really means to Qhuinn. He shows us exactly what the Brotherhood means to him in those scenes.

So it seems from what I said that I should 5 star this book, right? Well, no and I'll tell you why. There were waaaaaaay too many subplots running through this book. Assail/Sola. Xcor/Band of Bastards. Trev/Selena. Xcor/Layla. It was just too much. I get the Warden wants other stories but I'd rather the relationships started in each respective book rather than fill another's with subplots. At points I was getting so confused and I would honestly have preferred to see more of the Brothers and their shellans (really wasn't enough of them and the epilogue just made me miss those guys so much more) as well as more of Blay, Qhuinn and John Matthew together.

The subplots and lack of Brothers was certainly not enough for me to not enjoy this book and I was kind of expecting a semi filler book that the people who didn't wish to read this book could skip it but not miss anything major. I just wanted more of Blay/Qhuinn and the Brothers who we've all grown to love so much.

One final thing! This book has given me major Saxton suspicions and I cannot wait to see if I'm right or wrong on that one! So we now know who is central to the next book (Wrath/Beth and some baby making! SQUEE!) but there's a year's wait. I don't know how I'll be able to cope with that wait! Guess I'll just have to dig out my Insider's Guide to get me through :)

Walking Disaster by @JamieMcGuire_

Set in the same time-frame as Beautiful Disaster, now we hear the story from Travis' point of view.
Travis lost his mother at a very young age, but before she died she taught him two important rules... Love hard. Fight harder.

Growing up in a family of men who like to gamble and fight, Travis Maddox is a tough guy. Known for his bad reputation with women, and feared for his incredible fighting skills, all the boys want to be him, and the girls simply want him...

Abby Abernathy is the first girl to treat him the way he feels he should be treated, with dislike and disinterest. It is her lack of interest that sparks his determination to win her round.

Will the invincible Travis 'Mad Dog' Maddox be defeated by a girl?
Rating: 5 out of 5 starsPublisher: Atria BooksPages: 448
About six months ago I picked up a book called Beautiful Disaster, I had seen it being reading by many of my fellow readers and it was rec'ed to me by everyone. I thought to myself, okay I'll give it a go and I read it in two days. I couldn't put it down.

Beautiful Disaster was told in Abby Abernathy's POV and detailing her and Travis' intense love story as I read it my constant thought was I just wanted to get into Travis' head and then I was told about Walking Disaster. I have never pre ordered a book so quickly. I've been waiting slightly impatiently for April and then I was kindly given an ARC by Atria Books on meaning I got to read it a week before it came out on general release. You could say I was a little excited...

As the summary says Walking Disaster follows the exact same timeline as Beautiful Disaster. Travis and Abby meet, Travis can't keep away from her or she from him and we get to see this story through his eyes. You really realise reading this just how much of a big softy Travis Maddox is under his hard guy image. He has a heart of gold under that hard skin of his. I loved getting to see him with his dad and brothers, whenever they were together my heartstrings tugged and I just wanted to hug them all. Then there's his relationship with Shepley, his cousin, which was equally awesome.

One of the reasons I wanted to read this so much was because I really wanted to see what exactly Travis was thinking when he pulled some of the crap he does. Having seen his thought process I can understand the actions that, when reading from Abby's POV, made me stop and think: Travis, why are you making this SO HARD?! He has his reasons and in some cases they are really sweet just as they are equally twisted at times but you forgive him. That's the thing with Travis, at times you want to hate him, you want to punch and kick and scream at him but you can't. Every bad quality he has is outweighed by something else. He really is truly impossible not to love. You can really see why Abby has a tough time kicking him to the kerb when she really should have.

I will say something about this book, prepare yourself to have your heart broken. The break up is even more painful in Trav's POV. I was sat there reading it crying my eyes out on a very busy commuter train (I kid you not, I got some funny looks!). Then there's the aftermath of Thanksgiving, that moment after he drops Abby at home, there is one thought of his after he walks back into his dad's house that killed me. You really see how much family means to him, they are his rock, his guidance and the ones he can't live without. Family is his world and he fiercely protects them all, Abby included. You screw with any of them and you screw with him.

I really can't fault this book, I adored every moment of it, I loved getting into Travis's head and the epilogue made me smile. It was so fitting and total perfection. If you've read Beautiful Disaster I would recommend you read this but do something a little different to what I did, re-read Walking Disaster first. I think it'll really help because at times I kept opening up Beautiful Disaster to compare the scenes. Equally, if you haven't read it I recommend you read Beautiful Disaster before reading this. Beautiful Disaster really develops the love story between these two and you need to read it first to truly appreciate Walking Disaster.

Requiem by @OliverBooks

They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.
Rating: 3 out of 5 starsPublisher: Harper Collins
Firstly, apologies for the hiatus! I've been a busy bee reading a few ARC's for blog tours I've signed up to so can't yet post my reviews!

Now to my review of Requiem, the final installment of the Delrium trilogy. For those of you who haven't read the series it follows the life of Lena, a young girl who lives in a world where love is seen as a disease to be cured of. At the age of eighteen everyone must be cured, in essence they are made immune to love, and are paired with someone the government deems a suitable pair. Lena has revolted against this and fallen in love with Alex, an uncured who lives in the Wilds. Together they start on a fight to free the world from what's forced upon them. They want everyone to be able to feel love.

Requiem follows two story arcs, one of Lena's fight for freedom in the wilds and that of Hana, her best friend who has recently been cured and paired with Fred Hardgrove, Portland's soon to be mayor. These two arc's (told in switching POV's) were one of my favourite things about this book. I loved seeing the parallel between Lena, who was doing all she could not to be cured and at the same time fighting her feelings for two men (Julian and Alex - there's more to come on from me on that soon) and Hana, who has been cured, trying to deal with a possible defective cure as well as being a doting pair to a young mayor who, behind closed doors, is manipulative and harsh.

The switching POV's could easily have made the story confusing but it was easy to follow and aided the telling of the story. I think we really needed to see this, the POV of the rebellion and the cured. Although in Hana's POV there's a fair bit of rebellion too once she realises who Fred is and delves into his past and previous pair. She is just as rebellious as Lena in this book, going out of her way to do things she shouldn't because she knows it's the right thing to do. I really think she truly believed in the world she was brought into and up in. True rebellion has always been there, simmering low at the surface and Fred was the catalyst to bring it out in her.

And then there's Lena. She is well and truly in the resistance, doing all see can to resist capture and change the world for the better. She's settled with Raven et al and really does seem at home with them. It's like this is the place she's meant to be. This is the side she's meant to be fighting on. It fits her.

I'll admit something here, the love story and the fight between Alex and Julian just didn't seem real enough to me. Lena didn't seem to really be at war with herself over who to be with. It was like she knew the whole time what she eventually admits, that she never really loved Julian. The conviction to him just wasn't there like it had been for Alex in the previous books.

I did enjoy Requiem, admittedly not as much as the first two installments, but I did find myself wanting to read it and know how it would all end. A lot of people were disappointed in the ending and I was a little too. Not so much because of the way it ended, this was never going to be a story where it was all perfect and fixed in the end, but because of all the unanswered questions. Who would Lena end up being with? What had happened to Lena's family? To Fred? To the other uncureds Lena had spent time with. To Hana? To Lena's mum? Part of me felt that at least some of these questions could have been answered.

I had originally wanted to give this installment four stars but it's 3 stars for this one. It just wasn't on par with the first two for me. I didn't feel the same amount of emotion and connection to the characters and their plight.

On Dublin Street by Samantha Young (@SYoungSFAuthor)

<

Four years ago, Jocelyn left her tragic past behind in the States and started over in Scotland, burying her grief, ignoring her demons, and forging ahead without attachments. Her solitary life is working well—until she moves into a new apartment on Dublin Street where she meets a man who shakes her carefully guarded world to its core.

Braden Carmichael is used to getting what he wants, and he’s determined to get Jocelyn into his bed. Knowing how skittish she is about entering a relationship, Braden proposes an arrangement that will satisfy their intense attraction without any strings attached.

But after an intrigued Jocelyn accepts, she realizes that Braden won’t be satisfied with just mind-blowing passion. The stubborn Scotsman is intent on truly knowing her… down to the very soul.
Rating: 4 out of 5 starsPublisher: PenguinPages: 416
Many of my fellow readers on Twitter have read and raved about On Dublin Street. It has been on my TBR list for as long as I can remember. When I saw it avaliable on NetGalley I jumped on that request button like I never had before. I loaded the ARC of On Dublin Street that Penguin kindly gifted to me and finally had my chance to read this book and did I love it? Hell. Yes.

Jocelyn Butler (or Joss as she likes to be called by everyone but one person) and Braden Carmichael meet by chance in a cab in Edinburgh. Joss immediately feels an attraction to this man and christens him The Suit. She can't get him out of her mind and that's just as well because she hasn't seen the last of him. It just happens he is the brother of her eventual new roommate, Ellie and their second meeting when he turns up at Joss' new apartment is great.

We're aware from the start of this book that Joss is a troubled woman haunted by her past, trying to start over in the country her mother left to being a life in America. She thinks she's handling it by burying everything she doesn't want to feel but when Ellie and Braden become a huge part of her life that she begins to see she has done nothing near dealt her past.

It's only when she meets Ellie, who is her total polar opposite, that she begins to slow reveal more about herself. I think someone so opposite to her is what Joss needed to see that the way she'd been living wasn't healthy. By knowing Ellie Joss gets to know Braden and she soon realises that, as much as she tries, she can't push down what she feels for him. What begins from there is some of the best UST I have ever read. Every chapter I was wondering to myself when will this happen?! It needs to happen! And when it did? Oh my, I wasn't disappointed. It was HOT. Seriously. Hot.

As hot as all the UST and sex is you don't forget there's a whole other element to this story. Throughout we're aware of everything Joss is facing and Braden makes her (eventually) make the right move to face up to her past and move on. Although, all the credit shouldn't go to Braden, all his family play a role in Joss' development in On Dublin Street, they welcome her from day one which I loved. I loved getting to see her finally have the family she'd always wanted.

Of course, this wouldn't be a romance book without a painful twist and On Dublin Street delivers this. When I read the twist I had to know what would happen. I even text one of my friends who had read this to know it would all be okay. At this point in the book I wanted to grab Joss, shake her and scream "what are you thinking woman?!" but she has her reasons for her actions and eventually realises what she did was the wrong thing to do at most definitely the wrong time.

Before I sign this review off I have to say one thing. I adored Ellie. To bits. She reminded me so much of people I know and I smiled every time she was around in this book. She really was my favourite character (aside from Joss and Braden) in On Dublin Street and is such a hopeful thing and sees right through Joss and Braden's arrangement to what lies underneath, oblivious to them, for way too long for Ellie's liking. That they love each other and should be together as a couple.

This book really is a great story of not only romance but love and acceptance. By accepting not only Ellie and Braden, but their extended family as her own, we see Joss develop and become the woman she not only wants to be but should be.