The Dead and the Buried by Kim Harrington

Kayla Sloane was the quintessential mean girl, and then one day she died.  Kayla fell down the stairs and broke her neck, and no body believes that it was an accident.  Now, Jade's family has moved into Kayla's old house.  Unfortunately, Kayla has not moved on.  With Kayla's ghost haunting the house, and threatening her little brother, Jade must take on the task of finding out who killed Kayla before Kayla does some killing of her own.

I've read some reviews that said this read like a Fear Street book, which is exactly what I thought while reading it.  It was a fast paced novel with a nice amount of spookiness.  I especially liked the information about gemstones throughout the novel (Jade's dead mother was a jewelery designer, and Jade wears gemstones based on their believed powers).

This novel is based on an ARC of the book.

Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters by Suzanne Weyn

Twin sisters Giselle and Ingrid are the hidden daughters of Dr. Victor Frankenstein.  They have been hidden so Frankenstein's monster will not find and kill them. They know nothing about their father, and their mother is dead.

Shortly before the girls turn 17, their father dies, leaving them heirs to his entire fortune and his castle.  The girls move into the castle, and Giselle (the beautiful one) has her eyes set on redoing the castle and taking on her role as Baroness Frankenstein.  Ingrid finds her father's journals and becomes obsessed with his science.

I made it about half of the way through this book, but then I wondered if I really wanted to keep going.  I could guess some of the plot points, and honestly neither girl is overly sympathetic.  I do like Ingrid more than Giselle, but her story line really wasn't progressing quickly enough for me.

There started to be some awesome gruesomeness right around the point where I gave up, but I'd already divested myself of the book by then.  I read some descriptions of the story to see if I would want to keep going, but the book description on Amazon does not even feature the correct character names.  Also, apparently there is eventually a love triangle.  Oh well, onto the next book.

I was allowed to read this book as an e-ARC.  I was neither paid, nor given awesome swag for my review.  The actual book may be different than the copy I reviewed.

Rumor Has It by Jill Mansell

Tilly came home one day to find that her live-in boyfriend had up and left.  On a weekend visit to see her best friend Erin, and try to collect herself, Tilly sees an advertisement in a local paper for a "Girl Friday" job and decided to investigate.

Tilly lands the job, and moves in with the new family; a gay man (Max) and his teen aged daughter.  Moving from London to a small town is a bit of a shock, and it doesn't help that Max is best friends with Jack Lucas, the best looking man in town with the worst reputation.  Tilly can't help but be attracted to Jack, and the more time she spends with him the less the rumors about him make sense.

Meanwhile Tilly's best friend Erin has finally found the love of her life, too bad he's the soon-to-be ex-husband of the town shrew who won't leave Erin alone.

These plots, and a lot more, happen throughout this novel.  It's a decently long book (over 400 pages), and I think it could have done well to be broken up in two or three companion novels.  All of the characters were likable though, and the book was very enjoyable.  There was romance, but nothing too explicit (no bodice ripping, yay!) and a lot of humor.  This book reminded me a lot of Meg Cabot's boy series.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, and I am looking forward to reading more from the author.

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

Set in a near-future dystopian US, most of America's children are dead due to a strange disease and those that have survived...well they aren't exactly "normal".  When she was 10 years old Ruby did something that caused her parents to lock her in the garage and call the authorities.  For 6 years Ruby lived at Thurmond one of the "rehabilitation camps" run by the government.  All these years she's been hiding her true power, until one day she can't hide it anymore.  After that she's broken out of camp by the Children's League, an ruthless anti-government group who wants to use Ruby as a weapon.

Ruby runs away from the Children's League and meets up with a group of teens on the run who are looking for East River and the Slip Kid, a place and person who seem to be the answer to all their problems.

Ruby is a likable character, although there is a little too much of her underestimating her own attractiveness, and her desire to be not girly can be a little much at times.  Her traveling group are all great supporting characters.  Liam, the group's flawed leader is adorable and you just want everything to work out for him, even though it's very unlikely that will happen.  Chubs slowly grows on you, and little Zu just sounds like a lost little girl that anyone would want to hug and take care of.  This book has action, romance, and it was hard for me to put it down.  It wasn't exactly what I was wanting to read when I picked it up, but I became so engrossed in the story that I just couldn't walk away.

The ending is heart breaking, but since this is the first in a planned trilogy, there will hopefully be some happier resolution later on.

Anatomy of a Single Girl by Daria Snadowsky

We already have Anatomy of a Boyfriend in my library, and it's circulated pretty well, so when I saw Anatomy of a Single Girl as a book I could request on Netgalley I was pretty excited.  I downloaded the book and started reading, unfortunately I was not able to get very far.  This book follows up after the relationship in Anatomy of a Boyfriend falls apart, and the main character is just not very likable.  Maybe part of it was me, I am getting married this year and am really excited about it so when the main character Dominique started making fun of a bride for being all excited about her up-coming wedding I was immediately turned off.  I also didn't care for the fact that Dominique said she was going to be spending time over of her summer break "bratsitting" (note not baby-sitting) for some families.  Dominique also comes off as pretty superficial.  I couldn't make myself keep reading, and instead would spend my time with this book thinking about the other book I had that I wanted to read more.  So, I had to give up.

This review is based off an e-ARC that I was allowed to read.  I received no compensation for this review.

Shadowlands by Kate Brian

One afternoon, on the way home from school, Rory Miller is attacked by Steven Nell; an infamous serial killer who has eluded police for over a decade.  Steven Nell is not one to give up, the only other girl escaped him, and he came back to kill her and her entire family.  So, now Rory, her sister Darcy, and their father must enter the witness relocation program.

The town they move to, Juniper Landing, seems like an idyllic tourist town.  A great place to blend in, and a place where the family begins to heal. Then, Rory's new friends start disappearing and Rory is scared that Steven Nell has found her again.

This book was fast-paced and atmospheric.  It was also pretty violent.  I figured out the "twist" to the end before it got there, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book.  I am seriously looking forward to the rest of the books in this planned trilogy.


This review is based on an e-arc I received from Netgalley.  I received neither payment, nor awesome swag in exchange for this review.