This Week's New Releases

The first full week of June and it's been terribly hot here, triple digits, which means it's a great time to stay inside and read!

Please add any new releases I missed in the comments! Thanks. :)

No, I haven't read the first book in the series, Kick, Push, but it is on my Kindle just waiting for me to obtain the superpower of reading 10 books a day. Then I might get caught up on my TBR pile. Until then, I will continue to happily add anything Jay McLean writes to my buy list.

*This is a continuation of the story begun in book one. Same hero & heroine so please read in order.*

Coast
Jay McLean
Contemporary Romance
Kick Push Series/Book 2

One life-changing summer.
One boy.
The boy.
The boy who offered me safe touches and heart-stopping - smiles he shared with his son.
We filled our days with porch-step kisses,
filled our ears with laughter,
filled our hearts iwth love.
Deep, soul-aching, desperate love.
But love is misleading.
It's an invisible, fleeting moment.
Somewhere between false adoration and pure hatred comes an
emotion, a vulnerable need, a single desire.
It lives within the ones who miss it, who crave it,
who know better than to expect it.
Love is relentless.
Even when that love turns to hate, turns to loathing,
turns to pain.
Love should heal you.
But it can also break you.
Believe me, I know...
Because I'm Becca Owens - a broken girl...
...And he's Josh Warden - the boy who broke me.

Another second book in a series. Another series I have yet to read the first book. Another first book I have waiting patiently for me on my Kindle. I sense a trend here.

The Fixer, book 1, comes highly recommended from Nath with an A- grade. I need to get on this!

The Long Game
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Young Adult/Suspense
The Fixer Series/Book 2

For Tess Kendrick, a junior at the elite Hardwicke School in Washington D.C., fixing runs in the family. But Tess has another legacy, too, one that involves power and the making of political dynasties. When Tess is asked to run a classmate's campaign for student council, she agrees. But when the candidates are children of politicians, even a high school election can involve life-shattering secrets.

Meanwhile, Tess's guardian has also taken on an impossible case, as a terrorist attack calls into doubt who can--and cannot--be trusted on Capitol Hill. Tess knows better than most that power is currency in D.C., but she's about to discover first-hand that power always comes with a price.

This next one sounds like the perfect read for a summer day. I have read one other book from Ms. Swank, Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes, which I remember enjoying.

One Paris Summer
Denise Grover Swank
Young Adult/Contemporary

Most teens dream of visiting the City of Lights, but it feels more like a nightmare for Sophie Brooks. She and her brother are sent to Paris to spend the summer with their father, who left home a year ago without any explanation. As if his sudden abandonment weren't betrayal enough, he's about to remarry, and they’re expected to play nice with his soon-to-be wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter, Camille, agrees to show them around the city, but she makes it clear that she will do everything in her power to make Sophie miserable.

Sophie could deal with all the pain and humiliation if only she could practice piano. Her dream is to become a pianist, and she was supposed to spend the summer preparing for a scholarship competition. Even though her father moved to Paris to pursue his own dream, he clearly doesn't support hers. His promise to provide her with a piano goes unfulfilled.

Still, no one is immune to Paris’s charm. After a few encounters with a gorgeous French boy, Sophie finds herself warming to the city, particularly when she discovers that he can help her practice piano. There’s just one hitch—he’s a friend of Camille’s, and Camille hates Sophie. While the summer Sophie dreaded promises to become best summer of her life, one person could ruin it all.

This next one should be a quick read, 100 pages, and is a prequel for a new series by Lauren Layne. I recently read and reviewed my first Lauren Layne novel, Blurred Lines, and found it entertaining.

*Note: I just love Ms. Layne's author pic on Goodreads. She looks so happy! Why do some authors post those serious pictures that look like they don't enjoy what they do?

From This Day Forward
Lauren Layne
Contemporary Romance
The Wedding Belles Series/Book 0.5

Up-and-coming wedding photographer Leah McHale’s career is on the rise–thanks in no small part to the Wedding Belles, the elite New York wedding planning agency that always throws top-tier business Leah’s way. So when one of the Belles asks Leah to fill in at the former First Daughter's wedding, Leah is overjoyed to say yes–until she finds out who she’ll be working with.

Jason Rhodes is the one man who was able to capture Leah’s heart and, once he had it, promptly stepped all over it and left her broken. Now he’s working side-by-side with her at the biggest wedding of the season and Leah is determined to give him the cold shoulder. Despite his persistence, she is not going to fall for his charming, impish ways again. Not even if he still has that killer, irresistible smile...

Review: Raised by Wolves

Raised by Wolves
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Young Adult/Fantasy
EgmontUSA/June 2010
Library Book

From the author's website ~

Adopted by the Alpha of a werewolf pack after a rogue wolf brutally killed her parents right before her eyes, fifteen-year-old Bryn knows only pack life, and the rigid social hierarchy that controls it. That doesn't mean that she's averse to breaking a rule or two.

But when her curiosity gets the better of her and she discovers Chase, a new teen locked in a cage in her guardian's basement, and witnesses him turn into a wolf before her eyes, the horrific memories of her parents' murders return. Bryn becomes obsessed with getting her questions answered, and Chase is the only one who can provide the information she needs.

But in her drive to find the truth, will Bryn push too far beyond the constraints of the pack, forcing her to leave behind her friends, her family, and the identity that she's shaped?

I had heard some buzz about Raised by Wolves, I liked the blurb, the library had it so it was an easy decision to read it. And am I glad I did! It was a wonderful story with a heroine that displayed not only maturity but still maintained that rebellious nature that teenagers are known for. Bryn walks a fine line, having to know when she's gone far enough and not push it with Callum, the pack's alpha.

The story opens with Bryn getting in trouble. It's a boy and grades that have brought her to the attention of Callum, again. He's patient but he's also use to Bryn and her testing his limits. Right off, Callum had shades of Bran from Patty Briggs' Mercy Thompson series. Callum is very old, very wise and very powerful. He spared Bryn's life when her parents were brutally murdered by a rogue werewolf. Not every alpha or werewolf would have spared Bryn's life. They keep the pack very secret, allowing only a few humans to know about the pack. The ones that do are almost always female and mated to the males of the pack. They must cut all ties to their human lives and give their loyalty to the pack.

Bryn knows all of this. She knows she's an oddity among the pack. She also knows that some members of the pack don't want her there and it's only due to Callum's protection that Bryn is left alone. I thought having the werewolves actually born to it made an interesting twist, rather than the more traditional method of being attacked and turned. It was practically unheard of for a werewolf to be attacked and turned. And then the fact that almost all are born male, there are very few females born as werewolves, making the female werewolves that much more treasured.

One of Bryn's few friends is a teenage werewolf. He's also an oddity because both of his parents are werewolves. His name is Devon and I thought he was a great match for Bryn. Not as a mate but as a best friend. You really get the sense that they get each other and it was such a nice change to have a guy and girl be friends. Sure they had complications, he's a werewolf, she's human, but the way their relationship is written, you know they are there for each other.

Another teenage werewolf in Bryn's life is Chase. He's the newest member of the pack and he's another oddity. (Callum seems to collect them.) Chase is having a hard time and Bryn, for reasons she doesn't understand, is drawn to him. Bryn must work hard and earn the right to see Chase. Callum doesn't go easy on her but pushes her to her limit and beyond. At the time, it seemed like Callum was being too harsh on Bryn, pushing her too hard and not taking into account that she was human. In the end, it made sense but getting there, Bryn had to go through some very tough times. There is one point that some readers may think Callum goes too far, treats Bryn more like a werewolf, who are nearly indestructible. But Bryn is human and she is horribly injured. It's not an easy scene to read.

Bryn's need to see Chase, talk to him, starts a chain of events that eventually bring Bryn to where she started, at the attack on her parents. There is a mystery within the story, it's the driving force for Bryn. It's her personal quest to find out what this connection is to Chase that she feels and how it all relates to her past. I loved how Barnes orchestrated the events within the pack and the realistic reactions of the characters. It all coalesced in a surprise ending that left me wanting more.

Rating: A-

ETA: Book 2, Trial by Fire, is due out summer of 2011. (Thanks Nath!)