Review: See How They Run

SEE HOW THEY RUN
Embassy Row #2
Ally Carter
Young Adult/Thriller
336 pages
Scholastic Press
Available Now
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Inside every secret, there's a world of trouble. Get ready for the second book in this new series of global proportions--from master of intrigue, New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter.

Grace's past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

The twists get twistier and the turns get even more shocking in the second thrilling installment of Embassy Row.

MY THOUGHTS
See How They Run returns us to Embassy Row and the life and death situations the children of politicians constantly barrel their way into, only this installment raises the stakes further as murder creates an international incident.

In the first book our protagonist Grace was in a fairly dark place, struggling to differentiate between fiction and reality with regard to the tragic death of her mother years before, and we couldn’t help but be sucked in as she drew ever-closer to the truth. With this sequel Grace has fallen even farther into darkness, the truth handing her ways to punish herself again and again, allowing her to drown in guilt while refusing any lifeline extended to her by friends and family. As a result of her determination to be solely responsible for what she uncovered about her mother’s death, she pushes everyone around her away, and that unfortunately includes us as readers.

So much of this second installment is Grace running away both literally and figuratively, retreating into herself even more than she did in this first book, and fleeing physically whenever her friends or her brother inquire after her well-being. Much of the dialogue consists of friends and family yelling “Grace!” at her back as she leaves them behind time and again, refusing to acknowledge that they could care for her after all she believes she’s done. Such a mental state, while understandable, makes it incredibly hard to really settle in with her, and we’re instead left to run up against the emotional wall she’s erected just as everyone else around her does.

Overall, See How They Run is a difficult read in terms of our main character, and while the murder and subsequent investigation succeed in grabbing our interest, Grace’s severe depression and unwillingness to accept even the smallest of comforts from her friends, brother or love interest leave us more detached from the second leg of her political journey than we otherwise might have liked.

Rating: 3/5

Find Ally:

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: All Fall Down

ALL FALL DOWN
Embassy Row #1
Ally Carter
Contemporary Young Adult
320 pages
Scholastic
Available Now
Source: Finished copy from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Amazon)
Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She is not crazy.
2. Her mother was murdered.
3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her -- so there's no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can't control Grace -- no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do. Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

MY THOUGHTS
All Fall Down is pure entertainment, the kind of book perfect for picking up after a long day and letting ourselves settle into as we escape reality for a while. Grace’s story does require the suspension of disbelief and the capacity to go with the flow as she follows possible assassins down dark tunnels with absolutely no backup, but this story is in no way meant to be a serious behavioral examination of the children of prominent politicians. Instead, it's a story full of murder plots and power exchanges–with a bit of humor mixed in–and it ensures we keep the pages turning well into the early hours of the morning.

Grace is someone whose sorrow is a tangible thing, the death of her mother three years prior and the fact that she witnessed it something that haunts her hours both waking and not. She’s not in an overly healthy place when we meet her, reciting a mantra of “I’m fine” to anyone who asks, but what keeps those two words from being frustrating is the fact that Grace herself doesn’t believe them any more than those on the receiving end of it do. She knows she’s struggling, but her fear of being forced back into a hospital and heavily medicated forces her to put on the bravest face she can, and we can’t help but hope her desire to pull it together will eventually make it so.

Even though Grace is weighed down heavily by her mother’s murder and the fact that no one believes what she saw that night, the story itself doesn’t feel overwhelmingly sad, and we move forward quickly and easily with Grace as she tries to extract the truth from both past and present. We’re left with the full reveal of exactly what happened the night of Grace’s mother’s death, but it’s also very clear that things are just beginning and everything we thought we knew after spending a few hundred pages in Grace’s world is going to be called into question moving forward.

Rating: 4/5

Find Ally:

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Super Six Sunday: Authors I've Met/Want to Meet

I'm really excited today to be participating in a new feature put together by the fabulous ladies over at Bewitched Bookworms! Inspired by Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and The Bookish, Super Six Sunday has different book-related topics each week and asks participants to address each topic in the form of a list of six. Obviously. This week, the focus is on authors I've met or would like to meet, so below are just a handful of the authors who turn me into an utter fangirl at the mere mention of their names!

KATIE MCGARRY

(Pushing the Limits/Dare You To)

I first met Katie when she came to Columbus for a YA author panel at my local bookstore, and even while hyperventilating with excitement, I still managed to plaster a smile on my face and carry on what I hope was a coherent conversation. I don't remember it all that well, it's just a haze of happiness really, but I'm pretty sure I didn't scar her for life. A couple months later I had the pleasure of meeting up with her again for dinner while in NYC for BEA, and I fell in love with her even more. She's adorable and funny and I just need to stop talking before I embarrass myself ;-)

 (Pushy, Me, Katie, Julie Kagawa, and Danny)

JULIE KAGAWA

(The Iron Fae/Blood of Eden Series)

Dinner with Katie at BEA included Julie Kagawa, a happy surprise addition I had no idea was joining us. It's for the best I didn't know she was coming ahead of time as then I didn't have as much time to stress about being cool, so aside from a brief flustered moment I was able to rise above my awkwardness and not just stare at Julie with a dreamy expression on my face. The whole dinner was simply one giant win and definitely not something I will ever forget.

MICHELLE HODKIN

(The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer)

I unfortunately don't have a picture with Michelle, but I was lucky enough to meet her for lunch at BEA last year, and had one of those surreal moments where I looked around me and realized I was sitting in Bryant Park with my mom, my mother in law, Melissa from I Swim for Oceans and Michelle Hodkin, just chatting away with the author of one of my very favorite series. Thankfully I was able to say more than "I love Noah" to her, but I'm pretty sure it still came out of my mouth a time or two. Or four. Whichever.

ALLY CARTER

(Heist Society/Gallagher Girls series)

I wrote a whole big blog post about my time with Ally Carter here if you're so inclined to read it, but meeting her definitely deserves another mention! At the request of the fantastic people at Disney-Hyperion, I was asked to attend Ally's signing in Cincinnati and come a half hour or so early for a blogger-author meet and greet. Due to a misunderstanding on my part, I arrived under the impression it would be a group of bloggers meeting with Ally, but when I got there it was just me (and my mother in law who I drag to all bookish events). Me and Ally. Ally and Me. Alone in the corner of a bookstore. I had zero questions prepared, but Ally was so incredibly personable and easy going that I was able to shake off my initial shock and enjoy the fact that I had her all to myself for nearly a half hour.

J.R. WARD
(The Black Dagger Brotherhood)

I actually met J.R. Ward before I started the blog, but I'd been a longtime fan of her Black Dagger Brotherhood series and nearly fell out of my seat with excitement when I saw she was going to be in Columbus for the RT Convention a few years back. I'm obsessed with this series. Obsessed. I took my mother in law (of course) with me to get copies of Lover Mine (my favorite of the series) signed for me and my mom who lives out of town. We were allowed to bring our own books to the signing, so I was holding both copies as we approached the table to buy our tickets.

When purchasing our tickets, the woman informed me that J.R. was only signing one book per person. I nodded that I understood and figured I was good to go because I had two books and there were two of us there. Win. The woman at the door collecting the tickets noticed I was holding two copies of Lover Mine and once again told me that J.R. Ward was only signing one book per person. I blinked this time, looked at Cathy, looked at the two books in my hand and smiled at the woman to indicate all was well. Awesome. I went straight for J.R.'s line once I was in, and upon arriving at the back the woman trying to keep things under control looked at the books in my hands and said what you ask? You guessed it, apparently J.R. Ward was only signing one book per person. I DID NOT KNOW THAT! I finally just gave up and handed a copy to Cathy and we sat down and waited.

The signing itself was only scheduled to be I think 3 hours, and it was glaringly apparent at the 2.5 hour mark that she wasn't going to get through everyone in her line before time was up. Instead of getting up and leaving after 3 hours though, she stayed and made sure every single person that was in her line got their book signed. The people regulating the line wouldn't allow her to take pictures with anyone (understandable, there were a ton of people there), but J.R. made a point to talk to everyone instead of simply signing her book with her head down and then moving on to the next person. She was fantastic.

• • • • • • • • • •

I decided to use my sixth spot for an author I desperately want to meet (aside from Wendy Higgins who knows I adore her and am counting down the minutes until we're finally at the same event and I can hug her). This is likely someone I will never have the chance to meet unless I attend FeverCon, but I dream of coming face to face with the woman who gave me Barrons and Ryodan.

KAREN MARIE MONING

(The Fever Series)

If any of you haven't read the Fever series, I beg you to drop what you're doing and run to the nearest bookstore to pick up all 6 books (technically book 6, Iced, is a spinoff, but they need to be read in order). She writes alpha men like no one else, and I, like untold numbers of others, fell madly in love with Jericho Barrons. He's a complete a-hole, but there is something about him that's indescribably magnetic and I've read the Fever books more times that I care to admit. Even if you end up not liking him or the books, I guarantee you will walk away with strong feelings about the man.

More recently (with the release of Iced), I fell hard for Ryodan. Ryodan is in the Fever series, but he's a smaller secondary character, and is quite frankly overshadowed by all that is Barrons, but in Iced he's very much the alpha among alphas. Karen sometimes teasers her readers on her Facebook fan page with pictures of beautiful men who fans think fit the image of Barrons and Ryodan she's created in our heads. Not too long ago she posted some pictures of a model by the name of Stuart Reardon who many fans thought embodied Ryodan. I feel the need to share some of these pictures with you, as they will no doubt inspire you to pick up the books and will definitely make you want to meet the woman who wrote his character. You're welcome in advance ;-)

(photo by Gilles Crofta Photography)

(photo by Kemuel Valdes)

(photo by Kemuel Valdes)

Mini Review of Double Crossed + Ally Carter Signing

DOUBLE CROSSED: A SPIES AND THIEVES STORY
Ally Carter
Contemporary Young Adult
60 pages
Disney Hyperion
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Macey McHenry—Glamorous society girl or spy-in-training?

W.W. Hale V—Heir to an American dynasty or master thief?

There are two sides to every coin. Whether these two can work together is a tossup.

Born into privilege, Macey and Hale are experts at mingling with the upper class. But even if they’ve never raised an eyebrow at the glitz, neither teenager has ever felt at home with the glamour.

When Macey and Hale meet at a society gala, the party takes a dangerous turn. Suddenly they’re at the center of a hostage situation, and it’s up to them to stop the thugs from becoming hostile. Will Macey’s spy skills and Hale’s con-man ways be enough to outsmart a ruthless gang? Or will they have to seek out the ultimate inside girl to help?

The worlds of Heist Society and the Gallagher Girls collide in Ally Carter’s fast-paced, high-stakes and tantalizing new story. Get a behind the scenes glimpse as Ally delivers an irresistible thriller that is full of her signature style and savvy twists.

MY THOUGHTS
Double Crossed is a quick jaunt into the combined world of Ally Carter's two young adult series, giving us a brief and pleasurable reminder of how much fun her books can be. Even those (like me) who haven't read both series will easily be able to immerse themselves in this novella, and will likely come out of it with a strong desire to pick up whichever of the two series they have yet to experience. Lovers of The Heist Society novels will thrill at the presence of both Kat and Hale in this story, their relationship delightfully addressed even though the focus is as always on the current law-breaking situation, and will close the back cover with a smile and a hope that future books will only continue to bring them closer together.

(I'm not assigning a rating to this one because it's just a fun and free little novella, you can download it here)

• • • • • • • • • •

ALLY CARTER SIGNING

A little over a week ago I had the privilege of attending a signing for Ally Carter in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was awesome. And also terrifying. Let me tell you why. The wonderful people at Disney Hyperion contacted me and asked if I'd like to take part in an author/blogger meet-up prior to the signing, and after I stopped flailing about like a complete fangirl, I replied with a still-excited-but-less-scarily-enthusiastic yes.

It was my understanding from the email that this would be a small, informal get together with Ally and a few other people, and I was really thankful for the group setting because it meant said other people would likely handle the question asking portion and I could then just sit back, smile, and not have to open my mouth and risk exposing everyone to my social ineptitude. A win-win for all parties involved.

Cincinnati is about a two hour drive from Columbus, and Cathy, my mother-in-law and ever-patient bookish event companion, graciously agreed to drive down with me so I wouldn't have to go it alone. A little after we arrived at Joseph Beth Booksellers, we were approached by none other than Ally herself and her media escort for the event. Cue Jenny grinning like an idiot. After the introductions were made, the media escort suggested we find a quiet corner away from the crowd so I could talk to Ally. I looked at Ally. Ally looked at me. I looked to both sides and behind me. Aside from Cathy, there was no one else there. No other bloggers. No other people joining us. Realization that I was going to be speaking with Ally one on one as opposed to in a group dawned, and I'm pretty sure my face did this:

I tried to smile even as I was inwardly panicking due to the fact that I came with exactly zero questions prepared. Not one. I didn't think I'd need them when my plan was to sit quietly and observe like a boss of an introvert. I tried not to let the fear show on my face and have no idea whether or not I was successful in this endeavor, but Ally kindly didn't make mention of it if I wasn't.

I feel like at this point in the post I really just need to profess my love for Ally Carter. She was incredibly genuine and friendly, and, once my nerves settled a bit, I had an absolute blast taking advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend a half hour with a New York Times best-selling author all to myself. We chatted about anything and everything, from her experiences flying from place to place on tour, to book cover design, to what I did for a living and finally to her books, and I honestly can't thank her enough for carving out a not-insignificant chunk of time to speak with me. She actually made a point of asking me questions as opposed to waiting for me to simply grill her, and as a result she immediately put me at ease. I would have hugged her if I thought my leaping at her like a crazy person wouldn't have scarred her for life, so I opted to play it cool instead ;-)

After my time with Ally was up, I went and joined the very large crowd waiting for her and jotted down a few notes as she answered everyone's questions:

•      She has always seen the Heist Society series as being open-ended; meaning she entered into it without a set number of books in mind and continues to approach the series that way. There will definitely be more books, she just can't say how many exactly.

•      She says one of the challenges with the Heist Society series is that it's what she calls “unrealistic realistic fiction”. She has to continually come up with heists/cons/settings that are believable as part of the real world, but at the same time she has to create the places (museums, casinos, galleries, etc.) herself in order for her to be able to successfully write the cons. If she used real places, she said the heists would never work given she's not a criminal mastermind ;-) and she wouldn't have the first clue about how Kat and her team could bypass existing security. By creating fictional places, she has control over all the individual pieces and can have the cons unfold as she needs them to.

•      She writes chronologically, always starting with the first chapter and ending with the last.

•      Uncle Eddie is her favorite character. She called him her Dumbledore and wishes someone would show up at a signing with a Team Uncle Eddie t-shirt ;-)

•      She knows what the W.W. stands for in Hale's name, but she's not telling. She said she's been hugely surprised at how readers have latched on to that tiny aspect of the books and continue to obsess over it. She said it was something she just sort of threw in initially and she seemed delighted that it turned out to be something fans ask her about again and again. We will find out what his full name is before the series ends, and Kat has not yet been correct in any of her guesses.

•      She likes to torture her readers. I haven't read the Gallagher Girls series, so I wasn't familiar with any of the characters she mentioned when she was asked questions about the books, but I was able to gather that the Hale of that series, so to speak, is a young man named Zach. A girl in the audience asked her something (the exact question eludes me) about the final book in the series to which Ally replied “Well, after I wrote Zach's funeral scene...” and literally 5 girls around me burst into tears. It took Ally a few minutes to get everyone calmed down and comforted with reassurances that she was not in fact killing Zach off in the final book. The whole situation endeared her to me a little more, as I love an author who isn't afraid to tease and have a little fun at her readers' expense.

•      She said her goal not to provide happy endings with her books, but rather satisfying ones. Some of the girls in the audience looked a little concerned at this pronouncement after the previous mention of Zach's funeral :)

A few pictures from the event:

(Me and Ally)

Series Review: The Heist Society Novels

HEIST SOCIETY • UNCOMMON CRIMINALS • PERFECT SCOUNDRELS

Ally Carter

Contemporary Young Adult

Disney Hyperion

Available now

Bought/Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (Heist Society, book #1, from Goodreads)
When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

MY THOUGHTS
Fun and flirty, the Heist Society novels are quick and entertaining reads, jetting us all around the world as we follow a teenage crew of thieves–characters in the truest sense of the word–who keep us laughing even as we wonder how they’re possibly going to pull off their next job. A certain level of disbelief must be suspended before picking these books up, as Kat and her team get in and out of terribly difficult situations with relative ease, making it clear that these books are meant simply to be enjoyed rather than read critically for their criminal believability. Reading any book in this series brings a smile to our faces, and we open the first page prepared to settle in for a little travel, a little moral ambiguity, and a whole lot of mischief.

Kat Bishop, teenage thief and leader of a crew that features a billionaire inside man, a pair of brothers with a penchant for explosives, a stunningly attractive young woman who excels at distraction, and a computer genius, isn’t someone we necessarily get to know all that well during the course of her exploits, but someone we look forward to reading about just the same. She does have a tendency to be completely and frustratingly self-reliant in the first two books, pushing best friend and love interest W.W. Hale the Fifth away again and again despite his blatantly obvious desire to be whatever she needs him to be, but by the time we reach Perfect Scoundrels, Kat’s hands no longer exert force to push him away and instead thankfully try to pull him closer.

Those looking for an epic romance will likely be left wanting with these books given the focus is always on the heist itself, leaving the various character relationships to simmer warmly in the background. The more subtle nature of Kat’s relationship with Hale fits these stories beautifully though, their friendship and occasional flirtation a refreshing departure from grand gestures and too-soon declarations of love, and we can’t help but revel in the levity of their interactions. Perfect Scoundrels is perhaps the most emotional of the three, the difference between Hale’s world and Kat’s world brought into sharp focus and stark contrast as their two separate upbringings collide in a very personal way, making our hearts beat a little faster as the depth of certain feelings tangle irreparably with the con itself.

Overall the Heist Society novels are perfect for a sunny afternoon in between dark dystopian or gut-wrenching contemporary reads, guaranteed to charm and delight readers with a myriad of playful and memorable characters.

Rating: 4/5

ALLY CARTER SIGNING

For those of you in the southern Ohio/Northern Kentucky area, Ally Carter will be signing books tonight at 7pm ET at the Joseph Beth Booksellers at Rookwood Pavilion. I'm hugely excited to be able to attend and will be making the trip from Columbus to do so. I plan to take lots of pictures and generally be an Ally fangirl, complete with moments of awkward social behavior because it's well known that I'm unable to be cool in the face of authors whose books I enjoy. *pats self on back for being awesome* Hope some of you who are nearby can make it!