Cover Critique: Rumor Has It

Let me preface this post by saying that my design critiques of these covers are in no way, shape or form a reflection on the author, the content or the publisher. I know the authors have very little, if any, control over the design. These are strictly my thoughts stemming from my design experience.

Um. Anyone want to try and explain what's going on here? I spent a solid five minutes attempting to wade through these tangled limbs in an effort to formulate a hypothesis as to what is taking place other than what seems to be a game of naked Twister gone terribly wrong. Because this cover reminds me of one of those posters where you stare at it, squint at it, cross your eyes, and then maybe you see what your supposed to if you look just right, I'm just going to list the things I think I know about what's happening as opposed to a formal critique.

1. They're in a car. (I've astounded you with my brilliance again haven't I? It's intimidating, I know).

2. As this is a Harlequin Blaze novel, I'm guessing the shirtless fellow here is engaging in a, uh, pleasurable oral activity with a female companion. If that's the case, our male friend must be endowed with the tongue of a giraffe as his head seems to be only at her knees and not nearly close enough to reach his destination for the suggested activity.

3. Her legs seem closed. How is his head in between them if they're closed? It almost looks like Ms. Calves of Steel has decapitated him. There really is no sign of life from him at all. For all I know, he's draped over the seat completely unconscious while she's acting out a praying mantis-like fantasy. Ew. That's not sexy at all now is it? No. And if his head isn't between her legs, where is it and what is he doing?

4. What is the blue bit in the lower left corner? Is it the front seat? Is he leaning over it to get to her, or are they both in the back seat? I originally assumed they were both in back, but that blue corner confounds me. If it is the front seat, our female lead has superpowers as her hand would have to have physically gone through the seat to get to him. So confused.

5. This woman, for all the femininity of her legs, has incredibly masculine hands. Are there three people in this car? Perhaps it really is a game of Twister, and this mass of body parts is the end result. Pity I wasn't invited, I rule at Twister. Rule, I tell you.

6. I think in addition to having freakishly strong, potentially murderous calves, our heroine is also graced with the ability to stretch her limbs to extraordinary lengths. Seriously. Just stare at their positions for a moment, how is it even physically possible? Quick, someone run out to your car and see if this is could even happen. She must be contorted beyond all recognition for her arm to be able to reach around his back like that while her legs are up in the air. Is her face smashed against the back of the front seat? Where is the rest of her? Perhaps I don't want to know, ignorance is bliss after all. Maybe she's related to our gumby-bride? I guess we all should sit back and admire her flexibility, he certainly seems to be enjoying it.

7. It appears as though a ghost wants in on the action as well and is attempting to invade the pants of our gentleman caller. There's an odd, white, vaporous blob hovering right over his no-doubt rock solid cheeks, what's that about? I guess he could have passed gas, but that would ultimately kill the moment wouldn't it? Nothing puts a stop to romance quite like a good fart, especially when in the confines of a car with the windows rolled up. How decidedly unpleasant.

I find this cover utterly baffling. I'm flummoxed. Befuddled. Downright bewildered. So please, please, leave me your thoughts and theories as to what is happening here, maybe we can all figure it out together. We're all intelligent people right? This cover can't beat us. It won't. I refuse to let it. Darn you Harlequin Blaze! Just give me a cover with some pecs and abs and a title having to do with a millionaire and the virgin mistress he's purchased for pregnancy and call it a day!

Blog Hop November 5-8, 2010

This week's question: What are your feelings on losing followers? Have you ever stopped following a blog?

I would say I'm always a little disappointed to lose a follower, but ultimately book blogging is about expressing our opinions on different books and we all have a unique reviewing style that makes things fun and interesting. I'm sure my writing style and the types of books I review aren't for everyone, so I try to remember that when it happens. I review books because it makes me happy, having fabulous followers who appreciate my reviews and like to comment, to be cliche, is icing on the cake.

I have stopped following a couple blogs, but only because those individuals decided to quit blogging and were no longer updating their sites. I love to hop around to all the blogs on my list and while I don't always make it to every single one, I try to get to as many different ones as possible!



This week's question: Who are your favorite authors?

Oh my gosh, this is going to be a really long list but here we go: J.R. Ward, Jeaniene Frost, Karen Marie Moning, Chloe Neill, Cassandra Clare, Suzanne Collins, Rachel Vincent, Jennifer Estep, Carolyn Crane, Ilona Andrews, J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts), Richelle Mead and so many more!

Review: Firelight

FIRELIGHT (Firelight #1)
Sophie Jordan
Paranormal Young Adult
323 pages
Harper Teen
Available Now

THE STORY
Jacinda has always been a little different. As though being a draki, a descendant of dragons who can shift into human form, weren't unusual enough, she's even distinct among her own kind. She possesses the rare and much-coveted ability to breath fire, a talent that has made her invaluable among her pride and left her little freedom to make her own choices.

Her life is planned down to the last detail, she's to marry the alpha's son Cassian and further populate their pride with little fire breathers. Desperate to escape the smothering confines of her predetermined fate, Jacinda disobeys a strict draki order and takes to the air during the day without the safety of darkness to hide her from their mortal enemies, the Hunters. She quickly finds herself trapped, facing certain death at the hands of a young Hunter her age, only to receive a reprieve as he turns a blind eye to her hidden location.

As a result of her own carelessness, Jacinda, her twin sister, and her mom are forced to flee the pride and relocate in the human world. Staying human too long will kill Jacinda's draki, something she can't bear to accept. But in midst of the misery of a human high school, her draki flares to life in the presence of the young Hunter who saved her, and she marvels at her simultaneous luck and misfortune as he seems similarly drawn to her–a moth to her flame. Together they enter a relationship that could not only destroy them both, but the entire draki species as well.

MY THOUGHTS
This story is a warm breath of fresh air, alighting us with the emotional heat of first love and branding itself as unique among a plethora of paranormal creatures populating young adult fiction. The formula of forbidden romance is nothing novel, but it's almost always tortuously appealing, and Ms. Jordan infuses her tale with a dragon lore that adds a richly dark and threatening element to the typical teenage declarations of undying affection. It's no longer simply a matter of falling in love with a damaged bad boy and risking a shattered heart, but rather the very real possibility of the ruination of a family and the potential annihilation of an entire species.

Jacinda suffers from some stereotypical teenage girl indecisiveness, her internal monologue often contradicting her outward actions when it comes to Will, but she also possesses a refreshing candor, acknowledging her own weaknesses instead of feigning ignorance and creating a barrier between herself and us with her continuous denial. The dismissal of her feelings and the blatant disregard for her draki nature by her mother and twin sister weighs heavily on Jacinda, and she is strong enough to admit that at times her resentment of her current circumstances is a bit selfish (though her mom and sister are equally, if not more, egocentric in their pursuits). She recognizes she should want her mom and sister to be happy in their normalcy, and reveals to us she doesn't know how to feel differently despite her wish to do so for their sakes. We empathize as she struggles as so many of us do to stay true to herself in the face of her family's bitter disappointment that she not try harder to change, an abject loneliness and inability to be wholly and completely herself suffocating her a little more each day; and her situation forces our hackles to rise and our bodies to tense as a protective instinct for Jacinda and a righteous indignation on her behalf draws us deeper into her predicament.

The relationship between Jacinda and Will is sweetly common on the surface, the popular boy feeling drawn to the mysterious flame-haired new girl, but there's a dark truth smoldering in the embers of this fledgling connection, waiting patiently for a catalyst to spark the quiet flame into a roaring blaze. Jacinda believes she understands Will's appeal, feeling a kinship with him because he inexplicably saved her life, but we get the fleeting sensation every now and then that Will's answering attraction is not as simple as it seems. A new facet destined to alter everything we think we know dances on the edges of our understanding, just waiting to reveal itself and swipe our feet from under us, leaving us in a heap on the floor fully bowled over by the weight of this new discovery.

Secondary character Xander is someone of particular interest, his quiet menace emanating so strongly despite his brief appearances the pages seem to pulsate with static energy at the mere mention of his name, electric tingles racing from our fingers up our arms to raise the fine hairs on our necks in recognition of a formidable foe. He is only ever coolly polite to Jacinda, making him all the more disturbing for his apparent calm, an infinitely patient hunter just waiting for his prey to slip and make itself known. It's imperative to stay on alert at all times, eyes constantly searching for the whereabouts of this detached and calculating predator whose clearly caught a scent and will unflinchingly follow it's trail to the violent, bitter end.

The end is a touch abrupt, with Jacinda's wings taking her airborne after several explosive revelations rattle the very foundations of the relationships forged thus far, leaving us staring at the inside back cover bearing the full brunt of our newfound knowledge. The second installment can't come soon enough, a bevy of delectable future possibilities creating a ravenous hunger for answers that have just flown right out of our reach.

Rating: 4/5

Branded Tour: Excerpt

As part of the blog tour for the first book in Keary Taylor's Fall of Angels series, Branded, I'm excited to share with you a small snippet from the novel as well as some information on the next release in the series!

BRANDED SYNOPSIS (from Goodreads)

Jessica’s had the nightmares for as long as she can remember. Nightmares of being judged for people who have died, of being branded by the angels. Her friends and family think she’s a crazy because of it all. Yet she carries the mark of the condemned, seared into the back of her neck, and hides it and herself away from the world.

But when two men she can’t ignore enter her life everything changes, including the nightmares. The two of them couldn’t be more different. She will do anything to be with one of them. Even tell him the truth about angels, why she never sleeps, and the scar on the back of her neck. But one of the two has set events into motion what will puller her toward her own judgment and turn her into the object of her greatest fear.

EXCERPT

I stripped down and turned the water in the shower on. Knowing what I was about to see, I stood before the mirror and turned my back to it, peaking over my shoulder back at my reflection.

My parents had always insisted that nightmares weren’t real. They couldn’t be real. The scars that covered my neck and back suggested otherwise. A beautiful and detailed X was branded into the back of my neck and an intricate, rather realistic pattern of wings spread itself from the lower portion of my back, up to the top of my shoulders. Both were a fresh, scarlet red. The color wouldn’t last long. After a day or so both would fade to a flesh color, no longer swollen but just a raised scar. I compared the wings to the African tribes I had seen that would cut their flesh to make the beautiful patterns that covered their bodies. I believed it was called scarification. Mine looked just like this but in the right light you could see a strange metallic silver in the wings, just like the angels from my nightmares. The X was a beautiful and terrifying scar, as if a red hot iron had indeed been pressed into my neck.

I stepped into the shower and relished in the hot water. If only it could burn the marks from my skin. Some would say my scars were beautiful but I hated them. They were sore reminders of just exactly how abnormal my life was. I could never have a normal existence because of all this. I was a freak.



Book two in the series, Forsaken, releases January 11 so be sure and add it to your lists! For more information on Keary, you can find her here:

Website
Blog

Teaser Tuesday: Unraveled

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading and here's how it works:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share a snippet from somewhere on that page but be careful not to include spoilers

My read this week is Unraveled by Gena Showalter. A little set up to the snippet: Mary Ann is in bed with her boyfriend Riley (innocently) and he's in full werewolf bodyguard form when her dad busts into her room.

Oh, God. This was so not happening. "Dad. The, uh, dog is harmless, I swear." Biggest. Lie. Ever.

To prove his "harmlessness," Riley licked her palm. Goose bumps broke out over her skin, and then heat flooded her cheeks. She didn't want her dad to think a dog turned her on."

UNRAVELED - From Goodreads

For once, sixteen-year-old Aden Stone has everything he’s ever wanted:

A home.

Friends.

The girl of his dreams.

Too bad he’s going to die...Since coming to Crossroads, Oklahoma, former outcast Aden Stone has been living the good life. Never mind that one of his best friends is a werewolf, his girlfriend is a vampire princess who hungers for his blood, and he’s supposed to be crowned Vampire King – while still a human! Well, kind of.

With four – oops, three now — human souls living inside his head, Aden has always been “different” himself. These souls can time travel, raise the dead, possess another’s mind, and, his least favorite these days, tell the future.

The forecast for Aden? A knife through the heart.

Because a war is brewing between the creatures of the dark, and Aden is somehow at the center of it all. But he isn’t about to lie down and accept his destiny without a fight. Not when his new friends have his back, not when Victoria has risked her own future to be with him, and not when he has a reason to live for the first time in his life...

Review: Intertwined

INTERTWINED
Gena Showalter
Young Adult
440 pages
Harlequin Teen
Available Now

THE STORY
Most days it's hard enough to get by with only your own thoughts to distract or console you, so for Aden Stone life is quadruple the challenge every single moment. Aden has four individual souls trapped in his head, each with a unique personality and ability. One can time travel, one can raise the dead, still another can predict future deaths (including Aden's own), and the last can possess another body. Talking to the souls in his head has earned Aden the reputation of being mentally unstable, bounced from one mental institution to the next until he eventually ends up at a home meant to help rehabilitate juvenile delinquents.

Aden has always been on his own, with no memory of a family and certainly no friends outside of the souls, wishing for a moment's peace and a sense of belonging with every fiber of his being. When he meets Mary Ann Gray, he's finally granted one of his wishes. She quiets the souls, providing a few moments of blissful silence while in her presence, and Aden feels compelled to find out everything about her and her profound effect on his world.

While Mary Ann brings peace, she also brings an uncanny sense of foreboding; factor that in with the arrival of vampires, werewolves, and a bevy of other supernatural creatures into Aden's small town, and his lonely life is suddenly teeming with both friends and foes. All the new arrivals want Aden, and though he's unclear as to what attracted them, he must find out before he puts his new friend's lives at stake while he races against the clock of his own death premonition.

MY THOUGHTS
Ms. Showalter is an absolutely brilliant storyteller. Her characters are never flat nor predictable, never lacking in depth; rather they enfold us in their lives seamlessly, tethering us together through invisible bonds of believable pain and insecurity despite a supernatural setting. The worlds she creates are exquisitely detailed and complex, the nuances depicted beautifully and thoroughly without being so comprehensive as to dull the storyline with excessive descriptive information. It's easy to step into her stories from page one, instantly transported to where she wants us to be as though we fell through the pages themselves, arriving face to face and toe to toe with fascinating characters whose thoughts and emotions we come to know as well as our own.

Intertwined is certainly no exception, brimming with mystery and uncommon characters who defy cliches and inhabit a category all their own. Aden is the classic loner, moved from one place to the next when his abilities and ramblings become too much to manage, left alone as a problem for the state to handle. He has an understandably volatile temper, but his inherent loneliness and drive to find acceptance make him accessible to us as readers as we want to wrap our arms around him and let me know he has at least one friend at his back. Though he exhibits these typical vulnerable bad-boy characteristics, Ms. Showalter imbues him with a fundamental difference in the form of four other souls occupying his body, providing Aden with an unforeseen depth, one that seems to have no bottom but rather will continue to expand in all directions as we venture forth on his journey with him.

In addition to an unusual male lead, we are also presented with an atypical romantic situation. Normally when a story is evenly split between the thoughts and actions of both a male and female protagonist, it seems inevitable a romance will develop between the characters with whom we're most familiar. That is not the case in this story. Instead, we get an entirely new layer as separate love interests, each posing their own unique set of problems for our protagonists, are introduced. Thus, we get to experience not only the joys and challenges of one paranormal relationship, but two, each as intrinsic to the main storyline as the other. One relationship never seems to take precedence, and all four characters are exquisitely balanced even as their individual connections run rampant with tension and passion.

My primary complaint with this story is the complexity of the plot toward the end. We have the main storyline surrounding Aden, his souls, and his overwhelming draw to Mary Ann and the peace she provides, and from the beginning it seems as though this is the mystery we will attempt to unravel. There doesn't appear to be a true villain, just the enigma of the main characters' fundamental existence for us to decipher. With the arrival of Victoria, a vampire princess and Aden's love interest, we are given a pseudo villain in the form of her father as he, like the other supernatural creatures, is interested in Aden and his abilities. However, at the conclusion we are bombarded with secondary and tertiary villains as well as multiple new storylines, each with the potential to be infinitely complicated on it's own let alone when combined with the story already in progress. This seemingly spontaneous introduction of so many new elements after the leisurely pace of Aden and Mary Ann's exploration of their link is a bit disconcerting, leaving us standing at the end of one story but the beginning of multiple new plot pathways not knowing where we will step foot next.

That being said, I have every confidence Ms. Showalter will steadfastly guide us through the second installment, providing us with the information we so desperately need now the world and it's characters are firmly established.

Rating: 3.5/5