Feature & Follow #74 ~ Name a book which made you cry.

Feature & Follow is a blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. The purpose is to meet new people and gain more followers in the book blogging community. If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers. But you have to know, the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

This weeks question:

What was the last book that made you cry?

I have to admit, books don't usually make me cry.
However, having said that, there are some which have definitely played with my emotions and brought me close to tears.
One which springs to mind is


Falling Into You

by
Jasinda Wilder

I wasn't always in love with Colton Calloway; I was in love with his younger brother, Kyle, first. Kyle was my first one true love, my first in every way.

Then, one stormy August night, he died, and the person I was died with him.

Colton didn't teach me how to live. He didn't heal the pain. He didn't make it okay. He taught me how to hurt, how to not be okay, and, eventually, how to let go.

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So what's your FF?

To play along visit Parajunkee & Alison Can Read

Follow them, follow their Featured Blogs and then visit as many blogs as you can, posting your answers.

And don't forget to leave your link in the comments section below!

Swoon Thursday #78 ~ Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

The fabulous girls over at YA Bound created this super HOT meme.

Here's how it works. From the book you're currently reading, or one you just finished, tell us what made you SWOON. What got your heart pounding, your skin tingling, and your stomach fluttering.

Shout it out on Twitter with the hashtag#YABound, post it here in the comments, or grab the adorable button above and share it on your blog!

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My Swoon for this week comes from:

Daughter of Smoke and Bone
(Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1)

by
Laini Taylor

First - The Blurb:

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Second - The Swoon:

He reached for her face, and Karou covered his hand with hers, pressing it to her cheek.

He said, "I want you to know..." He swallowed. "I need you to know that I was drawn to you - to you, Karou - Before the wishbone. Before I knew, and I think... I think I would always find you, no matter how you were hidden" He was focused on her with extraordinary intensity. "Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world. No matter what happens..." His voice cracked, and he took a breath. "I need you to remember that I love you."

For me, this might just be the most tender scene in the book.

Third - My Thoughts:

I kind of held out reading this book for a while but I'm glad that if finally worked it's way to the top of my TBR pile. I found it to be a deep read, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Karou is a young girl who is caught between two worlds. In the first - the human world - she is an art student who is trying to lead a normal  life.  In the second - the world of chimeras (human/animal hybrids) and angels - she is trying to understand how she fits in.

Brimstone, a chimera and her adoptive father, holds the answers but is unwilling to give them.

Then one day she crosses paths with an Angel - Akiva - and with his help, the mysteries of her past are slowly revealed.

The story is beautifully written, and although a little intense at times, it certainly kept me captivated.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

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Okay, so what do you think?

If you liked my Swoon, please leave a comment below!

Teaser Tuesday # 77 ~ Chasing McCree by J.C. Isabella

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

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My Tease for this week comes from:

Chasing McCree

(Chasing McCree #1)

by

J.C. Isabella

First - The Blurb:

Briar Thompson had it all. The right clothes, the right friends, the right car. Being popular was all that mattered. Her parents were rich and treated like royalty throughout the community. She thought her senior year of high school was going perfectly, until the night her drink was spiked at a party by one of her so called friends. 

That was the night she met Chase McCree. 

Chase wanted to go back to Montana. To the ranch and the wild, wide blue sky that went on forever. He wanted nothing to do with flashy cars or spoiled rich kids. But he found himself head over boots for the quirky cheerleader who turned her back on her social status. She befriended him when no one else would. 

Shunned and hurt by the people who were once her friends, Briar flees with Chase to his family ranch in Montana. There she discovers another world, and apart of herself she never knew. 

The cowboy wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. The cheerleader wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. Apart their lives didn’t seem to make sense, but together, they were chasing forever.


Second - The Tease:

Millie followed him, but at the base of the stairs in the living room, she paused and smiled at me. "I'm glad you're here, Briar, really. You are such a welcome ray of sunshine." She looked between Chase and me. "I'll say it once now - I'm not ready to be a great aunt. So I'm gonna hurt the both of you if, nine months later, the stork comes a calling. Clear?"


This was a sweet and innocent read and there are quite a few more funny moments like this one in the book.

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Okay, so what do you think?

If you liked my Tease, please leave a comment below!

TBR Tuesday #33 ~ Perfect For You by Kate Perry

My good friend Sharrice from Reese's Reviews: My Addiction to Fiction came up with the idea of 'TBR Tuesday'. 

If you want to join in the fun, then just do the following:

From your book shelf or your e-reader, pick a book that you own that is still on your TBR list. Post it however you want to, then leave a link below so others can see what's waiting to be read.

This week for me its:

Perfect For You

(Laurel Heights #1)

by

Kate Perry

Freya Godwin's muse has gone MIA. 

With Freya just hired to redesign the top adult website company in the country, her muse couldn't have chosen a worse time to disappear. Determined to get her sexy back, Freya puts an ad online, hoping to find the right man to inspire her. 

Unfortunately, all roads point back to her upstairs neighbor Greg Cavanaugh. He's everything she doesn't want: a playboy and scumbag lawyer. Except if he's so wrong for her, why does his touch feel like magic? And why does being with him make her believe anything is possible?

I saw this one one on Amazon last year and thought it might be a fun read.

SO NOW IT'S YOUR TURN!

Please leave a comment and tell me what's waiting on your TBR pile.

Jumble Your Genres Reading Challenge 2014: February - Contemporary ~ Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

This year Readers Live A Thousand Lives, Corrie The Book Crazed Girl, and Lovin' Los Libros have teamed up to host the Jumble Your Genres Reading Challenge! For this challenge, the goal is to mix up the genres/categories we read. We have all had those times when we have gotten stuck in the genre/category we are currently reading and read nothing else for a while. The goal here is to mix that up! Each month a different genre/category will be featured and the goal is to read and review one book or more in that genre/category during that month.

For February the genre / category is ~ Contemporary

My Choice:

Crash Into You
(Pushing the Limits  #3)

by
Katie McGarry

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane 

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look. 

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

My Thoughts:

OMG I loved this book. Rachel and Isaiah are two very messed up kids and my heart went out to both of them as their story slowly unfolded.

Lets start with Rachel, brought into the world to replace her sister who dies of Leukemia, she struggles with trying to please her family. Not an easy task when they all expect her to be something she's not. Spending most of her time stressed out from worry, she hides an illness which could see her in the hospital if it gets out of control. I really felt for Rachel. The only thing which seems to keep her sane is her love for cars. There's nothing she doesn't know about a Mustang.

Isaiah. On the outside he appears as a  punk - bad-ass tattoos, multiple ear piercings and a tough persona. On the inside, he is a young man trying to cope with the crappy life he has been dealt. He has a sensitive side and high moral values which ultimately help keep him afloat.

When these two meet on the street race circuit, they see in each other, not the flaws and imperfections, but the strengths and beauty. Sharing a love for cars and racing, they form a bond which becomes unbreakable.

I think Katie did an excellent job in writing this book. She had me completely enthralled from the very first page to the very last. If you haven't read Crash Into You, then I highly recommend it. It will leave you wanting more.

My Rating: 5 out of 5