Saturday, October 31, 2015

Teacher's Night Before Halloween by Steven L. Layne


Title: Teacher's Night Before Halloween
Author: Steven L. Layne
Illustrator: Ard Hoyt
Length: 32 pages
Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company
Classification: Children's Book
Release Date: July 2008
Source: Library Book
It's the day before Halloween, and to every teacher's dismay, school has been overrun by princesses and monsters, Jedi and ghouls. In every classroom, teachers are struggling to keep order, but students have brought in their costumes to celebrate a day early. A group of girls sneak into the bathroom to exchange tiaras, and grotesquely dressed fifth-graders pretend to eat two younger students in the cafeteria.
The entire school has turned into a haunted house, and as cupcake icing spreads all over the desks, the teachers look for a way to escape the annual Halloween Day parade. But when the principal issues a memo that says all teachers must attend the parade, the faculty wake up on Halloween morning filled with dread.
But there's a treat in store for the teachers this year. The students and their parents have canceled the Halloween Day parade, and the teachers are ecstatic. There's just one catch, the students promise-next year, there's bound to be more trick than treat.



Thursday, October 29, 2015

A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston

Title: A Thousand Nights
Author: E.K. Johnston
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Classification: Young Adult, Retellings, Fantasy
Release Date: October 6, 2015
Source: e-galley via NetGalley (Thank you, Disney Hyperion!)
Read: October 2015
Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next.
And so she is taken in her sister's place, and she believes death will soon follow. Lo-Melkhiin's court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments. She sees everything as if for the last time.But the first sun rises and sets, and she is not dead. Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to her and listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went wrong.
Far away, in their village, her sister is mourning. Through her pain, she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air.
Back at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin every night are given a strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. With each tale she spins, her power grows. Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of a monster.

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***I received an e-galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Waiting on Wednesday #29 : The Forbidden Wish


"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.


The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury

Publication Date: February 23, 2016
Publisher: Razorbill

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Top Ten Tuesday #66: Halloween Themed Freebie


Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Their blog can be found here.



October 27: Halloween themed freebie -- your choice (ie. 10 best ghost stories, 10 things that scare you in books, 10 literary Halloween costumes, 10 vampire novels, 10 books that WILL scare you, 10 non-scary books for Halloween, 10 scariest covers, etc.)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Top Ten Tuesday #65: Ten Wishes I'd Ask The Book Genie to Grant Me


Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Their blog can be found here.


October 20: 10 Wishes I'd Ask The Book Genie To Grant Me (a new book from a certain author,  a reading superpower, a library that is your absolutely #librarygoals, a character to come to life, to met a certain author etc. etc.) YOU DREAM IT AND THE BOOKISH GENIE CAN DO IT.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Ash & Bramble by Sarah Prineas

Title: Ash & Bramble
Author: Sarah Prineas
Length: 464 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Classification: Young Adult, Fairy Tale Retelling, Fantasy
Release Date: September 15, 2015
Source: e-galley via Edelweiss (Thank you, HarperTeen!)
Read: September 2015
A prince.
A ball.
A glass slipper left behind at the stroke of midnight.
The tale is told and retold, twisted and tweaked, snipped and stretched, as it leads to happily ever after.
But it is not the true Story.
A dark fortress.
A past forgotten.
A life of servitude.
No one has ever broken free of the Godmother’s terrible stone prison until a girl named Pin attempts a breathless, daring escape. But she discovers that what seems to be freedom is a prison of another kind, one that entangles her in a story that leads to a prince, a kiss, and a clock striking midnight. To unravel herself from this new life, Pin must choose between a prince and another—the one who helped her before and who would give his life for her. Torn, the only thing for her to do is trade in the glass slipper for a sword and find her own destiny.

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***I received an e-galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review***

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Waiting on Wednesday #28 : The Lies About Truth


"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.


The Lies About Truth by Courtney C. Stevens


Publication Date: November 3, 2015
Publisher: HarperTeen

Monday, October 5, 2015

Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis


Title: Spinning Starlight
Author: R.C. Lewis
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Classification: Young Adult, Fairy Tale Retelling, Science Fiction
Release Date: October 6, 2015
Source: e-galley via NetGalley (Thank you, Disney Hyperion!)
Read: September/October 2015
Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it's hard to escape it. So when a group of men show up at her house uninvited, she assumes it's just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi's vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead.Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home-a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers' survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for survival in this companion to Stitching Snow.

GoodReads || Amazon || Barnes & Noble || Books-a-Million

***I received an e-galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

Thursday, October 1, 2015

September 2015 Highlights



  1. Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4) by Sarah J. Maas
  2. Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between by Jennifer E. Smith
  3. Lock & Mori (Lock & Mori #1) by Heather W. Petty
  4. Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer (Reread)
  5. Ash & Bramble by Sarah Prineas
  6. Hunter (Hunter #1) by Mercedes Lackey