First Frost (First Frost #1) by Liz DeJesus .
Audience/Genre: YA/Fantasy.
Publication: June 22nd 2012 by Musa Publishing.

Fairytales aren’t real…yeah…that’s exactly what Bianca thought. She was wrong.

For generations, the Frost family has run the Museum of Magical and Rare Artifacts, handing down guardianship from mother to daughter, always keeping their secrets to “family only.”

Gathered within museum’s walls is a collection dedicated to the Grimm fairy tales and to the rare items the family has acquired: Cinderella’s glass slipper, Snow White’s poisoned apple, the evil queen’s magic mirror, Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted spinning wheel…

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Frost wants none of it, dreaming instead of a career in art or photography or…well, anything except working in the family’s museum. She knows the items in the glass display cases are fakes because, of course, magic doesn’t really exist.

She’s about to find out how wrong she is.

Reviewed by Kelly.
Bianca Frost thought her life was just a little out of the ordinary. Her father disappeared ten years ago. Her mom and her work in a Museum of Magical and Rare Artifacts that have to do mainly with the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. She starts off one night with a broken vacuum cleaner and after everything is out of the ordinary!



She learns magic is real. Stories from the museum are real and these artifacts are in fact, real too. She learns she is a witch and a descendant of Snow White. She learns her father is, in fact, alive and is a bear. Then with really only one day of learning these truths and her mom teaching her some things, her mom is captured and is threatened by an evil witch. Bianca must find a spell book and bring it to her or her mother will die.



I don’t know about you but I would seriously be freaking out if I were Bianca! She tells her best friend Ming everything and Ming believes her and they go on an adventure with an arrogant and pampas prince and his more than capable assistant to find her mother. She finds her father, in bear form, and he joins them.



They have an amazing and terrifying adventure and quest to find Rose Frost. They meet the big bad wolf. Bianca has nightmares that are real. Bianca learns more about her magic and finds a little romance. Sounds cool to me.



The story was simple but mesmerizing. There are some lessons learned here like pride from being a part of a family and believing in yourself. That’s what I love about fairy tales- the moral of the story. I enjoyed it and look forward to their next adventure.

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Fairyvision (Songs of Magic, #5) by J. L. Bryan.
Audience/Genre: Middle-grade/Fantasy.
Publication: February 15th 2013 by J.L. Bryan.

The fifth book in the Songs of Magic series!

Jason, Erin, and the other Zebras go on a world tour with their enchanted instruments, only to encounter the mysterious supernatural Folk of India and the Far East. While they tangle with their record company, Erin tries to avoid dealing with the secrets she's learned about herself, while Jason pieces together a mystery surrounding a very special golden guitar called Caliburn.

In Faerie, Aoide the Lutist and her troupe finally return home from their long adventure. They're struggling to get new gigs, but Aoide senses opportunity in the form of special new magic mirrors that can broadcast concerts, plays, and other entertainment all over Faerie...

Reviewed by Kelly.
This is a really cute series. I could so see everything Mr. Bryan describes. It is enchanting and captivating. There is every type of creature you can imagine. The words used to describe days of the week are even enchanting... Moonday, Fryday, Someday, etc. I mean; how cute is that!!



Jason and Erin are a couple but are focused on doing what this contract of theirs tell them to do. Their band is pulled all over the world. You would think they would be happy about it. But it is not happy. They are worked hard and have no time to do anything fun at all. Erin is told to model and do commercials for these old parachutes that are made into pants that smell of old stuff no matter how much they are washed. Disgusting, I would have broken my contract right then. But Erin does what she is told. They are working so hard and don’t even know how much money they are making. Hmmm....



Meanwhile in the fairy world, Aoide and her band are struggling to find work. I love this world because everything is silly and cute and captivating. In Fairie, they are getting magic mirrors that broadcast shows and music. They are all silly versions of our soap operas and silly musical songs. I loved it! Suddenly, they have a contract to sing on these magical mirrors that show in every home with one. Their contracts may not be what they think. Hmmm...



Suddenly in both worlds everything goes amiss and sadness ensues. After all, they are still instruments that need to be returned and always good vs. evil to contend with. I don’t want to say much more because you really have to read it to experience this world of J. L. Bryan. You won’t regret it.

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Act Like You Love Me by Cindi Madsen.
Audience/Genre: Women/Contemporary Romance.
Publication: June 10th, 2013 by Bliss (Entangled Publishing).

All’s fair in acting and amore…

Brynn McAdams isn’t the awkward drama geek she was in high school—she’s grown up and confident, or at least she likes to think so. But when her old crush, the impossibly handsome and impossibly unattainable Sawyer Raines, comes back to town to direct her community play, Brynn finds herself determined to be someone other than the girl he doesn’t even recognize. Good thing she’s an excellent actress.

After his bad breakup in NYC, the last thing Sawyer wants is to get involved with another actress. But the glamorous and beautiful Brynn draws him in, even though as her director, he knows she’s off-limits. There’s just something about the woman that feels…familiar. Like home.

As Brynn’s lies start to snowball, she struggles to stop acting and come clean. But what if Sawyer is already falling for the fake Brynn, not the Brynn she truly is?

Reviewed by Kelly.

I love it when there is a story in a story or in this case a play called “The Importance of Being Earnest”. To be honest, I haven’t seen it but I got enough from the book to know some of it. In it things are built upon some lies. But as in this story, lies always get out of control and it is hard to dig out of the hole that you put yourself in!



Brynn has crushed on Sawyer since high school. She was considered different then. She was in drama club. She dressed differently. She just didn’t quite fit in with the popular people. She tried to ask Sawyer to prom and was rejected. Then even worse, when she went on stage in high school, someone stepped on her skirt and everyone saw her in her underwear! (That happened to me once, except my chair flipped and I was wearing a dress and it flipped over my head! SO SO EMBARRASING) She was called McFlasher after that. She never really got over all that, including him.



She had a better control on her looks and was always smiling now. Then Sawyer came back to town. He came back to fix up his parents dream home, sell it, and go back home to New York. He also got set up to direct a play that Brynn was in. Sawyer doesn’t remember her and Brynn likes it that way. So Brynn lets him believe things about her that aren’t true and it just kept getting worse and worse. . She goes hot and cold on him a lot depending if the conversation hits her past in anyway.



Now that they both like each other, Brynn doesn’t know how to tell him the truth about her. Then Sawyer has/had some issues of his own and so he doesn’t see anything. He had one ex-crazy actress girlfriend who tried to hang on to him hard. He also lost his dad to ALS when he was young which he still hangs onto. Put all that together and you have a catastrophe. Mix it with a lot of humor and quirkiness and you have a cute love story.



What will happen when it all comes to light? How will it all come to light? You will have to read it to find out. But it is so cute and definitely would be a great romantic comedy on the big screen!

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Cindi Madsen sits at her computer every chance she gets, plotting revising, and falling in love with her characters. Sometimes it makes her a crazy person. Without it, she’d be even crazier. She has way too many shoes, but can always find a reason to buy a new pretty pair, especially if they’re sparkly, colorful, or super tall. She loves music, dancing, and wishes summer lasted all year long. She lives in Colorado (where summer is most definitely NOT all year long) with her husband and three children. She is the author of YA novelsAll the Broken Pieces and Demons of the Sun, bestselling short romance Falling for Her Fiancé and the women's fiction novel Cinderella Screwed Me Over.

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The Waiting Game by Eve Devon.
Audience/Genre: Adult/Romantic Suspense,Thriller
Publication: May 27th 2013 by Entangled: Suspense.

Five years ago a madman stalked her. Kidnapped her. Tattooed her.

When security expert Cameron Dexter—the man Brooke Bennett once loved—appears unexpectedly at her door with terrifying news, the former musician discovers she can no longer hide from her past. After five years, her vicious kidnapper is out of prison and on the hunt—for Brooke.

Now he’s returned to complete his art.

Cam failed to protect Brooke once before. Now he’d rather die than let her be captured. With her life at stake, Cam vows to keep her hidden and safe. Brooke, however, is done with running. Unlike Cam, she wants to stand and fight. Emotions both old and new roil between them, but addressing their heated past must wait. Together they set a trap in London to catch a killer. But they soon discover the enemy wears many faces.

Reviewed by Kelly.

First Impressions- I kept thinking I was reading a second book in a series like I somehow missed the first book when she was kidnapped. I kept going to goodreads to be sure I wasn’t missing something. Nope, it is a debut novel.
I have been reading a lot of new adult books lately and realized that I enjoy adult books a little better. The F word isn’t plastered everywhere. Just sayin...

We start off 5 years after Brooke Bennett’s kidnapping and torture. Her kidnapper has just been released from prison early for being a model prisoner so he could get out early and finish what he started. Her kidnapper, Spinks, is a narcissist, and wants Brooke as his living art work. He is Sick, Sick, Sick!!! Did I tell you he was Sick? Well, he is. We don’t see a lot of him. We just get bits and pieces of his whereabouts and thoughts. But something else doesn’t add up in this story. I figured out part of it early on. But that’s all I can say about that.

This book is called The Waiting Game for a reason. Because for most of the book, we are all waiting. Waiting for him to make a move. Waiting for it to be over. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Brooke to run when she needs to. Waiting for the guilt to go away. Waiting for her life to come back and to live it. That gives it a lot of suspense and I liked it.

Brooke is only living to eat and breathe, which isn’t really living. She is broken. She used to be a famous singer and composer. She doesn’t even write anymore. She can’t. She is in France living a solitude life with only her former manager knowing where she is. Or so we thought since Cameron (her former bodyguard) just shows up at her door to wisk her away because she is no longer safe alone. There is some chemistry between the two but Cameron makes it appear to Brooke that he is only doing his job. He feels guilt at her being caught under his guard before and he won’t, no- can’t, let that happen again. He tries to keep her at a distance but it is just too hard for both of them. Every time you think they will get past his guilt and her humiliation at being scarred and marked, he pushes her away. He thinks that she can’t choose him (whatever that means) until she is free of him forever. She just gets to the point where she just wants him and she falls in love with him. He remains with guilt for, uh, well I guess you have to read it to find out how long that happens. I loved watching both of them grow and learn and move past obstacles.

Brooke has moments of flashbacks and panic attacks. Brooke didn’t know whether she was a survivor or a victim. She wanted to be a survivor. She wanted to run away often from everything. She knew that several times she was in a fight or flight situation and for most of them, she just froze, even though she knew she needed to run. I don’t know what I would have done in her shoes. I probably would have shriveled into nothing of a human being! She really was a survivor to me.

Her manager, Steven, is a lowlife, a pathetic thing for a human being!! I didn’t care for him at all. Her friend, Megan, was a gem. I only wish we could have seen more of her. Cam’s other security personnel were dedicated to their job and loyal to Cam.

There is a lot of suspense, action and a mystery to be solved as well. In the end, you get that happily ever after and I get that sigh of reading a good book.

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Eve Devon writes sexy heroes, sassy heroines & happy ever afters... Growing up in locations like Botswana and Venezuela gave Eve Devon a taste for adventure; her love for romances began when her mother shoved one into her hands in a desperate attempt to keep her quiet during TV coverage of the Wimbledon tennis finals! When Eve wasn't consuming books by the bucketload, she could be found pretending to be a damsel in distress or running around solving mysteries and writing down her adventures. As a teenager, Eve wrote countless episodes of TV detective dramas so the hero and heroine would end up together every week. As an adult, still hooked on romance and mysteries, she worked in a library to conveniently continue consuming books by the bucketload, until realizing she was destined to write contemporary romance and romantic suspense herself. Visit Eve at her website: www.EveDevon.com

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Dare You To by Katie McGarry.
Audience/Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary.
Publication: May 28th 2013 by Harlequin Teen.

Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. "Dance with me, Beth."

"No." I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again....

"I dare you..."

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all...

Reviewed by Kelly.
I love Katie McGarry’s writing and would read anything she writes. It is full of real emotion and a certain rawness of life that just awes me.

It is hard as a teenager to make your own stand without your parents input. Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, they are really only looking out for you and they forget what it was like or they remember and don’t want you to make those same mistakes. Some parents don’t care what their kids do and don’t play any part of it.

Ryan is an absolute sweetheart. What started as a dare turned out to be a sweet love affair. His home life is what most look like on the outside. People who go to church and look all proper and perfect on the outside, but if you went home with them; you would see that they aren’t. Ryan’s brother is gay and his family shut him out per their father/husband to keep from ruining their perfect image. Ryan and his mom miss him. Ryan thinks his brother left him because he never returns his calls and texts. Ryan’s parents don’t get along at home but whenever they are in public, they appear perfect. Ryan’s father wants Ryan to go pro baseball straight out of high school. Ryan finds out that he has a talent writing too and considers going to college first. But not if his father has any say in it. Add in a girl from the wrong side of town, even if she lives with her uncle who is a pro baseball player, it spells disaster in the family of perfection.

Beth, whom we met in Pushing The Limits, is now living with her Uncle who has finally come to rescue her from her life with her alcoholic mom. She was caught with a bat in her hand after her mom used it to break the windows on her abusive boyfriends’ car and she took the fall to keep her mom from going to jail. Her uncle has money now that he is a pro baseball player and genuinely wants to help Beth. He loves her. Beth wants to take care of her mother no matter how bad her mother is and how she has never been a mother to her and has allowed her boyfriend to even use her as a punching bag at times. Beth is broken and doesn’t know how to love or trust anyone.

With Ryan, she starts to trust and love, but there are always cruel people and Beth goes through the ringer and then some to learn this. I loved watching both of them from different sides of the street to learn from each other and find themselves.

I loved Beth’s sarcasm and her will to keep her mom alive. She doesn’t put up with anything. But I was sad for Isaiah. I am glad he will be the focus of the next book.

I wept a lot reading this book. I snickered too. I felt raw emotion and there were times where I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know what was going to happen next and afraid of what that would be! What would be the repercussions of what was happening? I couldn’t read fast enough. If you liked Pushing the Limits then you will like this book too! I can’t wait to get my own copy when this book comes out and to read Isaiah’s story next.

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