In My Mailbox! The Bumper Edition

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren

Before I start this week's IMM I just want to say I didn't get all of these books this week. This is a bundle from the last few weeks grouping some of my must read books, I got a few more than this but if I was to list them all we'd be here for a very long time! So here are some of my top picks from the last few weeks...

Review Books

I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
A Walk in the Park by Jill Mansell
Fallen in Love by Lauren Kate
Never Coming Home by Evonne Wareham (ARC)
Heart-shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne (ARC)
The Angel at No. 33 by Polly Williams

Hollow Pike by James Dawson (ARC)
Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Legend by Marie Lu (ARC)
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake (ARC)
Starters by Lissa Price (ARC)
Slated by Teri Terry (ARC)

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (ARC)
Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
Heaven by Christoph Marzi
Ticket to Love by Marilyn Kaye
Bunheads by Sophie Flack
The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams

Bought

The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz
Two Truths and a Lie (Lying Game) by Sara Shepard
This is a Love Story by Jessica Thompson
The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis
Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson

There you have it my HUGE haul of 23 books! As I said at the beginning I received and bought a few others but decided not to show the ones I’ve read simply because they’ve been featured/will be featured on the blog in a review. I’m so looking forward to all of these; I’ve been a very lucky girl! As always HUGE thank you’s to all of the lovely publishing people who have sent me these books to review. If you’ve read any of the books I got this week and want to leave me a comment letting me know what you thought please do and make sure you leave me a link to what you got in your mailbox. Here’s to another week of fantastic reading ahead!

Review for Night School by CJ. Daugherty

Night School by CJ. Daugherty
Publisher: Atom
Release Date: 5th January 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"Sometimes school can be murder. . . Allie Sheridan's world is falling apart. She hates her school. Her brother has run away from home. And she's just been arrested. Again. This time her parents have finally had enough. They cut her off from her friends and send her away to a boarding school for problem teenagers. But Cimmeria Academy is no ordinary school. It allows no computers or phones. Its students are an odd mixture of the gifted, the tough and the privileged. And then there's the secretive Night School, whose activities other students are forbidden even to watch. When Allie is attacked one night the incident sets off a chain of events leading to the violent death of a girl at the summer ball. As the school begins to seem like a very dangerous place, Allie must learn who she can trust. And what's really going on at Cimmeria Academy."

Review
First off I want to say that I had a real love/hate relationship with this book. I say this because the first 200 pages I couldn’t stand and the last 250 pages I loved and absolutely devoured. So I guess I’ll split this review into two parts the first talking about why I didn’t like the book and the second what I loved about it.

Okay so the book begins with our main character Allie being shipped off to boarding school after her third arrest of the year. My main dislike at the start of the book was with Allie, she acts out and hates her life and is basically your stereotypical rebellious teen. Allie really annoyed me at the beginning because of this, she was just so rude and arrogant and at times I wanted to throw the book at the wall she irritated me that much. Allie also makes a lot of bad choices at the beginning of the book the main one in my opinion was getting involved with Sylvain. Sylvain absolutely made my skin crawl he’s just such a slimy sleezeball and I just couldn’t understand what Allie saw in him. So at this point in the book I wasn’t connecting with Allie and I didn’t understand her choices and because of that I very nearly gave up on this book. However I was really enjoying reading about the school and the strange mysterious things that were happening there so curiosity alone made me read on.

Then the summer ball happened and that’s when this book really got interesting. The last half of this book I felt completely different about and it really made up for the first half. Cimmeria Academy is such a fascinating school with a lot of interesting history and hidden rooms, quirky staff and strange rules to boot. The mystery surrounding the school is really unique and I loved how different it was to anything else out there. In the last 250 pages there is so much action, danger and suspense that I couldn’t put this book down. And as for Allie well she really grows as a character and I liked her more as the book went on. I also loved the new relationships she made with Carter and Rachel who are much nicer more likeable characters than the first set of friends she makes at the school.

So although I had my problems with this book at the beginning by the end I ended up really liking it, so if like me you have trouble getting into this one it’s definitely a book I’d recommend sticking with. Overall Night School is a unique and interesting debut and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next with this series.

Review for The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: September 27th 2011 (US edition) releasing in the UK on March 1st 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery, Romance
Rating: 4/5 stars
Source: Bought

Summary:
"Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.

She's wrong."

Review
I was so excited to read this book as I’m a huge fan of Young Adult thrillers and with THAT cover, THAT synopsis and the amount of praise from some of my favourite authors (Cassandra Clare and Veronica Roth to name a few!) I had really high expectations for this book.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer grips you straight away with a mysterious letter to the reader from Mara Dyer herself and a thrilling first chapter. During the beginning of this book I was completely swept away in the mystery surrounding who exactly Mara Dyer is and Michelle Hodkin’s beautiful atmospheric writing. However I felt that during the middle of this book the pacing really slowed down as the book started focusing more on the growing relationship between Mara and Noah. Don’t get me wrong I loved the romance to the story, fans of smart ass, dark and dangerous bad boys like me are going to fall hard for Noah Shaw. The best way I can describe Noah is he is what you would get if you mixed together Jace from The Mortal Instruments and St Clair from Anna and the French Kiss. I loved following his and Mara’s deliciously twisted romance but I couldn’t help but feel that the focus switched off the plot and on to them too often which really slowed down the pacing so the middle to me read more like a contemporary romance than a heart pounding thriller.

At the end the book took another U- turn and we were flung back into the darker more suspenseful side of this book which is the side I loved best. Some of the twists I guessed but others took me by surprise and then something HUGE was revealed right at the very end finishing the book on a gigantic cliff hanger that left me dying for the sequel. Seriously Michelle Hodkin I tip my hat to you as the new queen of cliff hangers!

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is a captivating and twisted love story that is in equal parts as disturbing and dark as it is beautiful and poetic. Whilst this isn’t the best young adult thriller out there I can’t deny that this book has something unique and exquisite to add to the genre and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Review for A Witch in Winter by Ruth Warburton

A Witch in Winter by Ruth Warburton
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Release Date: 5th January 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Witches
Rating: 4/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"Anna Winterson doesn't know she's a witch and would probably mock you for believing in magic, but after moving to the small town of Winter with her father, she learns more than she ever wanted to about power. When Anna meets Seth, she is smitten, but when she enchants him to love her, she unwittingly amplifies a deadly conflict between two witch clans and splits her own heart in two. She wants to love Seth, to let him love her - but if it is her magic that's controlling his passion, then she is as monstrous as the witch clan who are trying to use her amazing powers for their own gain.

When love is tangled up in magic, how can you be sure what's real?"

Review
I haven’t read a lot of books about witches but was really interested to check out A Witch in Winter purely because it’s written by a British author and the story’s set in England which is a bit of a rarity with paranormal young adult fiction. It was really refreshing to read a book set in an old British seaside town but at the same time it wasn’t so British that it wouldn’t do well over seas. I think that Ruth Warburton does a fantastic job of writing a solid British supernatural book that can stand proudly next to the popular US paranormal titles.

The book begins with Anna moving to the seaside town of Winter her and her dad taking residence in the old abandoned Wicker House more notoriously known by the locals as “The Witches House.” Despite the house being seriously creepy nothing is out of the ordinary until Anna finds an old spell book and messing around accidently casts a love spell on her crush Seth Waters. Seth quickly falls head over heels for Anna and dumps his popular girlfriend Caroline which makes life more than a little difficult for Anna at her new school. However Caroline is the least of Anna’s problems what with her discovering that she has magical powers, and not being able to remove her love spell on Seth. Plus there’s the Ealdwiton, a council of the most powerful witches, who are after Anna to use her new found powerful magic for their own purposes. Anna’s magic appears to be hugely powerful and with no training Anna manages to get herself into some serious trouble but with Anna’s growing attraction to Seth and his love that she knows she can’t believe in can Anna undo all that she’s done before she causes any more damage to Seth, her dad, and her new found friends?

What I loved most about this book was Seth and Anna’s romance. I really felt for Anna having to constantly do the noble thing and fight her attraction to Seth so as not to take advantage of him whilst he’s under the influence of her spell. Then of course there’s the mystery as to why the spell can’t be removed is it because Seth’s feelings are real? Or is Anna’s magic just too strong? I loved their complicated relationship and really hoped that Seth’s feelings for Anna were real because they made such a fantastic couple. I really liked them both as characters and had instant respect for Anna for not taking Seth for granted and always trying to do the right thing. With a guy like Seth fawning over her I can tell you she’s a stronger girl than me that’s for sure!

I think that A Witch in Winter was a fantastic start to what promises to be an awesome series. I’m so intrigued as to how strong Anna’s powers actually are and what’s in store for her next. This was a fantastic book that I read in one evening because I couldn’t put it down and I am already looking forward to its sequel A Witch in Love!

Review for Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans

Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 19th January 2012
Genre: Chick-lit, Adult Fiction, Woman’s Fiction
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Source: Received for review from the Amazon Vine Programme

Amazon Summary:
"At twenty-two, Eleanor Bee is sure about three things: she wants to move to London and become a literary superstar, she wants to be able to afford to buy a coffee and croissant every morning, and she doesn’t believe in happy endings. She saw what divorce did to her parents, especially her mum: happily ever after’s fine on the last page of a book, but it just doesn’t happen in real life.

Elle moves to London. She gets a job at Bluebird Books, a charmingly old-fashioned publishers. She falls out of pubs, wears too-short skirts, makes lots of mistakes and feels like she’s learning nothing and everything at the same time. And then, out of the blue, she falls in love, and that’s when she realises just how much growing up she has to do…

Ten years on, and Elle’s life has changed in ways she could never have predicted. Because no matter where you go and how much you try to run away, the past has a funny way of catching up with you, and Happily Ever After comes in all shapes and sizes…"

Review
Every now and then I love to read a book about books so Happily Ever After naturally was a real joy for me to read and I’m sure a lot of book lovers who are passionate about reading, especially chick-lit fans, will feel the same. Our heroine Eleanor Bee better known as “Elle” loves to read, particularly romance and woman’s fiction. Her love for books and support for romance against literary snobs- many of which she has to deal with in her job at a publishing house- made me instantly fond of her. Her love for strong heroines, romantic heroes, and the perfect happily ever after really shines through the pages.

The majority of this book focuses on Elle’s career in the world of publishing and so this is ultimately a real career girls kind of book although it does also tackle family problems, and of course relationship drama too. My dream job would be to work in publishing like Elle so I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her experiences in the behind the scenes book industry, from editing manuscripts to hosting fabulous parties for authors. I found it really refreshing to read a book about a young woman who loves her job and puts her career first before anything else.

Whilst I loved Elle and the bookish aspect of this book I have to say that I was a bit let down by the romance. Because Elle’s very much a career girl the book focuses mainly on her antics in the work place leaving the romance to be quite weak and barely touched upon. I felt that Elle and her love interest didn’t spend enough time together to properly fall in love and so things felt a bit forced and fake with that side of things and is my one complaint about this book.

Happily Ever After is a real book lover’s book with a smart headstrong heroine. If you love your career girl chick-lit stories and dream about rubbing shoulders with your favourite authors and reading books for a living this is the perfect book to live your fantasies through. But if you’re looking for an epic romance I’d maybe give this one a miss.