Upcoming Novels For 2015

2014 is finally coming to a close. I had a busy year, but I did manage to release 4 books this year. What were they? These little babies:

 

 

Sure, I meant to release 5, but you know what? Sometimes life throws you a curveball. A few of them. Then slaps you silly with multiple whammies.

One major problem was laptop issues and having to wipe my baby twice, then threatened to rear its ugly head for a third go. Ever had to wait ten minutes for your computer just to turn on?

Sadly, my car also went kaput. I know, I know. Being stuck at home should've actually increased my novel output, but it happened late enough in the year that I'm still having to deal with that lovely lack of transportation.

Sadly, not all writers are rich... Okay, most of us are pretty freakin' poor, so I've gotta wait until I begin my next job to afford a new one.

I also had a change in relationship status. You know how that story goes...

So I spent the better part of the last few months preparing for a move and looking for a full-time job. Needless to say, I've fallen behind a bit with my writing, so I wasn't able to get that fifth novel completed by Christmas. For those of you who have been emailing and PMing me to ask when certain stories are coming out, I promise I haven't been ignoring you. I've just been really busy. And since I know I'm going to be working this upcoming year, I'm going in with less expectations for what I can put out. So what do I hope to release in 2015? These little babies:

Stardust fans...I know, I know, I KNOW! It's been two years since Dust released. I swear I'm currently working on this. My cover designer would probably like to kill me with my defunct laptop even more than you, because this project keeps getting kicked back. Right now I hope to have this out sometime this upcoming Spring. From there I'll began working on Nearly Undone (Nearly #3) and then the second Sleepers' Coalition novel. Don't hold your breath, but if I manage to complete all that before the year is out, I might add one more.
 

On the bright side, I've now got my eye on a new vehicle, a full-time job waiting on my testing before I can get the green light to officially begin work, and I've got a new laptop. It's definitely more sensitive in the touch-mouse department, but for the most part, I'm getting better at using it. Just don't ask me to highlight anything for copying purposes...cause that so sucks right now. There's gotta be a trick to make it work with better odds than 1 in 5, but I'm too busy to figure it out just yet.

 

So here's hoping the new year will a bring a better one than last year. For me and for you! Happy New Year!

 

This Shattered World by Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner (ARC)

This Shattered World (Starbound #2)
Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner
Exp. Pub.: December 23, 2014

Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.

Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.

Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.

Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.   

This Shattered World follows two more opposites fighting it out thanks to the messed up experiments by LaRoux Industries. Flynn grew up on Avon, where their world was supposed to be terraformed to make them a more contributal planet. But decades later their world is no closer to achieving that than the day they agreed to it. The rebellion has been well underway, with Flynn's sister already dead ten years, who was once their leader. A great majority look to her brother Flynn as the next leader, but a man named McBride has an itchy trigger finger to start attacking the military and break the cease-fire. He has good reason - military personnel has to be constantly changed out every one to two months because they're susceptible to something they refer to as the Fury, where the officer loses control and goes murderous. The military tries to get them off planet in before that can happen by monitoring the signs, but sometimes it happens too fast, and native residents of Avon seem to be the only victims of this curious disease. While McBride believes it's just an excuse to kill their people, Flynn begins to believe in the possibility that something more supernatural is going on. But for the most part, his attention is more focused on a secret base he's sure he saw out east, and also on a high ranking officer named Jubilee, who seems to be immune to this so-called Fury and has been on Avon for a year now. Surely she has the knowledge he seeks.

 

Desperate for answers and to stop McBride from convincing his own people to attack the better equipped military, he seizes the opportunity to abduct Jubilee off base. But she holds no answers for him, or at least isn't willing to share them. And when his plan to trade her for supplies is rejected, he knows killing her will only unleash the military's wrath, so he goes against his people and allows her to escape. Ready to go after the rebel leader who abducted her, certain events take place that begin to make Jubilee question the things Flynn interrogated her about, and as both their worlds become more deadly, two sworn enemies soon realize working together is their best chance for saving both sides.

This was a good follow-up to These Broken Stars, which I absolutely loved. Flynn and Jubilee didn't win my heart as much as their predesecors, but I still adored them by the end. And before you ask, yes, you'll get to see Tarver and Lilac again, who have an intimate knowledge at dealing with the shady side of LaRoux industries, but only for a small percentage of the novel. But if you loved the first novel of the Starbound series, you'll love the second one too.

ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion for honest review.

A Darker Past by Jus Accardo (ARC)

A Darker Past (Darker Agency #2)
Jus Accardo
Pub: November 11, 2014

The past is Darker than they thought...

Between helping her mother with the Darker Agency and laying the smack down on monster baddies, Jessie Darker puts the “normal” in paranormal. But lately, things have gotten a little crazy...even for a smart-assed half-demon teenage girl.

For starters, Jessie’s been contracted into fifty-five years of annoying servitude. To a demon. Then there’s Lukas Scott, her sexy new boyfriend. Once the former incarnation of Wrath, he’s been going through some...uh, changes. Like residual anger. And trading chaste hangouts for lusty make-out sessions.

But it’s when Lukas and Jessie accidentally release a Very Nasty Demon that things get really bad, setting into motion a chain of death and mayhem that threatens both Earth and the Shadow Realm. Jessie has exactly four days to fix it...before all of Hell breaks loose.

First off, I'll admit I haven't read the first in this series, but I didn't let that deter me from diving right in. I loved Jessie's sarcasm, especially in the first quarter of the book. Her snarkiness seemed to fade a bit from there, but she occasionally graced me with something sassy to lift my mood. Her boyfriend Lukas is recovering from being Wrath's b*tch for way too long, forced there by his crazy ex, and is now under the tutelage of Jessie's Father in hell, but can go back and forth freely. Well, mostly freely like Jessie, who finds herself being sucked into hell every the demon she's now in servitude to decides to beckon her to his semi-creepy side to do a job for him.

While checking out something for her family's demon agency, Lukas' crazy ghost of an ex goes mental and ends up setting loose a demon that had been trapped. And since Jessie's family had a hand in putting him there, he unleashes his vengeance on every member of the Darker family and the ones they love. Who will survive his wrath before he can be trapped again?

A Darker Past started off strong and was a decent story, though it began to drag for me about half way through. I think that might've just been me though. I was enjoying Jessie's sarcastic thoughts so well, that when her sassiness began to fade a bit, it made the story come off a little more ho-hum for me. But I think most people who like this genre will be more than happy with Miss Accardo's world of demons. And romance lovers will be sated with the lustful-yet-still-respectful relationship between Jessie and Lukas, who find being similar in the fact that they're both demon-newbies just a little stressful on the ole love life.

3.5 Dreamcatchers. ARC provided by Entangled Teen for honest review.

This Is Your Afterlife by Vanessa Barneveld (ARC)

This Is Your Afterlife
Vanessa Barneveld
Pub.: October 21, 2014

When the one boy you crushed on in life can't seem to stay away in death, it's hard to be a normal teen when you're a teen paranormal.

Sixteen-year-old Keira Nolan has finally got what she wanted—the captain of the football team in her bedroom. Problem is he’s not in the flesh. He’s a ghost and she’s the only one who can see him.

Keira's determined to do anything to find Jimmy's killer. Even it if means teaming up with his prickly-yet-dangerously-attractive brother, Dan, also Keira's ex-best-friend. Keira finds that her childish crush is fading, but her feelings for Dan are just starting to heat up, and as the story of Jimmy’s murder unfolds, anyone could be a suspect.

This thrilling debut from Vanessa Barneveld crosses over from our world to the next, and brings a whole delightful new meaning to "teen spirit".  

Keira Nolan seems to face the problem most teenagers do in high school. No, not the ghost thing, but the part where she always had such a crush on one guy she didn't realize there was another worth having until it was too late. Jimmy was the star athlete every girl wanted, but it was his artistic brother Dan who had eyes for Keira. And when her best friend tried to kiss her for that lovely game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, Keira blurted the stupidest thing possible - next thing she knew, she'd lost her best friend and the guy she aparently had a thing for.

A few years later, Keira's finally inheriting her late grandmother's gift - the ability to see dead people. And her first official ghost sighting? None other than Jimmy himself, who can't remember how he died, nor can he seem to keep himself grounded the farther he travels away from Keira. So not only will Keira have to help Jimmy figure out how he mysteriously died, but he's begged her to tell his brother he's still around. Wouldn't be such a feat if he didn't hate her so much.

 

It's been a while since I read a YA book that was this cute and kept my attention because of that. Don't get me wrong, the story was simple and I figured out right away why Jimmy died, but it didn't bother me moving forward with the novel. Let's just call This Is Your Afterlife simple and sweet. If you need a light, easy read that'll make you smile and come down from one of the more emotionally heavy novels out there, this is your gem.

 

 

ARC provided by Bloomsbury Spark for honest review.