The contest for the hardback copy of Lover Unleashed by J.R. Ward has now ended. Using Random.org, the winner is:
Congrats! I have emailed you and you have 48 hours to respond. If I don’t hear from you, a new winner will be chosen and your prize is forfeited.
Thank you to everyone who entered!!
Louisa is nervous about being sent away to a boarding school — but she’s excited, too. And she has her best friend, Maddie, to keep her company. The girls have to pretend to be twin sisters, which Louisa thinks just adds to the adventure!
Country Manor School isn’t all excitement, though. Louisa isn’t sure how she feels about her new roommates: athletic but snobby Rosie and everything’s-a-conspiracy Evelyn. Even Maddie seems different away from home, quiet and worried all the time.
Still, Louisa loves CMS — the survival skills classes, the fresh air. She doesn’t even miss not having a TV, or the internet, or any contact with home. It’s for their own safety, after all.
Or is it?
CLOSED!!!
BEHIND THE GATES
Tomorrow Girls #1
Author: Eva Gray
Source: Publisher
*I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review*
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (May 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0545317010
ISBN-13: 978-0545317016
SUMMARY:
In a terrifying future world, four girls must depend on each other if they want to survive.
Louisa is nervous about being sent away to a boarding school — but she’s excited, too. And she has her best friend, Maddie, to keep her company. The girls have to pretend to be twin sisters, which Louisa thinks just adds to the adventure!
Country Manor School isn’t all excitement, though. Louisa isn’t sure how she feels about her new roommates: athletic but snobby Rosie and everything’s-a-conspiracy Evelyn. Even Maddie seems different away from home, quiet and worried all the time.
Still, Louisa loves CMS — the survival skills classes, the fresh air. She doesn’t even miss not having a TV, or the internet, or any contact with home. It’s for their own safety, after all.
Or is it?
MY THOUGHTS:
With all of the hype surrounding dystopia themed books lately, it is no surprise that the younger teen books are jumping in on the trend. In the tween book Behind the Gates by Eva Gray, we get to peek into the future of how schooling for our children could be if wars have destroyed our country.
At first, I couldn’t really get into this book. While it had all of the elements that have sucked me into the dystopia world, I couldn’t seem to make a connection with the characters. For me, there is a fine line between the way younger teens act and the way authors portray them. Yet as the story continued on, I started getting interested in the mystery of the school. I was intrigued about how they were treated within the walls of Country Manor and who could be on the bad side of the group.
While the story wasn’t as great as I wanted it, the ending did bring out my curiosity for the next book in the series. I would recommend this book for the younger crowd who have not yet ventured into the books such as Hunger Games.
MY RATING:
Today on My Overstuffed Bookshelf, I am so excited to introduce you to author Olivia Cunning! Olivia is the author of Backstage Pass and her newly released follow-up, Rock Hard. First of all, I want to send a special thank you out to Olivia for joining us here today! She is truly one of the nicest authors I have had the pleasure of speaking with! So I am going to hand over this post now to Olivia and her to Building of Sed Lionheart!
The hero of my latest rock star erotic romance novel, Rock Hard, is Sedric Lionheart. He’s the lead singer of the rock band Sinners. Rock Hard is the second book in the Sinners on Tour series. Each member of this delicious band will get his own book.
That’s Sed (rhymes with bed) there, second from the left. I chose that guy to represent Sed because he sort of looks like Sed and I couldn’t find a better model on the royalty free picture websites. Since I use this logo on a lot of different things, I have to “own” the rights to the pictures and buy them. So that guy, whoever he is, now represents Sed. But… he really doesn’t do Sed Lionheart justice.
First, let’s start with the real life inspiration for Sed Lionheart. Lead singer of Avenged Sevenfold, M. Shadows. I fell in love with that voice and those dimples. Sigh…
Shadows was the inspiration for Sed, but he’s not an exact Sed Lionheart. Sed’s fictional. He does have the dimples though. Sigh… And he does happen to be a singer, but… let’s build Sed, because there is no way I’d ever find his exact match. So other than his dimples…
(No, not those dimples, though I wish I would have added them to Rock Hard. Very nice.) What does Sed Lionheart look like? Let’s start with the hair.
The hair, ladies. You’re suppose to look at his hair. The hair on his head. It’s black, if you missed that. Sed keeps his hair extremely short. It’s a defense mechanism. Fangirls get a bit excited when they see him and latch on. He keeps his hair short so they can’t grab it and rip it out. Poor guy. Don’t you feel sorry for him? Yeah, me neither.
Next, we’ll look at his eyes. Crystal blue eyes.
Um… Wow, wow, wow, wow… I can’t look away.
Okay, moving on before I dehydrate from drooling. Next we have his manly neck. I do love the look of a man’s neck. Thick.
Yes, I’m looking at his neck. What? Oh, he’s wearing a necklace. I almost missed that. Sed doesn’t wear jewelry (for the same reason he keeps his hair short), so this guy can’t be Sed, but his has the proper neck. And hands. Very nice hands. Like Sed, he’s right handed. You know how I can tell? *cough* Yes, I cropped the original picture and could see the whole thing. It was a very nice… hand…
Um, where was I. Next, we have his body. Sed is a body builder. He has bulges in all the right places.
Oh dear God, will you look at that bulge? Bulges. The muscular bulges are… um…*gulp* …bulgy? Bulgy and muscle-y. And bulgy.
Now for the backside. He has very narrow hips and wide shoulders and… oh, just look…
Anyone else trying to cup their computer screen? Just me? Am I the only buns-girl around here?
Sed also has several tattoos. I don’t describe them much in the book, but I really like this one. I can imagine Sed having this tattoo.
Yeah, I sure do like this… What was I liking? Oh yes, I like this tattoo. Love it!
And then we have “the goods”. I’ll leave a lot of that to your imagination.
And Sed knows how to use it, too. So there you have it. Sedric Lionheart in all his masculine glory.
No wonder his fangirls always rip his shirt off. Who could blame them? Not me.
Looks like the last fangirl left the job unfinished. Damn!
I hope you enjoyed getting to know Sed Lionheart. Well, at least the outside. He’s even better on the inside.
Sinner’s lead singer, Sed, had his heart shredded when Jessica left him to pursue her dreams, so when she dances her way back into his life, he’s not sure he’s ready for her brand of pain, or pleasure, again. When she convinces Sed to engage in a benefits with benefits relationship, things seem to be going his way, until one of his fans catches their explicit public display of affection on film and posts it all over the internet. Will Jessica ever trust Sed again? And has Sed become the man of Jessica’s dreams or is he just posing to get what he wants?
Raised on rock music from the cradle, Olivia Cunning attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell instantly in love with live music. She’s been known to travel over a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. She discovered her second love, romantic fiction, as a teen–first, voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own. Her first Sinners on Tour novel, Backstage Pass was named a Top Read of 2010 by Love Romance Passion, Alpha Reader, The Fiction Vixen, Loves Romance and Smexy Books. She currently lives in Nebraska, where she is working on her next book! For more information, please visit http://oliviacunning.com/.