{Audiobook} Review: The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas

Title: The Perilous Sea
Author: Sherry Thomas
Narrator(s): Philip Battley
Series:  The Elemental Trilogy, book #2
Length: 10 hrs 38 mins
Publisher: Harper Audio
Publication Date: September 16, 2014
Source: ARC received from publisher, purchased audio
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible

After spending the summer away from each other, Titus and Iolanthe (still disguised as Archer Fairfax) are eager to return to Eton College to resume their training to fight the Bane. Although no longer bound to Titus by a blood oath, Iolanthe is more committed than ever to fulfilling her destiny—especially with the agents of Atlantis quickly closing in.

Soon after arriving at school, though, Titus makes a shocking discovery, one that makes him question everything he previously believed about their mission. Faced with this devastating realization, Iolanthe is forced to come to terms with her new role, while Titus must choose between following his mother's prophecies—and forging a divergent path to an unknowable future.

I just listened to The Burning Sky on audio as a refresher so that I could finally get to The Perilous Sea, a book I've been looking forward to since the second I finished the first installment. And after listening to that first book on audio and loving it even more the second time around, I knew I wouldn't be able to wait to start the sequel. Actually, I knew then that I'd have to listen to this one on audio because the narrator was just so right for this book. I questioned a single narrator -- and a male one at that since Iolanthe is such a big part of the story -- but Philip Battley really was the perfect choice for this series.

That said, when I started this audio, I felt that things were progressing rather slowly, compared to what I remembered of the previous book. I'm sure that had a lot to do with the story being split into a before-and-after type of narrative, with me waiting not-so-patiently for the two halves of the story to meet in the middle. But I'm sure it had more to do with Titus questioning the path he thought he was on with Iolanthe after a rather surprising turn of events early on in the story.

The pacing did pick up, and I kept holding out hope that things were not as they seemed. And I was rewarded with one surprise after another. Usually, I pride myself on picking up on things rather quickly, having worked out how the book's going to go pretty early on, even if it does make for a predictable read. But with The Perilous Sea, I never knew what to expect next. And I often found that I didn't care; I just kept listening, kept hoping that Iolanthe and Titus would continue to outwit and elude the Bane at every turn.

It probably didn't hurt that each chapter shuffles the reader between the present and back to the beginning of the term, when Iolanthe and Titus are only just reuniting after a summer apart. And at the end of each chapter is a cliffhanger that left me reeling, but I was so engrossed in the story that I just could not be bothered to press pause. I loved how much more prominent the secondary characters were in this installment -- especially Kashkari -- and I really enjoyed the focus on whether the hero writes his own destiny or if it's already been written in the stars for him. Honestly, I am just really captivated by the direction this series has taken overall, even more so than I was in the first book.

I'm immensely happy with what was revealed in this book and what remains to be discovered. And I loved the romance even more this time around, maybe because I got to see Iolanthe and Titus work their way back to each other in one time line and fall in love all over again in the other. The way Thomas wrote this novel really is impressive in that manner. The Perilous Sea was an amazingly strong sequel, and this series is fast becoming a favorite. If you love fantasy, girls disguised as boys, and all manner of magic, I highly recommend this series.

GIF it to me straight:

This sequel totally blew me away...and it's even better on audio!

About the author:

Sherry Thomas is one of the most acclaimed romance authors working today. Her books regularly receive starred reviews from trade publications and are frequently found on best-of-the-year lists. She is also a two-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award.

English is Sherry’s second language—she has come a long way from the days when she made her laborious way through Rosemary Roger’s Sweet Savage Love with an English-Chinese dictionary. She enjoys digging down to the emotional core of stories. And when she is not writing, she thinks about the zen and zaniness of her profession, plays computer games with her sons, and reads as many fabulous books as she can find.

Find Sherry:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Labels: audiobooks, beautiful covers, fantasy, favorites, harper-collins, magic, reviews, sherry thomas, the elemental trilogy

Top Ten Tuesday: When It's All About the Characters

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =) We're game.

This week's topic is the Top Ten Books For Readers Who Like Character-Driven Novels.

April's Picks:

I may be interpreting this topic all wrong, but I'm basing it on my love of the characters from these books. Maybe it's cheating to add Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, but the thing is.. Vampire Academy, I was so in love with all of those characters. Rose and Dimitri especially, so when I picked up Bloodlines, I wasn't expecting to fall in love all over again, but I did, and the characters are what bring me back to these stories over and over.

To mix it up a little, I added Bella Andre's The Look of Love. It's adult romance, and the first of a series that follows the Sullivan family while they fall in love. As the books go on, you get to see how previous characters are doing and I love that. I became highly addicted and read them all straight through.

Since you've been gone, I loved those characters hard.. and Morgan Matson just has this way of making you connect with them all, not just this one, but the other books she's written. And last of all, The Iron Fey books. While the world building is freaking amazing, it's the characters that add icing to the cake. At least for me. :)



Jen's Picks:

For me, a character-driven story is one where there's some action, but the plot is slower-paced, moved forward by characters and their interactions rather than through intense actions scenes. The characters engage each other a lot -- and there are usually lots of characters -- and it's all leading up to one big thing toward the end of the novel. I actually prefer character-driven novels most of the time, and these listed below are some of my favorites. Also, I couldn't help myself...even though April only did five, I couldn't not feature all of those books from one of my most favorite authors, especially since she seems to specialize in character-driven novels.

How do you feel about character-driven novels? Love 'em? Hate 'em? What's your favorite? Be sure to share a link to your TTT post so we can visit!

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Labels: character-driven novels, top ten tuesday

{Audiobook} Review: The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead

Title: The Indigo Spell
Author: Richelle Mead
Series: Bloodlines #3
Narrator: Emily Shaffer
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Publication Date: Feb 12th, 2013
Source: Purchased Audio
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets--and human lives." In the aftermath of a forbidden moment that rocked Sydney to her core, she finds herself struggling to draw the line between her Alchemist teachings and what her heart is urging her to do. Then she meets alluring, rebellious Marcus Finch--a former Alchemist who escaped against all odds, and is now on the run. Marcus wants to teach Sydney the secrets he claims the Alchemists are hiding from her. But as he pushes her to rebel against the people who raised her, Sydney finds that breaking free is harder than she thought. There is an old and mysterious magic rooted deeply within her. And as she searches for an evil magic user targeting powerful young witches, she realizes that her only hope is to embrace her magical blood--or else she might be next.

Oh my goodness, so far the Indigo Spell has been my favorite. Perhaps the next will trump my feelings on this one, we will see.

Golden Lily leaves us off with some serious tension between Sydney and Adrian. When I say tension, I mean all tension, especially sexual tension. Their chemistry is unbelievable, and I cannot get enough of it.

Adrian is as always, a dream come true. His devotion it Sydney is something I want to package up and deliver to every girl in the world. He’s just… *sigh*. Not perfect, by all means, but he’s perfect for Sydney that’s for sure. Lots of “romance” in this one and that made me oh so happy.

There is a lot of magic going on in this installment. Also, a lot of laughs. All I’m going to say is “The bunny room” That shit was funny. And the plot thickens. The alchemists are possibly up to no good, and I loved all the info that is revealed about all of that.

The ending, oh the ending, I loved it so much. But then… OH no… Something happens, and it’s going to make the following book very interesting! I would have downloaded and started it already, but I’m listening to an audiobook from my library and deadlines.. ya know? If I download it there will be no way I can hold off listening to it.

I am really loving these books. Fans of VA who haven’t read these yet need to get on them! Now! I'm blowing through them

About the author:

Scorpio Richelle Mead is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of urban fantasy books for both adults and teens. Originally from Michigan, Richelle now lives in Seattle, Washington where she works on her three series full-time: Georgina Kincaid, Dark Swan, and Vampire Academy.

A life-long reader, Richelle has always loved mythology and folklore. When she can actually tear herself away from books (either reading or writing them), she enjoys bad reality TV, traveling, trying interesting cocktails, and shopping for dresses. She's a self-professed coffee addict and has a passion for all things wacky and humorous.

Find Richelle:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Labels: Audiobook, awesome, bloodlines, richelle mead, the indigo spell, vampire academy, vampires

Stacking The Shelves # 36

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and is a way to share with everyone all the goodies you've received through out the week. 

Just click the covers to be taken to their goodreads pages. 

Purchased

Guess what time it is? I got another Audible credit! Yay for a new month. I actually dropped to one credit a month because I've been getting some Audio from my library. I've been wanting to read this one, and I figured I would grab it since my library doesn't have it. 

And some books for Aubrey. There is a used book store a few doors down from her dance studio, so we went in and walked out with all of these. Three dollars. A steal! 

For Review

 

(Thank You Macmillan)

I'm pretty excited for this one. Jen got me Something Real for my bday and I just started it this week. I like it so far, so when I was notified that they approved me for this title, I danced a little. :) 

It's October! Holy freaking shit! Where did the time go? The past 3 weeks have been a total blur for me. Learning the ropes at the new job, it's been exhausting, but I really like it. It's taking up so much of my free time, so I'm crazy behind on reading and well, everything. That's to be expected I suppose. To wind down at the end of the week, we took a little walk after dinner. Fall has always been my favorite season, because OMG the colors. They don't last long though, so it was nice to take advantage of them. :) 

My house and a road on our block. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

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Labels: stacking the shelves

The Weekend Update - 10.4.14

So, since my end-of-the-week post isn't just about what I got in my mailbox or on my Kindle each week -- though that is a big part of it, I won't lie -- I decided to change up the title and intro a bit.  I might tweak the format a bit over the next few weeks, but for the most part, it'll contain the same stuff: stuff I got, stuff I did, and stuff that's coming up on the blog.  Plus, I get to use the awesome GIF you see here and blow kisses to all the people who sent me lovely books and bookish things.  Oh, and I've started linking up to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews since I'm not using a specific meme title anymore.  April's also doing her own Stacking the Shelves posts on Sundays.  Stop by and say hi!  =)

So much bookish excitement this week! I finally bought a bookish tee to wear to the Texas Teen Book Festival later this month. I got to help my good author friend Sarah with her beautiful cover reveal. And I got all kinds of awesome new reads to boot! After all of my spooky reading is done this month, I should have much more time for all of these gems. :D

Anyway, here's what I scored this week:

For Review:

I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios (via Netgalley) - I have been dying to get my hands on this book. I even featured it as a WoW pick awhile back. I'll definitely be getting to this one as soon as I finish all of my spooky reads. :)

A Cold Legacy by Megan Shepherd (via Edelweiss) - I've really enjoyed this series, and I'm curious to see how it all ends. I think this installment is based on Frankenstein, which is always intriguing.

Willowgrove by Kathleen Peacock (via Edelweiss) - Damn, I need to read the second book so I'm caught up, but I loved the Veronica Mars-vibe I was getting from Hemlock.

The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre - I'm a huge fan of this author, and I couldn't pass up this book. I prefer her fantasy novels, but I'm all for giving another contemporary a try.

Dream a Little Dream by Kerstin Gier - LOVED the Ruby Red trilogy. Loved it. And this cover is so pretty! I hope there's a comparable character to Gwen's little gargoyle friend in Ruby Red! Another awesome WoW pick received, too. :)

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers - Ahhh! I might have screamed when this showed up, even though I knew it was coming, lol. I'm just so excited to read it because I've heard nothing but good things...even to the point that it's the best of the series!

Soulprint by Megan Miranda - I've always loved the creepy, sciencey-vibe in Megan's books, and I'm sure this one will be no different. And that cover is so cool and much neater in person.

Won:

Jackaby by William Ritter - Won a signed copy from Jessabella Reads and Algonquin YR! So excited, especially after all of the comparisons to Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes!

So, that's my haul. How about you? What did you get this week?

The Week in Review:

Reviews:

• Trial by Fire (April)
• Every Breath (Jen)
• Trial by Fire - audio (Jen)

Current Giveaways: 

Promotional/Discussion Posts:  

• Tough Subject Matter - the top ten books we had a difficult time reading
• Waiting on Wednesday - this week we're waiting on Twisted Fate & The Winner's Crime
• Into the Spooky Swamp Setting of MARY: THE SUMMONING - guest post from author Hillary Monahan
• Judging a Book By Its Cover: The Young Elites, as envisioned by Katiebug and Aubrey
• Cover Reveal for Sarah Fine's forthcoming Of Dreams and Rust, the sequel to her fabulous Of Metal and Wishes

Jen's Currently Reading/Listening To:

I've loved everything I've read of Sarah Fine's, but my first love is Malachi. Er, I mean, her Guards of the Shadowlands series. It's so intense and dark and obviously, the leading man is entirely swoonworthy. But she nearly killed me with the ending to Fractured and so I was a little scared of this final installment. I shouldn't have been. :)

The end is nigh and I am unsure of how I feel about that fact. I adore Kami and her group of sleuthing, magical friends, and I'm not ready to say goodbye yet. I've been reading teasers on the author's site since I finished the last book, and I know that big things are coming. (Yeah, I still haven't actually started this one yet. Oops.)

Upcoming Reviews:

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Labels: in my mailbox (imm), stacking the shelves, the weekend update