Answers and Winner for 300th Blog Post Contest

The winner of the contest is Danielle!

I'll list the answers below and Danielle can send me her top choices so I can get them ordered.

1. I eyeballed the freezer, trying to decide what to cook for dinner that night.

2. "Bronwyn Alessia St.Vincent Clare!"

3. I have to.

4. The moment the door opened I knew an ass-kicking was inevitable.

5. Riley Blackthorne rolled her eyes.

6. "Come on!" Emma whispered from my right, her words floating from her mouth in a thin white cloud.

7. On the day Claire became a member of the Glass house, somebody stole her laundry.

8. Digging graves is hell on a manicure, but I was taught good vampires clean up after every meal.

9. No one knew better than Walter Rice that the only safe place was away from other people.

10. I felt her fear before I heard her screams.

1. Tempest Rising - Jane True series by Nicole Peeler
2. Raised by Wolves - Raised by Wolves series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
3. Bitten - Women of the Otherworld (or just Otherworld) by Kelley Armstrong
4. Stray - Shifters series by Rachel Vincent
5. Forsaken - Demon Trappers series by Jana Oliver
6. My Soul to Take - Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent
7. Glass Houses - Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine
8. Red Headed Stepchild - Sabina Kane series by Jaye Wells
9. Cry Wolf - Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs
10. Vampire Academy - Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead


If you haven't already, I would highly recommend any of these series. 2, 5, 6, 7 and 10 are all YA and the rest are adult.

Gameboard of the Gods by Richelle Mead

In a futuristic world nearly destroyed by religious extremists, Justin March lives in exile after failing in his job as an investigator of religious groups and supernatural claims. But Justin is given a second chance when Mae Koskinen comes to bring him back to the Republic of United North America (RUNA). Raised in an aristocratic caste, Mae is now a member of the military's most elite and terrifying tier, a soldier with enhanced reflexes and skills.

When Justin and Mae are assigned to work together to solve a string of ritualistic murders, they soon realise that their discoveries have exposed them to terrible danger. As their investigation races forward, unknown enemies and powers greater than they can imagine are gathering in the shadows, ready to reclaim the world in which humans are merely game pieces on their board.

Release Date 4th June 2013

Justin is in exile until Mae approaches him and he discovers RUNA want him back for one job, a job which suits his particular talents. The outcome of this job may decide his future - and he only has a month to solve several murders and stop the next one from happening. He also has to fight his attraction to Mae for reasons known to himself (and those who have finished the book - no spoilers!) and look after a 16 year old with talents similar to his - the power of observation.

I liked Mead's Vampire Academy series but not her adult series (the succubus one) so I was both looking forward to and wary of this one - I'm glad to say it was worthy of looking forward to status. I really enjoyed the world she's written in this book and also the characters. Both Mae and Justin are fun (although Justin can be a tad egotistical and obnoxious at times - he kind of has his reasons), but I did like Mae more. I think it's the whole kick-ass woman thing - I can't help it, it's a big seller to me.

Big recommendation to any Mead fans and also to any dystopian & god-based-book fans. It seems to have a place for all gods, not just ones of a particular mythology. Can't wait to read the next one.


Book Depository: Gameboard of the Gods
Amazon UK: Gameboard of the Gods

Country vs Country - Vampire Academy

It's been a while but here is my 5th Cover vs Cover post. This time around, we're looking at the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead.

These are the covers I own and I liked them well enough until it came to buying Last Sacrifice and I couldn't get the same cover here in the UK so I bought the UK cover and then looked up the rest of the series.

I LOVE these covers and it annoys me that I have the US covers. To the point that I'm going to re-buy the entire series in the UK covers so I have covers that I like.

What covers are your favourite?

Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead

It all comes down to now.
The queen is dead and the moroi world will never be the same.
Rose Hathaway is awaiting wrongful execution and there exists only one man who can stall this terrible fate. Rose must look to both Dimitri and Adrian, the two great loves of her life, to find him.
With her best friend, Lissa, in a deadly struggle for the royal throne, the girls find themselves forced to rely upon enemies and questioning those they thought they could trust ...
But what if true freedom means sacrificing the most important thing of all?
Each other.

The latest and final installment in the Vampire Academy series. The series, in reading order is: Vampire Academy, Frostbite, Shadow Kiss, Blood Promise, Spirit Bound and then Last Sacrifice. The series has followed Rose and Lissa as they grow up and graduate and deal with multiple problems. Rose's are normally Guardian related while Lissa's are royalty or Spirit related. If you haven't read the rest of the series, I suggest you stop reading this (there will be spoilers to previous books) and go read them.

So Rose is the main character but since she's spirit bound to Lissa, she's normally in the books a fair bit too. This book focuses on Lissa trying to prove Rose is innocent and also deal with the new queen or king getting voted for. Problems are raised with Lissa being the last Dragomir (as far as anyone is concerned) and Lissa and friends decide to try and stall the new royal vote to buy Rose more time.

Meanwhile Rose still has a letter from Queen Tatiana revealing that Lissa is not in fact the last Dragomir, she has a sibling out there somewhere. Rose needs to find this sibling so that Lissa can take her rightful place on the royal council and help change the Moroi and Dhampir world for the better. This isn't as easy as it sounds as any records of said child have been erased and no-one seems to know anything. It's a race against time for both of them.

I liked this book, but it definitely wasn't my favourite. I like the characters in this series and always have, Rose is brilliant but stubborn and can sometimes be a pain in the ass. The same can also be said about Lissa though, she always seems a bit ditzy but she's not. I never understood why she was written this way. I also haven't entirely made up my mind yet about whether I liked the ending or not, I think a re-erad of all the books back-to-back is in order.

My main problem with this book has absolutely nothing to with the actual story, characters or author. In my copy of Last Sacrifice there are a hell of a lot of mistakes, simple mistakes that should have been caught in the editing process. One or two annoys me enough as it is but there were a lot more than one or two and it really started to get on my nerves.

Even though Vampire Academy is now finished, Richelle Mead has started on a spin off called Bloodlines. This features different characters from the original series as main characters and she has stated that it's a new storyline and not just a rehashing of an old story. It should be released in August and I'm looking forward to reading it.


Book Depository: Last Sacrifice
Amazon UK: Last Sacrifice