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♥ KINDLE PAPERWHITE GIVEAWAY ♥

April 22, 2013 by Aestas · 707 Comments

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It’s just been one milestone after the other recently! Last week we were celebrating Aestas Book Blog’s first year running and today we are celebrating reaching over 10,000 Facebook Followers.

TEN FREAKING THOUSAND!!!!!

So, to celebrate and to say THANK YOU to all of you amazing book lovers who have both supported my blog from the start and also to the ones who are just joining now, I’m giving away a KINDLE PAPERWHITE !!!

Giveaway is open Internationally.
Void where prohibited. Must be over 18 to enter.
See giveaway details + eligibility requirements at bottom of post.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

This giveaway is open Internationally… HOWEVER, in order to be eligible to win, the country you live in must be one of the ones listed by Amazon here. So please check before entering!
Regardless of whether you enter or are drawn as the winner, if your country of residence is not one of the ones listed by Amazon, then you are not eligible to win, and a different winner will be selected should your name get chosen.
Winner is responsible to buy all accessories (including a power adapter). Prize is the Paperwhite ONLY.
Aestas Book Blog is not responsible for damaged products. After the item has been shipped, all inquiries/issues must be directed to Amazon.
Giveaway is void where prohibited.
You must be over 18 years old to enter.

And, if you’re looking for a book recommendation, then check out my
List of Best Books Read in 2013… So Far

Happy reading!!

Book Review – Going Under by S. Walden

April 17, 2013 by Aestas · 19 Comments

4.5 – 5 stars.

Whoa.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

This book did a number on me.

It addressed a tough, intense, gritty subject matter in an evocative, well-written way.

It was gutsy, controversial, and painful at times but also, raw, honest, and in the end, beautiful.

This is not a story I’ll ever forget.

I feel the need to put a bit a warning at the front of the review that contains a bit of a spoiler, but I honestly wouldn’t feel comfortable reviewing this book without being upfront about it. This won’t spoil the story, or give away any of the twists because the issue is addressed in the first 5% of the book but you should know the following before reading this book: This book contains an intense rape scene. It was a graphic, but not “over-done”, written from the POV of the victim, and I’m not going to lie that it left me feeling shaken.

Without giving too much away, the set up of the book (and you discover this at about 6% in) is that the heroine, Brooke’s best friend Beth was raped in high school but she felt unable to come forward publicly with an accusation. She kept it to herself and that coupled with other emotional hits in her life drove her to commit suicide. Brooke is left feeling guilty for not having protected her in the first place. So when mom moves away, she decides to go live with her dad and spend her senior year at Beth’s high school with the hopes of being the voice of the victim and willing to go to any lengths to bring down the guy who destroyed her best friend’s life. Her plan is to lure Beth’s rapist, Cal, (one of the “popular” guys ) into raping her so that she can them come forward with a statement and put him away for good where he can no longer hurt anyone.

“A righteous anger flared in me immediately, and just like that, I discovered a purpose. My purpose. It flooded me instantly, a great wave slamming into my mind and my heart, carrying with it the courage and conviction of my newly formed plan… And I transformed into the predator. He just didn’t know it yet. He thought I was the prey, and I’d let him.”

But the deeper she digs, the thicker the plot gets. She overheard Cal and his friends and discovers that they have a twisted sex club with with charts, scoreboards and tasks all involving getting various girls at the school in bed or on their knees. To make matters worse, they are willing to go to any lengths including drugging the girls to get their points and she soon discovers a whole trail of girls who were once happy and full of life and but were now missing that light in their eyes. And what she wasn’t counting on that only made matters more complicated was Ryan, the beautiful guy she meets at school who was swoony and thought the world of her but was also very mysterious and clearly hiding some dark secret of his own.

I’ll leave you at that. The rest of the story you can discover if you choose to read this, which, if you can handle the subject matter, I do encourage you too.

Interestingly though, despite the heavy subject matter, this is not a dark book. It takes place in high school and definitely has a measure sweetness to it.

Brooke is very much the center of this story. She was a smart, strong and sassy heroine who was also fragile, hurting and emotionally cut up on the inside. She felt very real. She messed up, had fears, insecurities, nightmares and more but deep down she was tough as nails and willing to go to any lengths for her friend.

I had so many questions about Ryan! He was so quiet and mysterious, not to mention just plain hot. I loved how he made her feel like she was the only girl in the world and yet didn’t ask for anything in return. But the mystery around him was thick. I wanted to know more about him and my mind kept running through all sorts of theories behind his secrecy.

“Why are you so mysterious?” …
“Look, you probably don’t want to be associated with me at school, okay?… I guess I’m a bit of a pariah. And I don’t mind. I just don’t wanna drag you down.”
I looked at him, astonished. “Okay. You just upped the mysterious factor by a trillion.”
He laughed.

I know for a solid fact that abuse happens more often than people realize in schools. It has happened to someone I know and it has happened to thousands of others. I thought this book did a great job of highlighting that. Of showing how easy it was for the monsters to hide in plain sight and cover their tracks. And of how chillingly normal everything could look on the surface.

“He didn’t seem like a predator… I realized I needed to look at evil in an entirely new light. Most bad guys weren’t running around with eyes bugged out. Most bad guys didn’t come across freaky and frightening…Most bad guys were normal, everyday guys moving through life like anyone else… They were hard to spot and that’s what made them so good at being bad… They could get away with it, and they knew it.”

I got totally lost in this story. In both the morbid fascination mixed with extreme fear to see how Brooke’s story line with Cal would play out as well as totally lost in the swoon of her and Ryan.

It’s one of those books that has you almost crying in one moment and then laughing out loud the next.

I loved this quote. Brooke loves to paint and while this quote is about her painting, I really felt that it represented the book as a whole:

“You think you know what to expect. You think you have it all planned out. But something in you always surprises you, and it’s a buzzing undercurrent that keeps you silently guessing until your picture is complete.”

The character dynamics and relationships were all brilliant. Brooke and her friend Gretchen – hilarious, bonded BFFs. Brooke and Call – creepy as all hell and deeply chilling. Brooke and Ryan – hot, mysterious, swoony, gorgeous. Brooke and her dad – sweet, touching, healing… the list goes on.

Now, I need to address the issue of rape in this book. The first thing to note is that it was handled in a very realistic manner. It was graphic and chilling. But, as I said earlier, not over done. That being said, I honest to God, just felt sick to my stomach. I had a good long think after this book. This book really read like a 5 star book to me. But after reading *that* scene, a big part of me just wanted to throw it all out and never look at the book again. That was part of my gut instinct reaction. But then I thought about it. This happens in real life. Every day. Woman and girls across the world are violated and abused each day. And I had to look past how hard it was for me to read it and realize what an important message this book was telling. I did however need a little bit of time to just sit and process my emotions.

This book is about the tragedy borne of silence, of finding the strength to speak out, and the righteous delivery of justice. It is also about finding love, finding forgiveness and following your heart no matter what.

There is a love story in this book. A passionate, heartbreaking romance that does have a happy ending. It is no fairy tale to be sure. But don’t worry about having your heart permanently shattered, because there is healing and despite being shaken, I was left in a good place.

This is a stand alone.

*** The author does not encourage rape or sexual assault victims to read this book and I strongly agree with her.

PURCHASE LINKS

GOING UNDER (Kindle)
GOING UNDER (Paperback)

CASTING

Ryan
Brooke

♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBI GLINES!!!!!! ♥

April 15, 2013 by Aestas · 677 Comments

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❤ HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBI GLINES!!!!!! ❤

A bunch of the fans here at Aestas Book Blog wanted to show her how much we appreciate her and her books and so we got together to send her as much love as we could.

So, Abbi, if you are reading this and you scroll below, you’ll see a few hundred birthday messages from us wishing you the very happiest of birthdays!!

❤❤❤

❤ ABOUT THE BOOKS ❤

Readers, if you haven’t yet read Abbi’s books, here’s a list of a few of her series!
I’ve read the TOO FAR books and absolutely LOVED them!

❤

❤ FOLLOW ABBI ON ❤

❤ GIVEAWAYS ❤

There are two giveaways you can enter. Since today is actually also Aestas Book Blog’s birthday, there is a Birthday Bash Giveaway with loads of Signed Books that you can enter HERE.

Also, there is a special Giveaway from the Abbi Glines’ birthday event planners below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you to ATOMR Blog Tours for organizing this Birthday Event!!

Book Review – Real by Katy Evans

April 12, 2013 by Aestas · 29 Comments

Please don’t lynch me!!

I’m a little scared to say this given all the passionate fans of this book but, if I’m going to be honest, I just wasn’t feeling it.

I mean, I get it. I totally get why so many readers loved it. It had a hot Alpha (somewhat damaged) hero, boat loads of steam and all, plus he was a fighter (gotta love the bad boys, right?) but… I just honestly barely felt anything while reading. I also had several issues with some of the content and then found the ending absolutely predictable. Nothing ever surprised me or made my heart race so … I just don’t think this story was for me.

I know a LOT of readers loved it though, it’s been getting so many 5 star ratings, so I know that in many people’s eyes it’s got something special and I fully respect that, I guess I just personally couldn’t connect to it.

REAL follows the story of Brooke and Remy. Remy was the champion boxer who every woman just lost their heads over. He was hot, dangerous, and unbeatable in the ring. When Brooke’s friend drags her to one of his fights, they have a chance encounter and from that moment on are hooked on each other.

But when she was called to his hotel room after the fight, the last thing she expected was to be offered a job to tour with them. Brooke specialized in athlete rehab therapy and Remy wanted her there to help him with his training and after his fights. Or so he says. What he was really looking for is something “real”. A real connection. Not to Remington “Riptide” Tate, but to him, Remy. She agreed, and their story began.

I had several issues with the story but I’m just going to just list a few of the main ones then leave it at that so that you can get a feel for what bothered me.

My first issue was their connection, or lack of. For me, it was too much, too soon. The entire story was told from Brooke’s perspective and I just felt there was SO much focus (right from like page 2) on how hot she was for him every time she even saw him that I felt there was no time spent on actually building a real connection between them.

My second issues was the repetitiveness of both the scenes and certain words. There was a lot of clenching, muscle bulging, drenching etc. I’m not usually one to nit pick, but the word ‘clench’ was used over 70 times in the book. That’s a lot of clenching. And it began on page 3. Another term that I began to tire of was ‘speedy’. Now the hero was bi-polar. And (I’ll address my issues regarding that next) but whenever he had an episode, they called it him going ‘speedy’ and I just got tired of the word. And just in general, a lot of the wording really made me mentally ‘trip’ while reading. Here’s an example of the kind of thing that just didn’t work for me.

“Tonight we’re both naked and deliciously entangled, and my sexy blue-eyed lion now seems content to have petted me for a long while, until I feel groomed down to my bones.”

Ok, next, about him being bi-polar. I won’t give the details because I don’t want to spoil them, but basically, everything regarding the way his medical condition was a bit of a stretch to the point that it wasn’t even remotely believable. I felt that, if the author was going to use that plot element, she should have use it accurately. I normally try to look past this sort of thing but it really bothered me here because it was referenced several time and there was just no way it was remotely plausible. His condition was described as some sort of gene switch that flicked back and forth and could also be determined by looking at his eyes which switched from blue to black if he had an ‘episode’. His eye color chance was also linked to this gene switch. In a paranormal story, sure, I’d buy it. In a real life story, no way.

And finally, I predicted the ending from about a half way into the story. To a tee. So there was no adrenaline rush or anything because I just knew exactly what was going to happen.

I thought this book had great potential. I liked Remy a lot as a character and I even think that in a different book, I could have maybe fully fallen in love with him. His back-story made my heart ache and it set him up wonderfully as a damaged/tortured hero and I totally understood where he was coming from in terms of wanting to find something ‘real’ in a relationship.

“Why’d you want to have sex with me? To have a fucking adventure? What was I supposed to be? Your one-night-fucking stand? I’m every woman’s adventure, damn you, and I don’t want to be yours. I want to be your fucking REAL. You get that?”

“I want this. Very badly.” He nuzzles my nose with his. “I’m trying not to fuck it up, all right?”

See? Now that stuff is swoony! And the way I look at it is this. I liked Remy. I really did. What I didn’t like was everything surrounding him – including the heroine, which sucked because the story was told from her perspective. But, the result was that it made it harder for me to connect to the book as a whole (including Remy).

I mean, there were a few awwww moments, a few really gorgeous lines, and a few moments where I felt the hint of a ‘spark’ in their connection but those moments were brief and didn’t last long enough to sway me into fully liking the book.

I fully respect that many people loved this book, it just really wasn’t for me.

3.5 – 4 stars for Remy’s character.
2 stars for the rest of the book.

PURCHASE LINK

Buy REAL (Kindle)

Book Review – In The Stillness by Andrea Randall

April 12, 2013 by Aestas · 7 Comments

“I love you so much, Natalie, and when I get home I’m going to keep loving you until you tell me to stop. But don’t, please. Don’t tell me to stop.”

6 HUGE STARS!!!!

So far, I’m calling this the best stand-alone book of the year!

In The Stillness blew me away. A painfully heartbreaking, emotionally charged and beautifully crafted story of love, loss and healing.

YOU ALL SHOULD READ IT!!!!!!

I have to admit, when I first heard about this book, I was a little scared to start. It had a lot of dark and painful themes – namely that the heroine was a cutter. But from the few people I’d talked to who’d read it, all I heard were incredible things.

What convinced me to start though was finding out that it was a second-chance romance (one of my favorite kinds of love stories) and also honestly, just the sheer, raw, emotional reactions people were having to it peaked my curiosity to no end. I just *had* to see what it was all about.

My gosh, was it just mind-blowing. The writing was flawless and just so raw and honest, with perfect pacing and a beautiful flow to it that fully conveyed every emotion the heroine went through.

The book’s blurb really doesn’t tell you what the story is about so I’m going to ‘set up’ the story a bit for you so that you can get a feeling of what it’s all about:

Back in college, Natalie and Ryker fell in love. Truly, madly, take-over-your-life deeply in love. But after 9/11, he was sent off to fight. And when he returned, his body was in tact but what he’d gone through had left him with a severe case of PTSD.

“His body came home, but his soul had been devoured in the firefight of a godless desert.”

Situations escalated and some lines were crossed and they broke up. A decade later, Natalie finds herself in a marriage she never wanted, with kids she never planned on having, straying further and futher away from the life path she always dreamed of. She feels trapped and utterly miserable. Each one of her hopes dreams have come crashing down and every turn in her life has taken her further and further away from happiness until it just pressed in from all sides and became over whelming. And so she cuts.

Cutting for Natalie was a release from the pain of her life. I may not have been able to relate to Natalie on a personal level but I certainly understood her. She was in a dark place. Utterly and completely unhappy with her life, and yet stuck with it. With responsibilities and duties that tied her down in a way that made her feel utterly trapped, and thus fueling her unhappiness. It was a never ending cycle. Or, more like a spiral actually, that pulled her deeper and deeper into the darkness. Cutting was her way of finding control and finding release. It wasn’t right, or healthy, but it was her coping mechanism.

“I feel like a caged animal, rabid with need for freedom that was stolen from me.”

And then one day, out of the blue, she sees Ryker again. I won’t tell you any more, but just know that I loved every single line of this book.

The story is told in told in a mixture of flashbacks and present day story lines. The writing is just so fluid. There are no wasted words, no extra fluff. And despite the fact that it jumped back and forth in time, the segments were arranged in such a way that I was never once unsure of what was going on and the pacing and flow of the story was such that I there were no interruptions in my connection to the characters. You could just feel it in every scene that a great amount of thought, time and research had gone into the creation of this book.

I loved the kind of love that Natalie and Ryker had. Ryker was just it for her. You know? They had the kind of love that just makes you shake. Cry. Laugh. Ache right down to your soul. It was an irreplaceable love. The kind that, once taken away leaves a hole that no other person can ever fill.

“I love you for a reason, Natalie. You’re mine and I’m yours.”

I can’t tell you how strongly I felt their love and their pull towards each other. It wasn’t because of epic swoon or anything. Their lives were just an imperfect mess of wrong turns and yet STILL the sheer strength of their pull towards each other was just overpowering. Natalie’s best friend summed it up perfectly:

“You two had something special — it’s the circumstances that were shitty.”

I felt like I was on a constant emotional overflow. For the final half of the book I read alternating between crying and having a lump in my throat. My eyes were never dry and often tears were just pouring down my face. It was just one emotional hit after another. There were times when I had to stop reading for a minute or two, simply because I couldn’t see the words any longer through my tears.

“I love you so much, Natalie, and when I get home I’m going to keep loving you until you tell me to stop. But don’t, please. Don’t tell me to stop.”

Everything about this book was realistic, raw, and never hid the truth from you. I honestly can say that I do not have a single complaint about this book. Do I wish I could take away the pain of their lives? Sure. But would I change a single word of this book? No.

Something which was very important to me in this story and that I admired in Natalie was that despite all the pain, depression, and misery she was feeling in the inside, she never once let that seep into her relationship with her kids. She may not have wanted to be a mother, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a good one. She was kind, sweet, patient and loving to them. Always. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting that of her going into the story, and I was pleasantly surprised at that side of her. To me, what that proved more than anything was that she wasn’t truly messed up, she was just dealing with an overwhelming amount of sadness and needed an outlet. But the fact that she kept her outlet contained to herself spoke volumes about her as a person. At least in my eyes.

I honestly could not put this book down. Not even for a second. It was the kind of story that sucks you right in and makes you want more. The story was constantly moving forward, with no slow spots. It build in layers giving you more and more pieces of the story until everything made sense and everything came together.

Everything about this book broke my heart. But in a good way, you know? I just had to believe that out of the horrible mess of their lives, there was some room, some hope for a happy ending.

And it did have a happy ending. You really got the feeling that they had gotten to a good point in their lives where from that point forward, they’d be able to rebuild and heal together.

I will say though that despite my giving it a 6-star rating, I would just LOVE if the author would write an epilogue one day. Not like a whole chapter, and not even more of the story at that point, but I would have loved a glimpse into their lives maybe a few months, or even a few years down the road. I mean, I know in my head how it would have all played out, but it’s something I would have loved to read in her words.

That being said, the book was just PHENOMENAL. Seriously. One of the best I’ve ever read. I adored it with all my heart and it’s earned itself a special place in both my heart and on my favorites shelf.

I feel it’s the kind of story that regardless of whether or not you can relate to it, there is just no way that you won’t feel it deep down to the very bottom of your heart.

I highly, highly recommend it!!

Powerful. Painful. Raw. Emotional. Beautiful.

6 stars.

PURCHASE LINKS

♥ HUGE SIGNED GIVEAWAY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION ♥

April 11, 2013 by Aestas · 996 Comments

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!

or… it’s the blog’s birthday, rather 😉

April 15th marks the first year that Aestas Book Blog has been running!
I swear, it feel like it was yesterday that I made the first post.

And the fact that, since then, the blog has had several hundred thousand visits is just completely and utterly MIND BLOWING to me!!!

I can honestly tell you that when I first started this blog, I had no idea it would turn into anything. It was just me and my crazy mad book obsession wanting to put my thoughts down about all these amazing books that I’d been reading. Turns out I wasn’t the only one with such an addiction and over the past 12 months, I’ve had the privilege of “meeting” an incredible number of amazingly wonderful readers and incredibly talented authors. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me knowing there are so many other people out there whose hearts race when their favorite book is mentioned, who’ll stay up till 5AM ‘cuz they just *had* to finish their book and who love to share recommendations.

You guys have all made it this past year one helluva fun time,
so I just wanted to say THANK YOU!!!

Really. From the bottom of my heart.

♥♥♥ THANK YOU ♥♥♥
Thank you for your support, for your participation, and just generally for being here.

So….. I have something for you.
Or, rather, “we” have something for you.

I decided that the best way to celebrate my blog’s first year would be to share with you a few of the books that have earned a special place in my heart. And so, I’ve teamed up with a whole crew of incredibly generous authors who have all agreed to give away their signed books here.

** THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED **

But the next giveaway will start this weekend and it’s for a KINDLE PAPERWHITE!!!!!!!!

To be notified of it, be sure to Like the Aestas Book Blog Facebook Page.

Giveaways are open Internationally.
(although some books are US only, so check before selecting them)
They are void where prohibited and you must be over 18 to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

PURCHASE LINKS FOR ALL PARTICIPATING BOOKS

FALLEN TOO FAR & NEVER TOO FAR by Abbi Glines
LOVE UNSCRIPTED & LOVE UNREHEARSED by Tina Reber
BACK TO YOU & EMANCIPATING ANDIE by Priscilla Glenn
LOSING IT & FAKING IT by Cora Carmack
FALL FROM GRACE  & SAVING GRACE by Christine Zolendz
SINS & NEEDLES  & ON EVERY STREET by Karina Halle
SLAMMED &   POINT OF RETREAT by Colleen Hoover
CONSEQUENCES & TRUTH  by Aleatha Romig
IN FLIGHT , MILE HIGH & GROUNDED by RK Lilley

CAPTIVE IN THE DARK by CJ Roberts
HOPELESS by Colleen Hoover
WALKING DISASTER by Jamie McGuire
ON DUBLIN STREET by Samantha Young
THE EDGE OF NEVER by JA Redmerski
THOUGHTLESS by SC Stephens
THE SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Katja Millay
WOUNDED by Jasinda Wilder
COVET by Tracey Garvis Graves (ARC)
THE PROPOSITION by Katie Ashley
THE SECRET OF ELLA AND MICHA by Jessica Sorensen
CHARADE by Nyrae Dawn
THE WILD ONES by M. Leighton
TEN TINY BREATHS by KA Tucker
VAIN by Fisher Amelie
LOST TO YOU by AL Jackson
CONNECTED by Kim Karr
GOING UNDER by S. Walden
FALLING INTO YOU by Jasinda Wilder
FLAT-OUT MATT by Jessica Park
CRUSH by Nicole Williams
PLAY WITH ME by Kristen Proby
BECAUSE OF YOU by TE Sivec

Please note that while I will do my best to make sure each winner gets the book they chose to win, if that book is taken and you win, I will contact you with a list of remaining books for you to either choose from or pass.

Enter the Aestas Book Database