Two Great Books You Need To Pick UP!

Today is the release day for the sequel to Gena Showalter's Intertwined and Louisa Edwards' Just One Taste!

Unraveled:

For once, sixteen-year-old Aden Stone has everything he’s ever wanted:

A home.

Friends.

The girl of his dreams.

Too bad he’s going to die…

Since coming to Crossroads, Oklahoma, former outcast Aden Stone has been living the good life. Never mind that one of his best friends is a werewolf, his girlfriend is a vampire princess who hungers for his blood, and he’s supposed to be crowned Vampire King – while still a human! Well, kind of.

With four – oops, three now -- human souls living inside his head, Aden has always been “different” himself. These souls can time travel, raise the dead, possess another’s mind, and, his least favorite these days, tell the future.

The forecast for Aden? A knife through the heart.

Because a war is brewing between the creatures of the dark, and Aden is somehow at the center of it all. But he isn’t about to lie down and accept his destiny without a fight. Not when his new friends have his back, not when Victoria has risked her own future to be with him, and not when he has a reason to live for the first time in his life…

Find out more here!

Just One Taste:

He has a hungry mind.

Bad-boy chef Wes Murphy dreads his final semester cooking class—Food Chemistry 101—until he meets the new substitute teacher. Dr. Rosemary Wilkins is a feast for the eyes, though her approach to food is strictly academic. So Wes decides to rattle her Bunsen burner by asking for her hands-on advice—on aphrodisiacs . . .

She’s got love down to a science.

Rosemary is a little wary about working with Wes, whose casual flirtations leave her hot under the collar. But once they begin testing the love-enhancing power of chocolate, oysters, and strawberries, it becomes scientifically evident that the brainy science nerd and the boyish chef have some major chemistry together—and it’s delicious . . .

Find out more here!

I Finally Read A Book!

With all my focus on writing lately, reading has been put on the back burner. Last night, I finally read a book. And a remarkable book at that. If I Stay by Gayle Forman is a YA that talks about the choices of life and the meaning of family. It almost made me cry, and that's saying something because books rarely have that affect on me.

Check it out if you get a chance. You won't be disappointed.

What have you read lately?

Young Adult

As y'all know, I'm working on my first Young Adult (YA) book. I'm excited about it, but then I get excited about pretty much every book I write (with the rare exception of the book I wrote solely to pitch to Nocturne - ugh, total slog.) Before I started writing, however, I prepped myself by reading a slew of YA titles - stuff that was considered "hot" and best-sellers. I found some I loved, some that were just sort of "meh" and some that shocked me (language, topics, explicitness I didn't expect.)

Now, I find that YA's are a regular part of my reading diet. The next two on my TBR pile are Scott Westerfeld's Peeps and Gena Showalter's Oh My Goth. I almost enjoy them more than books from the romance genre, probably because I know I'm not going to get in-your-face sex and R rated language as a rule. Beyond that, the storytelling is SO good. Innovative, fresh, imaginative. Things I think have gotten a bit lost in the romance genre. Don't get me wrong, I love the romance genre. It's just nice to have a palate cleanser once in a while and YA fits that bill perfectly.

Have you tried YA? If not, why not? If you read YA, what are some of your favorites? I'd love to hear what you think.