Vampire Academy Giveaway Winners

The first place winner who gets a VA bookmark, 2 pins and a keyring is....

Annmarie

The second place winner who gets 2 pins and a keyring is...

Nat Cleary

Congrats, both winners have been emailed!

Winners were chosen by random.org.

Thank you to everyone who took part!

Remember there is still time left to enter my After Obsession giveaway

Review: Oblivion (Witches of Santa Anna #13) - Lauren Barnholdt

Name: Oblivion (Witches of Santa Anna #13)

Author: Lauren Barnholdt

General Release Date: 17th August 2011

Date I finished it: 18th August 2011

Type: Kindle book

From: Review copy from author

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Firstly a massive Thank You to Lauren Barnholdt who very kindly gifted me a copy of Oblivion to read and review.

As most of you will already know I love this series!

A lot of bloggers I know have given up on this series, or are waiting for all the short novellas to be released together as one book before they start up with the series again. I on the other hand am completely hooked, I honestly search Amazon at least twice a week to see if any new books in the series has been released yet!

Oblivion is the thirteenth book in the Witches of Santa Anna series and it is also the last book in season two of the series.

At first when season one ended I was a little confused about the whole thing, I didn't really know how many more books there would be and I still don't!

The way Oblivion ended, I know there has to be third season!

Like almost every book in this series so far, Oblivion leaves us on a cliffhanger ending, which I have now come to expect from all of Lauren's books!

As usual Oblivion is only a short novella and takes about half an hour to read.

Even though it is short, it is not short on action!

I really enjoyed this book, as a reader a got a bit more of a glimpse into what is actually going on in the Santa Anna world as I do with every new book in the series.

Again there are a few twists in the plot line, and just when I think I know what is going to happen next, bam something new happens which changes everything!

Overall I love this series and I am going to be sticking with it, although I am looking forward to a bit of a break between seasons two and three.

Teaser Tuesday #13

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share one or two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

1."It was coming, it was coming to smash them all and destroy them in a quick flash of rocket fuel and smoke"

2. "She hadn't slept in days, not really. She was so wired she imagined her pupils were the size of pinpricks and her fingers felt grimy no matter how many times she washed her hands"

Review: After Obsession - Carrie Jones and S.E. Wedel

Name: After Obsession

Author: Carrie Jones and S.E. Wedel

General Release Date: 5th September 2011

Date I finished it: 18th August 2011

Type: Paperback

From: Review copy from publishers

My Rating: 4/5 stars

First of all, a massive Thank You to Bloomsbury Publishing for sending me this book to review!

I hadn't even heard of it until I showed up on my doorstep, once I read the back of the book I had to start it right away it just sounded so good!

After Obsession is written from two different points of view, Aimee and Alan's. Carrie Jones writes Aimee's point of view and S.E. Wedel writes Alan's point of view. This was a really interesting concept for me, I'd never read a collaboration book before and wasn't too sure what to expect. First I thought that maybe the two different writing styles would clash with each other and make the book difficult to read. I was completely wrong! Since each author writes from a different viewpoint it actually works out so much better than books with just one author but writing from different characters viewpoints. It's as if both characters completely come to life, their personalities and thoughts seem more real that they would with just one author writing both parts!

After Obsession had me guessing from page one! I knew there was a ghost aspect to the book, but didn't have a clue what was going to happen or how the characters where going to get through the next dilemma after barely surviving the last one!

The story follows Aimee, Alan and his cousin Courtney as they face the very scary possibility that Courtney may be possessed by a ghost. Not just any ghost but the River Man. The ghost who is responsible for so many deaths in the river near Aimee's house, including the death of her own mother.

Aimee is also coming to terms with the fact that she has inherited her mothers psychic abilities, and might have also inherited her craziness along the way as well. Alan on the other hand is trying to learn about his Native Indian side, all he knows that he was the result of a drunken fling at a party and his father was Navajo. For years he has been searching for acceptance, both from his mother and himself of who he really is.

I loved this book so much, with there being so much choice today within the YA paranormal genre After Obsession is a refreshing change to the usual vampire and werewolf books. I especially loved all the little details about the Navajo customs and traditions and how Alan incorporates them into today's society. I enjoyed the "love and goodness conquers all" feel to the book as well and really liked reading about the three teenagers working together to save their town.

Overall I really loved this book it was different from my usual books, but different in a very good way!

Review: The Girl Who Was On Fire - Leah Wilson

Name: The Girl Who Was On Fire

Author: Leah Wilson

General Release Date: 5th April 2011

Date I finished it: 17th August 2011

Type: Paperback

From: Amazon

My Rating: 3/5 stars

As most of you will already know I loved The Hunger Games books!

I've been eyeing up this book for a while now and decided to buy it, as soon as it arrived I started reading it!

The Girl Who Was On Fire is a collections of YA authors giving their thoughts on different aspects on The Hunger Games trilogy.

To me this book was a huge let down. I really had much higher hopes for it. Don't get me wrong, all the points argued by the authors are interesting and make sense but they isn't really much in here that I didn't already think for myself after reading the series. I think out of the whole book there was only two articles that I really enjoyed and which made me stop and think about Panem and the whole concept of The Hunger Games.

All the rest of the articles brought up points which I had previously discussed with other bloggers who have read The Hunger Games series or had thought about myself. So there wasn't really much in this book for me.

I am glad I bought it though, it was interesting to see other peoples perspectives of the games and the characters in the books. As a fan of the series I'm pretty much going to buy anything with Mockingjay logo on it anyway. The book will be a great addition to my Hunger Games collection and will probably prove itself useful in the future when the movies come out, it will more of a reference book to me rather than hunting through the Hunger Games books themselves to find quotes or a certain chapter.

If you are a massive fan of the series, I'd say buy it anyway but don't expect too much.