Alicia Wright Brewster

I ♥ YA sci-fi

I thought this was already on my shelves, but I guess it wasn't until now. Maybe past-me was hesitant to add it because of the...thing. You know, the thing. Anyway, I do plan to read it at some point.

Parallel blew my mind.

I went into this book thinking it would be young adult science fiction, which is a genre I love. It was. But it was also a romance novel that was both heart-breaking and heart-mending. I stayed up all night to finish this book because I had to know that Abby would find her soulmate in the end.

The primary complication to Abby's love life is the fact that her world collided with a parallel one a year ago. As a result, her present state is determined by choices her parallel self made in the past. Unfortunately, Abby suspects that her parallel self isn't exactly like her, so her parallel's choices don't always land Abby where she wants to be. She fears that one day she'll wake up and her love life will have been rewritten, and she'll be the only one who remembers how things are supposed to be. In the end, will she find her soulmate regardless of the path she's on?

It was 1:00 in the morning, and I was just about to put this book down after promising myself I would do so an hour earlier. Then this happened:



Yep, Parallel ripped my heart out and crushed it. So I had to keep reading until I finished the book, fighting with myself not to flip to the end to make sure everything was going to be okay.

Luckily, at the the conclusion, I was here:



Otherwise . . . well, let's just say I had a plan to hunt down and harass author Lauren Miller until she rewrote the ending. Lucky for her, I was more than satisfied.

I don't think all readers will enjoy the science babble explaining the entanglement of two parallel worlds. Personally, I thought this was a pretty cool aspect of the book. But even those who get a giant headache from the science babble can still enjoy the intensity of feelings that Abby has for her boyfriend—and that Abby's parallel has for her boyfriend.

The one thing I didn't absolutely love love love about Parallel is that I think I found a small glitch in the rubber science. If Abby and everyone in her world are getting the memories of their parallels, as theorized, then their parallels shouldn't be able to affect their physical properties. Abby shouldn't have scars from her parallel's injuries, and she shouldn't be in Connecticut just because her parallel went there instead of moving to California. This little glitch bothered me a bit. But you know what, Parallel? I still love you.



Most of my favorite books are action-heavy fantasy and science fiction novels. Parallel is now added to my favorites as one of the few romance novels I absolutely adored. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to young adult science fiction readers who like romance, as well as to contemporary romance readers. Just be prepared to put your heart on the line.

Thanks to HarperCollins for the free ARC of this title, provided through Edelweiss.

This review also appears on my blog: http://www.fantasyfloozies.com/2013/03/review-parallel-by-lauren-miller.html

I want it now!

I like the cover!

But someday someone's going to have to explain to me why having men with their shirts open is so normal on covers. She's fully clothed, and his shirt is open. Not that I'm complaining, but come on. I just don't get it. Are you trying to convince me that he's sexy?

First of all, thanks to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a review copy through NetGalley.

Winterblaze is the third book in the Darkest London series. It features Poppy and her guy Winston. Poppy is the oldest of three sisters, and the prior two books focused on the love lives of her little sisters Miranda and Daisy.

In the prior two novels of this series, Poppy and Winston made minor appearances, but I wasn't particularly fond of either of them. Poppy seemed a little frigid, making decisions and keeping secrets that affected her sisters, who were the POV characters. Also, Poppy and her husband Winston were basically an old married couple, and Winston was an investigator--not a fighter.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I did not have high hopes for this book. I was not expecting a kick-ass story out of a stiff older sister and her boring husband. Boy, was I wrong!

Having recently recovered from a supernatural attack, Winston's been recuperating in the home of the werewolf Ian Ranulf. Ian and Archer (the mates of Poppy's sisters) have nursed him to health and taught him how to kick some butt. If he wasn't that sexy alpha male before, he sure is now.

And it turns out that Poppy is deeply involved with a society for policing supernatural activity. Unlike Miranda and Daisy, Poppy has spent her whole life kicking butt. Of all the sisters, she is the most bad ass.

When the lies of their past are uncovered at the beginning of Winterblaze, Poppy and Winston's marriage comes apart at the seams. As a result, we do get the sexual tension and angst and indecision that comes with good romance novels. On top of that, we have a history of lies to unravel, many of which are revealed in a series of flashbacks. Usually, flashbacks annoy me when used a lot. In this case, however, since the memory of their past had been altered by supernatural circumstances, I thought it worked well. I was interested in both their past and their present.

I enjoyed Winterblaze much more than I thought I would. For me, it was better than Moonglow and just as good as Firelight.

An Audible Audiobook freebie!

This was a wonderful, quick, original story. The main character, Stephen, has a unique condition. he has hallucinations of various other people--his "aspects." Each of his aspects has its own personality and skill set--skill sets that Stephen doesn't have on his own. With his aspects in tow, Stephen has a huge range of skills.

When Monica (not an aspect) tells Stephen she had a camera that could see into the future, and her camera was stolen, she and Stephen go on a journey to recover it. Along the way, we see Stephen's aspects in action, which is pretty cool. The aspects especially come in handy when Stephen needs to learn new skills, and when he's held captive.

I think the most fascinating thing about this story is the original concept. In such a short story, that concept is enough. The plot itself doesn't have much meat to it, but that's just fine. It works as a novella.

It's free on Amazon Kindle. Otherwise, based on the cover and description, I probably wouldn't put it on my to-read list. But maybe I'll give it a shot.

Outside of the opening scene (which was a bit of a cheat since it was an action scene meant to draw the reader in but wasn't directly related to the plot), I found the first quarter of this book to be pretty boring.

Ellie travels home to see her uncle. We're introduced to her town. She goes to a coffee shop for a job, meets a boy, and goes on a date with the boy. Now we're about 27% of the way into the book and I'm IM-ing my co-blogger to tell her how boring it is.

At that point, I wasn't even attracted to the boy--Camden. He's initially described as wearing cargo shorts (not my style), and Iggy Pop T-shirt (I had to look that up), lips that are "thin and curved at the top," a full day's worth of stubble (I don't mind stubble, but in combo with the cargo shorts, I'm finding his style way too relaxed for my taste), and Dumbo ears. By themselves, the Dumbo ears could be cute and add character, but since the rest of the description didn't do it for me, the ears didn't add the character that I believe they were meant to.

Why am I going on and on about Camden not blowing me away with his sexiness? Well, a quarter of the way through the book, when I'm bored, I want to be blown away by the love interest--and I wasn't. Bummer. Granted, Camden's appearance grew on me throughout the book. Not every protagonist is going to like the kind of style that I like, but that made it harder for me to agree with Ellie's observations about how sexy Camden was.

Things got interesting when con-artist Ellie picked a mark and started working on her plan to acquire some more money. Plus, later on, her dangerous ex-boyfriend sent her on he run again. And through it all, Ellie and Camden dealt with some serious (and warranted) trust issues, stemming from how they'd treated each other in the past. In the end, I really came to root for them. And the sex scenes were great, so after the first one of those, I was much more invested int heir relationship.

An interesting aspect of this book was the regular flashbacks. On many occasions in the book, we'd return to Ellie's past to explore her high school relationship with Camden or her relationship with her dangerous ex-boyfriend. The flashbacks helped to fill in some holes about why all the trust issues and anger existed.

I didn't dislike the flashbacks. However, I was annoyed at what appeared to be a blatant withholding of information. Ellie, the POV character, had complete knowledge about her past but withheld things from the readers. It was like the mystery that was created was completely superficial. What happened to scar Ellie's leg? Why does Ellie feel guilty about her past with Camden? What happened with the ex-boyfriend? Where are Ellie's parents? Ellie knows all these things when the book opens, but the reader gets the information in bits and pieces. To me, it kind of seemed like a cheap trick to keep my interest. If Ellie's the POV character, I want to know what she knows. There's no real mystery here; there's just annoying information withholding.

In the end, despite the book's flaws, I rooted for Ellie and Camden. They were two scarred people in a dysfunctional relationship, and I wanted them to heal each other and find happiness.

I'm not feeling the cover, but otherwise, this looks interesting.

Got it on Edelweiss. Thank you, Katherine Tegen Books!

Got it on Edelweiss. Thank you, HarperCollins!

I freakin' love this series!

Got it from NetGalley!

Listened to the audiobook. I enjoyed this one much more than the first. I feel like I know Harry better, and I loved all the different types of werewolves.

I found the contracts section interesting. Other than that, not much new perspective here, and it touched on too many topics and only very briefly. I guess it could be useful to some folks. I would rather have seen fewer topics addressed, more in depth.