Jane Jameson

The Jane Jameson series #1-4 by Molly Harper

Unabridged audio, Read by Amanda Ronconi

From Barnes & Noble, Book #1

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.

Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She's forced to forgo her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?

My review: 

These books are some serious FUN! I now want to go read all the other books Molly Harper has written. 

Brownies & Broomsticks

Brownies & Broomsticks by Bailey Cates

From Barnes & Noble:

EASY BAKE COVEN

Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees.

While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells!

When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer..

My review:

Great start to a new series! I can't wait to read more about Kate and her Bakery.

Wool

Wool Omibus by Hugh Howey

From Barnes & Noble:  

In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.

His fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising.

My Review:
Extremely good read. I got the first part as a freebe from Amazon. I soon purchased omibus and kept reading till the end. Originally, this was highly recommended from WSS4 on BookObsessed and I'm glad she told me about it.

Die Snow White Die Damn You!

Die Snow White! Die Damn You! by Yuri Rasovsky, Unabridged audiobook, Read by a full Cast

From Amazon:  

With the premiere of two new film versions of the Snow White tale, Blackstone enters the fray with its own adult, edgy, and not altogether serious full-cast expose of fairy-taledom. At last it can be told! Was Snow White really as pure as the driven snow? Did her allegedly wicked stepmother get a bum rap from the Grimm brothers? What went on behind the closed Dutch doors of the dwarves' cottage? How many handsome princes does it take to screw in a light bulb? These and other burning questions may or may not be answered in this new pseudogothic audio play that Blackstone commissioned from award-winning author and audio dramatist Yuri Rasovsky.

My Review:
Extremely funny! I would love to see more fairy tales retold as adult novels.

My Best of 2012

The best book I read all year: "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline.

Other notables for 2012
January

February

 March

 April

 May

June

July

August

September

October

November

 December

Eyes of the Dragon

Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

Unabridged audio read by Bronson Pinchot

I really, really liked this audiobook. The narration was excellent and the story a bit different from any Stephen King I've ever read. It was more wizards and demons and beloved kings. Much more of a fantasy with a bit of the supernatural. Excellent!

Written in 1987, this is the only description I can find. From Barnes & Noble:

A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures, of dragons and princes and evil wizards, here is epic fantasy as only Stephen King could envision it.

In the kingdom of Delain, a young prince must struggle against powerful forces to gain his rightful inheritance.

Matched

Matched by Ally Condie

Audio-ebook Read by Kate Simses, Jack Riccobono, and Matt Burns

Book #1, Matched, is a very good, very disturbing book. The society in the book, make all the choices for everyone. What to eat, how to exercise, what their career will be, who they will be marry. 100 books, 100 paintings, 100 poems were chosen to keep. Everything else was destroyed. Archivists are made to destroy artifacts and books. Botanists are made to destroy plants that don't serve a purpose. Everyone wears brown or black except on special days like on their matching. It puts me very much in mind of libraries now where librarians are forced by city or school officials to get rid of books. Books are no longer needed "everything is on line." Disturbing.

The two books that follow, Crossed and Reached, continue the story of Cassia, Ky and Xander as they loose each other, find each other and fight for freedom.

An awesome trilogy.

Book Description from Amazon:

Matched: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

Crossed: Cassia and Ky grapple with secrets, wilderness and the tumultuous meanings of love in the second installment of this addictive, layered dystopic trilogy… Although two-boys-one-girl triangles run rife in this genre, Condie’s is complicated and particularly human, involving real emotional scars… Both rich and easy to digest, this will leave fans hungry for the third book.

Reached:

Cassia’s journey began with an error, a momentary glitch in the otherwise perfect façade of the Society. After crossing canyons to break free, she waits, silk and paper smuggled against her skin, ready for the final chapter. The wait is over. One young woman has raged against those who threaten to keep away what matters most—family, love, choice. Her quiet revolution is about to explode into full-scale rebellion. With exquisite prose, the emotionally gripping conclusion to the international–bestselling Matched trilogy returns Cassia, Ky, and Xander to the Society to save the one thing they have been denied for so long, the power to choose.

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