Waiting on Wednesday:
"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Release date: March 4, 2014

From Goodreads: 

When Ileni lost her magic, she lost everything: her place in society, her purpose in life, and the man she had expected to spend her life with. So when the Elders sent her to be magic tutor to a secret sect of assassins, she went willingly, even though the last two tutors had died under mysterious circumstances.

But beneath the assassins’ caves, Ileni will discover a new place and a new purpose… and a new and dangerous love. She will struggle to keep her lost magic a secret while teaching it to her deadly students, and to find out what happened to the two tutors who preceded her. But what she discovers will change not only her future, but the future of her people, the assassins… and possibly the entire world

Top Ten Tuesday: Rewind

Authors I would DIE to meet

brought to you by the broke and the bookish

Jeni's Picks: 
1. Rosamunde Pilcher: I have been reading her books since I was 14 years old.  Every year I take a month and just reread every book she has written. 

2. Patricia Briggs: Her Mercy Thompson books are my favorite werewolf series out there. 

3. Julie Klassen: I love her books. I wish I could go to one of her book signings but she lives so far away.

4. Kristen Geir: I'm not sure if she ever travels to the states. She is from Germany. I loved her Ruby Red trilogy. I know my niece would love to meet her too. 
5. Rick Riordan: Just to see my daughter meet him. She loves the Percy Jackson series and I know she would just die to meet Riordan. She met Richard Paul Evans, author of the Michael Vey series, and her face was priceless. He even said she looked like his first girlfriend. 

Emily's
(Jeni you thief, you stole one of mine!)
1. Terry Brooks, because I read his first and fell in love with fantasy.
2. Robin Mckinley..because Damar is a land I love. 
3. Rosamunde Pilcher..(ha! Jeni..) Because she made me fall in love with England, and all things British..and because it's MS. Pilcher for goodness sakes! She is the best at lovely romantic books..not romance, romantic writing.(there is a difference)
4. Brandon Sanderson..just so I can tease him again about the size of his book..seriously, 1000 plus pages..does any book need to be that long?? :)
5. Gail Carriger..soulless cracked me up.  So, the author has got to be a cracker her self, right? 
And..last, because I stole one from Jeni..
Michael Pollan, because I would love to ask him a thousand questions. 

Waiting on Wednesday: Of Scars and stardust

Release date: October 8, 2014

From Goodreads:

After her little sister mysteriously vanishes, seventeen-year-old Claire Graham has a choice to make: stay snug in her little corner of Manhattan with her dropout boyfriend, or go back to Ohio to face the hometown tragedy she's been dying to leave behind. 

But the memories of that night still haunt her in the city, and as hard as she tries to forget what her psychiatrist calls her "delusions," Claire can't seem to escape the wolf's eyes or the blood-speckled snow. Delusion or reality, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she's ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep her hallucinations at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella's trail grows fainter, the wolves are becoming startlingly real.

Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister's disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella's past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.

2nd Choice: 

Release date: August 24, 2014

From Goodreads:

Home is where the bodies are buried.

Darkly humorous and heart-wrenchingly beautiful, Jennifer Longo’s YA debut about a girl stuck living in a cemetery will change the way you look at life, death, and love.

Leigh sells graves for her family-owned cemetery because her father is too lazy to look farther than the dinner table when searching for employees. Working the literal graveyard shift, she meets two kinds of customers:

Pre-Need: They know what’s up. They bought their graves a long time ago, before they needed them.

At Need: They are in shock, mourning a loved one’s unexpected death. Leigh avoids sponging their agony by focusing on things like guessing the headstone choice (mostly granite).

Sarcastic and smart, Leigh should be able to stand up to her family and quit. But her world’s been turned upside down by the sudden loss of her best friend and the appearance of Dario, the slightly-too-old-for-her grave digger. Surrounded by death, can Leigh move on, if moving on means it’s time to get a life?

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons Why I love being a blogger/reader

brought to you by the broke and the bookish

Jeni's Picks:

Reading:

1. Entertainment: I'm not much for TV or movies but I love to read.

2. Learning: I learn something new in every book I read. 

3. Escape: sometimes I just want to escape my reality for awhile. 

Blogging:

4. Increasing my TBR list: Not that I really need help with this but it's fun seeing what new books are out there.   

5. Branching out: I love reading other blogs to see what people enjoy reading. It helps me step out of my comfort zone.

Emily's Picks

Reading:

1. Books are the ultimate guide to the universe.  They can transport us instantly to another world, and we can choose to be totally consumed..or not.

2. Meeting characters that make me fall in love, to love the world I live in, Too find hope in something beyond myself.

3. The gift of words is given to everyone, but only a few have the power to translate that into something magical, and they share it with us. And when you find that gem of a book, you never want to let it go. That is why I love reading.

Blogging:

4. Blogging, I can express my self without stumbling over my own words. I am not very elegant at expressing them in person.

5. I can meet people in this world of ours by just skipping on over to sights like The Broke and the Bookish, and suddenly meet a kindred spirit, who reads just as much as me, and who maybe has a few books i have not read, or has suggestions that I wouldn't have tried.  

Waiting on Wednesday: The Glass Casket

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Release Date: February 11, 2014

From Goodreads: 

Death hasn't visited Rowan Rose since it took her mother when Rowan was only a little girl. But that changes one bleak morning, when five horses and their riders thunder into her village and through the forest, disappearing into the hills. Days later, the riders' bodies are found, and though no one can say for certain what happened in their final hours, their remains prove that whatever it was must have been brutal.

Rowan's village was once a tranquil place, but now things have changed. Something has followed the path those riders made and has come down from the hills, through the forest, and into the village. Beast or man, it has brought death to Rowan's door once again.

Only this time, its appetite is insatiable

Second Choice

Release Date: August 12, 2014

From Goodreads:

      Kick Lannigan, 21, is a survivor. Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would never be victimized again. But when two children in the Portland area go missing in the same month, Kick goes into a tailspin. Then an enigmatic man Bishop approaches her with a proposition: he is convinced Kick's experiences and expertise can be used to help rescue the abductees. Little does Kick know the case will lead directly into her terrifying past

Top Ten Tuesday: Books that will make you cry

brought to you by the broke and the bookish

Jeni's Picks:

1. Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes:  I loved this story. I thought about it for days after I finished it. I can't wait to see the movie. 

2. The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks: I'm not a huge Nicholas Sparks fan but I did love this book. My favorite parts were about the relationship between Ronnie and her dad. I was so disappointed when I watched the movie and they cut out so much about that relationship and made it more about the love story. 

3. The Rent Collector by Cameron Right: Such an amazing story. It made me want to be a better person and to try and stop taking things for granted. 

4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green :  I always tell people that John Green is kind of the Nicholas Sparks for Young Adult. His characters always seem to die. So I prepare by reading with a box of tissues near by.

5. Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah: This book touched me in so many different ways. There is just so much going on between all the characters. They speech the husband gives his wife towards the end of the book mad it hard for me to finish the book. I had to read through the tears. I've read other Kristen Hannah books but this one is my favorite.

Emily's Picks

top five that I can recall.... (emotional response).......

1. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. I read this as a book assignment in high school. I remember thinking how remarkable this woman and her family were.  This was probably the first book that touched me on a deeper level than  any book had before that point. And taught me the power of words.

2. The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman. This book was so different from the books I normally read, and I felt so much for the two main characters.  It was so interesting to see how they came apart, and to see how different their love was for each other.  How strange it was for each of them, it was a very good read.

3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The scene where Beth dies?  Gets me every time.  And the movie doesn't help matters at all. Tears.

4. The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins The scene where Rue dies, and Katniss sings to her, this is why I love the first book so much.  And the following two, just fall flat for me. (last time I will put this on a list..maybe?)

5. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowlings (anyone else shocked she announced that Harry and Hermione should have been together? Disagree!) Anyway, I hated that she killed Fred. They were two of my favorite characters in the series. But kuddos to Ms. Rowlings for being willing to kill people in her books (Ms Meyers could have taken some writing lessons from her..umm..) anyway.