Bibliophile Support Group

Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! It is now time for the third annual Stand-Out Books of the Year (2012) post! Despite working full-time and never seeming to have quite as much time as I want to read, I’m happy to say that I DID top last year’s stats by a bit. Interested? Okay, then, here goes the numbers for 2012 : How many books did I read? 190 That is 19 more than in 2011. How many pages did I read? 61,957 That is 6,920 more than in 2011!!! How many pages (on average) did I read per day? 170 That is 19 more than in 2011!!! Just in case you don’t have a general idea how this post works: I am incapable of naming any of the books I read in the year “my favorite”. I get hung up on different categories, different titles, different strengths and weaknesses of each book. You really wouldn’t want to see that. There are tears. There is guilt. It’s not pretty. Instead, I look over all the books I read all year and pick the books t...

Girl of Nightmares is the YA paranormal sequel to Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood . You know the drill, book lovers. If you haven’t read Anna Dressed in Blood yet then read that review here , and avoid this review like the plague!!! Got it? Okay, I’m trusting you… Girl of Nightmares takes place months after Anna Dressed in Blood ended. Months since the ghost of Anna Korlov, a strong young woman cursed to be a bloody menace after death, opened a door to the afterlife in her basement to pull the evil spirit of the Obeahman though. She sacrificed herself for Cas and his friends. Though Carmel and Thomas try to tell him that moping and resisting moving on is not what Anna disappeared through that hole for, Cas can’t seem to stop himself. He misses her. And, impossibly, he loves her… But when he starts to see Anna everywhere, always with dead eyes, always in some sort of agony, Cas becomes convinced that she’s trying to tell him something. And he’s worried that she’s not at...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!! If any of you lucky ducks received gift cards or cash and would like some awesome recommendations on what to spend it on, make sure to remember and stop in at the Bibliophile Support Group on Monday, December 31st for the third annual Stand-Out Books of the Year post! The Far West is the third YA frontier fantasy/adventure novel in the Frontier Magic series by Patricia C. Wrede. The series started with Thirteenth Child and then went on to Across the Great Barrier , if you haven’t read those books I’d recommend clicking on the titles and reading those reviews instead of this one. Don’t wanna spoil anything for ya!!! For those of you bibliophiles who are up-to-date on the series, you’ll remember that Eff proved herself to be quite the powerful magician when her traveling party went beyond the Great Barrier in the last book – meeting dangerous saber cats, steam dragons, and an entirely unknown species that they’ve named the medusa liza...

Merry Christmas Eve, everybody! Queen of Babble is an adult contemporary novel by Meg Cabot. I know I’m way behind here. This is one of the few Cabot novels/series I got sidetracked on. Happily, though, I’m finally getting caught up!! So, this may just be review for you – but if you’re a bibliophile who, like me, finds that a few gems get lost in the shuffle, join me in taking a look at an older title today! Lizzie Nichols has just become the first person to graduate college in her family. She’s lost thirty pounds, and she’s taking her first trip outside of the US to join her hot British boyfriend in London. Life’s good. Or is it? First she finds out that her graduation is a farce since she never wrote a thesis. Then she gets herself in an overall terrible situation in London because her biggest flaw is her inability to keep her mouth shut. Feeling rather deflated, Lizzie decides to join her best friend Shari who is spending her summer at a sixteenth-century chateau in F...

Lies Beneath is a YA paranormal novel by Anne Greenwood Brown. Calder White is a merman. Not the Disney kind. When he’s not living in the warm waters of the Bahamas he’s being called back to his home of the cold, clean waters of Lake Superior where his sisters, otherwise known as murderous mermaids, live. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans to absorb their positive energy. It’s instinctual and impossible to resist. Except for Calder. He finds a kind of warped satisfaction out of holding off as long as possible – battling the strong urge to kill. Though he’s done it before – how could he not? This time, though, Calder cannot deny the pull to target their next victim. Revenge is practically part of mermaid DNA and the man they blame for their mother’s death, Jason Hancock, is back in the Lake Superior area. That’s something they cannot ignore. In fact, they don’t want to. Because Hancock is fearful of the water, Calder’s sisters decide that Calder must be the one t...

Invisible World is a YA supernatural historical fiction novel by Suzanne Weyn. Since a very young age Elsabeth James has known she had powers – sometimes hearing people’s thought, seeing their memories. In 1681 England this is a dangerous thing – that’s why her father is working hard to study her and her sister who also has gifts and put scientific facts behind it. He wants his daughters to be safe. Elsabeth primarily wants to learn how to control and increase her abilities. Her goal is to be an independent woman, perhaps paid for her gifts by individual clients. She wants to be financially self-sustaining and not have to worry about marriage. When her father decides to take them to America, however, tragedy strikes. Unfortunate events lead Elsabeth to be washed ashore in South Carolina where she falls in love with a young man who works on the plantation as a slave. But their relationship catches the attention of the wrong people, and against her will Elsabeth is sent to Salem...

Dust Girl is a YA historical fantasy, and the first in the American Fairy Trilogy , by Sarah Zettel. In 1935 Kansas, the dust is stifling. Callie LaRoux is dying from the buildup of dust in her lungs, though it’s not been acknowledged outright. Not many people remain in town as this dust storm is the worst on record… when the doctor himself decides to move his family elsewhere he pleads with Callie and her mother to leave with them. Yet Callie’s mother is steadfast – she will not leave the hotel they own, even with no guests or employees to occupy it but the two of them. Callie knows her mother’s reason. This is where her mother last saw her father, a man that she’s never met. He is their biggest secret. The dark color of his skin has left Callie with a dangerously ambiguous darker coloring that leads her mother to lie about her father – to protect Callie. Her mother is determined to stay at the hotel, no matter what comes, because it is where her father said he’d return to them...