The Friday 56 (6)

Friday never seems to come quickly enough for me. Or anybody else in the world really. It's been a long week and I'm looking forward to the weekend since I'm going to go pick strawberries tomorrow morning and have some fun! Anyways...

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice

Ok, this week, I'm going with Unravel Me, which is the second book in the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. This series is beyond excellent and if you haven't started it already, you're missing out. Look at that cover. I could stare at it for ages and still be blown away by it.

I'm going to tell you a secret.

I don't regret what I did. I'm not sorry at all.In fact, if I had a chance to do it again I know this time I'd do it right. I'd shoot Anderson right through the heart.

And I would enjoy it.

You can't tell me that you aren't intrigued by that. I mean, come on. With the strike throughs and everything.  Seriously, just go read this series.

Much love! Have a great weekend!

The Friday 56 (5)

Thank God it's Friday! I never thought I would survive this week. It's been absolutely insane at work since everybody is about to go on maternity/paternity leave and it's only going to get more chaotic. Lucky for me, I have a nice weekend at the lake planned so hopefully, I get to swim and relax a bit.

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice

This week, my 56 is coming from one of my all time favorite books, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It's a classic. It's awesome and it has the most twisted plot lines ever. Set in Savannah, it takes the good will and charm of the South and intersects it with scandals, death and affairs. If you haven't read it, you need to. 

Mr. Glover stopped and faced me. He opened his mouth wide and drew a deep breath. From the back of his throat came a high, croaking sound, "Aaaaa lay loooo-yah! A-layyy-loo yah!" He had abandoned his tenor and was singing in wavering falsetto. Forever in his mind, apparently, "Hallelujah" would be a soprano piece as sung by the in church so many years before.

Such a good book!

Everybody have a great weekend!

The Friday 56 (4)

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice

In honor of Suzanne Johnson's new book coming out on the 21st, this week's Friday 56 comes from the first book in her Sentinels of New Orleans series, Royal Street. 

DJ is a young wizard living in New Orleans with her mentor and protector, Gerry. When Hurricane Katrina storms through, everything is turned on its head and all hell breaks loose. It is up to DJ and her new sexy partner Alex to set things right and prevent a war between good and evil. They are out to protect both the magical world and the delicate reviving New Orleans that is still reeling from the destruction on the hurricane.

"I sat in the Pathfinder on Magazine Street after a junk-food run, drumming my fingers impatiently while stewing over my new position in the Elder's doghouse. After his phone call, Alex had told me Willem Zrakovi was furious at me for summoning Marie Laveau on my own. Then Elder Zrakovi called and told me himself. He was deeply disappointed in my insistence on taking things into my own hands. That stung. 

You'd think the Elders would appreciate knowing a bigger conspiracy might be afoot, one that went beyond a missing sentinel, some voodoo symbols, and an angry pirate. But no. I had disappointed them. Deeply."

I really do love these books and Pirate's Alley (book #4) is looking like it will be really good. Suzanne Johnson is one of my auto-buy authors and I'm looking forward to this next installment. Her characters are sassy, snarky, tough and incredibly sarcastic.

Hopefully I have gotten someone interested in this! Has anybody else read this series? What did you think?

The Friday 56 (3)

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice

Ok...I'll admit this week, I had to fudge this post by a couple of pages so this time, it is the Friday 60. I know most of the time, this blog focuses on YA/NA books but every once in a while, I like to look back at some of the books that made me think about things a bit differently and aren't simply an adventure or love story.

So my Friday 56 post will be from Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. Edward Abbey is not someone to look up to in many ways (he was on the FBI watchlist for many years and one of his novels, The Monkey Wrench Gang, has been cited as inspiration for many radical groups) but he did have a beautiful way of writing about the importance of keeping the natural world natural. His writing is confrontational, accusatory, and harsh but it shows great passion for the environment.

"And most significant, these hordes of non motorized tourists, hungry for a taste of the difficult, the original, the real, do not consist solely of people young and athletic but also of old folks, fat folks, pale-faced office clerks who don't know a rucksack from a haversack, and even children. The one thing they all have in common is the refusal to live always like sardines in can - they are determined to get out of their motorcars for at least a few weeks each year."

Despite how this may sound, this is one of the nicest things that Abbey said about tourists into national parks. He wanted people to experience nature outside of their cars and go out and explore the world a bit. I'll leave you with this, from the forward of Desert Solitaire. It's one of my favorite passages of all time from environmental literature.

“Do not jump into your automobile next June and rush out to the canyon country hoping to see some of that which I have attempted to evoke in these pages. In the first place you can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you’ll see something, maybe. Probably not. In the second place most of what I write about in this book is already gone or going under fast. This is not a travel guide but an elegy. A memorial. You’re holding a tombstone in your hands. A bloody rock. Don’t drop it on your foot - throw it at something big and glassy. What do you have to lose?”

I'm hoping that maybe I'll be able to inspire someone to pick up this book, acknowledge that it's going to make them mad, and read it anyways. Go out into the woods or into the desert and get lost for a little while. It changed my perspective on parks and how we approach them.

Sorry for such a serious end to the week! For some reason, this book was calling out to me from my bookshelf.

Happy Friday! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

The Friday 56 (2)

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice

This Friday, I'm going with The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden. It's one of the best paranormal thrillers I've read in a long time and I love that it is set in New Orleans. It's an awesome book so go check it out!

"Inside, the smell of wood, lilacs, and cinnamon permeated the air. I can't believe I am here looking for answers, I thought as I walked past the Voodoo dolls, tourist thrills, and alligator skulls. I found Désirée at the counter, doing what I assumed was homework. I would turn out to be wrong; at least, it wasn't homework in the traditional sense."

What are y'all reading this weekend? Any big plans? How do you feel about books set in New Orleans? Big fan or overplayed?

The Friday 56

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice 

I'm going to be a bit of a fangirl about this one. I have stalled out on some of the other books I've been reading and I managed to wind my way back to Susanna Kearsley books. She likes kilted men, accents, conflict and finding new ways to explore history.  The Firebird has one of my all-time book boyfriends in it and it is absolutely beautiful. Check out her books and she has a new one coming out soon. It's a completely different way to time travel.

Nicola Marter has the ability to glimpse pieces of the past. She touches an object, and it takes her back to an image and time from former owners. When an unusual carving of bird comes into the gallery, Nicola knows that there is more to it than just a family heirloom.  With the help of an old friend, she seeks to find the history of the beautiful Firebird that takes her back generations to experience the past in a whole new way.

"Go. He nudged me again, and I gathered my focus and pushed through the image itself, and then I was inside it, incredibly, soaring above what I saw, rising wildly and spinning with little control, till I suddenly felt him right there with me, catching me, holding me steady, and bringing me down to the ground again, safely, as Anna passed me by."

Seriously, if you're a fan of time travel paranormal books, go read hers. I can't get enough. Just the right touch of magic and suspense!