Friday, January 17, 2014

Friday's Featured Freebie: The Woodlands by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you all have a three-day weekend like me to catch up on your reading, sleep and whatever else tickles your fancy. I am hoping to do some secondhand book shopping, some blogging and a lot a reading. Right now, I am reading book 4 of the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins. I must be enjoying it because I sent my boyfriend on a late night run earlier this week to get book 3.  I also borrow the DVD, City of Bones, from Melissa. I am really excited to see how it compares to the book. But, back to the important stuff and probably why you stopped by. This week, I found this pretty interesting book for free on Amazon and B&N. I would say if you like YA distopias, then this is something you should be downloading right now.

The Woodlands (The Woodlands #1)
by Lauren Nicolle Taylor
Free on Amazon and B&N

When being unique puts you in danger and speaking your mind can be punishable by death, you might find yourself fighting to survive. Sixteen-year-old Rosa lives in one of the eight enclosed cities of The Woodlands. Where the lone survivors of a devastating race war have settled in the Russian wilderness because it’s the only scrap of land left habitable on the planet. In these circular cities, everyone must abide by the law or face harsh punishment. Rosa's inability to conform and obey the rules brands her a leper and no one wants to be within two feet of her, until she meets Joseph. He's blonde, fair-skinned, green-eyed, and the laid-back complete opposite of Rosa. She's never met anyone quite like him, and she knows that spells danger.

But differences weren't always a bad thing. People used to think being unique was one of the most treasured of traits to have. Now, the Superiors, who ruthlessly control the concrete cities with an iron fist, are obsessed with creating a 'raceless' race. They are convinced this is the only way to avoid another war. Any anomalies must be destroyed.

The Superiors are unstoppable and can do anything they want. After all, they are considered superheroes by the general public. But not everyone sees them this way. When they continue to abuse their power by collecting young girls for use in their secret, high-tech breeding program, they have no idea that one of those girls has somehow managed to make friends even she didn't know she had. And one man will stop at nothing to save her. - Goodreads

Stay warm & let us know if you find any other free books and/or good bargains that we should know about.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Top 10 Book Goals/Resolutions for 2014

Since we missed last week's Top 10 Tuesday, we are doing it in lieu of this week's. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke & the Bookish. Our topic, Top Ten Book Goals/Resolutions for 2014.

Wow, I can't believe that it's been about a month since I've blogged.  The Bartels's house is really frantic this time of year.  Drew and Tyler started wrestling and we are spending at least one day out of the weekend at youth tournaments.  Hailey is in full blown show choir mode and those competitions will start this weekend and will consume the other day of the weekend for me.  Drew, Tyler, and Ryan all decided to play club baseball and while Tyler hasn't stopped playing baseball from last year, Drew and Ryan will be starting practice here soon.  Not to mention it's performance evaluation time at work, which means getting to write 10 lovely evaluations for my team.  This is my explanation for not reading or blogging.

I finally got to finish my first book of 2014 this past weekend, staying up until 3:00 am then getting up at 5:30 am to get the boys ready for the wrestling tournament.  That was a rough day.  After a good nights sleep on Sunday, I rebounded and read a short story and another book on Monday.  Rachel wasn't kidding about The Selection Series by Kiera Cass.  Awesome series and looking for the release of the next book and short story.

Melissa's goals for 2014:

1.  More blogging.  I'm reading all of these books, so I need to take the time to blog about them.  I'm not committing to full blown reviews, but more ranting and raving about them.

2. Find more diamonds in the rough!  I love discovering new amazing authors and recommending their books.

3. This one will be hard, but I think I should probably FINISH one biography.

4. Beat my record, set in 2013, of 83 books and 23,301 pages.

5. Write a book.  I've been wanting to do this for a while now and honestly it scares me.  My boys are not the greatest readers and it's impossible to get them interested in reading.  I don't understand since I always have my nose in a book and love it.  I think they get this from their father.  Eventually, I want to write a children series that will grow and develop with them.  Baby steps though, I need to start small and write just ONE book.

Rachel's goals for 2014:

1. To read 50 books. She was a couple books short from completing this goal for 2013 so she wanted to try again for 2014.

2. Review 20 books on our blog and do some giveaways.

3. Try out an audiobook. Rachel hasn't ever listened to an audio book of her own freewill but she wanted to give it a try for 2014 since her daily commute is around an hour long.

4. Read at least 5 book by self published indie authors.

5. Read at least 5 books that she owns or that she borrowed from someone. Time to tackle all those books just gathering  up dust on her bookshelf.

Make sure to tell us what you have for your 2014 book goals/resolutions!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...