Hey everyone! Since I have read so many books this year just picking 14 was hard so I split it into two parts, YA and NA/Adult lists!
1. Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
This book was just brilliant and I couldn't help but love this 500+ paged fantasy novel filled with assassins and fae!
2 & 3. Secret & Sacrifice by Brigid Kemmerer
Secret was my favorite in the series and Sacrifice finished up the series nicely. Nick will forever be mine ;)
4. Head of the River by Pip Harry
I just loved this book, being me & what I study I just couldn't help myself in loving it. PED's in school & college sport is awareness that is needed.
5. Killer Instinct by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Love this series and the mystery/thriller all behind it! Teenagers tracking down serial killers!
6. This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
I never like Sci-Fi but this series is the exception, cannot help but enjoy these books.
7 & 8. Corruption & Disruption by Jessica Shirvington
This duology was just fantastic and another exception to my dislike of Sci-Fi books. Thankfully my love for human biology was quite helpful in understanding a few of things that happened in this series.
9. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
The ending to this trilogy and was my favorite (I have a huge soft spot for Josh). Getting to have both New York and Paris in this novel just made me want to go to New York and back to Paris!
10. The One by Kiera Cass
This series is fantastic America and Maxon *sigh* I am so glad that they have added more books to the series for the next generation of royals!
11. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
I love mystery and thriller books and this book just kept me guessing!
12. On The Fence by Kasie West
This book was just cute and Charlie was just a main character that I could connect to being a tom boy and all that.
13. Cooper Bartholomew is Dead by Rebecca James
An Aussie mystery/thriller, just loved before & present chapter changes.
14. What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick
All the cuteness. Seriously the there is so much cuteness.
So what are your favorite books for the year? Let me know in the comments! Don't forget on Wednesday my Top 14 of 2014: NA/Adult will be out!
Keely xx
This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.
Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.
Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.
Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.
The stunning second novel in the Starbound trilogy is an unforgettable story of love and forgiveness in a world torn apart by war.
Stop right here if you haven't read These Broken Stars because there will be spoilers!
Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac, a captain and a rebel, looking for a reason why Avon isn't terraforming. The military wants peace for everyone on Avon, while the rebels want access to the medical supplies, food and education. When Flynn kidnaps Lee, he doesn't realise the series of events that he sets off.
Trying to stay alive and getting away from the rebels shouldn't be a big deal for Lee since after all she is a captain in the military but when her and Flynn find something it changes the course of how they see Avon and those who run it. In These Broken Stars we find out what Lilac's father has been doing to these slow moving terraforming planets and what happened to Tarver, well it seems that these things are happening on Avon too.
The only choice that they have is to work together to stop Avon from a civil war and from being destroyed like the planet that Lilac and Tarver were on. Lee enlists the help of Tarver and Lilac to try and figure how to expose LaRoux to the world and what the whispers actually are.
What I loved about This Shattered World was how Kaufman & Spooner manage to create such a different world and make it seem as though it is a real place. The way the Lee and Flynn were characterised makes you understand them and what they are really feeling about everything that has happened to them.
The ending of This Shattered World makes you wish that you had the next and what I think is the final book in this trilogy! The These Broken Stars story and plot line follow through into This Shattered World allowing you to glimpse into the bigger picture of what is happening in this world that has been created.
Thanks to Allen & Unwin for this ARC!
Rating: 4.5/5
Keely xx
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.
Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they’re worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help.
Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other’s arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder—would they be better off staying here forever?
Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won’t be the same people who landed on it.
After hearing lots of good things from this book, I decided to look past the fact that it sci-fi, which is a genre that I normally don't read too much because it doesn't appeal to me like other genres. However, I am glad I made the leap to read this book because it exceeded my expectations.
Major Tarver Merendsen doesn't know what he expected from going to a party where he and his medals are only for show, for the media, however, a girl with red hair he can't take his eyes off intrigues him. Lilac LaRoux, daughter of the galaxy's most powerful man, Roderick LaRoux. She is always recognised and everybody always wants something from her, until Tarver who doesn't recognise her at first since he stopped paying any attention to the media.
When Icarus gets pulled out of hyperspace, Tarver and Lilac end up together in an escape pod trying to eject themselves from the spaceliner. Lilac has a past which isn't explored much at the start of the novel, all you see of Lilac in Tarver's POV is that she is a spoiled princess, daddys girl etc. expect that she knows her way when it comes to circuits & mechanical engineering.
Crash landing on a plant that neither of them has seen or heard of before, with no apparent lifeforms (i.e. people) around to tell them. Trying to stay alive they learn to trust each other and for Lilac, how to survive with only basic supplies from the emergency pod. As they head for where Icarus crash-landed to see if anyone survived or if they could get more supplies, we learn more about Tarver & Lilac as they bicker, argue and fight there way to the site.
Both characters change a lot through out their journey, while 100 pages is them walking/making it to the site it still provides a lot of information that about each of them. We learn about Tarver & his family and why it is important for him to return home. We also get to see more of Lilac's past about why she was so cool and distant towards Tarver when they first met. I loved how in between each chapter was a part of Tarver's debriefing from when he gets found, it never tells you anything about Lilac which makes you wonder what has happened on that plant. The twist at the end was surprising and it interesting to see something like that put into this world. The romance was great because it wasn't sudden or forced but natural which was refreshing from some previous books I've read recently.
Overall, These Broken Stars was a great read and apart of a world that I will enjoy reading the companion novels that are apart of The Starbound Trilogy and to see the twist explored more throughout these novels! Highly recommend this to readers who are a fan of YA Sci-Fi and those who aren't because you might end up enjoying it like me!
Thanks to Allen and Unwin Australia for sending me a review copy!
Rating: 4/5
Keely xx
