Top 10 of 2013: Best Book Boyfriends

Hosted by:

Fiktshun, Jaime from Two Chicks on Books, and Mindy from Magical Urban Fantasy Reads.

Sean
Sean gave me more stomach flips than any fictional man has the right to.
Check out my review of An Endless Summer!

Chris
C.J. Duggan knows how to invent the most perfect book boyfriends, so two of her guys make the list. Seriously, you have to check these books out!
Check out my review of That One Summer!

Ford
I don't know if I'd necessarily call him a "boyfriend", but this list wouldn't be complete without him!
Check out my review of Panic! (This is a series you need to read from the beginning)

Cross

He's not perfect, he's flawed, and he's a touch broken, but he has such a heart, and all these things combined make him a perfect book boyfriend. 

Check out my review of Taming Cross!

Prince Maxon 
Even though I'm still a little mad at him at the moment, he's still a top book boyfriend!
Check out my review of The Elite! (This is a series you need to read from the beginning)

Marc
I got glimpses into Marc's personality in the previous books, but I felt like I really got to know him in this book, and I like him.. a LOT!
Check out my review of Body & Blood! (This is a series you need to read from the beginning)

Myles
The most "normal" vampire ever. He's understanding and sensitive, but he can be a total bad ass when needed.
Check out my review of Sunshine!

Rogue
Yes, he made it to my list again! He is still entirely desirable yet he feels forbidden. So, naturally, I can't get enough of him.
Check out my review of Rogue's Possession! (This is a series you need to read from the beginning)

Will & Jem

Will is the epitome of everything I look for in a book boyfriend. Jem is pretty much the opposite of Will, making my list for all the opposite reasons. Go figure.

Check out my review of Clockwork Princess! (This is a series you need to read from the beginning)

Dante

Dante is a crazy-fun flirt. His personality is so stinkin' addictive!

Check out my review of Northern Bites! (This is a series you need to read from the beginning)

Amanda Havard's Body & Blood Tour!! A Review of Body & Blood Plus a Giveaway!

Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal Romance)

Date Published: July 23, 2013
Publisher: Chafie Press
Tour Coordinator: InkSlinger PR

The Blurb:

How many answers you seek are just a part of you, waiting to be found?

The game has changed.

Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human with Cole Hardwick while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought with the first deaths of their own kind, a tyrant who will torture them, and an opponent more terrifying than anyone could have foreseen, the Survivors are facing their end.

Told from three points of view, The Survivors: Body & Blood is a bloodcurdling, mind-bending, heart-stopping ride. As Sadie and the Winters uncover more enemies, more history, and more answers, they find themselves brought closer together and ripped further apart. And all the while, a haunting Alexander Raven lurks at the edge of Sadie s lifeline, at the darkening fringes of her mind.

As the Survivors descend into chaos, Sadie realizes a painful truth: the deepest of secrets leave the darkest of marks.

Caught between a terrifying fantasy and her own grim reality, Body & Blood is the story of Sadie's dance with her demons, future, past, and present.

Check out my reviews of Book 1: the Survivors and Book 2: Point of Origin

My Review:

Body & Blood is the third book in the Survivors Series by Amanda Havard. This book is different from the previous two in that you're given Everett and Marc's point of views along with Sadie's. I have to say, I enjoyed seeing life through their eyes quite a bit. I've been an Everett fan from the beginning, but now Marc is growing on me too. In the last book, you get the impression that there is more to Marc than what is shown, and now I know for sure there's more to him. I really like him. I didn't like the ending at all, but I know this isn't the last book in the series, so I'm not too worried. I just hope what happened is reversible. I love the amount of information you are given throughout this series, and how everything builds more and more. There is so much thought and detail that must have gone into writing this series. It's pretty amazing. This is definitely one of the most unique and interesting series out there.

The ARC of Body & Blood by Amanda Havard was provided to me by the publisher for review. The opinions are my own.

The Body & Blood Soundtrack Sessions follow Amanda Havard as she talks about each song found on the soundtrack for the third book in THE SURVIVORS SERIES, Body & Blood, and performs exclusive acoustic versions of each song. Want more Survivors soundtrack music? Check out the rest of the B&B Sessions, the original songs written exclusively for the series, and the full soundtrack!

About the Author:

Amanda Havard thinks in stories. She writes books and songs, tells stories to people over coffee or in elaborate iPad apps, in short films or subtle photographs. Stories are her life. THE SURVIVORS: BODY & BLOOD is her third novel, and is an amalgamation of all of her storytelling love combined. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a place where creativity drips from the sap of the trees, radiates from the attitude of the population, and seeps from the concrete. The inventor of the Immersedition™ interactive book app, Havard is always looking for the next best story-- and the most innovative way to tell it. Check out my interview with Amanda Havard!

To learn more about Amanda Havard and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

The Giveaway!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Amanda Havard's Body & Blood Release Day Launch & Giveaway

Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal Romance)

Date Published: July 23, 2013
Publisher: Chafie Press
Tour Coordinator: InkSlinger PR

The Blurb:

How many answers you seek are just a part of you, waiting to be found?

The game has changed.

Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human with Cole Hardwick while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought with the first deaths of their own kind, a tyrant who will torture them, and an opponent more terrifying than anyone could have foreseen, the Survivors are facing their end.

Told from three points of view, The Survivors: Body & Blood is a bloodcurdling, mind-bending, heart-stopping ride. As Sadie and the Winters uncover more enemies, more history, and more answers, they find themselves brought closer together and ripped further apart. And all the while, a haunting Alexander Raven lurks at the edge of Sadie s lifeline, at the darkening fringes of her mind.

As the Survivors descend into chaos, Sadie realizes a painful truth: the deepest of secrets leave the darkest of marks.

Caught between a terrifying fantasy and her own grim reality, Body & Blood is the story of Sadie s dance with her demons, future, past, and present.

Check out my reviews of Book 1: the Survivors and Book 2: Point of Origin

Body & Blood review coming August 4th!!

The Body & Blood Soundtrack Sessions follow Amanda Havard as she talks about each song found on the soundtrack for the third book in THE SURVIVORS SERIES, Body & Blood, and performs exclusive acoustic versions of each song. Want more Survivors soundtrack music? Check out the rest of the B&B Sessions, the original songs written exclusively for the series, and the full soundtrack!

Introduction & First Episode 1

About the Author:

Amanda Havard thinks in stories. She writes books and songs, tells stories to people over coffee or in elaborate iPad apps, in short films or subtle photographs. Stories are her life. THE SURVIVORS: BODY & BLOOD is her third novel, and is an amalgamation of all of her storytelling love combined. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a place where creativity drips from the sap of the trees, radiates from the attitude of the population, and seeps from the concrete. The inventor of the Immersedition™ interactive book app, Havard is always looking for the next best story-- and the most innovative way to tell it. Check out my interview with Amanda Havard!

To learn more about Amanda Havard and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

The Giveaway!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review: Point of Origin by Amanda Havard

Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal Romance) 
Date Published: June 12, 2012

Publisher: Chafie Press
Tour Coordinator: InkSlinger PR

The Blurb:

The winter is upon us. The Survivors are in chaos. The war is coming.

One year ago, Sadie Matthau was living among humans, existing as one of them. But now she wakes each morning in a house in the Survivors’ City, listening to the invocations and insults of her family members as they cope with their new future. A war. Rogue abandoners turned monsters. Sadie and the icy Winters living in their midst, bringing the outside world in.

The Survivors: Point of Origin is Sadie’s quest to save her family. But can she find what she is looking for when she can barely stomach the Winters’ wintry demeanor and finds herself distracted by Cole Hardwick’s warm heart? Will she be able to uncover her family’s history even as the elders’ grip tightens around her throat? In an action packed ride full of magic and misery, terror and triumph, Sadie Matthau seeks the Survivors’ beginning just in time to face her end.

My Review:
Point of Origin is the second book in The Survivors Series by Amanda Havard. There is so much that is involved in this series that you really need to read Book 1: The Survivors before starting Point of Origin. Sadie has been living life as a human for so long, it's hard for her to adapt back to the ways of The Survivors. Plus, now she has the Winter's with her, so making sure everyone gets along isn't easy. I'm not sure where her relationship with Everett is going. They say they love each other, but some of the things they do and say don't reflect that love. Sadie keeps visiting Cole too which really doesn't help her relationship with Everett. She's struggling even more with both her humanity and lack of humanity, and as a result both of these guys are being strung along for the ride. There was a lot of traveling in Point of Origin. She stops in New York, Boston, and Salem too name a few. I have been to these places so, it was a lot of fun being able to accurately visualize these places she was visiting. Like the first book, Point of Origin is so darn interesting. There is a lot of action, and I'm really wondering who I can trust. This is a story that definitely keeps me on my toes. Point of Origin is completely unique!
I won Point of Origin by Amanda Havard through Bookies. The opinions are my own.

About the Author:

Amanda Havard thinks in stories. She writes books and songs, tells stories to people over coffee or in elaborate iPad apps, in short films or subtle photographs. Stories are her life. THE SURVIVORS: BODY & BLOOD is her third novel, and is an amalgamation of all of her storytelling love combined. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a place where creativity drips from the sap of the trees, radiates from the attitude of the population, and seeps from the concrete. The inventor of the Immersedition™ interactive book app, Havard is always looking for the next best story-- and the most innovative way to tell it. Check out my interview with Amanda Havard!

To learn more about Amanda Havard and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

Book Review: The Survivors by Amanda Havard

Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal Romance)

The Blurb:

In 1692, when witch trials gripped the community of Salem, Massachusetts, twenty-six children were accused as witches, exiled, and left for dead. Fourteen of them survived. The Survivors is the first installment of the tantalizing tales of the fourteen ill-fated Survivors and their descendants, who have been content in hiding for over three centuries. Isolated on a Montana mountainside, only Sadie, the rogue daughter, dares to abandon the family's sacred hiding place. But no matter how far Sadie runs, something always pulls her back. On a muggy summer night in Tennessee, she witnesses a shocking scene that will change her life forever. It is the first in a sequence of events that will drag her from the human world she's sought to belong to for over a century and send her back to her Puritanical family and into an uncertain future filled with cunning witches, mysterious nosferatu shape-shifters, dangerous eretica and vieczy vampires, millennia-old mythology, and the search for her own mortality. After all... HOW DO YOU KILL A SURVIVOR? The Survivors will steal your heart and invade your mind. Fall into the pages of Sadie's life, a world so frighteningly similar to your own, you'll find yourself wanting to go to the Montana mountains to find the Survivors for yourself. And it is only the beginning.

My Review:
The Survivors is the intriguing first book in what will be a series of five by Nashville author, Amanda Havard. The Survivors begins with twenty-six children accused of being witches in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts. The children were left to die in the middle of winter. Fourteen of them survived. Three centuries later, Sadie Matthau runs away from their isolated Montana community. During a late night run, she sees something so startling it changes everything she thought she knew and leads her on a route of self-discovery, meeting various paranormal creatures along the way, and maybe even finding love.

The Survivors blends mythology, history, and fiction so well, you will find yourself doing research of your own to find out what is real and what came from the mind of the author. I found the book to be highly original and was introduced to some creatures I had never heard of before. It is a fast read. As one chapter ends, you can't help but to keep reading so you know what will happen next.

Check out my reviews of  Book 2: Point of Origin & Book 3: Body & Blood 

 

Amanda Havard entwines fashion, social networking, travel, and even music into her storytelling as well. She co-wrote the first single and theme song from book one of the THE SURVIVORS Series with Deanna Walker. The song, "Pretty Girl", is performed by Chris Mann. Be sure to check it out at Amanda Havard's You Tube page.

The second single,"Breaking", was released this morning. "Breaking" was performed by Jess Moskaluk and written by Amanda Havard and Deanna Walker as well.You can also view this at Amanda Havard's You Tube page. Both songs can be purchased from iTunes.
The next installment of The Survivors is expected in Spring of 2012. Fans can pass the time waiting by visiting their favorite characters on Facebook. You can read updates from Sadie Matthau, Corrina Meyer Williams, Ginny Winter, Mark Winter & Everett Winter on their very own Facebook pages. It doesn't stop there. You can also find many of them tweeting back and forth on Twitter as well, using the same names they use in the book.

About the Author:

Amanda Havard thinks in stories. She writes books and songs, tells stories to people over coffee or in elaborate iPad apps, in short films or subtle photographs. Stories are her life. THE SURVIVORS: BODY & BLOOD is her third novel, and is an amalgamation of all of her storytelling love combined. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a place where creativity drips from the sap of the trees, radiates from the attitude of the population, and seeps from the concrete. The inventor of the Immersedition™ interactive book app, Havard is always looking for the next best story-- and the most innovative way to tell it. Check out my interview with Amanda Havard!

To learn more about Amanda Havard and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

Source: I won a paperback copy of this book through Bookies.

Meet the author: Amanda Havard

Amanda Havard is the amazing new author of THE SURVIVORS. THE SURVIVORS is the unforgettable first in what will be a series of five books. The novel follows Sadie Matthau who is descended from what was originally twenty-six children, accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. These children were left in the wilderness to die in the cold of winter in 1692, but fourteen survived.

Havard grew up in Dallas, Texas before moving to Nashville to obtain her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Vanderbilt University. She wrote THE SURVIVORS in twenty-seven days during grad school. Havard recently returned home to Nashville after another trip to explore and research Salem as well as Danvers in Massachusetts. I'm very thankful that she took the time to answer a few questions about herself and her highly addictive series.

How long have you been writing?
I've been writing forever. I've made up stories with elaborate details and told them to anyone who would listen since before I could write those stories down. Storytelling is in my blood. THE SURVIVORS is my first published book, though.

What inspired you to write your first book?
I actually wrote a book before THE SURVIVORS that will likely never see the light of day. I was inspired to write it, though, because I wanted to play with the idea of twisting reality in just the right number of ways to make a crazy story. It was a fantastic exercise in immersing myself in a story world, creating characters who were so real that they were sometimes harder to love than they were to hate, and in interweaving plot elements in a way I can promise you'll see in the rest of the series of THE SURVIVORS.

When you first started writing The Survivors, did you plan for it to be a series?
Definitely. The very night I got the idea for THE SURVIVORS, I knew it would be a series, and I knew roughly how it would end. By the time I was done writing the first book, I had the outlines for the next four complete.

Can you tell us a little something about the sequel?
The sequel is totally amped up in comparison to the first book. The stakes are higher for Sadie as she leaves the first book-- she's facing a lot of uncertainties and yet a lot of certain dangers. People are getting hurt and she feels responsible, and this time, when she goes traveling the world seeking the stories of other supernaturals, she has a lot more to lose. I was thrilled to be able to incorporate a lot more history and some new elements of mythology into the story as well. And at least one person asks me this every day, so I can say confidently that there's a lot more of our human love interest, Cole. I'm thrilled to be able to share it with everyone!

Which of your characters do you relate to most and why?
I relate to all of my characters in some way, even the villains. I did create them all... But in reality, each character embodies a major or several major characteristics that I embody too, even in tiny increments. My humor and attitude are probably most like Mark's, but my life is strangely similar to Sadie's in some ways. But I don't have a single character in my books whose eyes I can't look through and recognize parts of myself.

What is a secret about Sadie that nobody else knows?
What a question! Let's see... I think Sadie thinks of things in a really black-and-white sense, and so every experience she has defines her in an exaggerated way. A great example of this: the first time she had a human boyfriend, Todd, she expected a certain kind of magic (like we all do). When that magic didn't come, I think a little part of Sadie stopped believing that that magic even existed. It doesn't seem like it, and she pretty much never talks about it in the books, but I think that time she spent with Todd before we ever met her in the pages of THE SURVIVORS really affected her in a way she may never totally recover from.

If your real life as a teenager was a Young Adult book, what would you, the main character, be like?
Like many teenagers, my teenage life was full of uncertainty. I have a strong, even unwavering sense of self now, but when I was 15, I didn't know myself from Adam. The main character would ask a lot of questions, make a lot of mistakes, and fumble through realizing a little bit more about herself with each step-- and misstep.

What book have you read too many times to count?
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received?
Write what you know.

Amanda Havard entwines fashion, social networking, travel, and even music into her storytelling. She co-wrote the first single and theme song from book one of the THE SURVIVORS Series with Deanna Walker. The song, "Pretty Girl", is performed by Chris Mann. Be sure to check it out at Amanda Havard's You Tube page.


The second single,"Breaking", was released this morning. "Breaking" was performed by Jess Moskaluk and written by Amanda Havard and Deanna Walker as well.You can also view this at Amanda Havard's You Tube page. Both songs can be purchased from iTunes.

Book Review: The Survivors by Amanda Havard


You can learn more about Amanda Havard's astonishing series and purchase "THE SURVIVORS" through her website. Also, follow the series on Twitter and Facebook.

You can also read this interview on Examiner