Hey Everyone!

Wow, is it already the weekend again? I feel like my weeks just fly by! With school, Turning Pages, Burn Bright, reading, Josh, and friends, I have almost no time for myself. But not to worry!! Lisa has the perfect topic for this week’s Life with Lisa segment!

Homecoming! If you don’t know what that is, it’s the school year’s biggest dance! So yes, girls hope and pray that the boy they’ve been crushing on will ask them to go, and spend hundreds of dollars on hair, makeup, nails, shoes and the prefect dress. While boys go out and buy fancy suits, and nice dress shoes.

Wasn’t asked to be someone’s date? Don’t stress! Just go with some friends! Who cares if you don’t have a date? You can dance with anyone and everyone you want, you don’t even have to worry about hurting someone else’s feelings if you don’t dance with them to every song.

Just go out, and have a good time with your friends. Go out to dinner before you go to the dance, and have a sleepover afterwards. Who needs boys anyways? 🙂

You want to go, but your boyfriend doesn’t? There’s two very simple answers for this question. If you really want to go dancing, then do what I mentioned above^^^. Want to go dancing, but rather spend the night with him? Have a special night, with just you and him. Stay at home, pop some corn, toss in a few movies, get a soft blanket to cuddle and get close in, and have a fun time. Or even, just go bowling, watch a movie, go putt putting, or to an arcade, and have a blast together.

Don’t know how to ask that special girl to go with you? Ahh, my favorite question! And this one goes out to you guys 🙂 There’s so many ways to go about this, but I know how it feels, you’re nervous (and even a bit scared) she’ll say no – or that the way you’re asking her won’t be comparable to the way her friends were asked. But no need to fear, Lisa is here!

1. If she drives to school, get out of class five minutes early. Put a rose on her windshield with a note, asking if she’ll be your date! This would make my heart melt, and I would shout yes from the roof tops! But remember to put your name, you don’t want her being confused.

2. Go into her next class, and draw on the board (of course with the teacher’s permission), writing her name REALLY big, so it catches her attention first thing, when she walks in. Then below her name, ask if you could be her escort to the dance.

3. If you know where she lives, go to her house. Bring a balloon, roses, and her ticket to the dance. Don’t go too late, that’s creepy, and make sure it’s dark out, it’s more romantic that way! Say her name, than ask if she would be your date to the dance! Simple 🙂

Want that perfect dress, but don’t have enough money? Go to a thrift store, Ross, Marshalls, JCPennys, Target, or any other clothing store that’s in your area. Who cares if you spent 100 bucks on a dress or 20? No one even notices anyway.

My school even offers a program, called the Dress Exchange, where you can bring your old dresses that you don’t want anymore, and get a new one (of course it’s used though!).

Do your own make-up, have your mom or older sister do your hair and nails. There is NO reason you should spent over fifty bucks!! Just be smart, and sure of what you want.

Have no clue how to dance? Doesn’t matter! You’re there to have fun with either your date or friends. You’re not there to have a dance contest. Keep your mind open and have a good time!

Take everything you have ever learnt or think you know about demons and throw it out the window. Mammon is going to introduce you to a whole new world and give you plenty of new intriguing theories to keep you guessing.

“Forget anything you have ever heard about exorcisms and pentagrams. The modern demon is far more difficult to catch and even harder to destroy……”

Just before the death of their parents, Joe and Grace Callahan learn that they are far from normal. They are in fact descendants of the Sarareh—mercenaries tasked with sending the big bad boys packing and bearing the most extraordinary gifts seen in generations. Joe is a Ferryman, the first seen in generations and capable of opening dimensional rifts and controlling the nasties that reside inside. Grace’s telepathic powers are off the scale and surpass anything the Sarareh have ever seen. The siblings find themselves smack bang in the middle of a war they never knew existed and, to top it all off, the biggest bad of all has his eyes set on Joe.

Mammon is not only an action-packed adventure ride, it is also a poignant tale of love, loss and finding your true self.  For most of the book, Joe comes across as arrogant, conceited and just a little too sure of himself. Remarkably though, this doesn’t make you dislike him in any way. His character is just as compelling as the others and the experience of waiting for his armour to crack adds a whole new dimension to the story. Grace on the other hand is a sweet, soft seeming soul who spends a lot of time trying to placate Joe’s tumultuous temper. Grace also goes through her own “awakening” and proves not only to the reader but to herself that she’s more than capable of kicking some demon butt.

Mammon will get under your skin right from the start and the outside world will seem to grind to a stop as you become fully immersed in the plot. Like all good starts to a series we are left hanging on a cliff edge, but half the fun can be coming up with your own theories as to what will happen next. A fast paced read, which is quite frankly a whole lot of fun.

Mammon—J.B. Thomas

Published September 1, 2011, by Random House

ISBN:978-1-74275-074-3

Paperback, 376 Pages

Author info can be found here.

After being sent back from the light, Alona Dare – former homecoming queen, current Queen of the Dead – finds herself doing something she never expected: working. Instead of spending days perfecting her tan by the pool (her typical summer routine when she was, you know, alive), Alona must now cater to the needs of other lost spirits. By her side for all of this – ugh – “helping of others” is Will Killian: social outcast, seer of the dead, and someone Alona cares about more than she’d like.

Before Alona can make a final ruling on Will’s “friend” or “more” status, though, she discovers trouble at home. Her mom is tossing out Alona’s most valuable possessions, and her dad is expecting a new daughter with his wicked wife. Is it possible her family is already moving on? Hello! She’s only been dead for two months! Thankfully, Alona knows just the guy who can put a stop to this mess.

Unfortunately for Alona, Will has other stuff on his mind, and Mina, a young (and beautiful) seer, is at the top of the list. She’s the first ghost-talker Will’s ever met—aside from his father—and she may hold answers to Will’s troubled past. But can she be trusted? Alona immediately puts a check mark in the “clearly not” column. But Will is – ahem – willing to find out, even if it means leaving a hurt and angry Alona to her own devices, which is never a good idea.

In this second book in the Ghost and the Goth series it’s The Ghost Whisperer vs Ghostbusters. In The Ghost and The Goth,  we are introduced to Alona and Will who have decided they are going to help the ghosts instead of trying to ignore or fight with them. It’s the best of both worlds, that is until in book 2 we are introduced to Mina. While Alona and Will are on a mission in an old haunted house to help Mrs Ruiz cross over, they have just walked into the middle of a robbery and Mrs Ruiz is pissed off. Mina appears with her metal box contraptions and light stick that saves them from the dangerous situation…for now. Mina works for a secret ghost containing group only known to Will as the “Book Group”. They knew Will’s father and they may hold the answers to why he committed suicide years ago. Alona is not happy with the introduction of Mina into Will’s life, and her resulting decisions will change all of their lives forever.

Stacey Kade has a fantastic way of bringing us into the characters’ lives. They are well written, solid characters and the voices match those of the current day teen exactly. The rotation of the chapters from Alona’s perspective to Will’s is ideal to help portray the different views on the dead vs the living. It also helps with the pace of the story keeping in all of the interesting details with very little down time between events.

I am hoping in the next book to see some more conflicts between the two ideas of helping the ghosts cross over peacefully, or not giving them a choice and containing them just for existing. I personally would like to see them work out a mixture of both ideas. And I’m still in a little bit of a shock over what Alona did in this book and am very interested to see what happens in the next chaper of her life. I am growing to love both of these characters very much and maybe they really do have a chance to be together forever. That is, if the “book group” doesn’t interfere first.

Stacey Kade – Queen of the Dead

Hardcover, 266 pages
Published May 31st 2011 by Hyperion Book CH
ISBN 1423134672 (ISBN13: 9781423134671)

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Library Thing

Hey everyone! Welcome to another one of my reviews! Two weeks ago, I went a little crazy on NetGalley, requesting way too many ARCs (that I now need to read). So, those will be books I’ll be writing reviews on in the near future! I couldn’t help myself! Thank you, Krista, for my new -found addiction (:

The book I’m reviewing for you all today is Blood by K. J. Wignall, and again, this copy is a e-book from Netgalley.  It’s coming out in hardback on the 27th of September! When I review books here on Burn Bright, I usually don’t like putting the summary in, and instead summarize it myself. But with this book, I’m having a hard time doing that. I loved and had such a great time reading Blood, that I’m scared I’ll mess up the story for you guys if I summarize it myself. So here’s the synopsis:

“Will is a vampire in danger. Heir to the Earl of Mercia, he was brutally attacked and buried in the thirteenth century before he was able to assume his title. Perpetually sixteen, Will’s life has been lonely. He leaves his tomb every so often, adapts to the present day, feeds his bloodlust, and never gets close to anyone.
Until now. Waking from a twenty-year slumber, hungry for the blood that sustains his undeath, he meets Eloise—but can’t bear to make her his next victim. Drawn to a girl he can never have, but whose fate seems bound with his own, he feels the need to protect her. But Will has an enemy who will stop at nothing to find him . . . and he’s closing in. . . .”

Sounds pretty awesome, huh?  Basically, the main character is Will, he’s only sixteen and he’s from the thirteenth century. Every few years he wakes up from his sleep to feed on blood. So, if you didn’t already know this, he’s a vampire. No he isn’t Edward Cullen, he doesn’t need blood very often, he doesn’t have any super powers, and he isn’t exactly sure how he became a vampire. Without any family or friends (they’re all dead, and he can’t get close to anyone since he doesn’t know when he’ll go back to sleep), he sleeps at his “tomb”, a.k.a a local church.

After a very short twenty-five year nap, Will wakes up in our time. As he leaves the church to go on a search for blood, he runs into a few people, who play important roles throughout the story. In Blood, Will is on his search to find out who bit and created him, and most importantly who is searching for him. Yes, there’s even a little romance in there for us ladies (; Will also meets a girl named Eloise. Will doesn’t want to become to close to her, simply because he never knows when he’ll be sleeping again (*semi star crossed lovers*); not wanting to go through that again. Getting to know one another more, Will and Eloise find that they have a lot in common, and each starts to build feelings for the other.

Yes, even I am bored of vampires, but I promise you, Blood wasn’t the usual vampire book! I had a great time reading Blood, and I can’t wait to finish the series. Thank you Netgalley, K. J. Wignall and Krista (for introducing me to Netgalley!)

Blood – K. J. Wignall

Published September 27th, 2011, by Egmont Books

Hardback, 336 pages

ISBN: 9781405258609

Imagine in the last two years your life has been completely and utterly turned upside down. Not only do you find out that your  mum is in fact over a hundred years old and half angel—wings and all, but you’re also about to be tasked with your “Purpose”, your whole reason for being, and you haven’t even mastered the whole flying thing yet.

Welcome to 16-year-old Clara Gardner’s world. Given clues to her Purpose through a series of often confusing visions (all featuring the same forest fire and same mysterious boy) Clara, her mum and younger brother, Jeff, leave California for Wyoming to fulfil her destiny. But along with starting at a new school and trying to fit in, Clara realises there is a lot more to this angel business than she first thought, and some of it can be deadly. Plus there is that pesky Purpose; but when you’re meant to save one boy and you’re head over heels with another in danger, just who do you choose?

Unearthly is one of the best books I’ve read all year, it’s just simply beautiful. You can’t help but fall in love with the main players, especially Clara. Not only is it a tale of destiny and first time love, it’s also the story of one girl trying to desperately make sense of the curve balls life keeps throwing at her. And it is a realistic look at the changes approaching adulthood can make to family relationships—especially between a mother and daughter. It’s the type of coming-of-age story that leaves you feeling all warm and glowing, yet still retains that ring of honesty.

It’s not all mushy though, don’t worry. There is plenty of action and uncovering of hidden truths to keep the pulse racing: the revelation of “evil” angels; Clara’s discovery that her mum is telling her all the facts; the day-to-day struggle of keeping such a huge secret. The plot is finely woven and entrancing; Clara’s world will draw you in completely. It’s vividly rich and the setting  almost becomes another character.  My only complaint is that the pages just turned way too fast, it is just that addictive. The ending does leave you with emotions raging and a desperate need to know what’s next. Thankfully there is a sequel, Hallowed, due for release in January 2012 so the wait is not too long. So whether or not angels are your cup of tea, Unearthly is still worth checking out.

Unearthly-Cynthia Hand

Published Jan 4, 2011 by Harper Collins

Paperback, 435 pages

ISBN: 9780730492818

Author info can be found here