My Thoughts: Rise of Fire by Sophie Jordan

Rise of Fire
(Reign of Shadows #2)
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: February 7th 2017
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780062377678
Genre: Young Adult | Fantasy
Source: Edelweiss

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The richly suspenseful sequel to Sophie Jordan’s romantic fantasy Reign of Shadows.

Luna and Fowler have escaped the kingdom of Relhok, but they haven’t escaped the darkness. When a battle against the dark dwellers mortally injures Fowler, Luna is faced with a choice: put their fate in the hands of mysterious strangers or risk losing Fowler forever.

Desperate to keep the one bright part of her life alive, Luna accepts the help of soldiers from a nearby kingdom. Lagonia’s castle offers reprieve from the dangerous outside world—until the king discovers both Fowler's and Luna’s true ties to Relhok and their influence over the throne.

Now pawns in each kingdom’s political game, Luna and Fowler are more determined than ever to escape and build the life they’ve been dreaming of. But their own pasts have a tight hold on their hearts and their destinies. Luna must embrace the darkness and fire within her before she loses not only Fowler, but the power she was destined to inherit. (Goodreads)

My Thoughts...
Rise of Fire is the second book in the Reign of Shadows duology by the awesome Sophie Jordan. I read Reign of Shadows last year, and I've been really curious to see what's going to happen next. I love Sophie's books, so I was really looking forward to starting this one.

I was super excited to get back into this story to see what was going to happen next for Luna and Fowler, especially after that cliffhanger ending in Reign of Shadows. I really love these two characters. Luna proves over and over again throughout this series that she can take care of herself, and I love that about her, as well her caring heart. I also love Fowler's fierce need to protect Luna, even when she doesn't seem to need it. They are really a great pair. We don't see many of the secondary characters from the first book in this sequel, but we are introduced to quite a few new ones as the story goes along; a few that you will love, and more than a few that you will come to hate.

The storyline for the book follows the same arc as the first book, but the setting very different. In the first book, Luna and Fowler where in The Outside most of the time, and this time, they were in a castle for most of the book. To be completely honest, I really missed the outside world, though the dwellers, not so much. I didn't know when I started this second book that the series was a duology, so I was quite surprised when things started wrapping up at the end, which was nicely done.

Overall; Rise of Fire was an nice sequel and conclusion for the Reign of Shadows duology! As I mentioned above, I wasn't aware that this series was a duology, so I'm a little bummed that there won't be a third book. I've really enjoyed reading these books, and I hate to see them end!

Review: Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

Reign of Shadows
(Reign of Shadows #1)
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: February 9th 2016
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780062377647
Genre: Young Adult | Fantasy
Source: Edelweiss

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Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.

But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized.

With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet. (Goodreads)

My Thoughts...
I never pass up the chance to read something new by one of my favorite authors, and I couldn't wait to finally read Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan!! I've really enjoyed all the books I've read by her so far, and I couldn't wait to see what she had come up with next. I wasn't disappointed!!

Luna has been hidden away, living in a tower every since the night an eclipse shrouded her kingdom in never-ending darkness seventeen years ago. Her family murdered by an evil chancellor, her world terrorized by  dwellers who live in the darkness; her only chance of survival is to stay inside the tower at all times. Then she meets Fowler, a mysterious young man who came out of nowhere, and her world is changed forever.

The main character in the story, Luna, was pretty awesome. Despite being raised in a tower and never seeing anyone other than her caretakers, she's more than capable of taking care of herself, which she proves over and over again as she descends on a journey with the mysterious Fowler. She's such a strong character, and she has such a big heart. I loved her instantly, and I'm curious to see what is going to happen next for her and Fowler on their journey.

The storyline for the book was definitely fascinating! I idea that these people had been  in utter darkness for the past seventeen years was definitely intriguing. There were lots of twists and turns throughout the story, so many that kept me on the edge of my seat, and one near the end that really caught me by surprise.  The book ends with a pretty massive cliffhanger, so I'll be pining away until I can get my hands on its sequel.

Overall; Reign of Shadows was definitely a unique read, and I can't wait for news on the sequel, which will be a must read for me. I'm super curious to see how this is all going to end for Luna and mysterious Fowler.

Waiting on Wednesday #204 - Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

Reign of Shadows
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: February 9th 2016
Publisher: HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780062377647



Available for Pre-Order:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.

But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized.

With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.

With lush writing and a star–crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best. (Goodreads)

Whoot!
Sophie Jordan's upcoming release has a cover!!
I've been waiting six months to see this baby, and it's absolutely gorgeous!!
I am so super excited to get lost in this new world Sophie created.
Judging by the summary, it sounds like it's going to be a really awesome read.
I can't wait to check it out!!

**"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine,
that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.**

Review: Wild by Sophie Jordan

Wild
(The Ivy Chronicles #3)
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: November 18th 2014
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780062279910
Genre: New Adult | Contemporary
Source: Edelweiss

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A good girl goes fabulously bad in the final book in New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan’s sexy New Adult romance series, in which three Ivy League suite-mates seek higher knowledge of just how far they can go.

Months after her boyfriend dumped her, Georgia can still hear the insults he hurled at her. Boring. Predictable. Tame. Tired of feeling bad, she’s ready to change her image, and go a little wild. What better way to prove her ex wrong than a hot night of sexual adventure at the secret campus kink club?

In the shadowy den of the kink club, she unexpectedly runs into Logan Mulvaney, her friend’s little brother. A player extraordinaire too hot for his own good, he may be younger, but the guy is light years ahead when it comes to sexual experience. Now he’s telling her to go home—“good girls” don’t belong here!

Georgia is tired of having others define her. She’s going to teach Logan a lesson he won’t forget—one white hot, mind-wrecking kiss . . . that leads to another . . . and another . . . and. . . . Realizing she’s way in over her head, Georgia runs.

Only Logan won’t let her go. Everywhere she goes he’s there, making her want every inch of him. Making her forget who she is. Who he is. And just how wrong they are for each other. (Goodreads)

I absolutely could not wait to get my hands on Sophie Jordan’s Wild, the third and final installment in The Ivy Chronicles series. I adored Foreplay, and Tease was great also, so I just knew that I was going to love this story. And I did, SO much. I am a romantic at heart. I can’t help myself, I adore a good love story, and that is definitely what you get when you pick up this series.

Wild is told from Georgia’s point of view, who we have met in the previous books. I didn’t really know what to expect from Georgia. While we’ve known her from the previous books, we still don’t know much about her. Her life is pretty much controlled by over overprotective mother, who wants nothing more than for Georgia to move back to their small town, and marry her ex-boyfriend, who just ended their four year relationship. Georgia wrestles with these issues throughout most of the novel, but through these struggles comes growth, and she starts to discover a different side of herself, a side that wants to be happy with her life and make her own choices. And she discovers all this with the help of Logan.

The highlight of the story for me would have to be Logan. I knew I was going to love him, because if he’s any relation to Reese at all, who wouldn’t love him? But… Oh my, Logan is oh-so-swoonworthy, and that’s totally not what I expected from him when I started reading the book. We’d met him previous in the series, and with the impression that I got of him in the previous books, I kind of expected him to be a certain way. Boy did he prove me wrong. Throughout the novel he struggles with his own issues, and proves himself to be a pretty awesome guy over and over again. I’m slightly in love with Logan at the moment, and I can imagine he will be one of those characters that will stay in my mind for a long time to come.

The storyline for the book follows much of the same as the previous books, and I really enjoyed the familiarity of the story. The characters, the setting; it made me remember things that I had read in the previous books, which in turn made me super happy. Like the previous books in this series, I read this book quickly, in just a few hours time. The storyline had me hooked, and I hated the moments when I had to put the book down, even briefly. I should also mention that the tension in this book was thick enough to cut with a knife. This made for a super intense read!

Overall; While Foreplay had been my favorite book in this series so far, Jordan totally blew me away with Wild. This book is definitely my favorite of this series. And I enjoyed this series so much; I hate to see it come to an end! I am now a loyal fan of Sophie Jordan’s, and I can’t wait to check out more of her books in the upcoming future. If you’ve not yet check out The Ivy Chronicles series, I highly recommend that you do so!



Books in this Series:



 Foreplay        |                Tease             |            Wild    

Review: Tease by Sophie Jordan

Tease
(The Ivy Chronicles #2)
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: May 27th 2014
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780062279897
Genre: New Adult | Contemporary
Source: Edelweiss

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What happens when a girl who always calls the shots meets a guy who's too wild for even her?

A born flirt and good-time party girl, Emerson has never had a problem finding a willing guy. She's always chosen her hookups carefully, and she's never broken her three cardinal rules:

Never let them see the real you.
Never fall in love.
Always leave them begging for more.

Then Shaw comes along. A hottie from the wrong side of the tracks, he's immune to her flirtatious banter and come-hither smile. After rescuing her from a disastrous night at a biker bar, he doesn't even try to take her to bed—he calls her a tease and sends her home instead. Unable to resist a challenge, or forget the sexy, dark-eyed, bad-boy biker, she vows to bring him to his knees.

But instead of making Shaw beg, Emerson finds herself craving him. For the first time in her life, she's throwing out her rule book. Suddenly, she's the one panting for a guy she can't control—a guy who won't settle for anything less than the real Emerson and who forces her to do things she's never imagined, including facing a past she thought she'd buried.

A guy who just might leave her wanting more. . . . (Goodreads)

Tease is the second novel in Sophie Jordan’s ‘The Ivy Chronicle’s’ New Adult series, and is the much anticipated follow up to Foreplay. I read Foreplay last year and really enjoyed the story, so I couldn’t wait to dive into Tease and continue this series!

Tease is the story of Emerson, who we first met in Foreplay. Emerson is, as the book’s title describes, a tease, and she’s totally ok with that description. She likes to be the one in control, and she’s not looking for any type of long term relationship. She’s definitely not the easiest character to like at first. It was frustrating to see her constantly pushing people away. She has major control issues as well. We find out the reasons for the reason Em is the way she is as we read the book, and you have to sympathize with the girl for all that she has been through.

When Em meets Shaw, he totally rattles the player vibe that she has going on, and this is a change that she doesn’t take well to. And while she wants to resist him, she also can’t help but find him totally irresistible.  Shaw is definitely a swoon-worthy character. He never gives up on her, even when she pushes him away. I love his protectiveness over Em, even when she proves that she can take care of herself. I thought that Shaw was the perfect person for Emerson.

I really loved that all of the characters that I loved from the first book were in this book as well, especially Pepper and Reese. They are SO stinking cute together. Georgia is awesome as well, and I can’t wait to read her story next. I love the friendship between these three girls, they were always there for each other, and didn’t even let boy come between them.

I knew this book was going to be a quick read, and I ended up reading it in just a few hours time. While I did like the book, Foreplay is still my favorite in the series so far. I do feel like there were a couple of loose endings when I finished the novel, but it wasn’t anything super huge. I did want to know where some things stood, however.

Overall; if you’re read and enjoyed Foreplay, you’re really going to enjoy Tease. Now I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series, ‘Wild’; I can’t wait to read Georgia and Logan’s story!

Review: Uninvited by Sophie Jordan

Uninvited
(Uninvited #1)
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: January 28th 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 384
ISBN: 9780062233653
Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian
Source: Edelweiss

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The Scarlet Letter meets Minority Report in bestselling author Sophie Jordan's chilling new novel about a teenage girl who is ostracized when her genetic test proves she's destined to become a murderer.

When Davy Hamilton's tests come back positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome (HTS)-aka the kill gene-she loses everything. Her boyfriend ditches her, her parents are scared of her, and she can forget about her bright future at Juilliard. Davy doesn't feel any different, but genes don't lie. One day she will kill someone.

Only Sean, a fellow HTS carrier, can relate to her new life. Davy wants to trust him; maybe he's not as dangerous as he seems. Or maybe Davy is just as deadly.

The first in a two-book series, Uninvited tackles intriguing questions about free will, identity, and human nature. Steeped in New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan's trademark mix of gripping action and breathless romance, this suspenseful tale is perfect for fans of James Patterson, Michelle Hodkin, and Lisa McMann. (Goodreads)

Imagine living in a world where your DNA could tell if you would be a killer or not. That is the world in which Davy Hamilton lives.  Davy is a smart, talented, and privileged young lady with a very bright future ahead of her. But when she tests positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome, otherwise known as the killing gene, she loses everything she has ever know and loved, including her friends, her boyfriend, and the promising future that was waiting on her.

When we first meet Davy in the beginning of the novel, she is very young and naïve. Throughout the novel we see her become more hardened to the world. What other choice does she have, really? I felt so bad for Davy’s whole situation, and for everything that she was being put through. With some of the ‘carriers’, you could tell that they were bad people. But Davy wasn’t a bad person at all, and it was a bit heartbreaking to see her lose everything that she loved so quickly. She was treated like a monster, instead of just a girl. I found her reactions to everything that happened to be very realistic. I think I would have reacted the very same way. It just wasn’t right!

Some of the things that happened to Davy throughout the book were insanely frustrating to me. Some of the reasons that the Agency did some of the things that they did were completely ridiculous. However, the way that the people reacted to the ‘carriers’ of the gene was very realistic. I was surprised to see just how quickly all of Davy’s friends turned on her. I could see this happening in real life and see people reacting in the ridiculous ways that they did in the story. Granted, some reactions were appropriate, but others where just people being overly paranoid of people that are different in the world.

There were a few secondary characters in the story that I really enjoyed. There was Sean, who was the big bad guy, and also the love interest in the story. There was also Gil, computer nerd extraordinaire, and Sabine, who Davy meets later in the book. All of these characters are carriers of the kill gene, which is what ended up throwing them all together, but none of them seemed like a monster to me at all. I really enjoyed all of these characters.

The relationship between Davy and Sean started off slowly and built into something more.  It seems that Davy felt a bit more for Sean in the beginning that he did for her.  The only thing that bothered me about the relationship was that Sean was always doing something to protect her; he didn’t really let her fight her battles herself. That did get a bit annoying after a while, to me and to Davy, it seems, as well. The romance didn’t really seem to be a huge part of the book, but maybe that’s because it really didn’t start to grow until the second half of the book.

I really loved the whole plot for the book. Imagine if this happened in real life? Oh goodness, it would be a nightmare! But it made for an extremely fascinating topic for this book, one that I would love to read more on. The book is filled with so much tension. A couple of times I was actually tensed up, holding my breath, waiting to see what was going to happen. Because of this, I sort of expected a big cliffhanger type ending.  I found the ending a bit anticlimactic; I definitely expected a bit more.

Overall; while I did have a few issues with this book, I did find it to be a very enjoyable read. I’m really interested in reading the next book in the series just to see what’s going to happen next.

Review: Foreplay by Sophie Jordan

Foreplay
(The Ivy Chronicles #1)
by Sophie Jordan
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Publication Date: November 5th 2013
Publisher: William Morrow / HarperCollins
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780062279873
Genre: NEW ADULT
Source: Edelweiss

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Before she goes after the life she’s always wanted, she’s about to find the one she needs.

Pepper has been hopelessly in love with her best friend’s brother, Hunter, for like ever. He’s the key to everything she’s always craved: security, stability, family. But she needs Hunter to notice her as more than just a friend. Even though she’s kissed exactly one guy, she has just the plan to go from novice to rock star in the bedroom—take a few pointers from someone who knows what he’s doing.

Her college roommates have the perfect teacher in mind. But bartender Reece is nothing like the player Pepper expects. Yes, he’s beyond gorgeous, but he’s also dangerous, deep—with a troubled past. Soon what started as lessons in attraction are turning both their worlds around, and showing just what can happen when you go past foreplay and get to what’s real… (Goodreads)

I read and enjoyed Sophie Jordan’s Firelight series a while back, so I was really looking forward to reading her upcoming New Adult novel; Foreplay. I snagged from Edelweiss, not really knowing what to expect from the book. I’m happy to say that this book definitely did not disappoint!

Foreplay is a novel about a young girl named Pepper, who is about as innocent and naïve as they come. She’s only ever kissed one guy in her short life, and she’s been madly in love with her best friend’s brother for years. She wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him, but doesn’t know how to even approach him considering her lack of skills in the romance department. Then she discovers Reece, the tattooed bad boy with the troubled past, who Pepper thinks would be the perfect person to teach her the art of Foreplay.

Ok, I’m just going to say it… I absolutely love Reece. Oh my goodness, he is the perfect bad boy with the big heart. But that is not what we see when we first meet him. No, when we first meet he seems gruff and standoffish. But as the story goes along we see him change, we see him fall in love with Pepper, even when he can’t admit it because he knows that she is after another man.  I adored reading about the times they shared together, it was so insanely sweet. Reece has definitely earned a spot as one of my most favorite bad boys.

Pepper was a very interesting character as well. She’s the perfect good girl, but also with a troubled past that influences a lot of the decisions that she makes in the book. Her obsession with Hunter was a little frustrating. There were times when I wanted to reach through the book and shake her, and tell her to open her eyes to see what a good thing she had with Reece.  But otherwise I found her to be a very likeable character, and she was the perfect girl for Reece.

I love a good love story, and that’s definitely what you get when you read this book.  There were lots of sweet and romantic moments, and definitely lots of hot and steamy moments as well.  If you like books like Easy by Tamara Webber or Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire, you will definitely want to check this book out.  I’m not a big book re-reader, but I will definitely be reading this book again, and soon!

Overall; I really enjoyed this book! It was a fun, light read, and that was just what I needed at the moment. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the series!

Happy Reading!