Teaser Tuesday #25

First of all, just want to let you know that the giveaway for Tears of the Broken ends on Saturday. So hurry over to the entry and leave your comments! All I need is your email address so I can let you know if you've won!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Thank you to MizB of Should Be Reading for giving us Teaser Tuesday every week!

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teaser comes from In Dreams Begin by Skyler White. A book I read more than a year ago but felt it deserved to resurface for a bit.

I crave sleep the way a locked-up junkie wants a hit, but I've never actually heard voices before. So maybe I'm not asleep. Maybe I'm falling apart. p 3

This book was really interesting. A bit hard to follow at times, but interesting nonetheless. I love the way Skyler writes. The words seem to just write themselves. And her descriptions of the things and people in the books are amazing.

Goodreads blurb:

In a Victorian Ireland of magic, poetry, and rebellion, Ida Jameson, an amateur occultist, reaches out for power-but captures Laura Armstrong, a modern-day graphic artist, instead. When Ida channels Laura into the body of celebrated beauty and Irish freedom-fighter Maud Gonne, Laura falls in love with the young poet W. B. Yeats. Their love affair entwines with Irish history and weaves through Yeats' poetry- until Ida discovers something she wants more than magic in the subterranean spaces between Laura's time and her own. With Laura's Irish past threatening her orderly present, she and Yeats must find a way to make their love last over time, in changing bodies...or lose each other forever.

Can't wait to see the teasers you guys have this week!

Daring You To Read - and Falling, fly by Skyler White

Daring You to Read is a fairly new meme hosted by Tynga over at Tynga's Reviews.

Here's how it works:

- You choose a book you’ve read, loved and would dare your readers to read!

- The book you choose must be an older release (at least 6 months ago), because let’s be honest, we’re all quite aware of the latest releases.

- Write your own blog post, using the button and linking back to Tynga’s Reviews, inviting your readers to read your chosen book.

- Come back on Tynga’s Reviews and put your link in the linking tool.

- Browse other bloggers Dare and let them know if you’ve read their featured book, or plan on reading it.

- Super easy and an awesome way to discover that special book who might have slipped off your radar!

The book I chose this week was and Falling, fly by Skyler White.

From Goodreads:
I won this book long ago and far away from Jess, The Cozy Reader. And I have to tell you that I'm wicked glad I did. It was really good. I'd long been reading books that did all necessary thinking (about the plot, characters, feelings about certain happenings in the book etc) for me. Easy books to read ya know? This one was not like that.

It was extremely different than any other book I'd ever read. Vampires were fallen angels and scientists trying to forget past lives were experimenting as if the paranormal was a mental illness that could be removed from your memory. Olivia wants nothing more than to be loved and Dominic wants nothing more than to forget.

In this fractures Hotel of the Damned, Olivia and Dominic discover the only force consistent in their opposing realities is the deep, erotic gravity between them. Bound to each other finally in a knot of interwoven freedoms, Dominic and Olivia-the vision-touched scientist and the earth-bound angel, reborn and undead-encounter the mystery of love and find it is both fall...and flight.

Sadly, I loaned my copy out and then moved before I got it back, but the people I loaned it to LOVED it. I definitely recommend this to everyone (probably age 18+). It's a book that makes you think. That presents ideas to you that you would have NEVER thought of and those ideas make you go "You know what? I bet that really COULD work."

I dare you to try it. :-)

Looking For Something To Read?

No IMM this week. I'm pretty broke so I don't get books as often as I'd like, although I hear the Borders around here may be liquidating some time soon. If it does... expect a BIG IMM post soon. :-)

On with the reason we all came here today.

Are you looking for something to read? I am. I've got a lot of books that I haven't read yet, but I'm having trouble deciding which one to move on to next. And now that both my girls are here with me I don't have as much time to read as I did before.

Here are some suggestions if you find yourself with "readers' block".

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

Blurb from GoodReads: In this splendid retelling of the biblical story of Hosea, bestselling author Francine Rivers pens a heartbreaking romance between a prostitute and the upright and kind farmer who marries her; the story also functions as a reminder of God's unconditional love for his people. Redeeming Love opens with the Gold Rush of 1850 and its rough-and-tumble atmosphere of greed and desire. Angel, who was sold into prostitution as a child, has learned to distrust all men, who see her only as a way to satisfy their lust. When the virtuous and spiritual-minded Michael Hosea is told by God to marry this "soiled dove," he obeys, despite his misgivings. As Angel learns to love him, she begins to hope again but is soon overwhelmed by fear and returns to her old life. Rivers shines in her ability to weave together spiritual themes and sexual tension in a well-told story, a talent that has propelled her into the spotlight as one of the most popular novelists in the genre of Christian fiction. This is one of her best. - Cindy Crosby

and Falling, fly by Skyler White
Tagline from Goodreads: In a dark and seedy underground of burned-out rock stars and angels-turned- vampires, a revolutionary neuroscientist and a fallen angel must put medicine against mythology in an attempt to erase their tortured pasts...but at what price?

Fire Bringer by David Clement - Davies

The blurb from Goodreads for this one is really long. So I'll give you my take on it. It's kind of like Harry Potter, but for deer. I picked it up from the library before a trip to Maine and ended up really enjoying it. I wasn't sure I would. There's a prophecy that a deer with a mark that looks like an oak leaf will more or less lead their kind to freedom. So Rannoch, "the chosen one", must make the decision whether or not to return home and liberate his herd from Sgorr and the Sgorrla. I highly suggest picking this one up!

There ya go. Three recommendations from moi. All books that I've read and loved. Not exactly mainstream books but still awesome. Doesn't hurt to go outside the box every once in a while right?

In Dreams Begin - Skyler White

So a while back I was sent a book called In Dreams Begin by Skyler White for review. I had read her first novel and falling, fly and was very excited to read her second.

Skyler writes books that make you think. Not that do the thinking for you. And I totally dig that. Makes you wonder if the things she's writing about are actually possible in the real world. So I was totally excited to receive her second book in the mail.

In Dreams Begin is a book unlike any other I've ever read. Modern girl, just married, being transported over a century BACKWARDS when she falls asleep. And the kicker is... when she arrives in the past, she takes over the body of an Irish freedom fighter named Maude Gonne, and falls in love with poet W.B. Yeats. And he with her.

Great story. There were a few parts where I had to go back and read a few paragraphs again to figure out what exactly I was reading. Who was who and where were they. It kind of moved around a bit quickly so there were times when it lost me. But her writing is smooth. Melodious. If that makes sense. She doesn't try to be hip and with it. She doesn't use vulgarity and slang in an effort to draw in a particular group of readers. It's as if she's writing solely for the characters int he story. It's poetic. And Elegant.

Description of back of the book from Goodreads.com

"“Close your eyes tightly—tightly—and keep them closed . . .”

From a Victorian Ireland of magic, poetry and rebellion, Ida Jameson, an amateur occultist, reaches out for power, but captures Laura Armstrong, a modern-day graphic artist instead. Now, for the man or demon she loves, each woman must span a bridge through Hell and across history . . . or destroy it.

“Every passionate man is linked with another age, historical or imaginary, where alone he finds images that rouse his energy.” W. B. Yeats

Anchored in fact on both sides of history, Laura and Ida, modern rationalist and fin de siècle occultist, are linked from the moment Ida channels Laura into the body of celebrated beauty and Irish freedom-fighter Maud Gonne. When Laura falls—from an ocean and a hundred years away—passionately, Victorianly in love with the young poet W. B. Yeats, their love affair entwines with Irish history and weaves through Yeats’s poetry until Ida discovers something she wants more than magic in the subterranean spaces in between.

With her Irish past threatening her orderly present and the man she loves in it, Laura and Yeats—the practical materialist and the poet magus—must find a way to make love last over time, in changing bodies, through modern damnation, and into the mythic past to link their pilgrim souls . . . or lose them forever."

I strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for a refreshing new read.