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Synopsis: 1993. San Francisco. The digital and pharmaceutical industries are booming. They're looking for the young, the hip, and those on the counterculture fringe to be both the face and consumer of their new world order. Recruited by an advertising agency focused on targeting a new drug to her own age demographic, Sarah Striker is grateful for the steady income, but she begins to question the side effects of the products she's pushing. Sarah begins publishing an underground zine to expose the secrets behind the pharmaceutical industry's aims. Fulfilled by her quest to spread the truth, her new life seems to be working out perfectly until she realises that she herself is perilously close to becoming a victim of this new corporate world.

Pages: 214

Rating: 4/10

Overall: An interesting look at the early digital boom and the drug industry. Bit too cynical for my taste, but has some colourful characters to fill the story.
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Synopsis: Sutter Keely. He’s the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually.

Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever.

Pages: 294

Rating: 7/10

Overall: A really good insight into the teenage boy's mind, and also a look at alcholism and self-destruction/sabotage that leaves you frustrated and sad for Sutter. His denial in the face of his feelings for Aimee keeps you hopeful that he might see the light, right until the last page.

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Synopsis: On May 30th, 1593, a celebrated young playwright was killed in a tavern brawl in London.
That, at least, was the official version. Now let Christopher Marlowe tell you the truth: that his 'death' was an elaborate ruse to avoid his being hanged for heresy; that he was spirited across the channel to live on in lonely exile, longing for his true love and pining for the damp streets of London; that he continued to write plays and poetry, hiding behind the name of a colourless man from Stratford — one William Shakespeare.

Pages: 407

Rating: 6/10

Overall: The Marlowe Papers is challenging but ultimately rewarding read that makes you questions the official history of Shakespeare. It has a shaky start (no pun intended) but finds its feet eventually. Compelling and suspenseful, if slightly confusing to begin with.
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Synopsis: Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?
Imagine if she hadn’t forgotten the book. Or if there hadn’t been traffic on the expressway. Or if she hadn’t fumbled the coins for the toll. What if she’d run just that little bit faster and caught the flight she was supposed to be on. Would it have been something else - the weather over the Atlantic or a fault with the plane?
Hadley isn’t sure if she believes in destiny or fate but, on what is potentially the worst day of each of their lives, it’s the quirks of timing and chance events that mean Hadley meets Oliver...
Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver’s story will make you believe that true love finds you when you’re least expecting it.

Pages: 215

Rating: 7/10

Overall: The perfect travel read that quick and really cute. The two characters, Hadley and Oliver, have a great chemistry, and I love the banter between them. Waiting for my airport romance now...


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Synopsis: The government requires that all teenagers be cured of love, aka amor deliria nervosa, to keep society safe. But 95 days before her treatment, Lena Haloway falls for a boy--and must face the truth about her own feelings and the world in which she lives.

Pages: 394

Rating: 8/10

Overall: An exciting dystopian novel that presents a very interesting idea of a world where love is forbidden. The foreboding detachment of the cured citizens provide a bleak but thought-provoking backdrop for a heady romance.


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Synopsis: He was tall, at least six feet, with dirty blond hair that hung over his eyes. His T-shirt read Nietzsche Is My Homeboy.

So, that was Matt. Who Julie Seagle likes. A lot. But there is also Finn. Who she flat out loves.

Complicated? Awkward? Completely.

But really, how was this freshly-minted Boston transplant and newbie college freshman supposed to know that she would end up living with the family of an old friend of her mother's? This was all supposed to be temporary. Julie wasn't supposed to be important to the Watkins family, or to fall in love with one of the brothers. Especially the one she's never quite met. But what does that really matter? Finn gets her, like no one ever has before. They have connection.

But here's the thing about love, in all its twisty, bumpy permutations—it always throws you a few curves. And no one ever escapes unscathed.

Pages: 391 (Kindle: 389)

Rating: 8/10

Overall: Despite some style issues, a really enjoyable book with a fantastically messed up characters. And the plot twist has you flipping pages frantically through to the end. Set in wintry Boston, it's perfect for curling up with a cup of tea in the winter.

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Synopsis: Samantha Rousseau is used to getting her hands dirty. Working toward a master’s degree in
wildlife biology while helping take care of her sick father, she has no time for celebrity gossip, designer clothes, or lazy vacations. So when a duchess from the small country of Lilaria invites her to dinner, Samantha assumes it’s to discuss a donation for the program. The truth will change the course of her life in ways she never dreamed.

Alex D’Lynsal is trying to keep his name clean. As crown prince of Lilaria, he’s had his share of scandalous headlines, but the latest pictures have sent him packing to America and forced him to swear off women—especially women in the public eye. That is, until he meets Samantha Rousseau. She’s stubborn, feisty, and incredibly sexy. Not to mention heiress to an estate in his country, which makes her everyone’s front-page news.

While Sam tries to navigate the new world of politics and wealth, she will also have to dodge her growing feelings for Alex. Giving in to them means more than just falling in love; it would mean accepting the weight of an entire country on her shoulders.

Pages: 464

Rating: 8/10

Overall: I really enjoyed this book, perfect for a lazy summer's day by the pool or in the back garden. Modern royalty versus the prying eyes of the media works really well as a backdrop to a sizzling love story.

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Overall:  A beautiful and heartbreaking book that makes you take a step back and remember how lucky we are. Other than the initial slow start, this book reels you in and stomps on your heart in the 
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Synopsis: I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or
shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Pages: 448

Rating: 10/10

The long and short of it: Don't let the possibly misleading title put you off, because this is a stunning book about lost and broken souls relearning how to love again. A definite new favourite!

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Synopsis: Set over the course of one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-
crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

Pages: 325

Rating: 8/10

Overall: On the face of it, Eleanor & Park is a love story set in the mid-80s, and to be honest, that is the heart of it as well. Nostalgia runs rife alongside overflowing cuteness.

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Synopsis: When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. And she’s more than a little startled when the body disappears into thin air. Soon Clary is introduced to the world of the Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of warriors dedicated to driving demons out of our world and back to their own. And Clary is introduced with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a grotesque monster. How could a mere human survive such an attack and kill a demon? The Shadowhunters would like to know…

Pages: 485

Rating: 7/10

Overall: I imagine, had I never read Harry Potter, I would have loved this book. It has all the ingredients necessary for it to be a book I love: action, plot twists, supernatural stuff, bit of romance... but there were too many moments which smacked of similar ones in Harry Potter and others to fully immerse myself.

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Synopsis: I'm Annabel. I'm the girl who has it all. Model looks, confidence, a great social life. I'm one of the lucky ones. Aren't I? 

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Synopsis: Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral Mrs Alice Drablow, the house's sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie hidden behind the shuttered windows. The house stands at the end of a causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but it is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.
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Synopsis: On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her Match. Society dictates he is her perfect partner for life. Except he's not. In Cassia's society, Officials decide who people love. How many children then have. Where they work. When they die. But as Cassia finds herself falling in love with another boy, she is determined to make some choices of her own. And that's when her whole world beings to unravel…

Pages: 366

Rating: 5/10

Overall Thoughts: An enjoyable read, but rather slow-paced. The plot was disappointing. The world that Condie creates is perhaps the best bit, with the ominous faceless presence of the Society giving you a persistent undercurrent of the heebie jeebies.
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Synopsis: Archie is fourteen years old and a Geek to his core. In the world of role-playing games, he's a Level 5 Mage, capable of summoning the Undead. In this world, things are rather different. With no rule book to navigate Life's Big Challenges - warring parents, a crass step-father, orc-like school bullies and crap hair - he's teetering on the brink…

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Synopsis:  After her mother died, Glory retreated into herself and her music. Her single father raised her as a piano prodigy, with a rigid schedule and the goal of playing sold-out shows across the globe. Now, as a teenager, Glory has disappeared. As we flash back to the events leading up to her disappearance, we see a girl on the precipice of disaster. Brilliant and lonely, Glory is drawn to an artistic new boy, Frank, who moves in next door. The farther she falls, the deeper she spirals into madness. Before long, Glory is unable to play anything but the song "Chopsticks."

But nothing is what it seems, and Glory's reality is not reality at all. In this stunningly moving novel told in photographs, pictures, and words, it's up to the reader to decide what is real, what is imagined, and what has been madness all along...

Rating: 7/10

Overall: A beautiful-looking book, which challenges how you read into a story. While I enjoyed it, I felt something was lacking for me. Maybe something I wasn't picking up on with the way this story is told through photos.

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