THE EDGE OF FOREVER by Melissa E. Hurst

In 2013: Sixteen-year-old Alora is having blackouts. Each time she wakes up in a different place with no idea of how she got there. The one thing she is certain of? Someone is following her.

In 2146: Seventeen-year-old Bridger is one of a small number of people born with the ability to travel to the past. While on a routine school time trip, he sees the last person he expected—his dead father. The strangest part is that, according to the Department of Temporal Affairs, his father was never assigned to be in that time. Bridger’s even more stunned when he learns that his by-the-book father was there to break the most important rule of time travel—to prevent someone’s murder.

And that someone is named Alora.

Determined to discover why his father wanted to help a “ghost,” Bridger illegally shifts to 2013 and, along with Alora, races to solve the mystery surrounding her past and her connection to his father before the DTA finds him. If he can stop Alora’s death without altering the timeline, maybe he can save his father too.

The very first thing that I can tell you all about The Edge of Forever is that the world building was completely, absolutely AMAZING. It gave me that feeling that everybody is chasing after while they are reading a book - like you are a part of the story, that you are actually there with the character. This is the number one reason that I loved this book, but I do have two more equally respectable reasons.

Reason #2 as to why I loved this book so much was the unique (and in my opinion, better) way that Hurst wrote and handled time travel. I do not usually enjoy time travel books - it always confuses me how the characters can just dawdle around with time with basically no consequences at the end of the day. When I (kind of) watched The Lake House I was confused about how the couple could end up together at all - they are in totally different time zones. It’s confusing, it’s frustrating, and it’s totally unrealistic (aside from the fact that they are traveling through time). But in The Edge of Forever there are very specific rules about what they can and can not do in different time zones. Only time traveling specialists, who are all invisible, are allowed to travel through time, and even then it is only to observe. The travelers are not allowed to prevent something that happened in the past (such as stopping a loved one’s death) from happening again, and they can’t talk to anybody that is not from their specific time zone. These rules made it a lot easier for me to comprehend, and stopped me from dwelling on it to long and gave me time to actually pay attention to the story.

Reason #3 - there was minimal swearing, and I never felt uncomfortable reading the book. Sometimes it is hard to come across a YA book that you can completely get through without squirming even a little bit (for me, anyway), but it still had perfectly adorable romance and didn’t seem too middle grade and innocent. There is a made-up swear word that the characters use in place of the f-word, Furing, but I would take that over the original word any day.

In the end, I think that The Edge of Forever was beautifully written, and a fun read. It was a book that kept on giving, and a very rewarding book to finish! Needless to say, I am excited for the Sequel!

BREAKING NEWS!

We have landed an Interview with...

MELISSA E. HURST!!!

1. Thank you so much for spending some time for an interview Melissa! Can you tell us a little bit about your book, The Edge of Forever? It’s a young adult time travel novel that features Bridger, a teen Time Bender from 2146, who receives a message from his recently deceased father to save someone named Alora. It turns out that Alora is a teen girl living in 2013 who is destined to be murdered.

2. Where did you get your inspiration for The Edge of Forever? The original spark came when I was driving one day and heard a song on the radio, If I Die Young by The Band Perry. I was also thinking about an old time travel movie from the 1980’s, Somewhere in Time.

3. Did you have a favorite character in The Edge of Forever, or a character you took a particular liking to? I really identify with Grace. She’s super protective of Alora, and I’m the same way with my children.

5. Do you plan on doing anything else with the characters of The Edge of Forever? Yes! There will be a sequel.

6. How do you get in the zone while writing? Do you listen to music? Do you have anything you need to have nearby? I can’t listen to music while writing, but I often listen to a few songs that set the tone for a scene I’m going to write. I also like having chocolate nearby.

7. Do you have a dream cast for if The Edge of Forever if it were to become a movie? I’ve always pictured AnnaSophia Robb as Alora and Josh Hutcherson as Bridger. I also think Kim Basinger would be great as Alora’s Aunt Grace.

8. What is the best writing advice you have ever received, and the worst? Do you have any writing advice for future writers? Best writing advice: Don’t chase trends. Worst writing advice: Only write what you know. Writing advice for future writers: For years, I said I’d write a book when I had more time, and that never really happened. It was only when I started making time to write that I actually finished a book. You don’t have to spend hours each day writing. It’s amazing how much you can achieve with small blocks of time.

9. Was there a specific time in your life when you realized that you wanted to become a writer? It was during my middle school years. I had two fantastic teachers who encouraged my writing, and that made me think I could possibly become an author one day.

10. Do you have any other projects that you are working on, or can you share some ideas you have for future books? I’m currently working on The Edge of Forever’s sequel, On Through the Never.

***GREAT BIG THANKS TO SKY PONY PRESS FOR A REVIEW COPY!***

THE DARKEST LIGHT by Ashley Earley

After discovering a secret her parents have kept from her all her life, Alyssa’s life begins to unravel, and she’s thrown into a magical world she never knew existed—one that’s both frightening and intriguing to her.

While trying to discover who she really is, and who her father was, she begins to see the darkness this unknown land holds, and fears becoming part of that darkness.

Torn between this new world, and the human world, Alyssa must make the ultimate decision between the possibility of losing herself forever to become part of it, or stay behind and let the world of Föld perish.

As if her life wasn’t complicated enough, she’s falling for two guys—that live in totally different worlds. Wesley and Archer couldn’t be more different, but they both have her captivated.

A battle is coming. Will Alyssa be forced to fight against the people she loves?

Filled with action, adventure, and romance, The Darkest Light captivates from the start. As soon as you meet the protagonist, Alyssa, you fall into her life, and her world. She is fighting depression and still constantly thinking of her father, who died in a car crash, and you can’t help but feel bad for her unfortunate situation. Her mother, in an attempt to help Alyssa regain her equilibrium, brings her to Alyssa’s grandmother’s house.

Which is how Alyssa finds out about Föld.

Föld was a beautifully written world, full of elves, dragons, and other magical beings. If I could relate this to another book that I have read, I would say it resembled fablehaven in a lot of ways (which was a favorite of mine when I was younger). In Föld, Alyssa finds out all about her destiny. Being part elf, she is welcomed into Föld, but in order to be fully accepted she has to go through a choosing, where she can either be chosen by the elves that fight and strive for darkness, or the elves that fight for the light.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Darkest Light. The romance was innocent and adorable, and the action was intense and heart-pounding. I did, however, find the genre to be a little confusing and misleading.

While reading this book, I found that it more closely resembled a middle grade book. There were no swear words. The romance was almost as innocent as it could get (few kisses here and there, but none too intense or descriptive) and it was an easier read. Only until the last one hundred or so pages, where it started to become a little more Young Adult when some swear words started popping up(d-word, s-word, nothing too bad.) So I would say it’s an easier, relaxing YA book, or a Middle Grade for more mature readers who are okay with a few swear words.

The last thing that I would say about The Darkest Light is that it is a good book when you are looking to escape your current reality, but don’t want to invest yourself with something extreme of a book.

***GREAT BIG THANKS TO ASHLEY EARLEY FOR A REVIEW COPY***

SUICIDE NOTES FROM BEAUTIFUL GIRLS by Lynn Weingarten

Pitched as Gone Girl meets Thirteen Reasons Why

June barely has time to mourn the death of her best friend Delia, before Delia's ex-boyfriend convinces her Delia was murdered, and June is swept into a tangle of lies, deceit, and conspiracy.

The very beginning of Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls seemed very promising and mysterious.  There were so many twists, turns, and leads that it was almost dizzying, and I liked trying to figure out for myself just what had happened to June’s (mostly former) best friend, Delia. If there was one good thing about this book, it would be the beginning and how put together the plot seemed to be. There were a lot of different things going on, but it all seemed to fit together and make sense, creating this beautiful mystery that just begged to be solved. But then while I loved this aspect, there were just too many things about this particular book that I did not like.

Throughout the book, June has some flashbacks of her and Delia’s past together. It was here that I found out that I really don’t like Delia. For one, she is in plenty of ways a terrible friend. But June still loves her (she acted kind of like a lost puppy for the majority of the book), because she relies on Delia for everything. Delia can sabotage June all she wants, because she knows that June will just take it and still like her. Second, she was super creepy. She thought things that just weren’t right, weren’t normal, and I know that was the point but she seemed dangerous and it caused her to be the bad friend described above. For the sake of spoilers, I won’t go any further into that.

Another thing that I didn’t like about this book was all of the swearing. Especially the f-bombs. Those were out of control. I literally felt like there was one on every page, especially where Delia was concerned. So if you have a sensitivity to language, then I definitely wouldn’t recommend this read.

Overall, I mark this down as a very dark and mature read. There is sexual content - the fade to black kind without any detail, but in every case it was too weird or wrong for it to be romantic in any way. The language was already discussed above as really strong, and I didn’t find any characters to be good role models.

I give this book 2 stars.

***GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO SIMON PULSE FOR A REVIEW COPY***

OUT OF CONTROL by Sarah Alderson

When 17 year old Liva witnesses a brutal murder she’s taken into police custody for her own protection. But when the police station is attacked and bullets start flying it becomes clear that Liva is not just a witness, she’s a target.

Together with a car thief called Jay, Liva manages to escape the massacre but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun and outwit two killers who will stop at nothing to find them.

When you live on the edge, there’s a long way to fall.

Yay, the first review of The Two Week Thriller! I know it’s late, but I will be getting plenty of reviews up in the next couple of days, now that I once again have internet. On to the review!

Out of Control stuck true to it’s title. There was a lot of things that were just... out of control! The story was unbelievable in it’s craziness - but in the end, it made sense and was definitely possible. It wasn’t too far fetched, but it was definitely chaotic (in the best way possible!)

We start out with meeting our main character Liva, who is in the police department as a witness to a murder. When a man dressed as a police officer comes in and shoots the department out, she helps Jay (who was in for car theft) escape safely. It becomes immediately clear that Liva is a good girl who has never done anybody any harm, even though the fact that she is being stalked and shot at says differently. Both Jay and Liva team up after the massacre, when they find out that it isn’t over for either of them - especially not Liva.

This book spans over a twenty four hour period, where all the while Jay and Liva must avoid detection until her father, who works with a government agency that focuses on human trafficking, to fly in from Nigeria in the morning. But the people after both of them are good at tracking, and they don’t go down without a fight.

This book was a great mixture of action and adventure, mystery, and romance. While being constantly scared for Liva and Jay and wondering what was going on, I was half of the time dwelling on their relationship. Jay was so attractive, and such a great guy - always looking for the good in people, and all he ever wanted in life is to help people out. Isn’t it enough that he is protecting Liva while blood thirsty murderers are on her tail? WHY WOULDN’T THEY LOVE EACH OTHER? Patience was key there, I’m afraid.

Overall, I don’t feel like I can say a lot more about this book. Going any further would probably be a spoiler. So all I will say is read it, because it kept me guessing and I never would have saw that ending coming. As for your final reason - Jay and Liva are worth it. They are both amazing characters, and made me want to be a better person. So go pick it up!

***GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO SIMON PULSE FOR A REVIEW COPY***