Book Nerds Across America: Jennifer Armentrout

Showing posts with label Jennifer Armentrout. Show all posts

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Review: Onyx by Jennifer Armentrout

Goodreads Overview:

Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…

Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.

Something worse than the Arum has come to town…

The Department of Defense are here. If they ever find out what Daemon can do and that we're linked, I’m a goner. So is he. And there's this new boy in school who’s got a secret of his own. He knows what’s happened to me and he can help, but to do so, I have to lie to Daemon and stay away from him. Like that's possible. Against all common sense, I'm falling for Daemon. Hard.

But then everything changes…

I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?

No one is who they seem. And not everyone will survive the lies…

Jacque's Review:

Onyx is the second book in the Lux series. In this installment Katy discovers some new powers she has developed since Daemon healed her at the end of Obsidian. She needs to learn how to control them before others discover her secret. She must also learn how to defend herself from the Arum and others who seem to be after her and her alien friends.

In addition, we are introduced to Blake. He is a new student from California who immediately takes an interest in Katy. She decides to go on a date with him to distract herself from her feelings for Daemon, which was never going to happen. She quickly learns that Blake isn't the "normal" boy she was looking for. His arrival in West Virginia was more than a simple job transfer for his uncle.

This book was a great addition to the series. There was a ton of action, humor, danger, and romance to keep the pages turning. I don't think there was ever a true love triangle, since Katy was always hung up on Daemon, but I was happy to see that element removed by the conclusion. If the series wasn't steamy enough already, I think it will take a step in that direction now that they have admitted their feeling for each other. In addition, Daemon and Katy make some remarkable discoveries towards the end of the book. While I will miss one of the characters that was lost, I look forward to learning more about the new characters that arrived unexpectedly.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Review: Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout

Jacque's Review:

I bought a copy of Obsidian at the 2013 RT convention to have signed. Mary and a few others told me I had to read it, yet it has remained on my TBR shelf ever since. In fact, I didn't have a clue what it was about until I started reading it a couple of weeks ago.

Katy Swartz is originally from Florida. After the death of her father her mother decides to relocate to West Virginia for a change of scenery. Jennifer Armentrout is from WV, so she is clearly giving her home state a little love, but I can't imagine how that would impact a high school senior. In addition, her mother chose to live in a REALLY small town filled with "strange" people.

Katy is a book blogger, so it was funny to hear her geek out about her In My Mailbox or Waiting on Wednesday posts. A shipment of books would arrive and it was like Christmas in July. She was also worried about getting a new library card, which I'm sure would be at the top of my to-do list if I moved, so Katy should definitely appeal to most readers.

Living next door to Katy are the Black twins, Dee and Daemon. They will be starting their senior year as well and Katy quickly becomes best friends with Dee. On the other hand, her relationship with Daemon is very hot and cold to say the least. He can be sweet one minute and a complete ____ the next. Katy can't figure out why Daemon and his friends think there is something inferior about "her kind" until she begins to notice some unusual things. Daemon and Dee seem to move faster than humanly possible at times. Daemon can swim under water WAY longer than he should be able to. After witnessing several more dramatic events, she take the news that they are aliens pretty well. The fact that there are beings known as Arum trying to kill her Luxen friends, and now her due to her association with them, is a different matter.

Overall, I thought this was an action packed and tension filled start to the series. Once we got past the whole "you aren't one of us" issue and the truth was out there, the story really began to flow. Katy must guard their secret with her life and she is forced to do so on more than one occasion.

The only issue I had with the book was the word choice. I'm sure everyone has seen the posts about why moist is the worst word ever and shouldn't be used. She didn't use that word, but there was another cringe worthy word used on at least two occasions that needed to be removed. If you have read the book and would like to guess the word I'm referring to, please leave a comment and I will be sure to reply. Maybe it is just me, but I'm guessing not...

There are 5 books in the series, so it is a bit of an undertaking if you want to start this series. I can tell you that the ending of this book left me wanting to jump right into the next book, but I'm committed to reading the books on my spring TBR list first. I will be sure to include Onyx on my Summer TBR list!

Oh, hey! Remember that time I met Daemon Black at Apollycon?!

Flo's Review

Literally, multiple friends have been bugging me to read this series, basically since this first book published in 2012. I even own the entire series already, in the Lux volumes and on audiobook. Several times it made it close to the top of the TBR pile, but it just never pushed through. Until now.

Like Jacque said, I love that Katy is a book blogger. I was totally understanding her activities and feelings towards her book blog. This book definitely had a Twilight feel to it: "we're obviously attracted to each other, but you're fighting it -- why?" and "what are you? I don't think you're human...?" Luckily, I do love Twilight so I was all on board. I also bring up this similarity because I think this series has the potential to get better as we get more into the story. Obsidian had to cover a lot of the exposition, so from here on out I'm looking forward to seeing the situations these characters are put into and how they'll react. I don't know that I'll be able to jump into Onyx right away, but I do think I'd like to slowly make my way through this series.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Book Bash 2014!

Have y'all heard of this event called Book Bash?! It is mad, crazy fun!! I remember hearing about after it happened last year. Basically everyone was telling me that I had to go, but that tickets sell out really quickly. One random day I'm bumming around online and see that they're going on sale. At this point, I don't have the hotel, or people to go with, or any sort of plan, but I decided: "I'll go ahead and buy the ticket and figure it out from there!" In the short amount of time it took to make that decision, they sold out -- but then one opened up and I snatched it! I was in!

Needless to say a plan did come together, and that's how I ended up waking up at 2:30 a.m. (you read that right!) to hit the road to Orlando. I had the honor of spending the weekend with these lovely ladies from Owl Always Be Reading and Once Upon a Twilight:

I love these ladies!

We got to the hotel where the event was being held right around 6 a.m. -- and we weren't even the first people in line! Crazy, right?! I love how people love books! Around 10 a.m. the bookstore opened. I was good and only bought one new book, but the highlight was finding these absolutely perfect shirts:

Seriously. Perfection.

The doors opened just after noon and we were off! For those of you who don't know, Book Bash is a one day signing in Orlando that has over 85 amazing authors. (BookBash.net and their Facebook page.) My first stop? Jennifer Armentrout. I had a book of hers that I'd gotten at BEA, but didn't get signed. Luckily, she remedied that:

The day continued in awesomeness from there. It's hard to believe that so much amazingness can happen in 4 hours, but, alas -- it can. And: it did!

Clockwise from top right: Maya Banks, Jennifer Armentrout, Tiffany King, Tammara Webber, Cora Carmack, Nichole Chase, K.A. Tucker, Colleen Hoover, and Katja Millay. Whew!

Next up was a blogger event sponsored by Berkley Romance & Signet Eclipse. I loved the pretty red theme, as well as just having an opportunity to sit down and chat with other bloggers:

There was time for a quick nap after that before we headed to the after party. I definitely had a blast there! It was great to see everyone dancing, drinking and having fun. Not to mention, they played all my jams: the Wobble, the Cupid Shuffle, and more!

I had ridiculous amounts of fun, and if you can make it to Book Bash 2015, I recommend you try! I know I definitely will!

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