“Isn’t he an absolute caramel?” Jessica asked, following my gaze.

“Who?” I pretended to be looking at Cristina as she instructed Sebastian’s new partner.

“Sebastian, who else?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s . . . good looking.”

“Good looking?” Jessica looked appalled. “That would be like calling the sky blue when it is clearly celestial.”

Catching Liam by Sophia Bleu
Publication date:  Summer 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary

Goodreads / Buy from Amazon

Twenty-one year-old Jillian Nichols only has one rule when it comes to boys: catch and release. Boy-catching isn't just a game for Jillian and her friends, it's a lifestyle. After all, boys might be good for a dance or a drink and certainly a little under-cover action of the scandalous variety, but expect much else and you're bound for heart ache.

So when her best friends and fellow boy catchers start dropping like flies junior year, Jillian is determined to keep boys in her bedroom and out of her heart. Until she meets Liam McAvoy, the kind of guy that sticks around to make waffles and who can't—or perhaps won't—take a hint.

Study abroad student Liam doesn't want to be another notch on Jillian's bedpost. Actually he has much more interesting ideas for Jillian and her bedposts, but his student visa's set expiration date means he can't promise her forever. That doesn't mean he's going to walk away from the challenge of discovering why Jillian is hell-bent at keeping people at a distance.

Before long, neither is sure who is catching who—or if they're playing for keeps. Jillian knows one thing though: falling in love will not only break the only rule of boy-catching, it could also break her heart.

Passion and Pain (Dancers and Divas #1)
by Kathy Petrakis
Goodreads / Amazon / B&N

Does passion and desire guarantee success? Can friends really be trusted? Can true love be found beneath lust and deceit?

These are questions tenacious street dancer Elena Martinez faces as she struggles to compete against the most talented students at New York’s top Performing Arts High School. Along with her best friend, the carefree and mischievous Sebastien Duval, they are determined to make center stage.

But the singing diva Letitia has other plans. Beautiful, talented and popular, her desire for revenge could ruin everything for Elena and Sebastien. Now, they must fight against prejudice, treachery and deceit as Letitia sets out to destroy Elena’s friendships, her romance, her dignity and her dreams. Can Elena win the battle for true love, happiness and success?

Can secrets stay hidden forever? Can people really change? Are some mistakes unforgivable? 

As Elena and Sebastian embark on a fresh start, will Letitia keep his secret, or will she use it to destroy them? 

As Veronika falls in love, Frankie is out of rehab and trying to make amends, but will it last for either of them? Meanwhile, as Anya is torn between loyalty to her Nana and love for Darius, could Darius fall for the new temptress, Rosa? With her stunning looks, her powerful, sensual dancing and her desire to seduce, she has everyone nervous but what secret is she hiding? Continue the roller-coaster journey with your favorite characters as they try to survive junior year at the country’s top performing arts school. 

“There is drama, stress and anger all wrapped up in a neat bow just waiting to be unleashed.”

“.. at first, it felt like I was reading a new version of Step Up 2... LOVE... then it merged into a little Glee... then it merged with Center Stage... then in the midst of it all was the Gossip Girl...”

“It is extremely well written, and the plot is very engaging. I couldn't put it down..”

Hidden
by M. Lathan
Genre: YA Paranormal
Publisher: M. Lathan
Published: November 12th 2012
ISBN: 9780989418409
Author's website | GoodReads

Sixteen-year-old Leah Grant has given up on being normal. She’d settle for stopping the voices in her head, intrusive visions of the future, and better odds of making it to her seventeenth birthday.


That’s the thing about pretending to be human in a world where magic used to exist – at any moment, her cover could be blown and she’ll be burned to death like the rest of the witches.

Everything changes when she loses control of her powers and flees the orphanage she grew up in. She desperately wants to be invisible but finds her face plastered on every news channel as humans panic over the possible resurgence of her kind. And now the hunters won’t give up until they find her.


Making friends for the first time in her life and falling in love with one of them drives her to discover why she is unlike any being she’s ever met – human or otherwise. The dangerous powers inside of her that would repel Nathan, her new, handsome reason for living, are priceless to some. The locked up forever kind of priceless. And to others, they are too dangerous to allow her to live.


Let’s hope she can stay hidden.

Hello readers! Okay, tell me the truth, do you guys know what a selkie is? I've been blogging for over a year now and I still giggle inside when authors think that 'selkie' is my name. Selkies are my favorite mythical beings, and they're kind of like Celtic mermaids. They’re seal shapeshifters who live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to be human on land. You can head on over to this Wikipedia article if you want to know more about them.

That being said, I was so super thrilled when I heard about Tides by Betsy Cornwell- a young adult fantasy about selkies, science, and the fluid bonds of family and love. I was flailing and screaming 'Finally! A new YA book about selkies! Yesssss' and exclaimed my excitement on twitter. Thankfully, Betsy didn't freak out. She was so nice and handled my freakish ravings quite well, and sent me this excerpt to share with all of you. Read on and enjoy~

Tides
by Betsy Cornwell
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: June 4th 2013
Pages: 336 (hardcover)
Author's website | GoodReads

When high-school senior Noah Gallagher and his adopted teenage sister, Lo, go to live with their grandmother in her island cottage for the summer, they don’t expect much in the way of adventure. Noah has landed a marine biology internship, and Lo wants to draw and paint, perhaps even to vanquish her struggles with bulimia. But then things take a dramatic turn for them both when Noah mistakenly tries to save a mysterious girl from drowning. This dreamlike, suspenseful story—deftly told from multiple points of view—dives deeply into selkie folklore while examining the fluid nature of love and family.

The Rules for Disappearing
by Ashley Elston
Genre: Young Adult Mystery
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Publication date: May 14th 2013
Source: e-galley for tour
Author's website | GoodRead

She’s been six different people in six different places: Madeline in Ohio, Isabelle in Missouri, Olivia in Kentucky . . . But now that she’s been transplanted to rural Louisiana, she has decided that this fake identity will be her last.

Witness Protection has taken nearly everything from her. But for now, they've given her a new name, Megan Rose Jones, and a horrible hair color. For the past eight months, Meg has begged her father to answer one question: What on earth did he do – or see – that landed them in this god-awful mess? Meg has just about had it with all the Suits’ rules — and her dad’s silence. If he won’t help, it’s time she got some answers for herself.

But Meg isn’t counting on Ethan Landry, an adorable Louisiana farm boy who’s too smart for his own good. He knows Meg is hiding something big. And it just might get both of them killed. As they embark on a perilous journey to free her family once and for all, Meg discovers that there’s only one rule that really matters — survival.

I think that most of us have heard about the Witness Protection program. If you're an avid viewer of cop shows and mystery/thrillers, then it must have crossed your ears at some point. The usual scenario is that someone witnesses some kind of crime and murder, so the US Marshalls enlists the person in the Witness Protection program to keep them safe before they have to testify in court. The Rules for Disappearing tackles with what happens when you're in the Witness Protection program. Not before or after, but during the whole gruesome process. I haven't read any other young adult book with the same subject matter and I dived right in.

One of the things that The Rules for Disappearing did well was the depiction of the changes in Meg's family. They used to be really well-off and were depicted as happy go-lucky in all of Meg's flashbacks, but everything suddenly fell apart when they entered Witness Protection, and it was all pretty apparent. Meg's dad, who used to be a successful accountant but now works rough jobs, is really stressed out and unattached, her mother falls into the habit of drinking and passing out at any hour of the day, and her little sister Teeny just gave up in general and freaks out whenever she's left alone or whenever she sees a man wearing a suit. Meg is also sick of all the moving and pretending and won't allow herself to get attached to anything anymore, in turn creating a set of rules for herself. They were the perfect family before the whole mess and the program really took a toll them.

Meg was a really hard character to get used to. Meg was the only one who tried to pull things together when everyone else just refused to function. She isn't an ignorant girl, she knows when there are problems and she doesn't deny not figuring out that Ethan planned on asking her out. She was really observant and I admire her love for her sister. I liked her and her headstrong determination at times, but I got really confused whenever her resolution wavered. Ethan was a really cute supporting character, although sometimes a bit too cute for my liking. I really appreciated his lightheartedness whenever it balanced out Meg's defiance but there were times when (although appreciated) he was a bit too good to be true.

The thing that irked me in this mystery read was the lack of mystery and thrill. The scenes that were supposed to thrill me were being told rather than being shown, and that's not good for a mystery book. Some things in the story were also unjustified, like the reason behind the whole Ethan-Meg attraction among other more important things. Everything conveniently falls into place. Some instances and situations were too unbelievably unrealistic, especially the reactions of those who eventually got involved. I was waiting for that exciting climax but it came and went without me even realizing it and I had to backtrack. I have to admit that the ending disappointed me a bit- everything was rushed and stuffed to fit into the last handful of pages.

The Rules for Disappearing works amazingly well as a young adult contemporary read, but I wasn't feeling the mystery aspect of it. The book wasn't as dynamic and adrenaline-filled as I expected but I would still recommend it to someone looking for an light action movie-type read with great character building. The Rules for Disappearing is a really cute and light quick read that chronicles a girl's journey through Witness Protection, and I really enjoyed all the relationships she formed and all the roadblocks she went through along the way.

THE NUB AND GITS: 3 STARS

Twitter / Author's Website

Ashley Elston lives is North Louisiana with her husband, three sons and two cats. She worked as a wedding and portrait photographer for ten years until she decided to pursue writing full time. Ashley is also a licensed Landscape Horticulturist and helps her husband run a commercial lawn and landscaping business. They also custom harvest pecans and have cows. Yes, cows.