Books for Company

6.9.13

Review Crash by Nicole Williams

Nicole Williams Month

Crash by Nicole Williams

Series : Yes (#1 Crash)

Released : June 2013

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Format : Paperback

Source : Publisher (Thank you)

Buy : Amazon (UK/USA)/Book Depository

Overall rating

.................................... The Blurb ....................................

Southpointe High is the last place Lucy wanted to wind up her senior year of school. Right up until she stumbles into Jude Ryder, a guy whose name has become its own verb, and synonymous with trouble. He's got a rap sheet that runs longer than a senior thesis, has had his name sighed, shouted, and cursed by more women than Lucy dares to ask, and lives at the local boys home where disturbed seems to be the status quo for the residents. Lucy had a stable at best, quirky at worst, upbringing. She lives for wearing the satin down on her ballet shoes, has her sights set on Juilliard, and has been careful to keep trouble out of her life. Up until now.
Jude's everything she needs to stay away from if she wants to separate her past from her future. Staying away, she's about to find out, is the only thing she's incapable of.
For Lucy Larson and Jude Ryder, love's about to become the thing that tears them apart.

.................................... My Thoughts ....................................

In Short
- I loved getting to know about Lucy and her life.
- I found the relationships in this book all really interesting and loved watching them develop.
- The storyline stayed interesting throughout the book with a few twists.

In Long

Nicole Williams is an author who I have wanted to read a book by for ages. When I received the Crash series for review I can’t tell you how excited I was to start reading them. After being told how awesome the series was by Jess from Jess Hearts Books I couldn’t resist Crash any more.

Within the first chapter I was drawn into Lucy’s world. I was really intrigued by her, although her life was difficult it hadn’t always been and I really admired her for adapting to her new life and the new struggles she was going through.

Jude’s character is one which I fell in love with straight away. I don’t know what it is about a bad boy with attitude but they always seem to win me over very quickly. Even more so when they show a side soft to themselves to prove they aren’t all bad.

As well as Jude’s and Lucy’s characters there are plenty of other characters in this book which are all developed really well and added to the story. I really found Lucy’s relationship with her mother interesting to read as well as her and her dad’s relationship.

Sometimes with books like Crash the author creates these amazing characters but fails when it comes to the storyline. Crash was definitely not a victim of lacking storyline, there are a few twists throughout the book which really add entertainment value to the book.

Final Thoughts

Crash was just the sort of book which I was in the mood for; I couldn’t have been more pleased that I picked this out from my massive TBR pile(s). If you’re looking for a YA romantic read which involves a bad boy then this book is for you!

4.9.13

Book Tour : Elixir Bound by Katie Carroll + Giveaway

Thank you Katie for stopping by Books for Company.

I love these sort of posts and really enjoyed reading it! I am sure my readers will too =)

Thanks so much for having me on Books for Company today!

There’s just something fun about getting an inside peek at where creative people work, whether that be an artist’s studio, a chef’s kitchen, or a writer’s desk. So today I thought I’d give you all a look at where I’m likely to be found clacking away at my keyboard crafting a masterpiece (or you know, whatever you’d like to call my stories!).

You’re most likely to find me in my home office.

This is my desk…well, technically this is my husband’s desk because my desk is too full of knickknacks, greeting cards, little boxes of stuff, and my jewelry box to actually use as a desk. I like to call this room the library (though nonbookish people may be inclined to call it an office) because we took the door off the closet and squeezed two large bookcases into it. It also serves as a playroom for my 2-year-old son and a temporary storage space because our attic is empty.
Why is our attic empty? Because it’s being renovated into what will be my new writing space.

I’d love to tell you that I’m such a hot-selling author that I’m treating myself to a new office as a reward for all my book sales. Sadly that is not the truth. I work from home full time (work that includes stuff other than writing) and finishing the attic is a way for my family to have enough space to grow. One of the perks of expanding the house upstairs is that we don’t need to use it as a bedroom yet, so I’ve laid claim to it as a writing space, though it will probably be taken over with toys as tends to happen in a house with a toddler.

One morning a week or so, I do try to get out of the house to write. Most often you’ll find me at the local coffee shop in the downtown area.

From my favorite corner of the coffee shop, I can watch the traffic, trains, and people going by. I also get an eclectic mix of music and eavesdrop on any conversation people around me might be having. Great fodder for a writer! And if the weather is just right, I might even get to sit outside in the courtyard to work.

No matter what writing space you catch me in, I almost always have a cup of tea with me. Tea and my laptop are the only necessities for a good writing day for me, but having such great work spaces helps! What’s your ideal work space?

Read Elixir Bound Blurb!

About Katie

Katie L. Carroll began writing at a very sad time in her life after her 16-year-old sister, Kylene, unexpectedly passed away. Since then writing has taken her to many wonderful places, real and imagined. She wrote Elixir Bound and the forthcoming Elixir Saved so Kylene could live on in the pages of a book. Katie is also the author of the picture app The Bedtime Knight and an editor for MuseItUp Publishing. She lives not too far from the beach in a small Connecticut city with her husband and son.

Find Katie

Buy Elixir Bound

Amazon (UK/USA)

Smashwords

iBooks

MuseItUp

a Rafflecopter giveaway

2.9.13

Nicole Williams Month!

So I know I am one day behind, let's just pretend that today is 1st September!

I am excited to announce Books for Company is making September a Nicole Williams month!

Coming Up

Cover Crazy on Nicole Williams Books

Reviews

Interview with Nicole Williams

Giveaway (INT!)

Book Quotes

Readers Quotes

Make sure to keep stopping by throughout September to make sure you don't miss out on the posts!

I will be editing this post to include direct links to all posts.

Books by Nicole Williams

Please note I haven't included all of Nicole's books in this list.

To see her full list click here

Crash Series

Up In Flames

Lost and Found Series

The Patrick Chronicles Series

Eden Series

Great Exploitations Series

Cover Crazy #99

Cover Crazy is a meme I enjoy taking part in as a book lover because for me, although they say don't judge a book by it's cover, covers have a big influence over whether I pick a book up or not!

Ignite Me - Tahereh Mafi
All three covers in the Shatter Me series have won me over very quickly and easily. The original cover for Shatter Me was okay but these newer covers are all so gorgeous. LOVE how you can tell they are part of a series too.

1.9.13

Guest Post by Sara Polsky

Several of the characters in my debut novel, This Is How I Find Her, are artists. Sophie, the narrator, gets her love of art from her mother, who is an artist by profession. Sophie considers everything that happens in her life with an artist's eye, stepping back and framing moments as paintings or photographs. And she makes friends with a classmate, Natalie, partly through their shared love of art.

My own artistic ability stopped at stick figures, and my knowledge of artists and art history isn't much more advanced than that. So one of my favorite aspects of researching the book was trying to figure out what kinds of art and which artists my characters would like -- the research had the bonus of exposing me to some artists I'd never heard of before.

The artists who Amy, Sophie's mother, loves are also the artists with whom I was already most familiar, like Picasso, Matisse, and Marc Chagall.

Sophie prefers art that's more abstract, more geometric. She likes the shapes and colors of Piet Mondrian's work, paintings like Kandinsky's On White II, and some of the work of Joan Miro. While hunting for art for Sophie I also discovered all kinds of fun abstract sculptures (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/SCULPTS/LONGHURST/ and http://helasculpt.com/gallery/) that seemed like the perfect match for Sophie's talents in math and art.

My own artistic tastes, it turns out, are most like those of another character, Natalie. Natalie, a classmate of Sophie's and eventually a friend, is a photographer. In one scene, she invites Sophie to help her with a photography project that involves people using ordinary, everyday objects in an otherwise rundown house:

"I end up in the living room with Zach, unfolding a rug and laying out a toy train track while he sets out a photo in a frame and tapes a curtain-like piece of cream-colored fabric to the window frame. The fake curtain flutters when a breeze blows through the broken window, and the effect is spooky."

I didn't discover the work of Rineke Djikstra until after I'd finished writing This Is How I Find Her. And as I walked through an exhibition of her work, I didn't just love it for myself -- I also found myself thinking, as if Natalie were a friend of mine, "Oh, Natalie would love this."