Mundie Moms

Thursday, January 12, 2012

City of Fallen Angels News & Giveaway Winners


USA Today published it's list of 100 Best Selling Books of 2011 and we're THRILLED that City of Fallen Angels is listed! Cassie's 4th installment in The Mortal Instrument series came in at #75!

Congratulations Cassie!


image found on google

Congratulations to our latest giveaway winners!

#80- Donna

#131- Teeza

Both winners have already been notified via email. I've got a few more giveaways that will be up soon and don't forget to enter to win a BOX OF BOOKS, ARCS, signed swag and more. Enter here.

Book Review: Tempest by Julie Cross


Published by: St Martin's Griffin
To Be Released on: January 17th, 2012
Source: ARC from author/publisher to review
3 stars: It Was A Good Read
Series: 1st in the series

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world. -quoted from Goodreads

Tempest for me has a really intriguing story line, and the concept behind time travel fascinates me as it does many other fans, hence the popular BBC series, Dr. Who. I'm not sure if I for one would want to travel back in time, because I fear I'd do something stupid that would alter things that change my future, not saying I don't have a few things I wish I could change. For Jackson, the story's main character, that's precisely what he wants to do. I couldn't fault him for wanting to save the love of his life, but things seem to go wrong when he gets stuck in his past and can't get back to the date he left.

I liked that the story starts off with Jackson and his girlfriend Holly, both of whom are college students in 2009. Jackson, along with his best friend Adam are testing/researching his abilities to time travel, when through the course of one of his jumps something happens which sets off a whole chain reaction of events. As I said above, I liked the whole premise of time traveling, but I had a very hard time keeping up with all of Jackson's jumps and his motives for going back to the various dates he goes to. This made it really hard for me to connect to both the story and the characters. I needed more of a clarity of Jackson's rules for his jumps, the consequences of those jumps, and I wanted to have an over all better understanding of his ability to time travel. I got lost as a reader with the numerous and what felt like random jumps he makes, or maybe it's the fact that many of his jumps are short bursts and it felt like he bounces back and forth between a few years too often that I didn't keep up with his reasoning for them.

Don't get me wrong, I can definitely see why other readers really enjoyed it. There's an intriguing storyline with secrets, romance, danger, action, cover ups, love, loss and of course the CIA and it's secret group. I liked that through some of Jackson's jumps Julie introduces readers to Jackson's sister, what happened to her, how that shaped the person Jackson is now, his love for Holly, who is Dad is and what division of the CIA he works for and of course the "bad guys" who are after Jackson. Like many first books in a series Tempest seems like it sets up a lot more of what's to come with the rest of the series. Though I felt a bit lost at times with the book in trying to keep up with all that was going on and didn't love the story as much as I had expected to, I am looking forward reading the sequel. I think this is just the beginning of what sounds like an fabulous series. There's been others times where I didn't love the first in a series and loved the sequel, and I'm hoping that's the case with Tempest. There is some mild language, a few mentions of the f word and a non-graphic sex scene in the book.

Before you check out the trailer, visit Julie's blog here to see how you can down load your *free* Tempest series short story Tomorrow is Today and listen to a snippet of the audiobook here.


Be sure to "like" the Tempest Series facebook page to keep up with the latest book and movie news & read the first 4 chapters HERE

Blog Tour: Guest Post with Unraveling Isobel author Eileen Cook


I'm thrilled to have Unraveling Isobel author, Eileen Cook on MM's today, as part of the Unraveling Isobel blog tour. Today Eileen has stopped by to share with us some of her favorite books.
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It’s so hard to pick a favorite! I love such a wide range of books from contemporary, YA, thrillers, historical fiction and even non-fiction. What I’m reading at any particular time depends on my mood. Growing up I loved The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, anything by Judy Blume or by Lois Duncan. Some of my all time favorites include the entire Harry Potter series, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The House at Riverton, and Rebecca.

My most recent favorite books include The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, The Fitzosbournes in Exile by Cooper and The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. Two books that I had a chance to read early versions of were Never Enough by Denise Jaden and The Right and the Real by Joelle Anthony- you’ll want to check those two out when they come out this year!

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Thank you Eileen for stopping by today! Be sure to follow the rest of the tour here.

Follow Eileen on her Blog | Facebook | Twitter

Purchase Unraveling Isobel from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble |IndieBound


Isobel’s life is falling apart. Her mom just married some guy she met on the internet only three months before, and is moving them to his sprawling, gothic mansion off the coast of nowhere. Goodbye, best friend. Goodbye, social life. Hello, icky new stepfather, crunchy granola town, and unbelievably good-looking, officially off-limits stepbrother.

But on her first night in her new home, Isobel starts to fear that it isn’t only her life that’s unraveling—her sanity might be giving way too. Because either Isobel is losing her mind, just like her artist father did before her, or she’s seeing ghosts. Either way, Isobel’s fast on her way to being the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. -quoted from Goodreads

Thoughtful Thursday- These Times are Hard, But They Will Pass

Today's post is a little different in the fact I wanted to share with you guys a music video I first saw last week on my friend Ginger's blog (GReads). She had posted a powerful, and totally inspiring new video from the band Safety Suit called These Times. Let me just say this video totally ROCKS! It's not only uplifting it's as I mentioned, inspiring. The message in this song is we all have had or are having tough times, but they will pass. These times will pass and we'll come through them stronger than we were before. It's in a way comforting to know that if you're going through a tough time, you're not the only one.

Check out the empowering video here and look for Ginger in it!!

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