I am honored to be one of the stops on the cover reveal of Gears of Brass blog tour. If you are interested in steampunk or just want to try out this genre, but sure to check this out. Below the cover reveal is your chance to enter the giveaway of a copy of Gears of Brass!

It's Monday and time for Manga Mondays! Manga Mondays is a meme hosted by Alison at Alison Can Read where bloggers can share their passion for reading mangas. It's a great place to get new manga titles to try and to meet new bloggers. I haven't found a series that I want to dive in and read so I'm trying a few different series in hopes that one of them would grab my attention.


Description: Yume desperately wants to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a magic user in the worst way! She innocently practices using magic to help the people she encounters: struggling soccer players, the wrongly incarcerated, and a student who wants to show his moon-loving teacher a lunar eclipse on a cloudy evening. On this coming-of-age journey filled with genuine imagination and a passionate sense of awe, follow Yume as she learns that the true magic in life can take place right inside her own heart.

Review: Someday's Dreamers has great potential of being a great manga, unfortunately it is very slow, bland, and confusing. The world-building aspect of the story is very interesting albeit unfinished. I wasn't exactly sure how things worked in this world of magic and mages. The characters also seemed to have depth and interesting motivations. This manga has a hard time deciding whether it wanted to be an action-packed magical adventure series, a deep character study, or even a combination of both of these. The story refuses to dig into either the world or the characters and instead it meanders around on these small episodes, occasionally giving us tantalizing hints of depth, but then just as soon pulling away. The basic story that I got from this volume is a kindhearted girl named Yume travels to Tokyo to further her training as a magic user. With the guidance of her teacher, Masami Oyamada, she takes on different clients to grant them wishes closest to their heart.
As I mentioned earlier the pacing is a bit off in this series. There are a plethora of flashbacks, but it's not always clear that they are flashbacks. On the plus side, I did think the artwork was nicely done but there were a few panels that I found hard to read because there was so much crammed into them. Even though Someday's Dreamers is a two volume series, I didn't feel think this story grabbed me enough to pick up the next volume. I will try and see, however, if there is an anime based on the series that I might watch instead.

Rating: 2 stars

Words of Caution: None. Recommended for strong Grade 5 readers and up.

If you like this book try: Someday's Dreamer: Spellbound series by Norie Yamada

Description: Dee, Terrence, and Hector are very excited about Author Visit Day. Lewis Scribson is the author of the famous Flippy Bunny books, and Hector is a huge fan! And it gets Dee and Terrence out of math class. But something is a little off about this special guest. And Coach Birkby, the gym teacher, mysteriously disappears the day of his visit. What evil designs does this world-famous writer have on his agenda? Lunch Lady's going to get to the bottom of it, even if she has to kick some bunny butt!

Review: Krosoczka continues with his successful formula of featuring a superhero/Lunch Lady fighting crimes and protecting Thompson Brook School. This time around the students have long-awaited the arrival of their favorite author, Lewis Scribson, comes to their school. When Mr. Scribson shows up, there's something not quite right about the surly, bespectacled author, and mysteriously, on the same day, Coach Birkby goes missing and soon other people start disappearing too. It's up to Lunch Lady and the Breakfast Buddies to save the day once again. Their fight to uncover the truth reveals Scribson's secret plot, complete with an entire army of attack-Flippy Bunnies, all equipped with cute bow ties and deadly fangs. This series is full of silliness which makes them so fun to read. I loved the tongue-in-cheek humor in the book and its trademark gray-and-yellow palette format. Kids who are not bothered by the formulaic aspect of this series will continue to enjoy this series and welcome another addition to the Lunch Lady series, but those who are looking for something more developed in terms of the characters might find this a bit disappointing.

Rating: 4 stars

Words of Caution: None. Recommended for Grade 2 and up.

If you like this book try: Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown (Lunch Lady #4), Knights of the Lunch Table series by Frank Cammuso

  The Husband's Secret has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for many weeks. The book is constantly checked out of my public library and many patrons have raved about the book. Naturally, I wanted to know what was so great about this book so I put myself on a long wait-list for the book. When I did finally get a chance to read it, I was disappointed and thought the story would be completely different.

Description: Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . . .
   Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she's an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband's secret.

Review: The Husband's Secret is a page turner and it doesn't take long for the reader to be enraptured by the story. Moriarty works the Pandora myth and the metaphor of the Berlin Wall quite nicely in her book. I didn't have any problems with the way the book was written, but I do have issues with books that deal with cheating/affairs, and choices without any consequences. The Husband's Secret hit all of these hot buttons for me and as a result, I didn't care for any of the characters nor did I find anything redeemable about them.
  The book contains three separate story lines that sort of come together. Cecila is what many would call the ideal wife. She strives to be perfect in every aspect of her life, but she is frustrated in that she can't seem to capture her husband's interest and intimacy. She jumps from one assumption to another about why they haven't been intimate. She finally gets her answer by finding a sealed letter written by her husband with strict directions of not opening it after he dies. Cecila's husband is very much alive and the temptation of what secret he is hiding is what fuels the book's suspense. Unfortunately, we find out the secret a little too early in the book which would have been fine except Moriarty didn't really go deeper beyond the surface of the truth.
  Like Cecila, Rachel is the role of a good mom whose daughter was murdered. The storyline of Tess, a young woman who finds out her husband and best friend/cousin are having an affair, does not serve any purpose to the book's story arc. Cecila and Rachel's plot lines are tightly connected while Tess's story line is more a coincidence. 
  I can see how the author tries to show how one might not really know their spouse, but the concept of justice and forgiveness which would have given this book more depth is glossed over. It almost comes across as a satire rather than a thought provoking book which left a bad taste in my mouth when I was finished it. The Husband's Secret was book that was not right for me and once again I was swept away by the hype. If it wasn't for the hype, I wouldn't have picked it up.

Rating: 3 stars

Words of Caution: There is some strong language, sexual situations and mature themes. Recommended for older teens and adults only.

If you like this book try: Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain, Dear Thing by Julie Cohen

  I was a reluctant reader for much of my childhood. I found the act of reading boring and could not understand why it enraptured my family and friends. It's not until I found the right book did reading click for me. If you are interested in tips of how to help a reluctant reader become a reader for life, check out my own self-reflection blog post for some tips. I remembered the reluctant reader in me when I read Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading and know the then-me would have loved this book.

Description: Charlie Joe Jackson may be the most reluctant reader ever born. And so far, he's managed to get through life without ever reading an entire book from cover to cover. But now that he's in middle school, avoiding reading isn't as easy as it used to be. And when his friend Timmy McGibney decides that he's tired of covering for him, Charlie Joe finds himself resorting to desperate measures to keep his perfect record intact.

Review: Charlie Joe Jackson hates reading with a passion. He avoids it at all costs and does not understand why people love to read. When he is assigned to read a book for class, he comes with a wide variety of game plans to have someone else read the book for him. His usual plan of having Timmy McGibney to read for him in exchange for extra dessert falls through, Charlie Joe concocts a new scheme even if it involves someone else to be his crush's boyfriend. 
  Greenwald has captured the voice of a middle schooler without sounding condescending. Charlie Joe is a fun character and I liked his humor in his tips of ways to avoid reading at the beginning of each page. While avid readers can't share Charlie Joe's aversion to reading, they can enjoy the wild and crazy ride of the plot. Reluctant readers can find themselves in the same shoes as Charlie Joe. Cartoony ink illustrations are lightly sprinkled throughout, adding chuckles and punch to the text. This book would be a good candidate for a read aloud.

Rating: 4 stars

Words of Caution: None. Recommended for Grade 4 and up.


If you like this book try: Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Extra Credit by Tommy Greenwald, Ungifted by Gordon Korman,