Book Reviews

[Shayna Gier]

I'm going to be working to catch this up to date, here's a list of the book reviews available as-I-added them on Shaynagier.com. 

[Shayna Gier]

Summary: Georgina Kincaid has had an eternity to figure out the opposite sex, but sometimes they still surprise her. Take Seth Mortensen. The man has risked his soul to become Georgina’s boyfriend. Still, with Lucifer for a boss, Georgina can’t just hang up her killer heels and settle down to domestic bliss. In fact, she’s being forced to transfer operations…to Las Vegas.The City of Sin is a dream gig for a succubus, but Georgina’s allies are suspicious. Why are the powers-that-be so eager to get her away from Seattle – and from Seth? Georgina is one of Hell’s most valuable assets, but if there’s any way out of the succubus business she plans to take it – no matter how much roadkill she leaves behind. She just hopes the casualties won’t include the one man she’s risking everything for…

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Summary: 

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets.

Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she still loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, former friends and the girl whose life she saved, Val must come to grips with the tragedy that took place and her role in it, in order to make amends and move on with her life.

Read my review here. 

[Shayna Gier]

Summary:

2 girls + 3 guys + 1 house – parents = 10 things April and her friends did that they (definitely, maybe, probably) shouldn’t have.

If given the opportunity, what sixteen-year-old wouldn’t jump at the chance to move in with a friend and live parent-free? Although maybe “opportunity” isn’t the right word, since April had to tell her dad a tiny little untruth to make it happen (see #1: “Lied to Our Parents”). But she and her housemate Vi are totally responsible and able to take care of themselves. How they ended up “Skipping School” (#3), “Throwing a Crazy Party” (#8), “Buying a Hot Tub” (#4), and, um, “Harboring a Fugitive” (#7) at all is kind of a mystery to them.

In this hilarious and bittersweet tale, Sarah Mlynowski mines the heart and mind of a girl on her own for the first time. To get through the year, April will have to juggle a love triangle, learn to do her own laundry, and accept that her carefully constructed world just might be falling apart . . . one thing-she-shouldn’t-have-done at a time.

Read my review here. 

[Shayna Gier]

“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the multiple-award-winning Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Plenty of thirtysomething women would be thrilled to look like a teenager. But journalist Kathy Hopkin’s youthful appearance is forcing her into an undercover assignment she could do without: posing as a college freshman to get an expose on a secret prostitution ring. Now, Kathy’s got the chance to do it all over again. Hopefully things will go better the second time around.

Read my review here. 

[Shayna Gier]

Summary:

When Sarah sneaks out of her house to go joyriding in her boyfriend’s space yacht, she expects to be back before dawn. But her boyfriend is not as swift as she had thought, and now she’s in real trouble. A chance encounter with some space junk and then with a young spacer sends Sarah off to the Hoop on the adventure of a lifetime.

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Summary:

FIRST
RAPED—IMPREGNATED—DISGRACED

NEXT
A KILLER WANTS TO STOP THE BABY FROM BEING BORN AND
DISCLOSING THE FATHER

FINALLY
A WEDDING—A BABY—A HERITAGE

HOW?
PREPARE FOR SOME PLOT TWIST IN ONE OF THE BEST ROMANTIC THRILLER OF THE YEAR

New York City socialite Kristina Sutherland, the daughter of legendary Lawson Sutherland, a top executive with Lyon International discovers she’s pregnant, but doesn’t remember having sex for a long time. While contemplating an abortion she bumps into and confides in Shawn Davis, the head of security at Lyon International and asks him to take her to an abortion clinic out of the city for consultation, making him promise to keep any details in confidence. While she realizes she needs him as a bodyguard to keep the press away and guard her privacy she also knows he has a loyalty conflict due to his position in the corporation. Shawn provides security to the company elite and their families. Desperate, she knows no one else to turn to that she trusts.
Shawn is the secret grandson of Brent Lyon, the chairman of the board of Lyon International. After Brent asks Shawn to come to his office they talk about their past and how Brent regrets his earlier decisions. Brent had disowned his daughter, Shawn’s mother when she ran off with a want-to-be rock star. She had raised Shawn on her own until she died a few years earlier. Brent had invited Shawn back into his life only after her death, and only to a small degree which had to remain a secret to avoid scandals which could ruin the corporation.

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Summary:

All Serial killers are different–but with one that stalks literary agents–mere words are not enough.

To someone else, the rejection letter might be perceived as a simple piece of correspondence. But when Amy, who suffers from bipolar disorder receives a form rejection letter from Edward, an agent she had an affair with at a recent convention, she takes the rejection as both personal and professional—in short—a declaration of war.
Amy quickly embarks on a plan to get revenge by destroying Edward’s literary agency. However, Amy is soon not the one to be feared the most. Her actions create a copycat, a serial killer, who targets literary agents and viciously murders them. Living with the knowledge she has created a monster, a serial killer, is one thing, while doing nothing to stop the madness is another. But how could she track down a killer when she has no training in such? Thinking like a mad man might be the only way—but could she go there and survive herself?
When the winds of fate rekindle the romance with Edward, thus making him the next target—she really has no choice but to help the FBI. But will she be too late?

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Summary:

An accomplished, aging man is preparing for yet another dream-to conduct the first known bicycle-book tour (which will require peddling both miles and books.) Who will believe 2,500 miles is possible for a man with gravely serious medical issues-at age sixty-five? Witnessing the lifetime spiritual journey of Vinny Pirelli, starting at age six with his very first bicycle, you track his development of being the only boy among many siblings, through growing pains of adolescence and teen years. He struggles with, and represses homosexual tendencies, putting his emotions into bicycling and writing songs. As a young adult, Vinny proves successful at whatever he attempts-even in building a family with the first girl he had sexual feelings for. As a ten-year Army leader, he learns hard lessons of losing friendships, love and trust, with the ultimate betrayal of his own father.

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Warning! Reading story may make you actually crave sweets.

Hippie hero, death by sweets, never ending childhood for young and old, and an interesting hit on the newest resident? Welcome to Lost Secret girls and boys!
Shari Kari is in trouble. She just broke up with her boyfriend, but now he’s got a hit on her. Her supportive sister tells her to get out of Calibri City and into a small safe town: Lost Secret. Famous for being the one-stop drop town for the rich and famous’ children. No crime. Where even adults act like children. She finds a friend in Timothy Varmen, and a semi-happy life, until her special condition gets out of control.
Ezekiel is the town’s hero. While acting like a big child himself, he’s taken on the extra duty of trying to ‘save’ the new local resident, whether she likes it or not.
In this town, a man must learn to grow up, and a woman must learn to grow down. Scandals, inhibitions, temptations…
A story of childhood…that’s not for children.

Read my review here.

[Shayna Gier]

Summary: When Tangi's father dies, he leaves her nothing but three empty bottles. A kind uncle takes the poverty-stricken girl and her stepsisters in, and for a time life gets better on his farm. But Tangi remains a lonely outsider; her stepsisters tease her for her crippled leg, and the housekeepers use her like a servant. Just before her thirteenth birthday, Tangi learns the truth about her father's strange legacy: the three bottles aren't empty any more. They're filled with all the tears she's cried since her father died, and her tears are enchanted. She must use them to travel to Rosevine, the world of her dead mother. Tangi not only belongs there, but is necessary to keep Rosevine alive. Tangi's tears will save Rosevine, and Rosevine will save Tangi from a cruelty-filled life, except for one thing: Tangi's lost the bottles.

 

Read my review here.