BookObsessed

Marlene's Best of Swap 2015 Reveal

Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II





Frozen in Time is a gripping true story of survival, bravery, and honor in the vast Arctic wilderness during World War II, from the author of New York Times bestseller Lost in Shangri-La.

On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four days later, the B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on board survived, and the US military launched a daring rescue operation................................and what happened then?

To be honest I am not happy with the book description. On goodreads it is way too log and spoils the story so I am going to use my own words.
This book reads like fiction and is so exciting (suspense) so emotional (chick lit) Okay not really but so good you must have it. wow.
I suggest to read this and do not read the descriptions or reviews. I did not so I was in for a ride.
You will love it! 5 stars for me.
On amazon 4.4 out of 5 stars out of 801 customers.

My Review on Goodreads

Real or ebook

Lemonitsa's Best of 2015 Reveal



The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother - or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.
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I rated this book 4 stars on goodreads because I enjoyed it very much. It is a YA dystopian story. What I found the most interesting was how the characters made their decisions and what actions they took against what they believed was wrong.
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This is the first book in a series of three.
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Milwaukee County Teen Book Award Nominee (2014), The Inky Awards Nominee for Silver Inky (2013), Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2013), Carnegie Medal Nominee (2014)
Green Mountain Book Award Nominee (2015)
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Now a major motion picture, in theatres January 22, 2016, and I am looking forward to seeing it. After watching the trailer, it seems that they have kept the story very close to the book.
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I will send an e-book or a paper book, the choice is yours

Tsjara's reveal



A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/13087891/

Book description:

A Spell of Winter is set during the early years of the twentieth century, during the period before, during and immediately after the First World War.
Catherine and her brother Rob do not understand why they have been abandoned by both their parents, or know where their mother has gone. They are brought up by servants in the house of their grandfather, an Irishman who made his fortune somehow and is known in the neighbourhood as 'the man from nowhere'. The children cling to each other because they have no-one else, but when they grow up their sibling love becomes incestuous. As the world outside moves towards war, Catherine and Rob are trapped in their own conflict. But little by little, the spell of winter that has held Catherine begins to break, and she starts to free herself from the weight of the past.

Winner of the 1996 Orange Prize for fiction.

I really liked this beautifully written Gothic novel, one of few that I gave 9/10 in 2015.

catsalive's reveal:



The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys

Leaving London to grow food for the war effort, Gwen discovers a mysterious lost garden and the story of a love that becomes her own.

This word-perfect, heartbreaking novel is set in early 1941 in Britain when the war seems endless and, perhaps, hopeless. London is on fire from the Blitz, and a young woman gardener named Gwen Davis flees from the burning city for the Devon countryside. She has volunteered for the Land Army, and is to be in charge of a group of young girls who will be trained to plant food crops on an old country estate where the gardens have fallen into ruin. Also on the estate, waiting to be posted, is a regiment of Canadian soldiers. For three months, the young women and men will form attachments, living in a temporary rural escape. No one will be more changed by the stay than Gwen. She will inspire the girls to restore the estate gardens, fall in love with a soldier, find her first deep friendship, and bring a lost garden, created for a great love, back to life. While doing so, she will finally come to know herself and a life worth living.

nimrodiel's reveal


Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

Struggling to make their way in 1899 New York, the Golem and the Jinni try to fit in with their immigrant neighbors while masking their true selves. Meeting by chance, they become unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures, until the night a terrifying incident drives them back into their separate worlds. But a powerful menace will soon bring the Golem and the Jinni together again, threatening their existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice.

Marvelous and compulsively readable, The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of folk mythology, historical fiction, and magical fable into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

nim says:

This was one of those books that stays with you after reading it. I felt like I was there in 1899 New York city with it's tenements and neighborhoods characterized by the nationality of the immigrants who live there. I thought the blending of historical fiction and fantasy very well done. I also loved the meeting and integration of the Jewish and Arabic mythology in the two main characters.

intry's reveal....



This is my absolute favourit book, read in 2015. The original is in Swedish, published in Finland and now published in English. And not only that, it is written by a friend of mine, Maria Turtschaninoff.

Maresi came to the Red Abbey when she was thirteen, in the Hunger Winter. Before then, she had only heard rumours of its existence in secret folk tales. In a world where girls aren't allowed to learn or do as they please, an island inhabited solely by women sounded like a fantasy. But now Maresi is here, and she knows it is real. She is safe. Then one day Jai tangled fair hair, clothes stiff with dirt, scars on her back arrives on a ship. She has fled to the island to escape terrible danger and unimaginable cruelty. And the men who hurt her will stop at nothing to find her. Now the women and girls of the Red Abbey must use all their powers and ancient knowledge to combat the forces that wish to destroy them. And Maresi, haunted by her own nightmares, must confront her very deepest, darkest fears. A story of friendship and survival, magic and wonder, beauty and terror, Maresi will grip you and hold you spellbound.

What people are saying about Maresi:

"This story of a matriarchal society, a haven for girls who have escaped a stiff and threatening worldview formed by conservative beliefs, is dramatic, skillfully told and appealing to many senses. In this memorable and ferocious suspense fantasy one can also find connections to the realities of women and girls in modern societies. The coming-of-age story of two girls contains many compelling mythical and ritualistic components. Knowledge and learning give the main character power to change the world. A reader begins to feel this sense of will as well."
- Finlandia Junior Prize 2014 jury

"[Maresi is] Fierce and gentle, violent and tender, poetic and full of action - not one or the other, but both. It instills a sense of will, hope and optimism in a reader and encourages her to walk towards the light without fear."
- Director and writer Johanna Vuoksenmaa in her Finlandia Junior Prize speech

"I was blown away by Maresi, quite simply…I have no doubt that Maresi and The Red Abbey Chronicles as a whole will become classics of the genre."
- Adam Freudenheim, Publisher and Managing Director, Pushkin Press/Pushkin Children's Books

xallroyx's reveal

I'll Give You the Sun
by Jandy Nelson



A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once

Loriped's Best of Swap Reveal

City of Dragons (A Miranda Corbie Mystery) by Kelli Stanley



City of Dragons (A Miranda Corbie Mystery) by Kelli Stanley
BC link to be added later

"San Francisco, 1940. It's Miranda Corbie's city ... and she'll die to protect the good in it. Because part of her died a long time ago." "Miranda Corbie - thirty-three-year-old private investigator, Spanish Civil War nurse, and ex-escort - waits impatiently in a Chinatown crowd. Fireworks explode as the city celebrates Chinese New Year with a Rice Bowl Party, a three-day-and-night carnival designed to raise money for China's war relief. Then Eddie Takahashi stumbles - fatally shot - into Sacramento Street and into Miranda's life. And war comes home to San Francisco." The cops want the killing covered up. All Miranda wants is justice - whatever it costs. From Chinatown tenements to a tattered tailor's shop in Little Osaka to a high-class bordello draped in Southern gothic, she shakes down the city - her city - seeking the truth.

This gritty noir features a strong female protagonist who chain smokes Chesterfield cigarettes and is haunted by the death of her lover during the Spanish Civil War. As I read this I kept expecting to see Humphrey Bogart pop in to tell Miranda to be careful as she continually confronts both the cops, who see her as an interfering whore, and the Asian mobsters who just want to kill her to shut her up. Stanley uses a stilted prose style at times that takes some getting used to but which fits in beautifully with the time and place. Believe me once you start reading this book you will have a hard time putting it down.

Giz's Reveal





Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

"Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day" is a delightful, funny novel first published in 1938. When Miss Pettigrew's employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn.

I loved this book because it's one of those fairytale rewritten ones, and because it was just a delight to read. And to think it was almost lost.... Also the info about the author is well worth a read too.

Book Description
Young Rachel Kalama, growing up in idyllic Honolulu in the 1890s, is part of a big, loving Hawaiian family, and dreams of seeing far-off lands. But, at the age of seven, Rachel's dreams are shattered by the discovery that she has leprosy. Forcibly removed from her family, she is sent to Kalaupapa, the isolated leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka'i. Eventually, she finds a family of friends to replace the family she's lost, and falls in love with a fellow exile. But loss is a constant shadow in Kalau-papa, as the people Rachel loves are taken away one by one-until the astonishing day when a medical breakthrough allows her to leave the island.

My Review
I've read this book twice and both times I thought it was extraordinary. First, the story: the history of leprosy and leper colonies was enthralling. Second, the characters: Rachel, Henry, Uncle Pono, Sister Catherine, and so many others. They were so real, their feelings, their hopes, their reality. Third, the setting: The Hawaiian Islands, especially Moloka'i the descriptions were vivid and brought the story to life for me. If you're the winner of this book, you are lucky indeed, to read it for the first time.