Top 5 Reads of 2014 (so far)!

Hello and Happy Tuesday readers! Welcome one and all to a very special edition of OneGuysGuideToGoodReads. Instead of a review today I am going to celebrate with a super awesome post with a twist today!

Today is the first day of July meaning that the year of 2014 is halfway over! We are six months gone guys! Where has it disappeared to!? Wow! Well, to celebrate passing the halfway point I am going to count down my Top 5 Reads of 2014! You read right, my top 5 favorite reads of 2014 thus far! This list has been chosen from books I have read that were released in 2014. While I have read many, many amazing books in 2014, unfortunately many of them were older reads so this has been rather difficult to come up with 5 (sorry JLA). This list also covers all genres I enjoy. I plan on doing a top 10 list in December with my list for the entire year so be on the watch for that. Not only will I be sharing my top 5 of 2014 so far list, I have gather a handful of other bloggers, authors, and readers who may be familiar to you guys to share with me their Top 5 of 2014 (so far) list as well! Without farther adieu, here we go!

Ethan's Top 5 Reads of 2014 (so far):

Check out each book below by clicking on the title to be taken to my review of the novel!

Click the link below each cover/synopsis to be taken to the official Goodreads page for each novel!

5. Dangerous Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

 

A new series returns to the world of Beautiful Creatures. Some loves are cursed...others are dangerous.

Ridley Duchannes will be the first to tell you that she's a bad girl. She's Dark. She's a Siren. You can never trust her, or even yourself when she's around. Lucky for her, Wesley "Link" Lincoln can never seem to remember that; quarter Incubus or not, his heart is Mortal when it comes to Ridley. When Link heads to New York City to start a music career, Ridley goes along for the ride-and she has her own reasons. As if leaving small-town Gatlin for the big city, trying to form a band, and surviving life with a partially reformed Siren isn't hard enough already, Link soon learns he has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthors of Beautiful Creatures, are back and casting another magical spell. Their signature mixture of mystery, suspense, and romance, along with a dash of fun and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.

*Add Dangerous Creatures to Goodreads*

4.  All Lined Up by Cora Carmack

In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both.

Dallas Cole loathes football. That's what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past.

But life doesn't always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again.

Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It's obliterated.

Dallas doesn't know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn't know that Dallas is his new coach's daughter.

And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel.

*Add All Lined Up to Goodreads*

 3. Best Kind of Broken by Chelsea Fine

Pixie and Levi haven't spoken in nearly a year when they find themselves working―and living―at the same inn in the middle of nowhere. Once upon a time, they were childhood friends. But that was before everything went to hell. And now things are... awkward.

All they want to do is avoid each other, and their past, for as long as possible. But now that they're forced to share a bathroom, and therefore a shower, keeping their distance from one another becomes less difficult than keeping their hands off each other. Welcome to the hallway of awkward tension and sexual frustration, folks. Get comfy. It’s going to be a long summer.

 *Add Best Kind of Broken to Goodreads* 

2. Descent by Kallie Ross

Seventeen year old Ollie Miller is ready to leave all of her hurt feelings behind, but moving on seems impossible while living next door to her ex-best friend, Mateo. When curious earthquakes begin to shake and rip open the foundation of her small town, the ground becomes as unsteady as her feelings for him. When they fall, they fall hard…

 

Ollie’s disastrous attempt to save Mateo’s brother from falling into a curious chasm results in their descent into a cavernous wonderland. Ollie, Mateo, Jesse, and Alexis search for a way back home, and encounter a mysterious tribe of natives. Gabriel, the next in line to lead his people, is granted permission to guide them to the surface. On their treacherous journey, an overzealous elder threatens all of their lives, because he can’t risk them exposing his people, or the power he wields. The group discovers ancient secrets, unexpected truths, and uncharted feelings. Ollie must find a way out or risk being stuck in the caves forever—or worse, dead.

 *Add Descent to Goodreads* 

  

*I'd also like to point out that this was the debut novel by Mrs. Kallie Ross and it was absolutely amazing. PLEASE check out the review, you will NOT regret this read!*

 

Finally, the moment of truth. My TOP read of 2014 thus far; the book I had to read over and over again and STILL couldn't get enough, AND the debut novel from one of the most promising and upcoming authors I've read:

1. Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige 

I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.

But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still the yellow brick road, though—but even that's crumbling.

What happened? Dorothy.

They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas.

I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.

I've been trained to fight.

And I have a mission.

*Add Dorothy Must Die to Goodreads*  

So there's my list! Here's a graphic I made to recap it for you guys!

After I made my own list, I really wanted to hear the input of my fellow bloggers, readers, and authors! I invited everyone to tweet me some their favorites using the hashtag #TopReads2014 and here are some of the amazing responses I got! Some even submitted graphics for me! Here we go!

Revolution, Best Kind of Broken, Sentinel, Dorothy Must Die! Not actually all released in 2014 but oh well lol #TopReads2014
— Megan West (@meg_west) June 30, 2014

Liz Long, author of Gifted and Burned (The Donovan Circus Series) and Witch Hearts, and one of my current favorite people joined in with her favorites:

@egrgry Hokay: Nature of Grace series, SR Johannes; One Tiny Secret, TA Kunz; Don't Look Back, J Armentrout. I have a thing for mysteries.
— Liz Long (@LizCLong) June 30, 2014

The absolutely amazing Chelsea Fine, author of The Archers of Avalon and Finding Fate series wanted to give a shoutout to her newest favorite series of 2014 with this graphic she sent in:

Chelsea speaks VERY highly of this series so I WILL be adding it to my TBR! Can't wait to check it out! Learn more about Chelsea Fine and her many amazing works at http://www.chelseafinebooks.com/

Another one of my top 5 authors also participated with us! Here are a couple of tweets from Mrs. Kallie Ross about her favorites of 2014 so far:

@egrgry ok, so I'm cheating by including @RLLaFevers' Mortal Heart... I got an ARC at BEA, & it's not out yet! I'm in love with this book!!!
— Kallie Ross (@Kallieross) July 1, 2014

@egrgry I'll also say it's the year of conclusions to series, & I love me some happy endings! #TheSelection #MortalInstruments #Bloodlines
— Kallie Ross (@Kallieross) July 1, 2014

Here's some graphics from some of the other awesome bloggers who wanted to put in THIER top 5 reads of 2014 so far! Click each graphic to be taken to that blogger's page!

Amber, Christina, Ursula, and Carmen from GrownupFangirl had this to say:

Kaitlan from Between Order and Randomness picked these for her top 5:

Yesi from Literati Book Reviews chimed in with her top 5 and a message:

Betsy from Book Drunk Blog gave me these for her top 5:

One of my favorite people ever, the awesome Christine from i*Heart*BigBooks (and i cannot lie...) sent in her amazing graphic with her top 6 reads (she couldn't pick just 5!):

 
And last, but certainly not least, the absolutely amazing Stephanie from Smart & Savvy with Stephanie sent in her top 5 graphic:

 

**Anyone wanting to add their Top 5 graphic, please contact me ASAP and I will happily put it on, this will be a work in progress. Don't hesitate to holler if you want to be added!**

Alright readers, this has been one of THE most fun posts I have ever done and I have loved sharing all these Top 5 Reads of 2014 (so far) with you. Here are 14 different bloggers, authors, and readers opinions. I would love to hear what some of yours are! Feel free to create a graphic or a list and hit me up either via twitter with the hashtag #TopReads2014 and I'll grab them and add them to the list or via email at oneguysguidetogoodreads@gmail.com! I would absolutely love to hear YOUR top 5 reads for 2014 (so far)! The year is only half over and we still have TONS of exciting upcoming releases! I plan on checking back with everyone here come December and we will see how the year rounded out for everyone. I am anxiously awaiting all the fun comments and suggestions from you guys! Feel free to share this post, tag the authors mentioned and add them all to your TBR! Until next time, Happy Reading!

-Ethan

Dangerous Creatures (Dangerous Creatures #1) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl Review

Hey readers! Happy Tuesday to you all! I have a real awesome review post for you here today. I will be reviewing the first book in the spin off series to one of my favorite series of all time: Beautiful Creatures. Today, I will be talking about Dangerous Creatures by Kami Gracia and Margaret Stohl! Before I get down to the brass tax, here's some info about the book and each of our authors!

A new series returns to the world of Beautiful Creatures. Some loves are cursed...others are dangerous.

Ridley Duchannes will be the first to tell you that she's a bad girl. She's Dark. She's a Siren. You can never trust her, or even yourself when she's around. Lucky for her, Wesley "Link" Lincoln can never seem to remember that; quarter Incubus or not, his heart is Mortal when it comes to Ridley. When Link heads to New York City to start a music career, Ridley goes along for the ride-and she has her own reasons. As if leaving small-town Gatlin for the big city, trying to form a band, and surviving life with a partially reformed Siren isn't hard enough already, Link soon learns he has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthors of Beautiful Creatures, are back and casting another magical spell. Their signature mixture of mystery, suspense, and romance, along with a dash of fun and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.

*Add Dangerous Creatures to Goodreads*

Now here's a little bit about our authors:

Kami Garcia

 
Kami Garcia is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal & international bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures Novels (Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos & Beautiful Redemption). Beautiful Creatures has been published in 50 countries and translated in 39 languages. The Beautiful Creatures movie released in theaters on February 14, 2013.

Kami is also the author of Unbreakable, the first book her paranormal solo series, THE LEGION (coming October 1, 2013.

Kami grew up outside of Washington DC, wore lots of black, and spent hours writing poetry in spiral notebooks. As a girl with Southern roots, she has always been fascinated by the paranormal and believes in lots of things “normal” people don’t. She’s very superstitious and would never sleep in a room with the number “13″ on the door. When she is not writing, Kami can usually be found watching disaster movies, listening to Soundgarden, or drinking Diet Coke.

Kami has an MA in education, and taught in the Washington DC area until she moved to Los Angeles, where she was a teacher & Reading Specialist for 14 years. In addition to teaching, Kami was a professional artist and led fantasy book groups for children and teens. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, daughter, and their dogs Spike and Oz (named after characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Follow Kami Garcia by clicking the following links:  

*Facebook*     *Twitter*     *Goodreads* *Kami's Website*

Margaret Stohl

Writing has gotten me in and out of trouble since I was 15 (back then, mostly just in trouble.) For 10 years, I designed &/or wrote for lots of video games, one of which was nominated for “Most Innovative Game Design,” but I lost to a rapping onion. If you know games you get why my two bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby.

School: I spent more years in it than a person ever should, because let’s face it, reading books is so much better than having a job. I fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under the late great poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. I taught Intro to Film as a TA at Yale and Romantic Poetry as a TA at Stanford. Don’t tell the people at Yale but sometimes I taught the section before I’d seen the movie it was about...


I live in Santa Monica, CA, with my family, most of whom were enslaved into working with me in one form or another on my first YA book for Little, Brown. I’m not kidding; when my daughters wanted to go to school I said “Why are you so selfish? Get back in there and edit,” and by said I mean yelled and maybe threw things, it’s all a haze. Now the Beautiful series has wrapped, but you can see the movie on February 13, 2013 or read my new book ICONS on May 7th. Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

Follow Margaret Stohl by clicking the following links:  

*Facebook*     *Twitter*     *Goodreads* *Margaret's Website*

Side note for a second. As usual, I try to throw these in here when I can. Last year I got to meet Margaret when she came to Springfield, Missouri for an author event. It was an awesome experience to get to hear her speak as well as personally meet her where she remembered me from our Twitter conversations! It was awesome. She was the very first author I connected with, long before this blog became a thing! Here's a pic of me meeting Margaret Stohl!

My Thoughts

As any of my book friends will tell you, I was a HUGE advocate for Beautiful Creatures. Anyone who knows me knows two things about me. First, I love everything about the American South. The history, lifestyle, the culture: it's home to me so I love anything that has to do with it. Secondly, when it comes to paranormal stuff, Witches are my thing. I love magic, can't ever read enough about it. Beautiful Creatures was the perfect series for me, it encompassed EVERYTHING I love in one 4 novel series. You can only imagine how excited I was when I discovered that a spin-off series was in the works!

So far as the novel itself, I will start out with my very few criticisms before I love on to the awesome parts of it. My biggest criticism was that this book was really nothing like the Beautiful Creatures series, but not in a bad way. Dangerous Creatures takes place in a whole different world than it's predecessor. New York City. It's loud, it's dangerous, it's new, flashy, and full of excitement. Nothing like Gatlin, South Carolina. I guess I was just so used to the setting of the first series that it was really hard for me to adjust to Caster life in the big city. At times it felt overwhelming, much like NYC really can be to a small-town nobody, I am sure. Whereas the first series had to develop the entire Caster world, this one jumped right in with little to no description of the Caster world. Usually I would have really liked that, but I feel like it could have been off putting for someone who hadn't read Beautiful Creatures. Even I, as someone who read and loved the BC, series, was a little lost about some things, seeing as it has been over a year since I was inside the Caster world.

Now I realize I shouldn't be comparing the two series, but it is really difficult not to.

Onto more exciting and positive things: the characters. From the very beginning, when we first meet Wesley Lincoln, I was a fan. He has always been a favorite character of mine, while Ridley Duchannes was always kind of "meh". Link has always been a fun, determined, best-friend kind of character that I always really appreciated. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I have always seen Ridley as a brat and never really liked her, even after she became a big part of the BC series. Funny enough, this novel turned that on it's head. By the time the ending came, Ridley was my favorite character and I was completely fed up with the antics of Link. I am beginning to wonder if that was the point! I would have never expected that my views on the Rid-Link relationship would have changed, but in comes Lennox Gates and blew my thought process right out of the water. All I am going to say, without giving spoilers is that I am not Team Rid-Nox! Secondary characters such as Necro (a Necromancer), Floyd (an Illusionist), and Sampson (a Darkborn) really added to the story in ways I wouldn't have imagined! I really liked that this novel didn't have SUCH a large cast of characters, making it much more intimate and easier to keep up with.

Lots and lots of reviews I have read are ripping this story a new one and downing it because of the "cliff-hanger" ending. I, on the other hand, loved it! It definitely makes me want more! I know this is the first book in a planned series, but I cannot find any information about the next books! I will be sure to update and keep you guys in the loop as soon as I learn more!

All-in-all, this book is a must read for any fans of the Beautiful Creatures series. Kami and Margaret have done it again with their rare brand of storytelling: the drama, the darkness, the laughs and the excitement that only the story of a Siren and a "one-quarter Incubus/Mortal-Hybrid" can bring! I am anxiously awaiting book two!


Also of importance to point out to you guys is that there is a prequel out to Dangerous Creatures that sets the scene for the novel. I actually didn't know about the novella-prequel until after I finished DC, so going back and reading it helped out a whole bunch! At just shy of 50 pages, you'll have it read in no time. Here's the cover and synopsis for it!

Catch up with Ethan, Lena, and Link as they finally graduate from high school and get ready to leave the small Southern town of Gatlin. But when Dark Caster Ridley makes an appearance, the sometime bad girl can't resist picking a fight with her sometime boyfriend, Link. Angry and rebellious as ever, Ridley ends up alone in New York City and becomes entangled in the dangerous underground Caster club scene, where the stakes are high and losers pay the ultimate price.

Where's a Linkubus when you need him








Now for something really exciting. I was doing my rounds and came across this Hypable article where Kami and Margaret released a deleted scene from Dangerous Creatures which features more about some of our favorite characters from Beautiful Creatures, Lena Duchannes and Ethan Wate (Ethan was named after me, didn't ya know? Kidding, kidding... A guy can wish right?) Here's the link to the article with the deleted chapter!

*Click here for a Dangerous Creatures deleted scene* 

Now that you know all about the Dangerous Creatures, the novella, and the awesome authors, check out these graphics I made to promote Dangerous Creatures!

Alright guys, now that you've read all about Dangerous Creatures, you probably want to know where you can get your hands on a copy for yourself! As of right now the book is available in both ebook and print format! Here's a promo graphic for where you can get your copy of Dangerous Creatures today! Feel free to share/use this graphic! 

Are you ready for more? Head over to the Amazon and Barnes & Noble links below to order your copy of Dangerous Creatures today! 

 

Amazon                  Barnes & Noble  

 

Alright guys, that's all I have for you on the topic of Dangerous Creatures by the amazing duo of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl! I would really love to hear from anyone who reads this incredible novel so we can talk all about it! After you read it be sure to review it on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble! Review always are huge helps to authors. Recommend this to friends, they won't be disappointed! Until next time, Happy Reading!

 

-Ethan