The Daily Life of Hailey Grace {blog tour + book review!}

Hello, fellow book nerds!  Today, I'm here with another blog tour that I am very excited about! 

This book was like a blast of nostalgia.  It took me back to another time in my life when this kind of book was what I loved.  So I'm really pumped that today I get to bring you a review of it!


The Daily Life of Hailey Grace



Author: Beloved
Genre: Christian fiction with fantasy elements
Content: None

Synopsis:
For Hailey Grace, birthdays suck! She hopes with all her heart that her big day passes without gifts, or even a birthday wish. But with loving parents and two witty best friends who keep her on her toes, there’s no telling what adventure Hailey Grace will be forced to explore this time. Unexpectedly, her best friend Alex challenges her to do something she’s never done before. With that comes a whole new set of rules, and another life Hailey isn’t sure she’s quite ready for. Now questioning all that she has ever believed, she takes Alex up on the dare by asking for something that no one but God can give her. Her request also comes with a twenty-four-hour deadline. As the minutes slowly but surely tick by, Hailey’s life shifts into overdrive and she wonders if she has asked for too much too soon.

What I Thought:

This started out exactly as I expected, and then about 30% took a sharp turn and became something that was both completely different and completely the same.  Certain plot developments had making this face:

and others had me making this face:

It was really something fascinating.  I'm not going to go into details because spoilers are evil, but here's what I loved:
- Hailey's character.  She was so cute and relatable, and I loved her struggles with her faith.  They were totally realistic and I really enjoyed seeing them portrayed.
- ALEX is my FAVE!  Sweet boy just wants to be loved.
- The friendship between these two was the most adorable thing.  Y'all know I'm a sucker for friendship and I just love them a lot, okay?  The way they rely on each other and know each other so well and just gah it's perfection. (also I can't wait to see where their relationship goes in the next books because the only thing I love more than friends are friends-to-lovers)
- Hailey's parents are the cutest, oh my word.  And they're actually involved in their kids lives!  And they both have a really solid relationship with Hailey and it's awesome.
- The book is set in Florida, and I'm from Florida, and I could totally picture the location even if the actual town is fictional. 
- ALL the faith content!
- It did keep me on my toes.  I had no idea where we were going for... most of the book, tbh.

The few things I didn't love mainly focus around spoilery stuff, so I won't go into them, and really, they were very minor.  I almost felt like the author had too many plots going on at once?  At one point I wanted to write down what I knew because I was having trouble keeping characters straight.  But here's the thing - I think this is a problem that only 20-year-old Abby can experience.  13-year-old Abby would have had zero problem with it.  So that brings me to my main point: I'm not the right audience for this book, but I can think of at least three or four kids in my life off the top of my head that I would hand this book to in a heartbeat.  This is a story I would have adored as a tween.  It was nostalgic because it reminded me of some of my favorite books of that time in my life.  I'm not in there anymore, so while I enjoyed it, I didn't love it.  But gosh, it's perfect for a tween, particularly one who isn't super firm in their faith. 

So, I recommend this book!  To a select audience, yes, but that select audience, I think, would get so much out of it.  I kinda want to get a copy to put in our church library because seriously there are some kids I want to read it. 

Overall rating: 4 food trucks out of 5

About the Author:
Beloved is a ministry leader and Christian Romance Author born and raised in Miami, FL.  She spends much of her time studying the scriptures and has a gift for sharing the Gospel.  Through her debut novel, Beloved hopes to inspire youth to seek God whole-heartedly, knowing there is nothing impossible with Him on their side!

Follow Beloved at: Her website ~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Twitter

You can pick up a copy of The Daily Life of Hailey Grace on Amazon here and add it to your Goodreads shelves here!

There's also a super awesome giveaway for a paperback edition of this book going on right now, and you can enter it by clicking right here!

Huge thank you to Beloved and to Livy Lynn (who organized this awesome blog tour!) for letting me participate!  I can't wait for book 2, haha!

~ Abby

My Favorite Books of 2018

Last year, I did a post just like this.  And somehow, it's time to do another one?  Excuse me?  2018???

So I was looking on my Goodreads to try and plan ahead for this post and... uh... this is going to be hard.  I read a lot of really great books in 2018, and I mean. I read 104 books, there were bound to be some gems in there.  That and my average Goodreads rating for the year was 4.5.  So yeah, I found a few new faves.

(also 104 books, I'm pretty sure, is the most books I've ever EVER read in a year.  I am very happy.)

To keep this from completely exploding my head with indecision, I'm excluding re-reads, because I also re-read a LOT of books (PJO, HOO, HTTYD, The Underland Chronicles, and various children's classics, to name a few).  Let's get started!


January:
 
Starting off with a tie... this is not a good sign xD  I absolutely loved reading the "Guardians of Childhood" series for the first time between December of 2017 and January of 2018, so the top spot here has to go to books 3 and 4: Toothiana, Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies and The Sandman and the War of Dreams.


February:

 

Another tie because I genuinely could not choose.  Both Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Breadcrumbs moved me deeply, in different ways, and I can't not hold them both up as favorites.  I want to re-read them both already.  So that says something. 


March:

Cute romances!  Small towns!  Childhood-friends-to-lovers!  Fish and chips!  As Easy as Riding a Bike has all of my favorite things!
{Honorable Mention: Dissemble}


April:

This book was everything I wanted and didn't know I needed.  You can find my full review of At Her Fingertips here!  An adorable romance with loveable characters and a heart-warming message.


May:

Big, magic-filled, ballgown-wearing fairytale retellings were basically all I read for a solid year and half of my life at one point.  I've since kind of fallen out of the genre, not because I don't love them (they were an important part of me becoming me, tbh) but because I struggle to find ones that are of good quality and genuinely surprise.  Entwined was such a pleasant surprise.  It was pure magic and like a trip back in time.  I loved it.
{Honorable Mentions: The Rebellion and Dagger's Sleep}


June:

Feelzy middle-grade packed with friendship, family relationships, and eggs?  Sign me up!  The Science of Breakable Things is a book I didn't expect to love as much as I did, and I can't wait to see what Tae Keller comes up with next.
{Honorable Mentions: Perfect Scoundrels, Kiera, and School of the Dead}


July:

Some of y'all probably know that Winnie-the-Pooh is my all-time favorite classic and one of my all-time favorite books, so when I saw Return to the Hundred Acre Wood for cheap at a library sale, I had to grab it.  What I found was absolutely everything I wanted.  More adventures with Pooh and the gang (plus some new friends), adorable illustrations (in color!), and endearing stories.  Fantastic.
{Honorable Mentions: Gentle's Holler and The Real Boy}


August:

A mystery set in steam-punk London, following the niece of Sherlock Holmes and the sister of Bram Stoker, plus a good-looking inspector and a few mysterious boys.  It's great.  I participated in a buddy-read for the first time with The Clockwork Scarab, and it was awesome, I really enjoyed it!
{Honorable Mention: Not if I Save You First}


September:

Um?  I'm emotionally destroyed?  But that was awesome?  So I'm not really mad I'm just conflicted?  I have a lot of emotions about The Burning Maze, okay?


October:
  
I CAN'T CHOOSE AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.  this is my blog post I do what I want.
No but genuinely, these were three of my absolute favorite books of the year, so I honestly don't think I can really pick.  October was my best reading month in 2018 in quality (if not quantity).  I really liked every book I read, but A Certain Sort of Madness, The Storm Runner, and Beyond Her Calling all now have proud places on my "absolute favorite books" list.
{Honorable Mentions: [see, I told you it was an amazing month] The Screaming Staircase and My Plain Jane}


November:
 
It's about time a Sarah Addison-Fox book showed up on this list, lol.  Discerned was so good!  Sad saying goodbye to my babies but a satisfying way to leave them.  And oh my gosh, y'all I started reading Blades of Acktar in November and Dare was amazing?  This whole series was amazing??  I loved it so much how have I not read it before now???


December:
 
Several absolutely incredible books came into my life in the last month of the year, and these two were the top of the line for me.  Blank Mastermind was everything I hoped it would be and more, and Deliver started out as my least favorite Acktar book and then skyrocketed to the top spot?  Dunno how that happened but here we are?  Both of these were just jam-packed with character development and healing and sass and I loved them.
{Honorable Mentions: A Christmas Carol and East}


And there you have it!  My favorite books of 2018.  What were your favorite books you discovered last year?  Any favorite re-reads?  Tell me all about it in the comments!

~ Abby

Retrieve Blog Tour {+ book review!}

Hi there, friends!  It's been awhile.  I got extremely busy around the holidays, and then I got my wisdom teeth taken out, so this week has been spent recovering and preparing to greet the new year with open arms.  And reading.  I've done a lot of reading.  Which leads me to today's post.

Because one of my favorite authors, Sarah Addison-Fox, has released a new book!

And I apologize in advance for any typos in this post, I'm kinda fangirling really hard right now, lol. 

Because Sarah is awesome, I get to give y'all my review of this awesome book, so let's get started!


Retrieve



Author: Sarah Addison-Fox
Genre: Fantasy adventure romance
Content: Violence, a few bad words sprinkled throughout, concern of what unsavory men will do to Hadley if she's found out.

Synopsis:
What if the job you took to stay alive might be what kills you?
Kade knows what it is to suffer. He knows what it's like to lose everything and everyone around him.
His job in a Stormer Unit guarantees not just his survival in the decimated country of Azetaria, but his sister Meg's. Even if it means facing the Numachi warriors baying for his blood, he'll do what it takes to keep her safe.
Hadley is alone and surviving the only way she knows how. By hiding where predators won't find her and scavenging enough just to keep her alive.
When desperation drives Hadley to search for her missing brother, she mistakenly accepts the offer of recruitment into the Stormer's camp, only to be partnered with Kade and sent as a scout into Numachi territory.
The intimidating young Stormer may just know where her brother has gone. But can they stay alive long enough to find him?

What I Thought:


This was AWESOME.  It was reminiscent of Blades of Acktar, in the best ways.  Hadley and Kade were amazing protagonists (both of whom I want to snuggle in a blanket and put them in the "safe character space" corner because please let them rest they're tired).  Knowing this was going to be a romance just meant that I shipped it immediately and while nothing really happens with it in this book (I'm sure it's going to get serious in the next ones), there were some really cute moments.  My shipper heart is happy.
But really it was also an awesome adventure that I could see as a movie, 100%.  Kade is a kick-butt boy who's secretly soft and sad and I love him.  Hadley is a scared girl who can climb really well and is generally distrustful but when she trusts she trusts completely and I love her.  I just love them both and love them together a lot okay there were a lot of cool fight scenes but also some good Soft scenes that I highly appreciated.  Gosh, I'm easy to please.  Give me a scene where one love interest falls asleep on the other's shoulder and I'm set. xD
Also THAT ENDING.  *screams for next book*
So yeah.  Highly recommend.

Overall rating: 4.5 awesome fight scenes out of 5

About the Author:
Sarah Addison-Fox is a New Zealand-born misfit who writes action-packed fantasy with a smattering of punch ups, mega amounts of romance and a dash of family values.

Follow Sarah!

Facebook: Instagram: Website: Twitter: @saddisonfox Facebook Fanpage:  Blog:

 You can add Retrieve to your Goodreads shelf here and pick up a copy on Amazon here!

And that's all for today's post!  Go check out "Retrieve" and all of Sarah's books! 

~ Abby