Cover Spotlight!!!!!!

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TADA!!!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't read Changeless (I'm dying to though) and the book cover for Blameless (third book in the Parasol series) is already out. This guys work faast.

Have you ever wondered how they do this beautiful covers? Well, the cover artist is so awesome she made a video of making the cover. Sure the video doesn't take as long as actually making the cover, but you can at least see the works.

There is also a post that goes with this video, I suggest you read it.

And here is a Blameless blurb:

**SPOILERS**

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season. Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead. While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.

**END SPOILERS**

To tell you the truth I didn't read it. Cause I haven't read Changeless!!! And I don't wanna know...

But on a bright note, do you guys love Gail Carriger? The author of this series? Well she is going to be having tea here at Bloody Bookaholic VERY soon. How soon? Well it's a surprise. And as usual I might be giving away one of her books to a very lucky winner. Her books are to die for, she is that awesome.

The other two books in the series are Soulless and Changeless

Soulless Blurb:

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she is being rudely attacked by a vampire to whom she has not been properly introduced! Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire, and the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

My review for Soulless

Changeless Blurb:

Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears - leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria. But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. Even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can. She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.

Enjoy, and READ THEM!

False Expectations

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Ive been thinking about this lately. As I keep reading YA and books in general Ive been coming up against the same question over and over again.

Are books (and of course the media) making us have false expectations?

Like an example would be couples in YA. Sure they get in fights, and they brake up, they cry, they cheat, they sometimes even die. But one way or another they always come back together. I guess it teaches us that everything can be resolved at the end if your love is strong enough, but in RL (real life) things sometimes don't end up with a bouquet of red roses and happy music in the background, ya know?

Or let's consider this. You all must know of Twilight right? If not, well, what is the number of your cave so that I can come over and hide with you? Anyways, this series brings a perfect

example. Edward. The perfect guy. He is tender, he is sweet, he is HOT, he wears white bloody armor. Sure he could stalk you a little bit and be super over protective but hey every guy has it's downside. My point is, he is just tooo perfect. The relationships are just too perfect. Who is here going to tell me they have never said "Oh, I wish he was real" or have expected that everything is going to end up with a pretty red bow? I have a couple of times, damn I wish I lived in a YA novel.

Because everything seems like it's destined to be and you just know who is going to end up with whom and that they are meant to be together for ever and ever. Hello that's why we are in love with the Vampire thing. It isn't because of the good looks or the money. It's because when you find that special person you get to be with them forever. And you know that life and those precious moments won't ever end.

But in RL... It's so much more difficult. You never know who's going to end up with whom. There is no "one unique love" because it may not only be one person who may touch your life and leave it like it never was before. It may be two, it may be three. The thing is you never know. How do you know that this is the right one? Answer, you don't. Some may argue that that is the beauty of life, confronting the unexpected and living. But some may just want to buy a magic 8 ball who can help them along the way.

I wish Bones from Jeaniene Frost's novel was real. Oh...Yeah... Or Spades (Also a Jeaniene Frost character)... Or Wrath from The Black Dagger Brotherhood... Or Peeta from The Hunger Games... I could go on and on.

But there is a point you gotta stop trying to make everything perfect like the book and start dealing with what life is right? Are we going to start confusing what's real and what's not? Are we in the path to becoming those women who are in the search for their YA and shiny armor? Or it could include men you know... No comment.

What do you think? Are you suffering from YAxpectations?

*Kind of wrote this at 2 a.m. so please if I made any mistakes tell me so I can edit lol

US vs UK, Round Ten

There are always two version's to a cover, but in this post we are putting the US and the UK head to head to see who comes with the best cover.

In honor of the movie Alice in Wonderland (which I'm going to see at 10 tonight) this round will be all about The Looking Glass War books.

Round One...

US-UK

I like the whole setting of the U.K. cover, it gives you a picture of their world. But I like more the U.S. cover. It just looks so kick ass!!! Very pretty and neat. And it really makes it look like they are preparing to war. Also the symbol and the font are very nice.

Round Two...

US-UK

Yeah, any of you guys psychic? Then you know my answer. U...S... Wiiiins. It looks like art! I would so buy a poster of that picture and put it on my wall. It's beautiful and dark and slighly creepy. While the U.K. looks, well, slightly boring and with a lot going on.

Round Three...

US-UK

Again, this one is a bit like the first book. It's about action and power. The U.S. wins hands down. It looks like it took a bit of work to do that cover, and even though I really like the scenery in the U.K. cover, for a cover it just isn't as powerful as the U.S.

It also comes to my attention that the U.S. covers look like more of a series than the U.K. covers. The first and third one of the U.K. look like part of a series, but not the second one. If I went to Borders and saw all 3 in different places I would somehow connect the dots.

So, what do you think?