Waiting on Wednesday #31

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we cannot wait to read.

I am really anxious to read Destiny, the third book in the Brightest Kind of Darkness series by P. T. Michelle which is due to be released on 31 March 2013.  I have participated in blog tours and cover reveals since the first book and this is a series that I absolutely love.  Here is a recap of the first two books in the series and their beautiful covers and then Destiny.

Nara Collins is an average sixteen-year-old, with one exception: every night she dreams the events of the following day. Due to an incident in her past, Nara avoids using her special gift to change fate…until she dreams a future she can’t ignore.

After Nara prevents a bombing at Blue Ridge High, her ability to see the future starts to fade, while people at school are suddenly being injured at an unusually high rate.

Grappling with her diminishing powers and the need to prevent another disaster, Nara meets Ethan Harris, a mysterious loner who seems to understand her better than anyone. Ethan and Nara forge an irresistible connection, but as their relationship heats up, so do her questions about his dark past.

Buy:

Amazon | Kindle | B&N | iTunes | The Book Depository

Once Nara combines her prophetic ability with Ethan’s power to outsmart Fate at his own deadly cat-and-mouse game, she’s more determined than ever to help Ethan learn the meaning behind the raven sword tattoo that suddenly appeared on his back after their confrontation with Fate.

During her quest to uncover the tattoo’s secrets, Nara enlists the help of some new friends and discovers her own surprising connection to Ethan.

While Nara digs deeper into the mystery, her desire for answers leads her down a dangerous path full of powerful and ruthless enemies. Swept into an age-old battle, Nara quickly learns that keeping one’s enemies close can be a necessary evil, making an intangible enemy she can control far more preferable to the human enemies she can’t.

Buy:

Amazon | Kindle | B&N  | The Book Depository

When destiny is on the line, will love be enough to light the way?

In order to save Ethan, Nara gets pulled deeper into his dark world, where everything she thought she knew about Ethan and herself turns on its head. Ethan and Nara turn up the heat with bone-melting seduction and heart-rending moments, but surprising revelations, lies, treachery, betrayal, and unimaginable evil will challenge their relationship and their future together. As the stakes rise, encompassing more than just her relationship with Ethan, will Nara make the ultimate sacrifice?

I'm excited to read the third book in the series.  If you haven't read the first two books, they are on sale as e-books right now.  Brightest Kind of Darkness (BKoD) is FREE on Kindle and iBooks and is $0.99 on Nook.  Lucid is $3.99 on Kindle and Nook.

There are two extra scenes in this series as well.  They deal with both Nara and Ethan.  The first one is Chapter 22 of BKoD in Ethan's POV.  You can find that one here.

Another extra scene has been titled Unforseen and it shows a glimpse into Nara's past.  It says to read this after you have read BKoD and Lucid.  You can find that scene here.

 I couldn't find any links yet to pre-order.  As soon as I do, I will be sure to post them on the blog.

Blog Tour: Lucid

Author: P. T. Michelle

Publisher: CreateSpace

Publish Date:  09 July 2012

Pages: 328

ISBN:  978-1478313038

Source:  from author for blog tour

Genre:  YA, paranormal, romance

Series:  Brightest Kind of Darkness (BKoD)

Other books in series:  Brightest Kind of Darkness

Rating: Liked

Once Nara combines her prophetic ability with Ethan’s power to outsmart Fate at his own deadly cat-and-mouse game, she’s more determined than ever to help Ethan learn the meaning behind the raven sword tattoo that suddenly appeared on his back after their confrontation with Fate.

During her quest to uncover the tattoo’s secrets, Nara enlists the help of some new friends and discovers her own surprising connection to Ethan.

While Nara digs deeper into the mystery, her desire for answers leads her down a dangerous path full of powerful and ruthless enemies. Swept into an age-old battle, Nara quickly learns that keeping one’s enemies close can be a necessary evil, making an intangible enemy she can control far more preferable to the human enemies she can’t.

**WARNING: Spoiler alert if you have read Brightest Kind of Darkness**

What happens to Nara now that she doesn’t have to worry about Fate anymore?  When will Ethan come back to her?  These are questions that plague Nara in Lucid.  Ethan had left to go to Michigan to be with his parents to try to salvage that relationship.  This is important to him.  He feels that he can go and do this because Nara is “safe.”  Nara doesn’t like that he is gone and misses him terribly, but she understands why he needed to go.   She doesn’t want to tell him the truth about what is going on because then that will pull him away from his current mission.

While he is gone, Nara is engrossed in figuring out what the ravens and Ethan’s feather tattoos mean.  She does a lot of research and writes everything in Ethan’s journal.   She even has kinda “adopted” a raven she calls “Patch,” who shows up at her window every morning.  She hasn’t told anyone about her special gift except her Aunt and Gran.  She hasn't even told her best friend, Lainey, that she dreams what will happen in the next day.  She has learned not to interfere, but sometimes that cannot be helped. 

There are some new characters in Lucid.  First, there is Harper.  She is a student at Nara’s high school who previously was home schooled.  I’m not too sure about her character.  At times, she seems too eager.  Then there is Drystan, who is a Welsh foreign exchange student.  He figures out that Nara has some sort of power, but doesn’t know what.  He also figures out that she is in danger and saves her life on multiple occasions. 

What is going on between Nara and Drystan while Ethan is away?  Will Ethan and Nara get back together?  Why is Nara is danger?  Why doesn’t Ethan want her to do any research on his raven tattoo?  There are multiple plot points in Lucid and many things are going on at the same time.  I never felt that it was too much to keep track of though.  I like Ethan and was kinda sad that he wasn’t in the majority of the book.  Even though Nara is the main character, I wanted to see more of Ethan.  Having said that, I fell for Drystan.  He is nice, has an accent and helps Nara.  I thought that the writing was easy to follow.  The end of the book made me want to read the third book and I cannot wait until that comes out.

You can find a link of the blog tour here.  This tour not only has reviews of Lucid, but Brightest Kind of Darkness as well.   There is a lot of stops on this blog tour, so check them out to find out a lot of good information about this series. 

Tour Schedule

September 24th
Confessions of a Bookaholic  – Review (Lucid)
Nothing Better Than a Book  – Review (BKoD)
Jelly Loves Books  – Review (BKoD)
Deea’s Journal  – Review (Lucid)
Some Like it Paranormal  – Featured Post (Random Trivia about the BKoD series)
Beauty & the Bookshelf  – Excerpt
The Bookish Babe  – Guest Post + Review (Lucid)
Better Read Than Dead  – Review (BKoD)
Hope, Faith & Books  – Review (BKoD)
I’m a Book Shark  – Featured Post (All about Parkour)

September 25th
The Bookish Brunette  – Featured Post (Ethan & Nara character interview)
A Buckeye Girl Reads  – Review (BKoD)
I Read Indie  – Review (Lucid)
Readers Live A Thousand Lives  – Review (BKoD)
Vendea’s Dream World of Books  – Review (BKoD)
Seeing Night Reviews  – Review (Lucid)
Fictional Distraction  – Review (Lucid)
Creative Reads  – Review (BKoD)
K-Books  – Review (Lucid)
A Book Vacation  – Featured Post (Ravens)
Stories of My Life  – Excerpt
Winter Haven Books  - Review (Lucid)

September 26th
Mundie Moms  – Review (BKoD)
I Heart YA Books  – Review (Lucid)
Serenity’s Lovely Reads  – Review (Lucid)
Book Nerd  – Review (BKoD)
Simply Infatuated  – Review (BKoD) + Excerpt
Books Over Boys  – Featured Post (Playlist)
Step Into Fiction  – Review (Lucid)
Nomalicious Reads  – Review (Lucid)
Reader’s Antidote  – Review (BKoD)
Primrose Musings  – Featured Post (BKoD: The Movie)
Panda Reads  – Review (BKoD)

September 27th
Kindle Fever  – Review (Lucid)
Always YA at Heart  – Review (Lucid)
A Dream Within A Dream  – Review (BKoD & Lucid)
Rampant Readers  – Review (BKoD)
Book Briefs  – Featured Post (Top 10: Little known facts about Nara)
Michelle Chew Writes  – Review (BKoD)
Into the Hall of Books  – Review (Lucid)
Book Passion for Life  – Excerpt
Rhi Reading  – Featured Post  (Building a World)
Shortie Says  – Featured Post (How Dreams Can Inspire…)
Jean BookNerd  – Review (Lucid)

September 28th
Refracted Light Book Reviews – Featured Post (The RL girls discuss Ethan & Drystan)
Once Upon a Twilight  – Review (BKoD)
Vamps and Stuff  – Review (BKoD)
Young Adult BookReviews  – Review (Lucid)
Sparkles and Lightning  – Review (Lucid)
Books With Bite  – Featured Post (Top 10: Little known facts about Ethan)
Little Hyuts  – Review (Lucid)
Books 4 Juliet  – Review (BKoD)
Rants ‘N Scribbles  – Review (BKoD)
The YA Sisterhood  – Excerpt
Random Acts of Books  – Review (BKoD)

P.T. Michelle has posted an excerpt of both Brightest Kind of Darkness and Lucid on her website.  Just click on the links above to see those.

Here is the book trailer for the first book in the series, Brightest Kind of Darkness.

Brightest Kind of Darkness

Publisher: Patrice Michelle

Publish Date: June 27, 2011

Version: e-book from author

Series: Brightest Kind of Darkness

Nara Collins is an average sixteen-year-old, with one exception: every night she dreams the events of the following day. Due to an incident in her past, Nara avoids using her special gift to change fate…until she dreams a future she can’t ignore.

After Nara prevents a bombing at Blue Ridge High, her ability to see the future starts to fade, while people at school are suddenly being injured at an unusually high rate.

Grappling with her diminishing powers and the need to prevent another disaster, Nara meets Ethan Harris, a mysterious loner who seems to understand her better than anyone. Ethan and Nara forge an irresistible connection, but as their relationship heats up, so do her questions about his dark past.

Inara "Nara" Collins is different than most kids her age.  She has dreams that show her what happens the following day.  This helps her in many aspects of high school.  She knows when there is going to be an embarrassing moment and how to avoid it.  She is the star goalie for her soccer team because she already knows which way they are going to kick the ball.  She knows the interactions she is going to have between her and her best-friend, Lainey O'Neil.  This is monotonous and boring to her, and she wishes for a "surprising day" where she doesn't know what happens.

Then she meets Ethan Harris.  He is the strange new kid at her school.  He doesn't interact with any of the students.  The only interaction Nara has had with Ethan was during the hall when she almost ran into him.  This changed the day she decided to interfere with what she saw in her dreams.  She dreamed that there would be a bomb at the school.  She alerted the school about the bomb and school was closed.  Ethan actually talked to Nara while they were standing in the parking lot.

Strange things start happening in Nara's life.  She loses her dreams; students at the school are getting hurt; Nara sees things that are odd; Nara's father contacts her after walking out of her life when she was little; her relationship with Ethan intensifies... It is up to Nara to figure out what is happening and how Ethan plays into that.

 

I LOVED this book!  From the very start of the book when Nara made the 911 call about the bombing at the school to the very end, I was drawn into the story.  The last ⅓ of the book was a nail-biter.  I couldn't put the book down.  This book caused me to make up a new category, I'm not sure about.  This book made it really hard to pen my likes/did not like because I didn't want to spoil things and tell people WHY I liked/did not like them.

•Nara.  I love Nara.  She has these dreams and when she sees something catastrophic, she interferes with it.  She is strong-willed.  The passion that she has is admirable.

•Lainey.  Nara's best friend.  She gets caught up in the whole high school experience and this causes her and Nara's friendship to drift apart.  Even still, she is a good person.

•Ethan.  Everyone has their opinion of him in this book.  Ethan's character is not fully revealed until later in the book.  I'm not going to spoil it for you, just know I like him.

•Nara's mother.  She is distant from Nara ever since her father walked out.  It's obvious that she cares for Nara, she just doesn't know how to show it.

• I love the interaction between all the characters in the book and how it was a real "high school" experience.

 •Miranda, Sophia, Jared and other various high school students.  They act their age or younger.  It is not very attractive.

•Other characters in the book.  They are not meant to be liked.  I won't tell who they are because I don't want to spoil it for you.

•Coach of the soccer team.  The coach is easily swayed by members of the team.

 

•Nara's father.  You don't really get a sense of him in the book.  The only thing that you really know is that he walked out on Nara and her mom when she was five.  There are a few other details, but I’ll let you read the book to discover them.  Even still, I’m not sure whether I like him or not.  I'm sure he'll be more of a presence in the next book and I'll have a better opinion of him then.

I think the cover is beautiful.  Nara looks like how she is described in the book.   I don't know where the red dress fits in with the story, but that is insignificant.  I love the fall colors on the cover.  The fact that Nara is in the woods goes along with a few points in the story.

Cover Reveal: Lucid

I'm excited to reveal the cover for the second book in the Brightest Kind of Darkness series, Lucid by P.T. Michelle.

Isn't the cover pretty? I couldn't find any more information about Lucid except that it will be released in Spring 2012.  As soon as I find out more information, I'll be sure to post it.

I'm reading Brightest Kind of Darkness now.  I'll post my review soon.  Below is information on the first book in the series :

Nara Collins is an average sixteen-year-old, with one exception: every night she dreams the events of the following day. Due to an incident in her past, Nara avoids using her special gift to change fate…until she dreams a future she can’t ignore.

After Nara prevents a bombing at Blue Ridge High, her ability to see the future starts to fade, while people at school are suddenly being injured at an unusually high rate.

Grappling with her diminishing powers and the need to prevent another disaster, Nara meets Ethan Harris, a mysterious loner who seems to understand her better than anyone. Ethan and Nara forge an irresistible connection, but as their relationship heats up, so do her questions about his dark past.