Mundie Moms

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Book Review: The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell


Published by: Harcourt Children's Books
To Be Released on: April 17th, 2012
Source: ARC from publisher/author
5 Stars: I Loved It!
Pre-Order from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Series: The Vespertine Bk #2

Heartbroken over the tragic death of her fiancé, seventeen-year-old Zora Stewart leaves
Baltimore for the frontier town of West Glory, Oklahoma, to help her young widowedaunt keep her homestead going. There she discovers that she possesses the astonishingability to sense water under the parched earth. When her aunt hires her out as a“springsweet” to advise other settlers where to dig their wells, Zora feels the burden ofholding the key to something so essential to survival in this unforgiving land.Even more, she finds herself longing for love the way the prairie thirsts for water.Maybe, in the wildness of the territories, Zora can finally move beyond simply survivingand start living. -quoted from Goodreads

An enthralling story about heartbreak, second chances, love, and learning to find yourself, The Springsweet is the perfect sequel to Saundra Mitchell's The Vespertine. Starting off where Amelia's story ended, Zora's story is one fans of this series will quickly fall in love with. Zora not only has to come to terms with her broken heart, but she learns as she heads out west, leaving the comforts of her home behind to carry on and find herself again. Zora's an enchanting character with a voice that's just as beautiful as Amelia's. She's courageous, endearing and strong in her own right as she learns to adapt to her new life in the Wild West, learns to let go, and delicately balances the fine line between being a respectful young women in her society vs being true to herself.

Saundra has done such a suburb job creating compelling characters in this series. No matter how great or small their roles is, how lovable or horrible they are, they each have a purpose in this story's rich plot line. I thoroughly enjoyed the presence of a few characters from The Vespertine and quickly fell in love with a few new characters. Emerson Birch is one of those characters. Though Saundra created two wonderful, yet completely different love interests, Emerson grabbed my attention from the moment Zora meets him. Like Zora, he's lively, flawed, goes against the norm during this Victorian era period, and intriguing. There's something about Mr Birch that draws you in and leaves you wanting to know more about him. I loved the way Saundra carefully peeled back the layers of this rugged character. 

As much as I love the characters in The Springsweet, it's Saundra's passionate writing that completely swept me off my feet with this book. Saundra has a way with words that just pull me into her story. She made me feel as though I was there with Zora through out her entire book seeing what she was seeing, and experiencing what she was. Whether it was standing in a cool spring in the middle of the hot Oklahoma prairie during a scorching day, or slowing learning to over come the heartbreak from The Vespertine and learning to love again, everything Zora does is described so beautifully. Saundra's words are poetic, beautiful, and so elegant. Her attention to detail and her ability make me visualize the rich setting left me longing for so much more after I finished this book. 

I loved this book. It's one of those books that completely whisked me away during the duration I read. The writing is flawless, the romance is sigh worthy and the setting was enchanting to say the least. Plus I'm a sucker for this time period and absolutely love of this book. Much like The Vespertine, The Springsweet has a rich feel to it with a voice that reads like a classic and leaves you wanting much, much more. I highly recommend picking up this book for the writing alone. It's breathtaking and mesmerizing all at the same time! The Springsweet is a fabulous, clean cut read that both YA and adult readers will enjoy.


A Little Present from Cassie for the trending #WeAreShadowhunters


As I mentioned yesterday, myself and few other TMI fansites started a TMI trend on twitter, #WeAreShadowhunters. We received an AMAZING response, and Jamie himself even tweeted this. We made it to the #1 trending spot on Twitter yesterday. Cassie treated fans to THIS lovely present:

a little present for trending #weareshadowhunters
A present!
Family stuff prevented me from working on the Will vs. Ducks story today, so instead I’m giving you a cut scene from City of Lost Souls. It isn’t in the final book, but it does … illuminate some of the character dynamics. Spoilery so if you’re avoiding all spoilers, do not click!
Clary was in Jace’s room when he and Sebastian returned to the house. She had found very little during her search. There was nothing in Sebastian’s room that could be considered interesting except some books written in Latin, and her Latin wasn’t good enough to read them. There were pages that looked like they were torn from old guidebooks, illustrated with black and white pen sketches, pinned to the walls, but there seemed no connection between them. In the fireplaces were chunks of ash that looked like the remains of burned photographs, but they crumbled away when she tried to pick them up.
Jace’s room was next, neat as a pin, containing almost nothing of his belongings. There were weapons, but she didn’t recognize them, or the books on the shelves either. His closet was filled with clothes, but like the clothes in the master bedroom, they were largely new: he must have bought them in the past week or so, since price tags still hung from several of them. They were not what she thought of as Jace’s style. He had always dressed simply — things that were plain, solid colors, clothes that fit well but didn’t catch attention. He was gorgeous enough that it didn’t matter, she had always thought; he looked amazing in just jeans and a t-shirt. And he had plenty of those in his closet now, but the shirts had designer labels, the coats and jackets were Burberry and Hugo Boss and Dolce & Gabbana. 
Like the clothes in Sebastian’s closet.
Like the expensive clothing Valentine had always worn.
She closed the closet door and sat down on Jace’s bed, telling herself she was being stupid. Designer clothes were nothing to get worked up about. There were other things in the room that spoke of the Jace she had always known — the neatness, the arranging his weapons on top of his dresser in order of size, the books on the nightstand. He always used a thin dagger as a bookmark; that hadn’t changed. The photo of the two of them, stuck to the wall. Even the citrusy soap in his bathroom was the same soap he always used —
She heard steps on the staircase, voices. Sebastian’s rose: “Where is she?” 
She barely had time to switch off the light, fling herself down on the bed and curl up with her head on the pillow when the door opened. Jace stood there framed in the hallway glow, Sebastian behind him. She raised herself up on her elbow, blinking sleepily at them despite the racing of her heart. “Did you guys just get back?”
Jace gave Sebastian a look — a look that said clearly: I told you she’d be here.“Didn’t you hear us come upstairs?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I got tired. I think I’m still exhausted from staying up till dawn the other night.” She looked at Jace demurely. “I was feeling a little lonely, so I thought if I curled up in your bed …” 
Do I sound like I mean it? His face had relaxed, but Sebastian was looking at her as if his gaze could piece through her like clear glass, and he was amused at what he saw.
She sat up, shaking her hair back, and reached for the lamp on the nightstand. “Don’t —” Jace began, but she had already flipped it on.
She stiffened. The two boys looked down at her, Jace with some concern and Sebastian with his usual quirky edge of half-amusement. His dark eyes met hers with the message they always held, the one she tried not to read: We know, you and I. We know the truth.
But none of that was what had made her stiffen. It was that both of them were was splattered with blood — there was a smear of it across Jace’s cheek, staining his sleeves, and a rent in his shirt, its edges dark and stiff with dried blood, though the skin underneath was unmarked. Sebastian, though — Sebastian had blood even in his white-silver hair, and on his clothes, and on his hands so thick it looked as if he were wearing red gloves. The silver bracelet he wore around the wrist where his hand had regenerated was spotted with red.
Clary heard her own voice as if from very far away. “What happened?”
“We ran into a little trouble,” Sebastian said. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.” He tilted his head to the side. “You look as pale as a ghost, little sis. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen worse. We’re Shadowhunters. This is what we do.”
“Of course.” Clary spoke mechanically. “I just wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Then you’ve nothing to worry about. Most of this isn’t either of our blood.” 
She swallowed against her dry throat. “So whose is it?”

Stay turned for news about next week's TMI trend!

Team Abnegation Selfless Deed #2



Each week through out the month of April, Team Abnegation is hosting a Selfless Deed. This is something that we event everyone to take part in, whether you're part of our faction or not. Though I think if you take part in this you're showing you're true ABNEGATION side (cough, cough). :)

This week's selfless challenge is: Loaning your copy of Divergent out to a friend! Easy isn't. Well that is unless you don't want to let go of your book in fear that your friend will love Four as much as you do and then you'll have to fight over who loves him more... NOT saying that any of us have ever done something like that before.




Don't miss last week's Selfless Deed, and be sure to follow the rest of my Team Abnegation posts here. Follow Team Abnegation on twitter, tumblr and don't forget to visit our linkBe sure to check out the rest of Team Abnegation's blog/website's to see what giveaways, news, and posts they've been making. 

Be sure to stop by and check out some of our Team Abnegation giveaways!

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