Cephlapods are interesting and often overlooked in the intelligence department. This book mainly focuses on the octopus - evolution, nervous system, behaviour, memory, their skin and how and why they change colour. There are some funny stories along the way as well as some cool pictures. I definitely enjoyed my time in Octopolis where octopuses hang out, mate, fight and eat scallops.  It was also interesting to read about how the first living things lived during the Ediacaran period and how things evolved and came to be what they are today. As the book went on I found it a bit repetitious and boring as some things did not tie in with cephalopods. Once I got a taste of octopus that was all I wanted. But still an enjoyable read overall. 4/5.

Amber Patterson is tired of being a plain Jane and a nobody. She deserves a life of luxury and power. She wants the life Daphne Parrish takes for granted. Daphne's handsome husband Jackson is a philanthropist and a real estate mogul. They have two lovely daughters. They live in a mansion on the water in the exclusive town of Bishop's Harbor, Connecticut. It seems as though they're straight out of the pages of a fairytale. Amber has a plan - she's going to worm her way into their lives by using Daphne's younger sister who passed away from cystic fibrosis. Pretty soon Amber is Daphne's best friend and closest confidante. She's traveling to Europe with family and spending Christmas with them. And she's growing closer to Jackson. But something from Amber's past is threatening to destroy everything she's worked so hard to take away from Daphne. I was hooked from page one. The writing was great. Lots of manipulation, dark secrets, envy (maybe even fr

This is a collection of eight short stories. Each one is solid and thought-provoking. They're tales about the frustrations of romantic love. For me, nothing seemed to be missing from any of the stories. I really liked "Prisoners of the Multiverse" which tells the tale of a suicidal physicist and his top student, and "The Summer of Interrogatory Subversion" which is about a young girl turning eighteen and her mother renting out their basement to a graduate student who looked like a medieval shepherd and who was deemed creepy by the girl's best friend. Thank you to Netgalley and Black Lawrence Press for a copy of this book. 5/5.

Lily Michaels-Ryan is a highschooler with ADHD. When breaking something lands her in detention with Abelard, a beautiful and brilliant guy who has Asperger's, she can't help but feel intrigued. He seems thirty seconds behind in a conversation while she's thirty seconds ahead. When a paper gets posted online - one that never should have been posted in the first place - Lily and Abelard discover that they both love old novels, especially The Letters of Abelard of Heloise. The two fall for each other hard but their relationship isn't going to be an easy one.  Those black lines through the hearts got my attention. I was hooked from the very first page. The writing is so good - the whole book flowed smoothly, the characters were three-dimensional and they were interesting. We get a glimpse of what it's like for Lily being a teenager with ADHD. School is hard for her and nobody understands her. She feels like she's dragging her mother down. She has to make some tough

An explosion has just taken down a building in Chicago, killing 513 people. Cecily Grayson was supposed to be inside that building but was running late. She watched the explosion knowing her husband and her best friend were both inside. Kate escaped disaster and is now living thousands of miles away, praying her past won't catch up with her. Franny is a young woman who is searching for her birth mother. While watching the morning news that day she knew that the woman she was desperate to meet was inside the building. The tragedy once again dominates the news now that it's the one-year anniversary. And these three women have their own secrets and lies that are becoming impossible to keep hidden. Another five star read by Catherine McKenzie. She's one of those authors that I don't really have to read what the book is about because I already know it's going to be great, whatever it is. She creates such vivid characters and lives for those characters that it's imp

Grace Foley is a seventeen-year-old prankster and risk-taker. The only thing she's afraid of is losing. One night she accepts a challenge as part of a feud between the two local schools, but things don't go as planned. Something she can't explain happens and now she's haunted by voices and visions. She's drawn into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding a missing girl named Hannah Holt, and she's having trouble figuring out what's real and what's imagined. Grace is losing herself and she doesn't know if she's uncovering the truth or if she's going mad.  I don't know what made me request this book. Reading the blurb now it doesn't interest me at all. I found this book extremely hard to get in to. The writing was disjointed, it was hard to follow along. I did not like any of the characters. I just don't care. DNF @ 43. Thank you to Netgalley and Text Publishing for a copy of this book. 1/5.

When Ali is nineteen she begins college at St. John's and meets charismatic, attractive Will and they become inseparable. Ali is shocked when she learns that Will is the Canal Killer - having stalked and drowned five young women in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal, including Ali's best friend, Liz. Will has been sentenced to life in jail. But it's been ten years and Will is locked up in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital, so when a young woman is found in the Grand Canal the Garda detectives visit Will in hopes that he can help them solve the copycat killing. But Will won't speak. The only way he will is if Ali comes to see him. The last thing Ali wants is to leave her anonymity and the Netherlands to return to a time she's worked so hard to forget. But the right thing to do is to go back and so she does. I really had to think about what to rate this. The first chapter was great, it was strong, it pulled me in. I loved the setting. I really enjoyed the

Liza has thirty days to write a thriller that could put her back on the bestseller list. Her real life isn't going so well - she desperately wants a baby and her and her husband are struggling with that and he's distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. Liza focuses on her latest heroine, Beth. Beth is a new mother. She suspects her husband has been cheating on her while she's been taking care of their newborn. She sets out one night to catch them together and the next thing she knows she's throwing the body of his lover into the river. When Nick's body has been found in the Hudson River and Liza's husband is arrested for his murder, she realizes that the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. I read Holahan's last book, The Widower's Wife, and loved it! So when I saw this on Netgalley I had to request it. I didn't even care what it was about; I knew it'd be good. This was one of those books I had to stay up late to finish