Flunked
(Fairy Tale Reform School, #1)
by
Jen Calonita

Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Publication date: March 3rd, 2015
 
  

 
My rating: 4.5 of 5
 
(Book read in January, 2015,  from the eARC received from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange of an honest review.)

 

  

 

Summary:

 

 

OUR MISSION:

To turn WICKED DELINQUENTS

and FORMER VILLAINS

into FUTURE HEROES

 

Gilly wouldn’t call herself wicked exactly…but when you have five little brothers and sisters and live in a run- down boot, you have to get creative to make ends meet. Gilly’s a pretty good thief (if she does say so herself).

Until she gets caught.

Gilly’s sentenced to three months at Fairy Tale Reform School - where all of the teachers are former (super-scary) villains like the Big Bad Wolf, the Evil Queen, and Cinderella’s Wicked Stepmother. Harsh. But when she meets fellow students Jax and Kayla, she learns there’s more to this school than its heroic mission. There’s a battle brewing and Gilly has to wonder: can a villain really change?

 

 

 
Amazon | B&N | BAM |!ndigo | IndieBound

 
  

My Thoughts on the Book:

 

  

Flunked - the first book in the Fairy Tale Reform School series is a wonderful new start & a new twist on the characters & villains from our favorite classic fairy tales.

I must admit that I wasn't sure about it at first, but before I knew it, I was hooked on the characters & the story & the world, and I loved the new twist, and I loved that it made you think about heroes & villains, and made you wonder what exactly makes a hero? 

I won't go into details, but Flunked is a delightful fantasy read, full with lovable characters that will get under your skin, lots of twists & turns, humour, magic, villains, mystery, and an imaginative & amusing fairy tale world that will leave you eager for more.

So, yes, I loved this book & everything about it, and I can't wait for the next book. Jen Calonita has written an enchanting & unique story, that I highly recommend to everyone, especially to fairy tale fans & children. I know that if I read this book when I was a child, it would've been among my favs. Then again, I've added it on my favs pile even now, and I'm an adult, so yes, it's that good!

 

So, if you enjoy entertaining books that are full of magic & wonder, fairy tale characters, humour & a mystery to solve, and books that will bring a smile to your face every time you think about them, then Flunked is the book for you, and I can't recommend it enough!

 

About Jen Calonita:

 

 

Jen Calonita is the author of the Secrets of My Hollywood Life series and other books like Sleepaway Girls and Summer State of Mind, but Fairy Tale Reform School is her first middle grade series. She rules Long Island, New York with husband Mike, princes Tyler and Dylan, and Chihuahua Captain Jack Sparrow, but the only castle she’d ever want to live in is Cinderella’s at Disney World. She’d love for you to drop her a line at jencalonitaonline.com or keep the fairy tale going at http://books.sourcebooks.com/enchantasia/

  
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

 
 

 

Excerpt:

There’s a boy up there, standing on the crystal chandelier! He has slightly curly blond hair and is wearing a uniform—­a navy sweater vest over a white shirt with khaki pants—­but his boots are muddy. He’s stepping on priceless crystals with cruddy boots? Is he insane?

“Jax! What are you doing up there?” Kayla whispers heatedly.

“I’m cleaning the crystal for Flora,” Jax says and rolls his eyes. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m making

a break for it.”

Kayla applauds. “Yay! This time I know you can do it.”

I shade my eyes from the light bursting through the stained-­glass window next to the chandelier Jax is perched on. “Busting out? Why?” I ask Kayla. “I thought you said this place was cool.”

Jax laughs loudly and looks at me. I feel slightly stunned. I’ve never seen violet eyes before. “FTRS was fun for a while, but strange things have started happening and I don’t want to be here when something bad goes down.”

Strange things? What kind of strange things? Why does Kayla suddenly look pale?

“He’s exaggerating,” Kayla tells me, but she doesn’t sound convincing.

Drip. Whatever Jax is holding is leaking. Kayla and I move out of the way so we don’t get wet. “Grease,” Jax explains to me. “It lubes the window.” He swings the chandelier, and as it nears the window, he uses a fork to try to pry the window open. “A few more tries and I’ll have it.”

“Then what are you going to do, genius?” I ask. “You’re two stories up.”

Jax’s eyes gleam. “I’ve jumped from higher spots before.”

“It’s true,” Kayla says to me. “Jax once jumped from the gym to the dining hall turret. That was three stories up. We call him the Escape Artist. One time he even managed to break into Azalea and Dahlia’s rooms and borrowed their keys to the indoor pool so the whole dorm could take a midnight swim.”

“Impressive,” I tell him. “And I thought I was good at tricking obnoxious royals.”

“She stole a dragon’s tooth clip from one this morning,” Kayla fills him in.

“Nice,” Jax says. “Your first pull?”

“No, I’ve been doing it for a while,” I brag.

“Me too,” Jax says. “My father is a farmer. You can only get so far trading vegetables. I needed to kick things up a notch.”

For some reason, I don’t think any of us are going to make the transformation Headmistress Flora is looking for. “Why do you want to break out so bad?”

“I’ve got places to see, and Enchantasia isn’t one of them.” Jax swings the chandelier so hard the crystals clang together. The window latch pops open, and I watch Jax leap from the chandelier to the tiny window ledge. I’m in awe. Jax looks down at us smugly before pushing open the window. “Are you sure you two don’t want to join me?”

“There’s no time for us,” Kayla says. “Get out of here. Wait!” Her eyes widen. “You deactivated the alarm on the window, right?”

“There isn’t one,” Jax insists. “If there was, I wouldn’t be able to do this.” But when Jax lifts the window, we hear:

EEEEEE! EEEE! EEEE! Unauthorized exit! Unauthorized exit!

The shrieking sound is so intense that Kayla and I cover our ears. Within seconds, Flora is out of her office and running toward us.

Swoosh!

I feel something brush past me and I whirl around. When I look up at Jax again, a large, muscular man with a long mane of hair is hanging on to the window ledge, his furry hands pulling Jax back by his shirt. How did the man get up there without a ladder?

“Mr. Jax,” the man says in a low growl, “we really must stop meeting like this.”

 

  

 

 

If you get sentenced to Fairy Tale Reform School, it will help to have an ally. Take the quiz and find out who your mentor would be.
 
Fairy Tale Reform School Quiz 

 

 

GIVEAWAY: 

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

  

Challenges: 

Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge 2015 

 

 

  

About Soulbound:

A Darkest London novel, book #6
by
Kristen Callihan

Once two souls are joined... 

When Adam's soul mate rejected him, there was more at stake than his heart. After seven hundred years of searching, his true match would have ended the curse that keeps his spirit in chains. But beautiful, stubborn Eliza May fled — and now Adam is doomed to an eternity of anguish, his only hope for salvation gone... 

Their hearts will beat together forever...

No matter how devilishly irresistible Adam was, Eliza couldn't stand the thought of relinquishing her freedom forever. So she escaped. But she soon discovers she is being hunted — by someone far more dangerous. The only man who can help is the one man she vowed never to see again. Now Adam's kindness is an unexpected refuge, and Eliza finds that some vows are made to be broken...

  

 

 
  

Buy Soulbound here:

 

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

IndieBound

Amazon

 iTunes

Kobo

  
 

About Kristen Callihan:

 

Kristen Callihan is an author because there is nothing else she'd rather be. She is a three-time RITA nominee and winner of two RT Reviewers' Choice awards. Her novels have garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, as well as being awarded top picks by many reviewers. Her debut book, Firelight, received RT Book Reviews' Seal of Excellence, was named a best book of the year by Library Journal, best book of Spring 2012 by Publisher's Weekly, and was named the best romance book of 2012 by ALA RUSA. When she is not writing, she is reading.

 

 

website / twitter / facebook / goodreads

Excerpt:

 

Eliza sat back on her heels, while Adam merely stared at her as though he had all the time in the world. “Fine,” she said. “Three weeks. I free you and you help me.” She gave him a warning look. “I’ll need your word that you will help me, that this” she waved her hand between them, “isn’t merely a way to trick me into freeing you.”

“This business was your idea, woman,” he said with affront.

“Nevertheless, I’ll need your word.”

The demon’s nostrils flared with a sharp exhalation. “My word then.” Eliza did not look away from him, and he glared back in obvious exasperation. “What now?”

“I’m merely considering if I ought to trust your word,” she said.

A low growl rumbled in his chest as he bared his teeth. “I keep my word, whether I want to or not. My word is my bond. Honor, Miss May. Unlike you, I have it.” 

“How dare you—” 

“How dare you?” He craned forward, the muscles along his shoulders bunching. “Not so long ago you broke your promise of fealty. To me!” 

“Oh, yes, how quick you are to remind me.” Eliza leaned close, grinding her teeth to keep in a shout. “You enjoy being quick, don’t you?” 

His thick, dark brows furrowed. “What in the bloody blazes are you talking about?” 

“You gave me all of ten seconds to make a choice.” Eliza’s fists ached from clenching them. “And what a choice. I was dead, my body sliced open, my blood on the ground. I would have done anything, anything,” she thumped her fist to her chest, “to get back my life.” 

“So that makes it better?” he snapped back in outrage. “Desperation gives you leave to go back on your word?” 

“No. That is not what I meant.” 

“Then you agree that you bloody well have no honor—” 

“You never explained what was involved. You never said I’d be chained to you, like some animal, for the rest of my days,” Eliza shouted. “I was told I would be a GIM. I was ready to serve you in that manner. You knew full well that’s what I believed. If anything, you swindled me!” 

All at once, he sagged, though he still eyed her with resentment and distaste. Well, she had a healthy helping of those feelings for him too. 

“Tick, tock, Eliza,” she mimicked. “You rushed me because you didn’t want me to think things over.” 

When he broke eye contact, his hard jaw twitched. 

“I’m correct, aren’t I?” Ire and a red rage surged up within her. “And you have the brass to sit on your high horse and talk of honor. Well let me tell you something, demon. There is little honor in forcing a person’s hand. Or using your power to coerce those weaker than you.”

A black scowl twisted the demon’s face as he glared at some distant point. “Fine. May I continue, or have you more complaints to heap upon my head?”

“Please do continue,” Eliza granted.

His golden gaze flicked back to her. “I want to kiss you.”

“No.” The word burst out of her with force. “Absolutely not.”

Unfazed, Adam shrugged. “Unless you have something to offer in exchange for your freedom, Mellan and Mab will, as you say, merely hunt us down, and you’ll be back to where you started.”

“Then I shall find out what he wants.” Eliza straightened her back. She could do that. She must. Like hell was she going to kiss this demon.

Adam simply gave her a slow, wicked half-smile. “Fortunately for you, lass, I already know what he wants. What they both want. More than controlling you. More than torturing me, even.”

“Then why in blazes haven’t you used it to secure your own freedom?” Eliza blurted out.

“I’m only alive because they cannot break me into revealing where this item might be.” The belligerence burning in his eyes was gone in a blink, replaced by a look of pure cunning. “However, I might be persuaded to help you use the knowledge. All I require is— ”

“Fine,” she snapped, irritation getting the best of her. “I’ll kiss you.”

Silence fell, and Adam stared at her with those eyes of his. Devil’s eyes. Eyes that made a woman forget herself. Heat rose up over her breasts and crawled along the back of her neck. Eliza grasped her skirts, her fingers twitching. She would kiss him. Kiss a man who had brought her nothing but irritation. Maybe she’d bite him to boot.

His chest, gleaming with sweat, rose and fell in a soft pattern. A bead of perspiration broke free from the top of his shoulder and ran down along the firm rise of his pectoral muscles, straight toward the dark nub of his nipple. All this time arguing with him, she’d forgotten his state of undress. Not so now. She’d have to press up against those hard muscles, touch his skin. Eliza wrenched her gaze back to his face, and his sinful lips curled in a knowing smile.

“You know,” he said casually, “I believe I shall pass for the moment. I’d rather it be when you aren’t wearing such a sour face. Kills a bloke’s ardor, you realize.”

Eliza blinked. And then his meaning hit her. “Why you…rutting…cheap, trickster…”

He laughed, a flash of even teeth. “Come now, Eliza, fret not.” He stopped then, that obnoxious smile growing and heating with promise. “I’ll take that kiss soon enough. ”

She rose to her feet in a rustle of skirts. “And I’ll be sure to bite that wicked tongue when you do!”

She marched out of the cell, slamming it behind her, as he began to laugh again. Bastard. She might just leave him here to rot after all. His laughing taunt echoed through the dark. “Now that I know tongues are involved, I’ll be sure to collect.”

GIVEAWAY:

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

   

 

About Delightful

    

   

Ice Erickksen has "one-night stand" written all over him. Once he's finished shooting the Big Sky Pie reality show, this hot-as-hell TV producer is going to hightail it out of Montana and return to his glamorous life in L.A. But Ice gets into hot water when one of the goodies in the pie shop-a delightful blonde with marriage on her mind-burns up the camera lens. Andrea Lovette, the manager of the shop, always picks the bad boys. But after her divorce, she's determined to find the good family man that her two young sons deserve. Although Andrea's body sizzles whenever Ice is near, she knows in her heart that he's not marriage material. Then why does the bad boy still seem like such a good idea?

 

  

 

About Adrianne Lee

 

 

Adrianne Lee lives with her husband of many, many years on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula in Washington State in a pole barn building her husband transformed into an upstairs apartment with a shop below for his hot rods. Adrianne creates her stories on her laptop, in her recliner with her adopted cat, Spooky, curled between her calves, snoozing.  Over thirty years of summer vacationing in the Flat Head Lake area near Kalispell and Glacier Park has given her a love for all things Montana.

Adrianne Lee's Social Media: 
@akaAdrianneLee
http://www.adriannelee.com/  
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adrianne-Lee-Fan-Page/119018494796066

   
 

  

Excerpt:

          She spun on her heel with every intention of chewing him out, but froze under the gaze of those mesmerizing eyes that haunted her dreams.  His grin said he had her where he wanted her—all to himself.

            He needed to be set straight on a few points, first that she wouldn’t be manipulated.  Maybe he couldn’t help himself, being a director, but she didn’t like it.  She closed the gap between them as though she were glad to be alone with him.  She got up close and personal, in full-on flirt mode, fingering his collar, feeling the pulse at his neck quicken, hearing his intake of breath.  She leaned into him as if she meant to kiss him and whispered, “If you’d wanted to get me alone, sweetheart, all you had to do was ask.”

            He started to reach for her, but she pulled back.  He cocked his head, studied her, something bothering him, but not what she expected.  “How’s Lucas?”

            The question seemed to come out of the blue, like an angry hornet biting into her exposed flesh.  Why had he asked about her son?  What did Lucas have to do with him?  Nothing, that’s what.  “He’s none of your concern.”

            Ice pressed his lips together, nodding.  “You’re right.  He’s not.  I was just. . .being polite.”

            She nodded, knowing she needed to draw a line with him.  “The other day with you was an awful mistake.  It can’t happen again.  Ever.”

            “Awful?”  A soft laugh vibrated in his throat.  “I don’t believe you. . .and you know as well as I do that it will happen again. . .”  He was staring at her mouth, and then her breasts—which were standing at attention, either from the cold of the room or the heat of his gaze.  She should leave now, but her brain wasn’t paying attention.  It was listening to the baser requests being made by the glances of this so-wrong-for-her man.

            “I don’t have any expectations,” she said.  “I don’t want anything more.  No strings.”

            “What if I want strings?”

            “You don’t want strings.”  She couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of that.  “Any woman harboring that fantasy only has to sleep with you to realize it’s a foolhardy notion.”

            His eyes clouded, a sure sign that she’d dented his ego.  “What does that mean?”

            Oh, God, why had she opened this can of worms?  How did she explain that she’d had a man exactly like him?  That she knew from experience he was only in it for himself.  He didn’t want her for her.  He was only turned on by her loving wild sex as much as he did.  What could she say that would make him stop coming after her for more?  “Don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy hot, dirty sex as much as anyone, especially with a lover who knows his way around the female body.  But like most women, I want something more.”

            “Such as?”  The glint in his eye said “bring it on.”  He was up for any challenge she wanted to throw at him.  Literally up for it, she realized, judging by the bulge in his chinos.

            Her resolve wobbled, her grasp on the situation slipping through her fingers.  But she couldn’t think when he looked at her like this, when she wanted to feel his mouth on hers, his arms around her, his body pressed close.

            He came toward her.  “Can’t think of anything?”

            “Yes.  I can.”  But nothing was coming to her.  Nothing she’d say to him.

            He’d backed her into a corner, the heat issuing off him making her panties wet and her heart thunder.  She felt like a moth fluttering toward a killing light.  If she wasn’t careful, she might let him strip her naked right here, just to extinguish the flame that burned for him.   So much for being in control of any area of her life.  She was a screwed-up mess.

            He groaned her name, shoved his hands into her hair, and captured her mouth in a brain-tingling explosion of lust.  She wanted to claw his clothes off and climb on top of him, right here, right now in the pie shop.  He broke off the kiss, panting, his forehead to hers.  “What is it about you. . .?”

 
 

Buy Delightful here:

Barnes and Noble

Books-A-Million

IndieBound

Amazon

A Rafflecopter giveaway 
(US/Canada only)