Curssed By Jennifer Armentrout

Summary: Dying sucks
...and high school senior Ember McWilliams knows firsthand.

After a fatal car accident, her gifted little sister brought her back. Now anything Ember touches dies. And that, well, really blows.

Ember operates on a no-touch policy with all living things--including boys. When Hayden Cromwell shows up, quoting Oscar Wilde and claiming her curse is a gift, she thinks he's a crazed cutie. But when he tells her he can help control it, she's more than interested. There's just one catch: Ember has to trust Hayden's adopted father, a man she's sure has sinister reasons for collecting children whose abilities even weird her out. However, she's willing to do anything to hold her sister's hand again. And hell, she'd also like to be able to kiss Hayden. Who wouldn't?

But when Ember learns the accident that turned her into a freak may not have been an accident at all, she's not sure who to trust. Someone wanted her dead, and the closer she gets to the truth, the closer she is to losing not only her heart, but her life.

For real this time.

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)
Review: Ok so I finished up this book while I was on vacation in Mexico & it was the perfect book to read lounging in a hammock or cabana on the beach. I really like Jennifer Armentrout's style of writing - she really pinpoints how YA really talk without it being annoying. I've read 3 out of 5 books in her Lux series which is fantastic btw! How rare is it to find a fantasy/paranormal standalone that's this good? Jennifer is a real genius. The story is intense, the characters are well written, and nothing feels pressured.  It has you guessing what's going to happen and it has so many twists and turns it will leave you dizzy. From the very first page I could not put this book down. It's heart-stopping and exciting and every page leaves you breathless and needing more. So many times during this book I thought I knew who was good and who was bad just to have everything change again. It was the perfect balance of suspense and romance between Hayden and Ember. I felt throughout the book that Ember was so strong, to have gone through everything she did and the fact that at her young age she tried so hard to take care of her little sister. I really loved this book and highly recommend it.

See I told you it was a good beach book 😉

Guess Who's Back

Back again! Katie's back - tell a friend. Ok, I'm really sorry for the Eminem song reference. But it made me laugh. I can not seem to keep up with blogging - once I get going I am really awesome at it (not to toot my own horn but beep beep!) but once I hit a wall I forget it ever existed. I've read so many books since last year & want to do reviews on all of them but it's overwhelming. I also went on a few vacations I want to tell you all about but again overwhelming! So let's start off where I'm at currently and then we can flash back to cool specific moments that have happened over the past year. Right now I am stuck on my couch with some sort of evil sinus/head cold. It's gotten ahold of everyone in the Klueg household & ruined our weekend. Hopefully it'll subside soon - send some get well vibes our way! Apart from that were in the middle of redoing our home décor. Ever reach a point where you go into every single room of your house and suddenly hate it all?! Yup that's me right now. I don't know if it's because I'm approaching 30 (eeek!) and my tastes have changed or if I might be watching too much HGTV for my own good. My issue is keeping focus on one room. We started with the kitchen; got it painted and put new shelving up. Over the past couple of months I've been collecting pieces to go in there but I get easily distracted and move onto other projects. So the house is in a bit of a chaotic state right now. If you've ever seen the show Fixer Upper on HGTV with Joanna & Chip Gaines that would basically describe everything I am trying to obtain for our home. I love the rustic farmhouse look with a little bit of shabby chic cottage flair. We have gotten so many pieces of furniture to redo it's kind of ridiculous. But I'm extremely excited to start on those - I'm going to be giving chalk paint a try for many of those pieces. As I start I'll try and post before and after pictures. For now I will leave you with some of our recent completed projects:

Here's our living room before - we loved red obviously. 

And here we are after - it's so much more inviting. I made the curtains out of drop cloths & actually redid the green/yellow pillows that came with the couch. 

This was probably the easiest and cheapest project I've ever done. Picked up this window pane for $5 and printed some 8x10 pictures from Walgreens, with a coupon I maybe paid $7 total. My friend made the decal lettering for $16. 

And last but not least, my absolute favorite addition so far: 

The shelving in our kitchen is beyond perfect, thanks to my wonderful husband who basically did this project for me. It's beautiful and I sometimes catch myself walking by the kitchen just to see it! If you have any questions as to what materials we used, where we got any of the aboved pictured or how to's just let me know!