It’s time for another Bookanistas Review!!!! As you guys know, I’ve moved recently and all the moving related stuff has tried to cut into my reading time, but I am still listening to audio books in the car and while I’m unpacking and of course I’s still crawling into bed each night with my book light. I just finished PUSHED by my friend and fellow Class of 2k12/Apocalypsies author, Corrine Jackson. Just in time for her Valentines Blog Tour.
She didn’t know how far she’d go—until she was pushed.
Remy O’Malley was just learning to harness her uncanny healing power when she discovered the other, darker half of her bloodline. Now she lives trapped between two worlds, uneasy among her fellow
Healers—and relentlessly hunted by the Protectors.
Forced to conceal her dual identity, and the presence of her Protector boyfriend Asher Blackwell, Remy encounters a shadow community of Healers who will put her loyalties to the test.
Pushed to the limit, with the lives of those she loves most on the line, Remy must decide whether to choose sides in a centuries-old war—or make the ultimate sacrifice and go to a place from which she may never return…
This is Book Two in the Sense Thieves trilogy.
Publisher: Kensington/KTeen
ISBN-10: 0758273347
PUSHED EXCERPT
Gabe Blackwell never saw me coming.
In the tick of a hummingbird’s wings, I had launched myself at his back, taking him down in a tangle of arms and legs. Our bodies hit the blue mat in the middle of the Blackwells’ gym with a thud that shivered from my teeth to my backbone.
Gabe’s breath hissed out when Asher, leaning against a rack of weights, laughed at his older brother’s defeat at the hands of a gangly girl half his size. I took advantage of Gabe’s distraction to wrap an arm around his neck, putting the whole of my weight into pinning him. My height rivaled his, with me close to six feet and him just over, but he had a good sixty pounds of muscle on me. Unwilling to loosen my hold for even a second, I considered biting him in retribution for the thousand times he’d insulted me. And then I wondered if I might have given away my abnormal speed. I really hoped not.
“What is it you’re always yelling at me?” I pretended to think about it, enjoying my little victory over my boyfriend’s brother. With his sculpted features, Gabe never lacked for company, and he never let anyone forget it. I savored any opportunity I had to take his ego down a notch. “Oh right. I remember now. Never turn your back on the enemy, Protector.”
Gabe cursed and cut my amusement short when his muscles tightened and gathered under me. He might look twenty to my eighteen, but Gabe had lived more than a century, and his experience with our powers surpassed mine. Too late, I tried to strengthen my grip. The thought had scarcely occurred to me when I found my face planted in the mat with his knee bending my spine like a bow.
“I also told you to concentrate instead of getting cocky.” The cheer in Gabe’s proper British voice grated on my nerves. “Now, be a good little mortal, and say it.”
His humiliating version of saying “uncle,” he meant. Ten minutes ago I’d bet him that I could take him down in a fair fight, and he’d agreed with terms of his own if I lost.
“Come on, Healer. Say it. Tell me I’m the greatest Protector who ever lived.”
His knee pressed harder, as he settled in with more of his weight. Grunting, I tested my range of motion and felt an electric storm of agony gathering inside my body. Powerful energy, but not enough to turn the tables. Almost there, you smug jackass.
“All right.” Defeat colored my tone, and my body went limp. “You win. I’ll say it.”
I could picture the smirk on his carved, handsome face, and I used the anger to steel myself against the coming pain. In an explosion of movement, my body jerked backward, forcing his knee to dig in that little bit more I needed. A disk popped in my spine and slid sideways. The tempest exploded out of me, firing my pain into Gabe. Another pop and he collapsed with a thump next to me, his back now screwed up, too. Poetic justice. In the quiet that followed, I pressed my cheek into the cushioned mat and studied my nemesis, curled up in the fetal position next to me.
My voice came out weaker than I intended when I declared, “I am the greatest Protector who ever lived.”
Buy the Book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million| German Amazon
Add to Your Shelf: Goodreads
Kimberly’s Review of PUSHED:
I don’t say this very often, but this is one of those occasions where I liked the second book in the series even more than the first. (And I really enjoyed TOUCHED) Jackson has gone out of her way not to rush the development of the characters and the storyline as she dolled out the first two books in the Sense Thieves trilogy, but she also hasn’t wasted my time or dangled me over any unnecessary cliffs to wait for the next installment. You get both satisfaction and anticipation.
By the end of TOUCHED, I’d become attached to not only Remy and Asher, but also to her family. Reading PUSHED, I was very happy to see Jackson hadn’t sacrificed all the things I love about her new family just to create drama. By adding a new twist, there was lots of brand new action and nail-biting involved and it was interesting and fresh–nicely weaving in the world building for healers and protectors.
Remy continues to be a well created mix of confidence and insecurity. She’s not too strong and not too weak–a really great balance in my opinion. She’s refreshingly honest for a heroine and that comes across the clearest in her devotion to her boyfriend Asher. They are a great couple.
BUT…it’s time to get to the part I LOVED about PUSHED…Gabe. I ended TOUCHED with negative/ambivalent feelings about Asher’s older brother, Gabe, but I LOVED him in this story. I want more Gabe and I want it now. I also want to write more and more sentences about him, but if I do I will spoil all your reading fun and I’m determined not to do that. So…*zips lips*
Young adult author Corrine Jackson lives in San Francisco and has over ten years experience in marketing. She has bachelor and master degrees in English, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. Her novels include If I Lie (Simon Pulse) and the Sense Thieves trilogy (KTeen), comprised of Touched, Pushed, and Ignited (5/27/14). Visit her at CorrineJackson.com or on Twitter at @Cory_Jackson.
Want to win 20 signed copies of PUSHED or 2 signed copies of IGNITED? Enter to win at this Rafflecopter giveaway…
Want to know what the rest of the Bookanistas have been reading? Check this out…
- Shari Arnold is loving LADY THIEF (Scarlet #2) by A.C. Gaughen
- Rebecca Behrens is captivated by NIGHTINGALE’S NEST by Nikki Loftin
- Katy Upperman is pulsating for HEARTBEAT by Elizabeth Scott
- Jessica Love is over the moon for THE LOST PLANET by Rachel Searles
- Tracy Banghart is spellbound by CAPTIVATE by Vanessa Garden
- Christine Fonseca is intrigued by VENGEANCE by Megan Miranda
- Tracey Neithercott is hypnotized by THESE BROKEN STARS by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
I hope I’ve pushed you into reading PUSHED! *grin* As you might have guessed from my review–I wouldn’t mind having Gabe as my Book Boy Valentine this year. Who would be your Book Boy/Girl Valentine?
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