Sound Alike – 5 – Soulless

Have you ever asked for a book with a specific title and ended up with something completely different?

In a similar fashion to “The Artsy Shelf” and other covers’ look-alike features across the blogosphere, “Sound alike” will present books with similarities… but in their titles. Some books share incredibly similar names, and sometimes – gasp! – they’re exactly the same!

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As I was finishing my review of Soulless (coming soon on your computer screen!), I discovered it, too, had a twin title. Here it is!

Soulless by Gail Carriger

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette. Where to go from there?

From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire — and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? (summary from Goodreads)

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Soulless by Christopher Golden

Times Square, New York City: The first ever mass séance is broadcasting live on the Sunrise morning show. If it works, the spirits of the departed on the other side will have a brief window — just a few minutes — to send a final message to their grieving loved ones.

Clasping hands in an impenetrable grip, three mediums call to their spirit guides as the audience looks on in breathless anticipation. The mediums slump over, slackjawed — catatonic. And in cemeteries surrounding Manhattan, fragments of old corpses dig themselves out of the ground….

The spirits have returned. The dead are walking. They will seek out those who loved them in life, those they left behind…but they are savage and they are hungry. They are no longer your mother or father, your brother or sister, your best friend or lover. They are soulless. (summary from Goodreads)

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Have you read one of these two soulless books? Or have you planned on reading them?

I read Carriger’s one and thought it was okay enough to want to read the next in the series. As for Golden’s Soulless, I am now really intrigued by the summary, I think I’ll try to read it at some point!

Sound Alike – 4 – Bound

Have you ever asked for a book with a specific title and ended up with something completely different?

In a similar fashion to “The Artsy Shelf” and other covers’ look-alike features across the blogosphere, “Sound alike” will present books with similarities… but in their titles. Some books share incredibly similar names, and sometimes – gasp! – they’re exactly the same!

* * * *

Looking at my books this week, I realized I have two books with the same title – which led to a second realization, that I haven’t done a “Sound Alike” feature in forever! So here it is, I present you Bound and Bound 🙂

Bound by Sally Gunning

Alice Cole spent her first seven years living in two smoky, crowded rooms in London with her family. But a new home and a better life waited in the colonies, or so her father promised—a bright dream that turned to ashes when her brothers and mother took ill and died during the arduous voyage. Arriving in New England unable to meet the added expenses incurred by their misfortunes at sea, her father bound Alice into servitude to pay his debts.

By the age of fifteen, Alice can barely remember the time when she was not a servant to John Morton and his daughter, Nabby. Though work fills her days, life with the Mortons is pleasant; Mr. Morton calls Alice his “sweet, good girl,” and Nabby, only three years older, is her friend, companion, and now newly married, her mistress.

But Nabby’s marriage is not happy, and soon Alice is caught up in its storm; seeing nothing ahead but her own destruction, she defies her new master and the law and runs away to Boston. There she meets a sympathetic widow named Lyddie Berry and her lawyer companion, Eben Freeman. Frightened and alone, Alice impulsively stows away on their ship to Satucket on Cape Cod, where the Widow Berry offers Alice a bed and a job making cloth in support of the new boycott of British wool and linen.

At Widow Berry’s, Alice believes her old secret is safe, until it becomes threatened by a new one. As the days pass, the political and the personal stakes rise and intertwine, ultimately setting off a chain of events that will force Alice to question all she thought she knew. Bound by law, society, and her own heart, Alice soon discovers that freedom—as well as gratitude, friendship, trust, and love—has a price far higher than any she ever imagined.

Bound by Donna Jo Napoli

Young Xing Xing is bound.

Bound to her father’s second wife and daughter after Xing Xing’s father has passed away. Bound to a life of servitude as a young girl in ancient China, where the life of a woman is valued less than that of livestock. Bound to be alone and unmarried, with no parents to arrange for a suitable husband. Dubbed “Lazy One” by her stepmother, Xing Xing spends her days taking care of her half sister, Wei Ping, who cannot walk because of her foot bindings, the painful but compulsory tradition for girls who are fit to be married. Even so, Xing Xing is content, for now, to practice her gift for poetry and calligraphy, to tend to the mysterious but beautiful carp in her garden, and to dream of a life unbound by the laws of family and society.

But all of this is about to change as the time for the village’s annual festival draws near, and Stepmother, who has spent nearly all of the family’s money, grows desperate to find a husband for Wei Ping. Xing Xing soon realizes that this greed and desperation may threaten not only her memories of the past, but also her dreams for the future.

I have Gunning’s Bound on my shelves and Napoli’s Bound in my ereader, and I cannot wait to read them both! I’m especially interested in Napoli’s one since I have always been interested in Chinese culture.

Would any of these two books tempt you?

If you come across books with similar titles you’d like me to feature, don’t hesitate to tell me or e-mail me, and I’ll add your suggestion to the list! 😉

Sound Alike – 3 – Sleepless

Have you ever asked for a book of a specific title and ended up with the wrong one?

I“Sound alike” presents books with similarities… in their titles. Some books share incredibly similar names, and sometimes – gasp! – they’re exactly the same!

If you come across books with similar titles you’d like me to feature, don’t hesitate to tell me or e-mail me, and I’ll add your suggestion to the list! 

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So last time, we looked at books with “Awakening” in the title. Isn’t it simple logic that today, we’ll look at books that make you Sleepless? From what I can see, YA literature promises to keep you awake for a long time :

Let’s begin with Terri Clak’s YA novel :

18-year-old Trinity has the ability to dream walk. It’s a power she doesn’t want, but it forever alters her life when she’s unable to find an abducted teen before she’s killed. While Trinity does help police capture the killer, Rafe Stevens, her involvement makes her his next target. Rafe pleads insanity and his convincing performance, aided by his despicable attorney, get him sentenced to a mental institute where a diabolical physician experiments on him. Now Rafe’s escaped the sanitarium and he’s after Trinity. Like her, he now has a special ability, one that allows him to stalk Trinity through her dreams. If he kills her in her sleep, she’ll die for real. To survive she must find him first and the only person willing to help her is Dan Devlin, disillusioned son of the shady lawyer who knowingly aided Rafe in getting away with murder. Can she trust Dan with her safety, not to mention her heart?

Still awake? Good, because here’s another Sleepless book. This one by Cindy Balog will be out in July 2010 :

Eron isn’t supposed to feel a connection. He is a Sandman, a supernatural being whose purpose is to seduce human charges to sleep. While he can communicate with his charges in their dreams, he isn’t encouraged to – after all, getting too involved in one human’s life would prevent him helping his other charges get their needed rest.
But he can’t deny that he feels something for Julia and her sad dreams. Just weeks ago, her boyfriend died in a car accident, and Eron can tell that she feels more alone than ever. He was human once too, many years ago, and he remembers how it felt to lose the one he loved. Eron has always felt protective of Julia . . . but now, when she seems to need him more than ever, he can’t seem to reach her . . .
Sandmen are forbidden from communicating with humans outside their dreams. But will Eron be willing to risk everything for a chance to be with the person he loves?

Finally, for those who can’t get enough of this non-sleep state, here’s Sleepless by Thomas Fahy

Emma Montgomery has been experiencing nightmares of gruesome murders. In fact, all of the students in Dr. Beecher’s secret society have been having terrible dreams and sleepwalking. Now, as their classmates start turning up dead, Emma and her friends race against the clock to find out what’s causing them to kill in their sleep.

YA literature isn’t the only place where you can find Sleepless books; adult fiction has its share, too : Sleepless in Scotland, by Karen Hawkins, Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick and Geoffrey O’Brien and its twin Sleepless Nights by Sarah Bilson (just to name a few!)

I chose to present the 3 YA titles because they all sound interesting to me, and they are all on my wish list. I had seen Terri Clark’s book, but I thought it was some light teen romance until I took the time to actually read the description. Now, I know I’ll have to get it next time I go book-shopping! Fahy’s novel sounds good and I have read some good reviews, and I like the creepy cover.

But the book I’d go sleepless for is Cindy Balog’s one : that’s such an original premise! It could be really, really interesting, and it kills me that we’ll have to wait almost a complete year before we have the chance to read it.

What about you, readers? Any of these books you would go sleepless for?

Sound Alike – 2 – Awakening

Have you ever asked for a book of a specific title and ended up with the wrong one?

In a similar fashion to “The Artsy Shelf” and other covers’ look-alike features across the blogosphere, “Sound alike” will present books with similarities… but in their titles. Some books share incredibly similar names, and sometimes – gasp! – they’re exactly the same!

If you come across books with similar titles you’d like me to feature, don’t hesitate to tell me or e-mail me, and I’ll add your suggestion to the list! 🙂

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Considering my recent or upcoming reading, I should stay awake for a very long time. “Awakening” is a popular word in literature; take a look at this!

It all began a few weeks ago when I decided to read The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, considered to be a classic of literature.

This story of a woman’s struggle with oppressive social structures received much public contempt at its first release; put aside because of initial controversy, the novel gained popularity in the 1960s, some six decades after its first publication, and has since remained a favorite of many readers. Chopin’s depiction of a married woman, bound to her family and with no way to assert a fulfilling life of her own, has become a foundation for feminism and a classic account of gender crises in the late Victorian era.

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Soon after, I was excited to read The Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, Laurie Viera Rigler.

Rude Awakenings tells the story of Jane Mansfield, a gentleman’s daughter from Regency England who inexplicably awakens in Courtney’s overly wired and morally confused L.A. life. For Jane, the modern world is not wholly disagreeable. Her apartment may be smaller than a dressing closet, but it is fitted up with lights that burn without candles, machines that wash bodies and clothes, and a glossy rectangle in which tiny people perform scenes from her favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. Granted, if she wants to travel she may have to drive a formidable metal carriage, but she may do so without a chaperone. And oh, what places she goes!

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Then, yesterday, I started reading The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith. But, oh wait, this first tome was first published as two seperate books, titled The Awakening and The Fury.

Elena
Searching for the ultimate thrill, she vowed to have Stefan.

Stefan
Haunted by his tragic past, he struggled to resist her passion.

Damon
Driven by revenge, he hunted the brother who betrayed him.

The terrifying story of two vampire brothers and the beautiful girl torn between them.

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The funny thing is, I hesitated a good moment between The Vampire Diaries and The Summoning, by Kelley Armstrong. And how do you think the second book of this series is titled? You’ll never guess!

If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl—someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I’m as far away from normal as it gets. A living science experiment—not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a group of people who call themselves The Edison Group. What does that mean? For starters, I’m a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control: I raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever.

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There is a bunch more titles with “awakening” in the title : Spring Awakening, Awakening the Buddhist Heart, etc. Lucklily for me though, these are the “only” awakenings I have on my hand!

Have you read any of these? Or is there one – or many – tempting you?

Sound Alike – 1 – Something Borrowed

Have you ever asked for a book of a specific title and ended up with the wrong one?

In a similar fashion to “The Artsy Shelf” and other covers’ look-alike features across the blogosphere, “Sound alike” will present books with similarities… but in their titles. Some books share incredibly similar names, and sometimes – gasp! – they’re exactly the same!

Mainly, it’s just a fun way to compare books to their “siblings” : how different can two stories be when they share a same title? Will they share the same ideas, or same covers? Who knows what great books we might discover along the way!

For instance :

When you’re looking for Something Borrowed, by Emily Griffin

Rachel is an attorney living in Manhattan who has always been the good girl-until her thirtieth birthday, when her best friend Darcy throws her a party. That night after too many drinks Rachel ends up in bed with Darcy’s fiance. Although she wakes up determined to put the one-night fling behind her, Rachel is horrified to discover that she has genuine feelings for him. As the September wedding date nears, Rachel has to choose. She discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren’t always neat, and sometimes you have to risk it all to win true happiness.

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You could end up with Something Borrowed, by Catherine Hapka

When Ava gets dumped by her boyfriend, she’s pretty upset. He wasn’t the love of her life or anything, but with her sister’s wedding – a.k.a. the social event of the season – just two weeks away, Ava’s got to save face by finding someone cute and fun to bring as her date. With the clock ticking and no dates in sight, Ava asks her best friend if she can “borrow” her boyfriend, Jason, for the night. Ava’s never been a big Jason fan, but he’ll look great in a tux, and at least she’ll have someone to dance with. But Ava realizes she’s got him all wrong… What do you do when Mr. Right is wrapped up in a package that belongs to your best friend?

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Then again, maybe what you’re looking for is Something Borrowed, by Martina Reilly?

Adopted as a baby, Vicky is now determined to trace her birth mother. Her family wish she would leave the past alone, which is just as well: Vicky is in danger of uncovering some shocking secrets. But, hoping that the past will help her determine the future, she sets out to find the truth.
And if that doesn’t cause friction enough, there’s trouble at work when a new face appears: Ed O’Neill, whom Vicky is convinced is being groomed for her job. The spark between them is instant – they can’t stand each other. Yet it’s a thin line between love and hate, and Vicky is learning that people aren’t always what they seem.

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Interesting Facts : Martina Reilly’s Something Borrowed also has a look-alike, as pointed out at She Reads and Reads. This could get confusing.

Have you read any of these titles? Which Something Borrowed is the more appealing to you? All three of them seem to have a storyline about falling for the “wrong” one. I only read Griffin’s one, and I loved with! It had a great storyline with an incredibly realistic view of relationships.