Review: Playing With Fire

Review: Playing With Fire

Title: Playing With Fire

Author: Susan Evelyn, Robynn Gabel, Nomar Knight, CAV Laster, Coral Russell, Brian Fatah Steele, and Chryse Wymer

Publisher: Nook/ ebook edition

Pages: 147

Rating ****

Review Source: one of the authors Coral Russell

Back of Book Synopsis: (from Goodreads)

Scare easily? Are you often frightened out of your sleep? Does the mere mention of ghosts prickle your skin?  These seven authors’ imaginations are fired up by the scariness of the unknown.  Find a comfy spot, sit back and enjoy nine tales to tickle your taste for terror.

Susan Evelyn - Best Served

Revenge is sweet they say. But is Anna going to be able to hold the right ones accountable?

 Robynn Gabel - Widows of the Night

Step inside a child's world that is filled with monsters. In her struggle to search for and figure out what love is she will discover what a monster really is.

 Nomar Knight - Bitten

Rob Compton is unemployed and on the verge of getting a divorce when his pet German Shepherd, Shotgun, comes home intent on having him for lunch. Once bitten, Rob decides to show his wife what 'death do us part' really means.

 CAV Laster - Playing with Fire

During what seems to be the end of the world for others, Kalen discovers his has only begun. Appalling secrets unravel his world and force him to fight for his survival. Will Kalen be able to handle the truth?

 Coral Russell - Devil of a Ghost Tour

Lynn and Lee Hoyt decide a local ghost tour would be a fun date night. In an abandoned hotel on the tour, a demon and his minions have been waiting for just the right couple to come along. Can the ghost hunters, Hector and Marcos, save them before it's too late?

 Coral Russell - Key to a Haunting

Allen has lost everything, when his father gives him a downtown building to renovate. Trouble is, it's haunted. He calls in the Paranormal Posse to help, but can Hector and Marcos learn the truth in time to finally put the dead to rest?

 Coral Russell - Amador Lockdown (excerpt)

Something has moved into the Amador Hotel and is wreaking havoc with anyone who tries to stay. Hector, Marcos, Bev, and Tony of the Paranormal Posse are called in to either debunk the stories or get rid of whatever is causing the problems. Hector's life is in an uproar and while he tries to keep his professional and personal life separate, whatever is haunting the Amador Hotel has other plans.

Brian Fatah Steele - Flawed

When three generations of Gastlins gathered one weekend at a newly purchased home in 1998, they had no idea it would be their last reunion. Every family has its secrets, its little faults, but the skeletons came bursting out of the closets and grew infectious. Blood may be thicker than water, but it can still spill just as easily.

 Brian Fatah Steele - The Stuff Dreams Aren't Made Of

When your only hope is to suffer less than the day before, when misery is a normal state of being, and when atrocities greet all your senses every day, you only have to find new ways to dream.

 Chryse Wymer - This Dark Magic

Charlie Landers is a reporter for the Capital City Gazette when his hometown turns deadly. It begins with a blackout, and escalates to a crime rate so high that it's a miracle that anybody has lived to tell about it. Finally, he must do something when not only his life but the life of a loved one is threatened. In this quirky dark fantasy, Charlie Landers must navigate a dangerous world of black magic in order to save his little corner of the universe.

Chryse Wymer - Living with Murder (excerpt)

Kirk and Mary Miller live a simple life in the year 2035...until their college-aged son turns up dead. Their son's murderer is convicted and jailed, but a year later, The Agency for Privately Imprisoned Criminals becomes involved. The Agency had been formed when prison overcrowding grew out of control.

My thoughts:

This is a great collection of horror stories. Perfect for October and reading in anticipation for Halloween. I totally felt myself getting shivers even snuggled in the warmth of my bed. 

I did not like the layout much though, it was hard to tell where one story started and another ended. I would have wanted to see a title page for each new story. I also did not like the fact that excerpts were included because after reading them I wanted to read the whole story. But, these are really the only negative thing I have to say about it. 

This anthology had a really good mix of different types of horror stories from ghost stories to zombies to dystopian end of the world type stories. I really enjoyed all of the stories but I am only going to talk about the complete works and not the excerpts. (I’m kind of boycotting those because they left me feeling unsatisfied -- now I have "I can't get no Satisfaction..." stuck in my head)

Best Served: is more paranormal than horror, with the main character, Anna, seeking revenge for the murder of her friend. She goes to a bar and stalks groups of men who she thinks could be responsible for the death. The groups of suspects include vampires, werewolves, and a mysterious group. She plays the victim trying to lure out the murderer or murderers. 

Anna's character is fairly complicated, because you feel for her because her friend was killed but she is kind of unsympathetic in the fact that she went out with the intention of killing the murder. But you understand her emotions and the reason she wants to get revenge, but the act itself makes her just as bad as the murderers.

Widows of the Night: is about two girls who are abused by their mother. It is a really sad story because of the way the girls are treated and it practically broke my heart. The older sister finds a way to protect her younger sister and save both girls from their mother. Warning: If you have arachnophobia, this story is  not for you! 

I really enjoyed this one, it is probably my favorite in this anthology because of the heightened emotions that the story evokes as well as the creepy, skin crawly way it ends.

Bitten: is about a man who gets revenge on his cruel wife after he is bitten by the family dog and becomes a Zombie. 

What makes this story interesting is that it comes from the husband (zombie's) perspective. I have not read any books or stories where it comes from the Zombie's point of view. I think it added some humanity to a usually shock/gore value type of story. I also think that Knight does a good job of giving us a mindless zombie but also giving him enough of a consciousness to make the character even more creepy than a normal zombie. Knowing that he had enough reason to not kill his wife but decided to any way just adds to the creepy factor.

Playing with Fire: is about a boy, Kalen, who discovers the monster that is lurking beneath the surface in himself. First of all I feel like I have been reading the name Kalen a lot lately or maybe I am just going crazy because I can't think of any examples. 

This story is interesting because of the revelations that are made about Kalen and his past. I don't think I have read a story quite like this. It had a Frankenstein feel but the monsters were more creative. They are a kind of cross between demons, vampires and gargoyles. Very cool. I totally felt sorry for Kalen and hated his father. Why would someone do that to their child?

Devil of a Ghost Tour: is about a couple, Lynn and Lee Holt, who go on a ghost tour only to have Lee become possessed by a demon called up out of hell by a man seeking fortune in 1885.

I really liked the fact that despite the fact that this is a short story, Coral Russell was able to show us two time periods without me feeling like the story was rushed. I thought the relationship between Lynn and Lee was very cute and the concept of a ghost tour was really neat. I have been on several ghost tours but  nothing nearly as eventful as what happened in the story happened to me (thank God!)

Key to a Haunting: again deals with a haunted house but the romance and family history added a new and unique quality. I liked the way Russell was able to take true historical events (if moved to a new location- I'm not sure if one such fire actually happened in El Passo) with the fire of a factory where factory girls perished because of bosses locking doors so employees could not leave until the end of the work day. I also liked the fact that the ghost hunters were carried over from the previous story.

Flawed: is a story about a house that brings out the worst in the people who live there. I think that this story was very creepy and suspenseful. It had a Stephen King sort of feel to it mixed with a Charlotte Perkins Gillman (The Yellow Wallpaper) feel where the house drives people crazy. The first sentence of the second paragraph is really great " At the moment I am barricaded inside my niece's bedroom while my eldest brother prowls the outside corridor like a modern day Cain, ready to strike me down."

I thought it was especially creepy because of the fact that these traits were already present in the people but the house just magnified them. And I liked the fact that it looks like this is just going to keep happening with every new tenant   

The Stuff Dreams aren't Made of: Despite the kind of clunky title, this is a really great story. Very shiver worthy. The world has become a place where sin and greed have taken over. The cities were abandoned because of the corruption but soon, the refugee shanty towns have become just as bad as the cities. Those fleeing the cities have brought the same sickness and corruption with them. The main character is a man who is willing to lose everything for a small moment of escape. He trades his blood or his life essence for someone else's happy memories. 

I find the whole concept very freaky because of the nature of escapism that is in  our culture with movies, books and video games catering to it. I could actually see someone giving up their life for an escape from reality. Very thought provoking.

This Dark Magic: is about a journalist who discovers that black magic is being used against him and other people in the city. I really liked that it sounded like a black and white detective movie it was very well written and suspenseful.


Overall I give it ****

Review: World War Z, The Night Circus, and Juliet

Since I just read these for fun and not for a review, I decided I could be less professional (in the sense of literary criticism) and just tell what I liked or did not like about these books. (I purchased all of these books)

World War Z  by  Max Brooks

Synopsis from Goodreads: 

“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time.World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.

Eyewitness reports from the first truly global war

“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China

“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers

“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe

My Thoughts:

At first I could not get into it but a few chapters (they are not really chapters though more like interviews or accounts) in I really got hooked. Last night I kept saying I will read just one more account and then it would be one more after that and one more after that until it was 3:30 in the morning. It is a really unique way to tell the story. It is a lot less in your face with zombies than I expected and it has more of the human element. Totally not what I expected a zombie book to be about but I really enjoyed it.

****

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Synopsis from Goodreads:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

My Thoughts:

This book was absolutly fabulous! it was full of magic and charm  and it made me really want to go to the circus. The way Morgenstern deals with time is really unique. She moves between past and present so well and the time line is not a straight line because one chapter you would be the one visiting the circus in the modern age (with email) then the characters would be in the very first days of the circus and then the next chapter the story would be about 17 years after the circus started. It could have been very confusing but I felt enough of a connection to the characters and knew enough about the circus that after the first few sentences I knew where we were (there are dates at the top of the chapters but I never really pay attention to those). The book itself is very beautiful and it is obvious that Morgenstern is an artist... very visually pleasing. The story is full of the most beautiful descriptions that I could see, taste, and smell the circus. Overall it was very well written and a complete pleasure to read. I can honestly say this is in my top 5 favorite books of all time.

***** 

Juliet  by Anne Fortier

Synopsis from goodreads: 

Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved Aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.
   
This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.
   
But six centuries have a way of catching up to the present, and Julie gradually begins to discover that here, in this ancient city, the past and present are hard to tell apart. The deeper she delves into the history of Romeo and Giulietta, and the closer she gets to the treasure they allegedly left behind, the greater the danger surrounding her—superstitions, ancient hostilities, and personal vendettas. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud, she begins to fear that the notorious curse—“A plague on both your houses!”—is still at work, and that she is destined to be its next target. Only someone like Romeo, it seems, could save her from this dreaded fate, but his story ended long ago. Or did it?

My Thoughts:

This sounded like  a book I would love to read but I could not get into it. The Characters did not draw me in  and I did not feel like the story did justice to the play. So I did not finish Juliet.  I think I will come back to it once I have more time and am in a more forgiving mood. I have read a lot of really good reviews for this book so I will have to give it another shot later.

DNF

Review Jinn Nation

Review: Jinn Nation

Title: Jinn Nation

Author: Caroline Barnard-Smith

Pages: 284

Rating: ****

Review Source: The Author  Caroline Barnard-Smith

Back of Book Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

Once, the vampire Dylan had feared nothing and no one. He'd rampaged throughout the world on a seemingly never ending quest to fill his eternal years with the finest, most outrageous extravagances; with exquisite, soft-limbed young women and copious amounts of rich, vibrating blood. But life, however full of joy, inevitably changes. 

Finding himself alone for the first time in his long unlife, Dylan turns to the preternatural race of savage creatures called the jinn - a path that inevitably leads him to Christa, a strangely childlike woman with the power to control minds and read thoughts. Mutually intrigued by each other, they set out on a blood-soaked road trip that crosses the United States and the Atlantic Ocean, finally leading them beyond the world itself to the mysterious fae kingdoms of the Inbetween.

My Thoughts:

First of all, I have never heard of Jinn before, so right off the bat I was really intrigued, I was also excited that Jinn Nation was (mostly) not like the typical vampire novel.

Since I had never heard of Jinn, I looked them up because I figured if I had never heard of them before, others might not have as well. So, here is the definition by Alan G. Hefner on the website Encyclopedia Mythica

“In Arabian and Muslim folklore jinns are ugly and evil demons having supernatural powers which they can bestow on persons having powers to call them up. In the Western world they are called genies.

Legend has it that King Solomon possessed a ring, probably a diamond, with which he called up jinns to help his armies in battle. The concept that this king employed the help of jinns may have originated from 1 Kings 6:7, "And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought there, so there was neither hammer nor axe nor and tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building."

In Islam, jinns are fiery spirits (Qur'an 15:27) particularly associated with the desert. While they are disruptive of human life, they are considered worthy of being saved. A person dying in a state of great sin may be changed into a jinni in the period of a barzakh, separation or barrier.

The highest of the jinns is Iblis, formerly called Azazel, the prince of darkness, or the Devil. The jinns were thought by some to be spirits that are lower than angels because they are made of fire and are not immortal. They can take on human and animal shapes to influence men to do good or evil. They are quick to punish those indebted to them who do not follow their many rules.

In the "Arabian Nights" jinns or genies came from Aladdin's Lamp.

There are several myths concerning the home of the jinns. According to Persian mythology some of them live in a place called Jinnistan. Others say jinns live with other supernatural beings in the Kaf, mystical emerald mountains surrounding the earth.”

The Jinn in Jinn Nation are similar but their characteristics and origin are slightly different. I like that Barnard-Smith took the idea of the jinn and changed it to be unique to her story. I also love it when an author can introduce me to new and fascinating facts.

The world Barnard-Smith has created in Jinn Nation is one where the vampires, all but one, are extinct. Dylan, the last of his kind has to find a way to  feel like he belongs and he stumbles into the Jinn, humans who have become monsters who eat the organs of other humans and are almost as strong as the vampire himself. In his need to belong he becomes enmeshed into the Jinn community to his detriment. Because of the pain caused by the Jinn he finds Christa, a woman who can read minds and control people, vampires, and jinn.

Dylan is your typical vampire, decadent, violent, filled with hunger, and quite emotional (in his case the main emotion is loneliness.) Christa is somewhat of an enigma. She can know everything about everyone around her because she can literally take the info she wants right out of someone’s head but she is very tight lipped about herself, much to Dylan’s annoyance. Christa is nearly as cold and violent as Dylan. She helps him find victims and then helps clean up the bodies. She watches him kill people without even flinching.  I found that aspect particularly creepy. I liked every other aspect about her except that; she is a strong woman who can take care of herself but the fact that she seemed to have no regard for human life (she does change at the end)  turned me off.

There is a lot of suspense and mystery surrounding Christa. You want to know how she got these powers and about her past. Another source of mystery is that there seems to be a prophecy about Christa so there are witches that start coming out of the woodwork trying to get her to help save the world. Christa is very distrustful of them and the idea that her powers are a gift. She just wants to get rid of them and does not want to be the one who has to save the world. In this respect she kind of acts like a spoiled child.

Jinn Nation was very well written with a lovely writing style that flows so well. It is a unique and original story brining new mythologies to the sort of stale paranormal genre.

I give it a ****

Review: Echo Falls

Review: Echo Falls

Title: Echo Falls

Author: Jaime McDougall

Pages: 283

Rating: ****

Review Source: The Author Jaime McDougall

Back of Book Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

Running from a nightmare stalking her every move, Phoebe Martin arrives in Echo Falls hoping she has finally found a safe place to stop. But trouble has a way of catching up and soon the signs are there. 

After a vicious attack in an alley, policeman Aidan O'Bryan is left with Phoebe as his only path to understanding why the Echo Falls werewolf pack - his pack - is being attacked. When another pack member is killed, Phoebe is forced to confront her past before she loses Aidan and everything she has come to love.

Love and duty become one as Aidan strives to prevent Phoebe from becoming the next victim. But with Phoebe just as determined to protect Aidan and her new home, secrets from her past threaten to tear them apart. 

Will love give Phoebe the strength to trust Aidan and face her fears, or will her past destroy her future? 

My Thoughts:

Whenever I read a book about Vampires, Witches, or Werewolves, I am always looking to see how the author explains their creation or existence. I really liked the way Jaime McDougall explains werewolves with the legend of Echo Falls and the way the legend foreshadowed (maybe more paralleled) the events surrounding Aiden and Phoebe at the end of the book.

“When the native tribes still lived in the area a long time ago, there was once a young chief from one tribe and a young woman from another tribe who were going to be married. Their marriage was going to make an alliance between the tribes, but they were lucky enough to be in love, too.

A man from another tribe saw the alliance as a threat and he wanted the woman to marry him, but the woman turned him away. He wouldn’t accept her refusal. The night before the wedding, the night of the true full moon, he kidnapped her and brought her to [the Echo Falls] waterfalls. When she still refused to marry him, he hid her deep in the caves. The chief went to meet his bride in secret that same night and found her missing, but she managed to leave a trail for him. He went to the caves searching for her, hearing her echoing cries. When he couldn’t find her, he pleaded with the gods to help him and they turned the lovers into wolves so they could have the strength and the senses to find each other. But they were still lost to each other. The chief begged for more time, but the gods wouldn’t let him abandon his people so he had to return to human form in the morning.

He returned to search for his mate every night as a wolf and had to turn back into a human every morning. He became the first werewolf. That is why [they] can only transform at night. [They] have to return to [their] humanity during the day. And [they] have to turn in to a werewolf at every full moon as a symbol of the first night the chief turned into a wolf and searched for his lover, his other half.

They say you can still hear their lonely howls if you are near the falls during the full moon as they still search for each other.”

Echo Falls started with action right out of the gate with Phoebe being chased by a killer. (and the action continues throughout the book with some great fight scenes) She survives the attack thanks to hunky Alpha Wolf/ police officer Aiden. She has a lot of secrets that come to light as the story progresses. I really liked that she was such a mystery and that she could did not want to rely on Aiden or his pack to take care of her. Often times in paranormal romances, the woman plays the damsel in distress and that gets kind of old. I love that Phoebe is a butt kicking woman who protects others.

Echo Falls was really well written I only spotted one or two editing errors and it was a fast and engrossing read that I would recommend to fans of the paranormal romance genre.

It was a fast and engrossing read and I would recommend it to fans of Paranormal romance.

I give it a ****

Review: Soul Protector

Review: Soul Protector

Title: Soul Protector

Author: Amanda Leigh Cowley

Words: 76190

Rating: ****

Review Source: The Author Amanda Leigh Cowley

Back of Book Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

Gracie doesn't know she's a Soul Protector. After being dragged on a night out to celebrate a friend's birthday, she discovers she can switch into other people's bodies. Within minutes she manages to switch back, but doubting her sanity, decides to keep it to herself until she can work out why it happened. On a second switch, unaware she has a visible aura, she gets abducted by a monitor, Dan. It's his job to hunt down corrupt Soul Protectors who steal bodies for their own benefit. Once he establishes Gracie is innocent, he helps her switch back and looks after her during recovery. Dan explains to Gracie how Soul Protectors are bound by a code to only switch for the benefit of vulnerable people. Gracie falls in love with Dan, but finds he has hang-ups of his own. Finally understanding the rules, Gracie switches for a third time to help someone in need. During this switch her past catches up with her, and a chain of events unfold which shock her to the core.

My Thoughts:

Gracie’s boyfriend left her for her younger sister causing her to spiral into depression and to become incredibly self-conscious. When she is at her friend, Lydia’s (Lydia is everything Gracie wishes she was, beautiful, successful, and not single) birthday party. Lydia’s boyfriend proposes causing Gracie to feel even worse about herself. She wishes she was Lydia and poof… she becomes Lydia. The shock of it causes her to faint and when she realizes what happens she manages to change back and Lydia does not seem to know what happened.

She switches with Lydia again to try to figure out what happened and she ends up putting her life in danger as well as breaking some very important rules. She is kidnapped by Dan, a monitor, who hunts down corrupt soul protectors. Once Gracie learns the rules she realizes how much danger she was in and is totally freaked out by the whole thing. She wants nothing to do with being a soul protector even though she knows that what Soul Protectors do is very important and good. 

She and Dan begin falling for one another, but because of his issues with a previous relationship he ends their new relationship causing Gracie to become depressed all over again. She runs into a woman who really needs a Soul Protector to help her get out of an abusive relationship so she decides to embrace what she is.

Gracie is a really sweet character and I often felt sorry for her but she was also strong enough to move beyond her grief over her two relationships and to become a Soul Protector and help save vulnerable people. Her insecurities were a little annoying at times because she is such a great person and she just can’t see it, but I was cheering for her the whole time.

Dan is the handsome good guy that you wish you knew. He helps Gracie through some tough emotional times and I wanted them to end up together so badly. He also believes in her when she doesn’t believe in herself.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved Gracie and Dan, and I found the idea of Soul Protectors really unique and interesting. I think that Amanda Leigh Cowley has created a great world and institution that has elements of the paranormal and suspense. This is book one in the series and I look forward to reading the next ones.

I give it a ****

Review: Legacies of Talimura: War of the Witch

Review: Legacies of Talimura: War of the Witch

Title: Legacies of Talimura: War of the Witch

Author: Angel Haze

Pages: 286

Rating: ****

Review Source: The Author, Angel Haze

Back of Book Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

Debonair, a witch from the Unspoken Lands, has meddled in the forbidden practice of magic and has created an army of nightmarish proportions. When sixteen-year-old Astanyx and his two best friends return from a hunting trip to find their small town of Polca reduced to smoke and ash, they find themselves thrust into battle for which they haven’t been trained.

With the Help of his comrades, including and esteemed warrior, one of the last great wizards and a princess they’ve sworn to protect, Astanyx must fight to unite the kingdoms of humans, dwarves, and elves. He must ask forbidden questions that no one wants to answer, questions about Talimura’s dark history. As Debonair’s brutal warriors lay siege to the kingdoms, Astanyx is driven to pursue a fateful quest for a blade powerful enough to defeat the malevolent witch before she destroys the three kingdoms and unleashes an unspeakable, ancient evil.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book. It has all of the hallmarks of a great fantasy epic reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings and the newer Inheritance series. It is so full of action and has a really fast moving plot. There are all manner of magical creatures: dwarves, goblins, wolves, elves, orcs, ogres, birdmen, hellfangs, armies of the dead, and sorcerers.

Angel has created a huge world with so much happening, and even though she introduces a lot of new characters and situations, she writes so well that I felt a connection to them (there were times when I was yelling at some of the characters hoping they would survive the battle.) Astanyx is on the quintessential hero’s quest. He has survived the terrible destruction of his home and the massacre of his friends and family. He is sent on a quest to warn the nearby (and far away) kingdoms of the monster army by his dying father. He finds friends and teachers along the way who help him discover the power and bravery inside of him and becomes a true hero and warrior.

While some of the scenery and creatures a little too closely resemble those of The Lord of the Rings (the underground castle of the dwarves, the forest of the elves and some of the personality traits of the dwarves and elves,) she was able to make each individual character a unique individual and so they felt different enough and real.

There were some editing errors like missing words or repeated words  and once and a while they would trip up the flow of the story, but they were few and far between and the story itself swept me up enough  that they were hardly noticeable.

There was a lot more action than character development but because it is a series and because of the multitude of characters, I assume there will be more development across the series. I look forward to getting to know Talimura and the people who live there better.

I love the cover!!

I give it a ****

Review: Demon Girl

Review: Demon Girl

Title: Demon Girl

Author: Penelope Fletcher

Pages:

Rating: DID NOT FINISH

Review Source:

Back of Book Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

Rae Wilder has problems... Supernatural creatures swarm the earth, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Stalked by a handsome fairy who claims she is like him, demonkind, Rae thinks maybe it was a mistake breaking the rules by going over the Wall into demon territory. Plunged into a world of dark magics, fierce creatures, and ritual sacrifice, she is charged with guarding a magical amulet. The changes to her mind and body are startling, but rather than accept her purpose she struggles against who she is destined to be. Thrown in a big lust for a vampire who can't keep his hands off her, and life starts to get complicated. Rae is forced to make the ultimate choice: to live and die human, or embrace her birth-right and wield magics that could turn her into something wicked, a force of nature nothing can control. Young Adult: British English

My Thoughts:

It is free for nook readers on barnesandnoble.com

This is new for me, I almost always finish a book, but for some reason I really could not get into Demon Girl. It was very corney and cliché filled. I also had an issue with the wording of some sentences. It did not flow very well. I don’t know, the synopsis makes it seem like my kind of book, but I just couldn’t do it. It is way too much like the Twilight series (Which I can’t stand… sorry to all of the fans out there) and there was not enough explanation for the world, characters and events. I have no idea what is going on or why any of it matters. Also, there were quite a few editing errors, which is very annoying.

Maybe I will give it another shot later but for right now, and for whatever reason, I really did not like it.  (Maybe I’m in a bad mood, or I have just been reading too much of the same type of books lately? I don’t know.)

Don’t take my opinion as the determining factor as to read it or not. It got some good reviews on goodreads.

I DID NOT FINISH

Review: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Review: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Title: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Author: Helen Grant

Pages: 281

Rating: *****

Review Source: Purchased at Barnes and Noble

Back of Book Synopsis (from goodreads.com):

It isn’t ten year old Pia’s fault that her grandmother dies in a freak accident. But tell that to the citizens of Pia’s little German hometown of Bad Mustereifel, or to the classmates who shun her. The only one who still wants to be her friend is StinkStefan, the most unpopular child in school.

But then something else captures the community’s attention: the vanishing of Katharina Linden. Katharina was last seen on a float in a parade, dressed as Snow White. Then, like a character in a Grimm’s fairy tale, she disappears. But, this being real life, she doesn’t return.

Pia and Stefan suspect that Katharina has been spirited away by the supernatural. Their investigation is inspired by the instructive --- and cautionary --- local legends told to them by their elderly friend Herr Schiller, tales such as that of Unshockable Hans, visited by witches in the form of cats, or of the knight whose son is doomed to hunt forever.

Then another girl disappears, and Pia is plunged into a new and unnerving place, one far away from fairy tales --- and perilously close to adulthood.

My Thoughts:

As you all well know. I am obsessed with anything related to fairy tales, especially if it describes the creepy nature of those fairy tales.  The Vanishing of Katharina Linden definitely has the creepy quality that I love. It also has a dark humor prevalent throughout. The first line is “My life might have been different, have I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded.” Definitely dark humor. The great thing about the added humor is that it lightens (if only slightly) the otherwise serious nature of the story. It is very spooky and suspenseful, I spent the entire novel being afraid for Pia and StinkStefan, because they partially believe that the danger is supernatural, but as the reader knows, the danger is all too real. Pia, the narrator, is so adorable and innocent, and because of this innocence, the story as a whole feels like a folk tale despite the fact that it is realistically written.

I give it a *****

Review: A Discovery of Witches

Review: A Discovery of Witches

Title: A Discovery of Witches

Author: Deborah Harkness

Pages: 579

Rating *****

Review Source: Purchased at Barnes and Noble

Back of Book Synopsis (from barnesandnoble.com):

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.

My Thoughts:

I kind of have an addictive personality when it comes to reading. I don’t like putting down a book once I start it and A Discovery of Witches was one of those. Most of the time, I am at least aware of my surroundings and will put a book down if I have to. I started this book at like 11:30pm after finishing another book. I was like “I just want to read a couple of chapters, that’s it”, well it wasn’t because the next time I looked at the clock, it was 8:30am and I was finished with the book. Oops! Deborah Harkness did a really good job of setting up the world of the novel. She used very evocative imagery that put me into the scene with the characters but that was really what this novel was, a setting the scene for the next book in the series so we got a lot of info and not a lot of plot. I mean, a lot happens but nothing is resolved because of the subsequent novels, which left me feeling a little irritated and like I was missing something. (Well, that was probably the intended feeling because now I definitely have to read the next in the series.)

Her prose style was very decadent and it really set up the atmosphere of the story really well. There were a lot of areas of the book that could have been pared down because she really did have a lot of information and descriptions but by keeping them, the prose style reflected the all-encompassing arch of the story. (We are getting past, present, and future all wrapped up into one.)

For any of you who have read my other reviews, you know that I read for the connections to the characters, so in this aspect I was kind of disappointed. Because she spent a lot of time setting the scene for the series as a whole, she left out a lot of the character development (because obviously the characters have a whole series worth of time to grow.)

Dianna was also a little disappointing. She started out as a strong and independent woman but as soon as she meets Matthew (her vampire lover) she becomes the clichéd damsel in distress who needs to be protected by her vampire lover. She is a very powerful witch so she should not need him to protect her. The relationship between Dianna and Matthew was a little too twilightish for me. They have only known each other for a few weeks at the most but they are obsessed with each other and Matthew is so overprotective of her. I have to say I am a little sick of this rut that paranormal stories are getting stuck in. I mean, I know they bring a lot of money but it is getting to be too predictable.

I did love the supporting characters a lot. The Bishop house was such a great character as well as Dianna’s aunts, Emily and Sarah. I really hope they get bigger roles in the subsequent novels.

I know it sounds like I did not like the book, but that is so not the case. I really enjoyed it. It was an absorbing book and I really look forward to the next one in the series!

I would recommend this book to anyone who like historical and paranormal novels, as well as those who love family saga stories and of course the Twilight series. This book kind of reminded me a little bit of Circle Trilogy by Nora Roberts although less erotic. (I’d recommend those books as well)

I give it *****