Title: The Orphan Queen
Author: Jodi Meadows
Series: Orphan Queen Duology
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: March 10, 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5 out of 5)
Category Archives: Mystery, Thriller, and Suspence
Review: Arcana by Jessica Leake
Title: Arcana
Author: Jessica Leake
Rating: ★★★★
Arcana started off a little shaky for me. It wasn’t that it was bad, but it didn’t hook me right away. I continued reading, though, mostly because I’m a history nut and this book has some history in it. After the rocky start, things really started to pick up, and I found myself unable to put the book down until I had finished.
Katherine Sinclair is different from most people in more than a few ways. As a girl, she’s completely uninterested in going to London for her debut. She doesn’t really think she needs a husband, and she finds the social rules smothering. She also has the power of the sun inside her. She can call upon this power for magic, and even though she keeps it hidden most of the time, sometimes she can’t help but let her magic flow. On top of this, she is forced to London where the handsome Earl of Thornewood is her companion. She must figure out who is part of the Order whose only goal is to harness the power of Arcana through destructive means, while trying to maneuver London society.
Katherine didn’t connect with me right away. Her character felt a little out of reach. Once she made it to London, where she struggles with keeping her true character hidden behind the picture society paints, I started to like her more. She has a quick wit, and sometimes her mouth runs without thinking. She thinks of her family first, and cares deeply for anyone who she considers close to her. She also knows that she can’t depend on anyone else for her safety. She may not always be ready to fight, but she’ll try to find a way to keep herself from harm.
The two male characters in this novel were interesting. I would have liked maybe a little more mystery about who was good and who was bad, but I’ll take what I can get. It was pretty clear from the moment both characters were introduced how they would be divided. While there’s really nothing wrong with this, sometimes I like to guess.
The plot itself was interesting. I would have liked a little more weaving of the arcana into the story. I think the novel could have easily read as a good book without the magical element. I wanted the magic there, though. Near the end, it became more of the storyline, but I would have liked more throughout the entire novel.
Arcana started off slow, but soon I was completely drawn into the world Leake created. She has a beautiful writing style and she really made me interested in the characters’ lives. It’s a good book, although you’ll have to like historical fiction and debutante politics.
If you’d like to read Arcana, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher, Talos, for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Title: The Vanishing Season
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Rating: ★★
I’m just not sure about this book. I wanted to like it, to feel worried about the fate of these girls, to wonder about the characters and what was happening. I just never felt it. The writing was beautiful, but the characters and plot just weren’t there for me. It was supposed to be a story about friendship, with some mystery thrown in, but I never felt that.
Maggie moves to a rundown house on a lake in the north. She’s not thrilled about having to leave her life and friends behind her, but because her parents are struggling for money, she accepts it. She makes it work. Pauline and Liam are her neighbors. Pauline’s mother tries to put on appearances, but ever since her husband and Pauline’s father died, she hasn’t been able to feel happy. Liam’s father is the outcast of the town, and his actions make the town think Liam and his father are crazy. Maggie befriends them both, and eventually has feelings for Liam. In the midst of the move, girls begin to disappear and reappear killed. Panic ensues and Maggie and her friends must try to figure out their new friendship while wondering who will be killed next.
Maggie was a fine character, but I think she needed a little bit more of a backbone. I can see a lot of myself in her. I’d sacrifice almost anything for my family. I’m not very confrontational. I tend to think things through and then overthink them. But I can stand up for myself when I need to. And that’s what I wanted Maggie to do. It’s one thing to allow your friends to push you. But when you let them walk all over you, it’s not healthy. I wanted Maggie to stick up for herself.
Pauline was tough to handle. I really have a problem with the acceptance of her character traits. She was pushy and tended to not think of how her actions would affect others. As a foil, Pauline is excellent. Her character makes Maggie’s qualities stand out even more. But as a person, I don’t think I’d be able to have her as a friend. It was difficult to read. Liam wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t great either. I could tell from the beginning how he would play a part, but that didn’t mean I was okay reading it. I understand why things happened the way they did, but I still didn’t enjoy reading it.
I was ready to have a mystery to solve; one that maybe gave me the chills. Instead, the mystery was the background and I never really felt like it was resolved well. I don’t always need a perfect little bow on each open thread of a story, but some sort of resolution is nice. For how much the story would emphasis the mystery at times, much of the story just felt flat. There’d be mystery for a few pages, and then absolutely nothing.
The Vanishing Season is not the book I thought it would be. It has beautiful writing, but that’s about where the great qualities end. It just wasn’t the book I wanted to read, and the characters didn’t make me want to read. I’m sure there are people who will love this book, but I am not one of them.
If you’d like to read The Vanishing Season, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperTeen for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno
Title: The Half Life of Molly Pierce
Author: Katrina Leno
Rating: ★★
I expected a little more from this book. I’m not entirely sure why, but I did. It’s not that this is a bad book. It’s not. It just wasn’t what I had expected it to be. I figured out the “twist” before I even started to read. Even with that, I wished it had just a little bit more.
Molly has been having blackout periods. She remembers everything up until the blackout starts and once she comes out of it, but absolutely nothing in between. She hides these episodes from her family, not wanting them to worry about her, or think she’s crazy. All she wants is for these episodes to go away and to be able to remember what she’s doing. So when someone from those black periods lands in her life, she begins to piece together what she has been doing and who she really is.
I felt for Molly, I really did. She’s struggling in life, and these blank episodes of time aren’t making anything easier. She wants to fit in and be as normal as she can. She just never felt like a developed, explored character. I never really felt I started to know her. I can understand that some of this was due to Molly not really understanding herself, but I do think there could have been a little more development. She has many sides to her, and I felt like only the surface was touched on. Maybe that’s all there was room for in the book, but I still wanted more.
There’s an attempted romance, I think, but it didn’t really feel like it fit. To me, it felt like it was there to be there. I think the book could have stood on its own, as an in-depth examination of the mind without having a relationship to examine as well. It just didn’t feel necessary, other than to introduce a few things and get the plot rolling. Beyond that, I don’t really think it was important to have and keep talking about.
Like I said before, I had the book figured out before I started reading. That didn’t bother me, though, because I had hoped the topic would be handled in an interesting way, one that was suspenseful and would have me on the edge of my seat. In the end, it just wasn’t the book I had hoped for.
The Half Life of Molly Pierce has an interesting premise, but it wasn’t explored as well as it could have been. It didn’t go deep enough into the characters or the story for me. It didn’t stick with me like I wanted it to. It’s not a bad book, but it could have been so much better.
If you’d like to read The Half Life of Molly Pierce, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperTeen for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: The Fever by Megan Abbott
Title: The Fever
Author: Megan Abbott
Rating: ★★★
I thought The Fever sounded like a thriller of a book. Something is making girls sick and no one really knows what it is. Panic ensues. I thought it would show how society could fall apart when fear takes hold. And that was there, but I still ended up feeling a little let down at the end.
Deenie lives with her brother, Eli, and father, Tom. She’s a good student, Eli is a star hockey player, and Tom is a popular teacher. Their lives aren’t perfect, but they’re happy for the most part. And then Deenie’s friend has a seizure in class, igniting frenzy. After that, more girls at the school are falling sick with an unexplainable illness. It’s only affecting the girls, and the first connection is made to the HPV shots they have all been getting. And then one girl falls sick that didn’t get the shot. Panic erupts.
The story is told from Deenie, Eli, and Tom’s points of view. Each has a different perspective of the story, from the girl just wondering when it will be her, to the brother wanting everything to be okay, and the father just wanting to keep his daughter safe. I never really felt connected to any of the characters, though, and that made it a little difficult to connect with the book. I felt bad for each of them, sure, but I never felt like I was in the novel.
The plot of the novel wasn’t what I thought it would be. First I was worried it was going to be a commentary on vaccines (and given my health issues, anti-vaccine agendas bother me), and then I thought it’d be a commentary on how poisoning nature ends up poisoning ourselves. So I was a little thrown when the actual cause was revealed. I didn’t feel like it fit the rest of the story. It seemed quick and easy to wrap things up the way they were. From the panic and build-up of the novel, I was expecting something more.
In the end, The Fever was a fine book. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped, but it certainly wasn’t a bad book. It is well written, and if I was looking for a book dealing with relationships, I think I would have enjoyed it more. I was just looking for a thriller that would leave me blown away, and this wasn’t it.
If you think you’d like to read The Fever, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings
Title: The Murder Complex
Author: Lindsay Cummings
Series: The Murder Complex
Rating: ★★★★
I’m a little weird about blood and killing. It doesn’t bother me, really, but gratuitous amounts of it annoy me. So I was a little hesitant that a book with the title The Murder Complex would be one of those books that would overdo it on the killing. And I won’t lie, there is death and blood and killing. But it didn’t feel like it was killing for the sake of it. I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
Meadow lives with her sister, brother, and father on a houseboat. They are getting by on the serving or rations her father earns, but they need more. She has been trained by her father her entire life to protect herself through any means necessary and uses those skills to earn a job in the city. One evening, she comes across a dying Zephyr and for a reason she can’t quite explain, she stops and helps to save his life. From that point on, their lives are intertwined.
Meadow is a fighter. She doesn’t show weakness. It’s the only way to try and survive in the world. When the murder rate is higher than the birth rate, one must always be ready to fight. Her family, however, is her soft spot. She can take any beating, fight any enemy, but her family is where to hit her hardest. I liked Meadow, and I liked her moxie, but I want to see a little more depth of character. She’s got a great beginning and I have hopes that she’ll develop a little more as the series progresses.
I’m not sure about Zephyr. He’s not really my kind of guy, but he works with the story. He’s lived a life of struggles, and has a past that he doesn’t even understand. My only problem with his character has to do with a problem I find common in a lot of novels. The idea of instant love. And granted he has dreamed of a girl like Meadow for a while, but to love a dream of a person is different than loving a person. I’m hoping this idea is explored more going forward.
The story of The Murder Complex is something I haven’t read before. In the genre of dystopian fiction, there can be a lot of repetition or an author can try to be so different that it borders on the unbelievable. Cummings writes a world that paints a dire picture of the world, but adds a unique spin. I’m definitely intrigued by this world and am looking forward to more.
The Murder Complex is a new take on a bleak future. The characters are interesting and have room for growth. This is a series beginning that gives promise of good things to come.
If The Murder Complex sounds like a book you’d like to read, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and Greenwillow Books for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: (Don’t You) Forget About Me by Kate Karyus Quinn
Title: (Don’t You) Forget About Me
Author: Kate Karyus Quinn
Rating: ★★★★
This book messed with my head. In a good way. It’s a complete trip of a book, from beginning to end. Just when I thought I had a handle on what was going on, something would happen that would completely throw me off again.
Gardnerville is a special place. People don’t get sick there. It just doesn’t happen. And sick people who move to the town suddenly aren’t sick anymore. But it comes at a price. Every four years, a teen explodes with deadly consequences. The book begins in the middle of one of these fourth years, just dropping the reader right into the town. Skylar uses pills to forget the past, a past where her sister led teens to their death four years ago. But something finally stops Skylar from forgetting. The secrets she’s held for years have to come out. And as little pieces of the truth appear the story becomes even more confusing and amazing.
Skylar is an interesting character. She just wants to forget what happened to her family. She wants to forget that her sister was the cause of the last fourth year destruction. She wants to forget about the evil that possesses her town. She just wants to forget. But forgetting means she can’t move forward with her life. As her secrets are shown, between flashbacks and the present day, she becomes a great character. It’s clear she knows what she has to do for her town, even though only little pieces are shown at a time.
The town is a character itself. It has a strange power to heal people, but it’s not without a price. The town gives, but it also takes. It really made me think about what price I would pay for complete health. A small connection I made to the novel is that the mother of the book had the same disease I do, cystic fibrosis. Obviously, since she lives in the town, it’s not a problem for her anymore. But it made me think about if living in fear of external death would be enough for me to cure my internal death. I can certainly understand why the mother lives in the town, but her life isn’t perfect. She traded one pain for another. It’s an interesting thought; to examine what price a person would pay for perfect health.
I’m going to be honest. I was completely confused for the majority of the novel. But it was confusion I enjoyed, because it meant Quinn has weaved an intense story. Every little piece she gives you s dropped without much context, leaving you to try and piece it together. It’s like putting together a puzzle that doesn’t have a picture until every piece has found its place. You’re working to solve a puzzle where you can hardly figure out where each piece goes.
This is not a book anyone can pick up and enjoy. You have to be able to suspend reason and take the events that happen for what they are. If you can do that, then (Don’t You) Forget About Me is a fantastic book.
If you think (Don’t You) Forget About Me is a book you’d like to read, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperTeen for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer
Title: The Secrets of Lily Graves
Author: Sarah Strohmeyer
Rating: ★★★
Let me start off by saying The Secrets of Lily Graves is not a romance novel. Yes, there’s a teaser of romance in the book description, but that’s not what this book is about. It’s about the secrets that surround the lives of the characters and how they unravel after a murder. The twists and turns are excellent, and I am happy to say I couldn’t see the ending coming.
Lily Graves is the daughter of a mortician, living in the house where the dead go to get ready for their funeral. Lily is the social outcast because of her family and how morbid others consider her to be. She’s had one best friend, and that’s really about it. So when Matt Houser starts to hang out with her, even though it’s because she’s helping him with school, she finds happiness in her new friendship. Yet when Matt breaks up with his girlfriend Erin, Lily is immediately the suspect. Things become even more twisted when Erin is found dead, murdered, the day after attacking Lily. With Matt and Lily at the center of the focus, she has to work hard to find out the truth.
I liked Lily. She was her own person and didn’t try and change to have more friends. She knew that if people didn’t like who she was, she didn’t need to have them in her life. Of course, this doesn’t mean she’s immune to the comments she receives, but she chooses to look beyond them. I think she’s a very well written teen. A little head strong and stubborn, like continuing to see Matt even though everyone tells her to stay away, but she’s also a little insecure about things. Her determination to figure out who killed Erin really drove the novel.
Matt was fine as a love interest. He’s a little too perfect for my tastes, but since their relationship wasn’t the main reason for the novel, it didn’t bother me too much. He’s sweet and a little corny, but it works. It makes for an interesting character study, when he is shown to be one way with Lily, but still have a mountain of evidence piled against him in Erin’s death.
There were a few things about the plot of the novel that I found to be just a little too convenient, but given how long working around those instances would have been, I can forgive. Things like Lily’s mother dating the chief of police and getting little pieces of information she would have otherwise never known seemed a little to convenient, but it worked. I was never really sure where the novel was going to go and until the very end, I had no idea how the murder case would be solved. When everything finally came to light, I was shocked, but in a good way.
The Secrets of Lily Graves is an excellent look into the secrets a town can hold and how those secrets can destroy. Everyone has a secret and while some are harmless, others lead to death. It’s one of the better Young Adult mystery thriller novels I’ve read. Definitely worth a read.
If you think The Secrets of Lily Graves is a book you’d like to read, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and Balzer + Bray for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: Sleep No More by Aprilynne Pike
Title: Sleep No More
Author: Aprilynne Pike
Rating: ★★★
I’m sure there will be some people who have issues with this book. It’s a snapshot of Charlotte’s life as an Oracle, not her life story. Because of that, it only details the events that have such a huge impact on her as a teen, that the rest of her life will always feel the effects. I’m glad it’s a standalone novel. It was entertaining, but dark.
Charlotte is an Oracle. She gets visions of the future. After she changes the future to save her aunt, her father dies. From that moment on, she works hard to keep her Oracle side pushed away, resisting visions anytime they start to come. She’s seen how altering with the future can backfire and she never wants to risk that again. Then, she starts getting visions of her classmates’ murders. She feels guilty she can’t save them. To her, what good are visions when she can’t do anything about them? So when someone new comes into her life, claiming to know what she is and how she can use her visions to change the future, she jumps at the chance.
There were moments I wanted to shake some sense into Charlotte. From the outside, I could see how her choices could end up backfiring. I could sense that things weren’t right. But I also felt for Charlotte. She wants to know all she can about being an Oracle. She finds comfort in in knowledge. The unknowns are what make her question everything. Her aunt, the one in change of teaching her how to be an Oracle, holds back information, claiming she doesn’t need to know it yet. It’s because of this that she jumps on the change to learn more, even if it’s from someone she doesn’t really know.
The mystery and suspense in this novel were fantastic. I never really knew what would happen next. It’s clear that there is a serial killer, but the identity is hidden. Even in her visions, Charlotte is unable to find out any clues on who she is fighting against. The entire novel had this feeling of darkness, but it wasn’t heavy with it. There were light moments when Charlotte could just be a teenager before having to try and fight an evil she doesn’t know again. The pace of the novel is perfect, giving just enough information for one question to be answered before throwing in even more questions. This kept me on the edge of my seat, unable to put the novel down.
Sleep No More was a fantastic novel. It was fast-paced, but it never felt like things were moving too quickly. Pike would slow the novel down for a few moments before throwing something new in. It created a novel that ad me engaged and wondering with every page. I’m looking forward to reading more from Pike.
If Sleep No More sounds like your kind of novel, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperTeen for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting
Title: The Taking
Author: Kimberly Derting
Series: The Taking Trilogy
Rating: ★★★
After reading Derting’s other novels, I knew The Taking was going to be a book I wanted to read. It was different from her other novels, and after starting to read, I could tell it was either going to really pull me in, or I was going to struggle to finish it. Books that are connected to the science fiction genre are not usually my thing. They have to be done really well for me to enjoy them.
Kyra was in the car, having an argument with her father about colleges, when she demands he pulls over so she can walk to her team’s championship celebration. Once out of the car, she vanishes. All she remembers is a flash of light, and then nothing. The next thing she is aware of is her being by a dumpster with no recollection of how she got there. When she returns to her home, she finds a man and a child she doesn’t know there. Across the street, where her boyfriend lives, she finds he is gone and his younger brother has grown up. 5 years have passed since she vanished and nothing is the same.
Kyra is thrown into a new world where she doesn’t know what is going on. People want things from her; they want to know where she went and why she’s been gone for years. She’s become obsessed with time, not wanting to lose anymore of it. Her best friend and her boyfriend have moved on. Her family has been torn apart. She doesn’t recognize anything about her life now. She’s still 16 and trying to cope with everything. I find I was forgiving her for things I’d usually find annoying in a character. To me, her choices were understandable. She’s trying to fall back into a life that vanished. Her decisions wouldn’t always be the best, but she showed a maturity I was grateful for.
The relationship between Kyra and Tyler seemed to develop just a little too fast for my taste. Yes, they had great chemistry and Tyler was a wonderfully sweet boy, it felt a little odd for Kyra tog o from viewing him as the kid brother of her boyfriend to imagining a relationship with him. I would have liked a little more development of the relationship between the two before it turned romantic. At times, despite being great boyfriend material, it felt like Tyler’s attempts to make Kyra happy felt more like a little kid with a crush instead of two equal people finding their way together.
I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot because this is a book that needs to unfold at just the right pace. In all honesty, if I had known what one of the major plot points would be, I probably wouldn’t have read it. But Derting wrote the novel in such a way that it didn’t feel cheesy or wrong. It felt like it was a perfect piece of the puzzle. I’m really looking forward to what comes next. The cliffhanger has me anxious.
Despite a few flaws, The Taking was a good book that definitely pulled me in and has me ready and anxious for the next piece of the story. Derting has another great series on her hands.
If The Taking sounds like your kind of novel, you can purchase it here:
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Thank you to HarperTeen and Edelweiss for an advanced copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
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