Tag Archives: Paranormal

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Bloodspell by Amalie Howard

Like most Young Adult novels, I go in hoping for a diamond, be prepared for piles of dirt. Bloodspell is definitely a diamond and I am so thankful to JKSCommunications for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

The book starts off with a bang and it just keeps going from there. There is rarely a lag in the action and forward progression of the story, but it is paced just right. There’s never a flood of information, and everything that is reveled makes sense and isn’t confusing. Each time more magic and mystery was reveled, I was left wanting just a little more information, only to get more a few pages later. It was wonderful and kept me glued to the pages.

While I understood why it was necessary, the “I love you but we shouldn’t be together” subplot is starting to get old. However, it does make sense in this book and I was able to look past that aspect of the relationship between Victoria and Christian. Christian is another swoon-worth YA male character. Victoria is a strong girl coming into her own, who knows how to rely on herself, but also knows when she needs to ask for help. I enjoyed the other, more minor characters, but I was really hoping some of them would play a bigger role in more of the story, instead of just the climax.

Overall, this was a great read and I found it hard to put down. I can’t wait to see what Howard does next with this wonderful story.

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God’s Eye by A.J. Scudiere

I was a little worried when I started reading this book that it would be more on the religious side of looking at good vs. evil and angels and demons. I was happily surprised that this couldn’t have been further from the truth. This was a fantastic look into a woman growing into her own life and how things can be deceptive on the surface.

Katharine lives under the shadow of her family’s wealth. She does what is expected of her without much questioning and lives the life someone else has planned for her. By the end of the novel, she is a strong woman, taking charge of her life and doing things her way. The progression between the two personalities was amazingly well written and seamless. It wasn’t some moment of clarity that didn’t fit with the rest of the novel. Bits and pieces fell into place so that by the time the climax of the book hit, it all made sense.

Margot was perfect as a friend for Katharine. She’s strong and smart and doesn’t turn away from Katharine when she needs someone more, even though she would have every right to turn away and let Katharine handle her problems on her own.

As for the rest of the story, I loved how Scudiere took a pretty common idea, the battle between good and evil, and looked at it in a new way. She really made me think about the differences between the two and how something might seem like it is good and wonderful, but the end result may be just the opposite. It wasn’t thrown in my face, but it was slowly introduced through the character’s actions and words.

The ending of this book was powerful and just like it should be. Everything in the novel led up to one moment and the way Scudiere write the ending couldn’t have been more perfect. It’s empowering and just what a person wants when they read something like this.

I loved this book and am so happy I was able to read it.

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Hunted by Cheryl Rainfield

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to read Hunted through JKSCommunications. I’m so happy I was able to read this book.

I was a little worried when I started this book. The first couple of chapters felt a little too much like a typical teen/high school story. The new girl shows up, almost everybody dislikes her right away, she crushes on the hot guy everyone wants and is befriended by the other outcasts. However, once the story really started to pick up, it was fantastic.

Caitlyn is a wonderful strong female lead character. She knows her own strength and uses it to not only help herself, but help others. She doesn’t look to others for her power; she looks to herself for strength. Rachel is the best friend everyone needs to have and Alex is completely swoon-worthy. I have to say, my favorite character was Mrs. Vespa. There was just something about her that made me love her.

The message for this book is an important one and I feel Rainfield was able to get it across without using flashing lights and neon signs. It’s in the way she reveals the characters, the school, and society. It’s a subtle placing of words that makes your skin crawl because you know what is happening is wrong.

This was a wonderful book and I can’t wait to read what happens next.

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Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

This is a wonderfully fabulous book that I completely devoured. It was hard for me to put it down to sleep.

Juliette is a fantastically written character. She starts the book as somewhat weak, yet resilient. She thinks of herself as a monster, something that doesn’t really deserve to be around people. By the time the novel reaches its conclusion, you can see her strength growing, her acceptance of herself finally starting to come about. Throughout the entire novel, you can see that her heart is what makes her powerful, not whatever power she actually has. It’s her heart that gives her strength.

I love Adam. I want an Adam of my own. He is amazing and kind and wonderful. I’m sure I could come up with more adjectives to describe him, but I won’t. I just love him.

Kenji provides a bit of relief with his whole persona. His little comments, inserted exactly where they need to be, let me take a breath and prepare myself for more of the intensity sure to come.

Beyond the characters and the storyline, I adored Mafi’s writing style. You see inside Juliette’s head and are aware of just how broken she is in the beginning. You can feel her faith in herself grow through the writing. And the metaphors on every page really let you feel what she is feeling. As an example, there are many interpretations of how realization could feel for a person. But when you read, “Realization is ice-cold water and it’s dripping down my spine,” you know exactly what to feel. You feel that cold water dripping down your back. I can’t get over how stunning the writing is.

This may be the first book in a trilogy, but it is a complete book that I’ll definitely be telling people to read, as I anxiously await the second book.

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Legacy by Molly Cochran

The idea behind this book is a good one, and I feel like the book could have come out better than it did. I really wanted to like this book when I started, and I did end up enjoying it, but not as much as I hoped I would.

Mainly, this book just seemed choppy. I could get over the clichéd aspect of the novel because it’s rare to find a book that doesn’t contain some sort of cliché, however, the book seemed to jump all over, and some it was hard to connect certain times, places, relationships because they just didn’t seem to add up or make sense.

Throughout the entire book, I felt like I was missing pieces of information that would have brought sense to the story. For example, how Katy goes from knowing something is different about her but not knowing what exactly to suddenly performing spells with Hattie, without much of a transition between the two. Parts of the book just seemed to jump around and it made it hard for me to enjoy the story as much as I wanted to.

I did like this book, I just feel like it could have been better if there had been a little more flow to it.

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The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

This book was much better than I thought it was going to be. I was a little worried when I started that this would not only be yet another dystopian fantasy book, but feel younger than the young adult genre it fell under.

I’m very happy I was wrong. This book might have started out a little weak, but it quickly recovered and drew me in, keeping me awake much later than I should have been and was the first thing I picked up when I woke up. While a few parts of it felt a little clichéd and predictable, most of it was different from everything else I’ve read. Separating the classes through language was an ingenious idea for Derting to make, and really set the tone of distrust, fear and caution for the rest of the novel.

Charlie was a fantastic character to read about. She was a strong female, and although she liked the secure feeling she felt with Max, she was able to stand on her own and fight for herself. She used her own motivations and those things important to her to gain power and strength, and I love reading that.

Max was a swoon worthy character. His devotion to Charlie was sweet and amazing to read, and I fell in love with him almost immediately after one important development.

Overall, this was a fantastic book, and worth a read. It’s a little fast-paced, and some parts were a touch cheesy, but as a whole, it’s an interesting and worthy take on the dystopian genre.

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Wow. This book was wow.

When I started reading this, I didn’t think it would be as intricate and interesting as it was. The imagination and essence are amazing and I could hardly put this book down.

Humanity plays a huge role in this story, and Taylor uses this as the starting point of her characters and weaves their story through it. Karou maintains her humanity through the entire story, never losing the thing that makes her real. She goes from being a semi-normal 17-year-old girl to something else entirely, and the one thing that remains true is the emotions that tie her to her humanity. Akiva is made beautiful not through his looks or strengths or abilities, but his powerful connections to love and the love story wrapped around him and Karou.

The feelings I had reading this book were indescribable. My heart was beating faster, my mind was spinning and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The writing was beautiful and made the story what it is. I can’t wait to hear the rest of this amazing love story.

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Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite

This is a book I will be thinking about for a long time. It’s the kind of book that makes you stay up until 2am reading it because you just have to know what happens on the next page. There wasn’t a place where I could stop reading and <i>not</i> think about it.

The web that surrounds Hobbs Pritchard draws you in slowly and before you know it, he’s managed to ensnare you, just like he does his ladies in the book. The different perspectives each woman gives of the same man shows just how complicated a person can be. There isn’t one true Hobbs, in my opinion. Each woman sees a different version of him, and they’re all right and wrong at the same time. As much as I disliked him as a person, his character is one of the best I’ve read.

As for each of the women, my heart went out to each and every one. They all had secrets that eventually came back to bite them, some worse than others. It didn’t matter what the reasoning was behind keeping the secrets, be it good or bad, the secrets ate at each woman and her life.

Something else I found wonderful was how strong the females are in this book. They might make bad choices, but who doesn’t in life? However, these women overcome these weaknesses and stand up for themselves, taking charge of their situation and doing what they need to do to make their lives better. I know I say it a lot, but I love real characters, and these women fit the bill. They found strength in their weaknesses, and transformed from characters in a book to real people in my mind.

This was not the simple read I thought it was going to be. It deals with the dark side of human nature, how keeping secrets can destroy good things and many women’s issues. This was a fantastic novel and Hite’s next book cannot be released soon enough.

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Out in Blue by Sarah Gilman

I requested this book from NetGalley, and was extremely pleased when I was allowed to read it. The new look on angels and demons really interested me and I couldn’t wait to start reading.

Overall, the book was extremely well written, and I found myself very engrossed in the story. My only real complaint was how the story started. Readers are dumped right into the middle of a story and I would have liked to have a bit more of a build up, but even that did not distract me from the story.

Despite how fast the two main characters fell in love, and even though it didn’t seem natural, it didn’t feel forced, either. It just was and I actually found myself enjoying that.

I was a little worried about starting this book when I saw it was the first in a series, however this book can stand on it’s own, even as a set-up for the rest of the books. It was it’s own story and simply laid in place the elements necessary for the rest of the series. I loved the end of the book, and while I’m excited to read what’s next, I know this story is finished and it felt that way.

I greatly enjoyed this book and can’t wait to see what comes next for these characters.