Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder
Publisher: Mira
Series: #1 in the Healer series
Pages: 390
Published in: 2011

(This copy was obtained via NetGalley for review)

Summary

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan assumes their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Territories, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos. 
Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life.... (from Goodreads)

My thoughts

This is the second series I have read by Maria V. Snyder - the other one being the Study series - and I have to say it definitely did not dissappoint! In this story, which is also a fantasy one, we meet Avry, who is a Healer in a period of time when being a Healer is not the safest of things. Due to the fact that Healers were rumoured to have spread a deadly plague all over the world, they have been hunted down and killed. As such, Avry is one of the last ones alive and there is a price on her head. But she ends up being captured and then abducted by a group of men who are in desperate need of her skills (as opposed to the prize which accompanies her capture). And of course, just to make everything interesting, while the group are on their way to heal the plague-stricken prince mentioned in the summary, lots pretty dangerous and deadly stuff happen.

What I enjoyed the most out of this book - in all honesty - was Maria Snyder's writing. As had happened with her Study series, I found that her writing just drew me into the story; made me feel as if I was actually there, right next to the characters; sometimes that I was actually seeing everything through Avry's eyes - that I was Avry. All the descriptions of the villages, of the forest, of the trip they had to take to get to the Prince, it all felt real. 

Another thing that felt really real and logical was the way Avry could heal. It only makes sense that to heal a person, you assume their injuries and then try to fight them yourself. That they don't "just go away". That way you could really appreciate what being a Healer actually means. It means that you have to "want" to do it, because, essentially, it means fighting a lot of pain - which you might not be able to fight to the end. To me, that just made sense.

Then, there is also the small matter of the love interest. From the word go (well, not exactly, but you know what I mean), you know who the love interest is going to be. You can see all the tension, you know that eventually it is going to happen, but it keeps NOT happening. Again and again, there are those perfect moments where you think "Finally!", but then something else (usually rather dire) happens. This part did remind me somewhat of Poison Study - where it was obvious from the beginning that something was going to happen between Valek and Yelena - but it didn't really bother me at all. Seeing as it is do far away from that dreaded "insta-romance" thing.


All in all, Touch of Power was a very enjoyable read and definitely lived up to my expectations of Maria V. Snyder. I still haven't read her Glass series and her Insider series, though that is something I intend to remedy as soon as possible!

For more information about the author and her other books, check out her website.

Past Perfect by Leila Sales

Past Perfect by Leila Sales
First published by Simon & Schuster in 2011 (this edition was an eGalley, provided through the S&S GalleyGrab programme)

Description (from Goodreads)

All Chelsea wants to do this summer is hang out with her best friend, hone her talents as an ice cream connoisseur, and finally get over Ezra, the boy who broke her heart. But when Chelsea shows up for her summer job at Essex Historical Colonial Village (yes, really), it turns out Ezra’s working there too. Which makes moving on and forgetting Ezra a lot more complicated…even when Chelsea starts falling for someone new.Maybe Chelsea should have known better than to think that a historical reenactment village could help her escape her past. But with Ezra all too present, and her new crush seeming all too off limits, all Chelsea knows is that she’s got a lot to figure out about love. Because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it….

My thoughts
Past Perfect was such a perfect and sweet little book! I remember being in the mood for something light and funny with a bit of romance to top it all off, and this book definitely delivered!

In Past Perfect, we have Chelsea, a girl who has spent the last I-can't-remember-how-many summers working at the Essex Colonial Village; first, because her parents worked there and they used to take her with them and then, as a fully paid re-enactor. So, she was really looking forward to working at the mall this year with her best friend. But then her best friend thinks it's a good idea to work at the Colonial Village and so, Chelsea ends up working there for yet another summer. And lots of other things going on, including ex-boyfriends working at the Colonial Village too, them dating other people and also, cute romantic interests; all amidst the big "war" that has been going on between the Colonial re-enactors and the Civil War re-enactors.

This book focuses a lot on the relationships between the characters, and not just the romantic ones. There is the relationship between the exes, the relationship between two people who are attracted to each other but know that the attraction could pose some problems, the relationship between friends, the relationships between co-workers. But it still doesn't feel too relationship-heavy, as it's all part of being a person.

My favourite thing about this book - and which made it one of the most unique books I have read this year - was the setting. The story actually takes place "now", but, because of the fact that the setting is the Colonial Village, it has a rather historical feel to it. The feud between the Colonials and the Civil Warriors and the actual "War" going on between them is fun, as they actually come up with some hilarious ideas to win the battles.

The romantic story in this book is also rather cute, as are the two characters involved. I'm not going to go into many details, but I am going to say that even though the romance is very "Romeo-and-Juliet"-esque (as in they are on opposite sides of a feud, you do end up wanting them to come to their senses and just ignore the stupid war already!

I know this is not a good review, but a) it has been ages since I last wrote a review, b) I have been writing this review for over two weeks (with not much success!) and c) it has been ages since I read it, so I can't really remember that much about it. I promise the next ones will be much better, though!

Rating: 8/10


Author: 
Leila Sales grew up just outside Boston, Massachussets. She has a degree from the Universiry of Chicago and currently lives in Brooklyn. Other than Past Perfect, she has also written a book called Mostly Good Girls.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
First published by Viking in 2009 (this edition by Penguin in 2010)

Description (from Goodreads)

Annie loves Duncan — or thinks she does. Duncan loves Annie, but then, all of a sudden, he doesn’t. Duncan really loves Tucker Crowe, a reclusive Dylanish singer-songwriter who stopped making music ten years ago. Annie stops loving Duncan, and starts getting her own life. 
In doing so, she initiates an e-mail correspondence with Tucker, and a connection is forged between two lonely people who are looking for more out of what they’ve got. Tucker’s been languishing (and he’s unnervingly aware of it), living in rural Pennsylvania with what he sees as his one hope for redemption amid a life of emotional and artistic ruin — his young son, Jackson. But then there’s also the new material he’s about to release to the world: an acoustic, stripped-down version of his greatest album,Juliet — entitled, Juliet, Naked. 
What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one’s promise.

My thoughts
Having already read two other Nick Hornby books this year (High Fidelity and Slam) and enjoying them both very much, I decided to read Juliet, Naked. Well, it was also because I was looking for a small book to travel with. But I was going to be reading it sometime, anyway, it just happened sooner rather than later!

Juliet, Naked felt rather different to High Fidelity and Slam, for some reason. In Juliet, Naked, we have Annie and Duncan,a couple who have been together for years and think they love each other. But Duncan also has this pathological "infatuation" with Tucker Crowe - a reclusive musician who has been out of the music scene for nigh in ten years -, that seems to always take precedence over Annie. At the beginning on the book, Annie and Duncan are actually on a Tucker Crowe pilgrimage; visiting all the places that had some significance to the songs from Crowe's disks.

Then, when they get back to England, Duncan gets sent a cd, which has yet to be released and is titled Juliet, Naked, as it features acoustic demos of all the songs on Tucker Crowe's last (and greatest) album. In a conflict of opinions, Annie and Duncan grow further apart and Annie starts a correspondence with Tucker, through a string of bizzare events! And that's where I am going to stop, because if I go on, I'll just summarise the whole book for you!

In Juliet, Naked, we have a variety of different characters. First, we have Annie. Annie is a lovely, if slightly timid (in the beginning) woman, who has become comfortable in the knowledge that she has someone there for her, despite the fact that that someone isn't really there for her. But she starts seeing things more clearly and realises that what she has with Duncan doesn't really mean anything and that she has - essentially - wasted her best years on him. Duncan was a complete and utter idiot. He had his head in cloud-cuckoo-land, was - at best - just passively interested in what Annie was doing and was a firm believer that she could not have an opinion about Tucker Crowe's music; only the best of them, those names Crewe-ologists, had the right (as well as the in-depth knowledge) to do such a thing. Tucker Crowe was another lovely character; it was obvious he had his issues (and was doing a pretty good job of avoiding them), but you couldn't really help but like him. And then there was Jackson! At times, I felt a little sorry for him, but he was such a cute little boy!

The focus of this book is how relationships work (or don't work). There are prime examples of what NOT to do to make a relationship work and other examples of what to do so as to say that you tried, but it just didn't work out in the end (or you have yet to see what will come of it). Nick Hornby has managed to create yet another memorable male character in the form of Duncan; though he will not stay in your mind for how adorable he may sound, but for how idiotic and blind he really is (and actually reaches the point of not recognising what he's lost even when he has lost it). It takes a lot of skill to do that.

Rating: 6/10


Author:
You can find out more about Nick Hornby and his books at the end of my review of High Fidelity.


Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challnge 2011, British Books Challenge 2011

Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho

Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho
First published by HarperCollins in 1999 (this edition by HarperCollins in 2009)


Description (from Goodreads)

Twenty-three-year-old Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for. She goes to popular night spots, dates attractive men, and has a caring family. Yet something is lacking in her life. So on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die.After she awakens from an overdose, Veronika finds she has only days to live. The story follows Veronika through those intense days as, to her own surprise, she finds herself drawn into the enclosed world of the local hospital she is staying in. In this heightened state she experiences things she has never allowed herself to feel: hatred, fear, curiosity, love, and sexual awakening. Gradually she discovers that every second of her existence is a choice between living and dying. Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die, based on his own moving personal experience, is about people who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. It is about madness and the need to find an alternative way of living for people who face prejudices because they think in a different way. InVeronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho invites the reader to discover the world that lies outside the routine and addresses the fundamental question asked by millions: what am I doing here today?" and "why do I go on living?"

My thoughts
Veronika Decides To Die is the first book by Paulo Coelho that I have ever read. Though we have had a number of his books in our house for ages (my brother went through a Coelho phase a few years ago), I had never really felt the urge to read one of them. Until I decided it was finally the time to give one of them a try. Even though Paulo Coelho is more well known for his book "The Alchemist", it was VDTD that I decided to try first, because I rather liked the sound of the story.

At the beginning of this book, Veronika attempts to kill herself with an overdose of pills. It's not that she is unhappy; it's that she's not really happy that leads her to make that decision. That she doesn't really have anything worth living for; that her life is devoid of meaning. She just did the same thing every day, that she just reached that point where she knew exactly where she would be at what time the next day. No deviation from the norm. But Veronika does not die. Instead when she wakes up, she finds herself in a mental hospital, the infamous "Villette", where she is told that the pills she overdosed on caused very serious damage to her heart and that she probably would only live for a week at most.

At the beginning of that week, Veronika just feels as if she has been cheated. She wanted to die, but was unsuccessful in the attempt. She doesn't like the fact that she doesn't get the chance to decide when she dies (like she did with her suicide attempt); that her heart will just fail her at any time. After a couple of days of not wanting to accept the fact that she is not dead, she starts associating with the other "tenants" of Villete. Each one of them has their own story of how they ended up there and each one of them influences Veronika in their own way.

Though Veronika Decides To Die was a great story, I didn't find myself completely swept away by it. A lot of my friends read Coelho when I was still in school and they all thought it was weird that I hadn't tried reading one of his books. Now that I have, I do recognise the appeal, but not so much as to say "Now, why didn't I read this years ago?". I did like his style of writing, so I am definitely going to be reading something else by Coelho (after all, we do have quite a few of his books!) I really liked how he dealed with the psychological aspect of the whole story and I liked his choice of characters. Each one of them brought his/her own to the story: craziness (from somewhere you don't expect), disappointment, hope, even love.

And, to end this review, a quote that I loved:

“Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.” 

Rating: 7/10

Author:

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian author, born in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro. He worked as a theatre director, an actor, a lyricist and a journalist, before finally becoming an author. He has written many books which have been translated into many languages. Some of those include The Alchemist, Brida, The Devil and Miss Prym, The Witch of Portobello and, his latest, The Winner Stands Alone.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

String Bridge Blog Tour: Review of String Bridge by Jessica Bell

So, I am back!! At long last! Had quite a bit of downtime, due to moving house (and having internet reconnection problems for nearly two weeks), but now everything is back to normal!

Today I am participating in a blog tour for Jessica Bell's debut book, String Bridge.


String Bridge by Jessica Bell
First published by Lucky Press, LLC in 2011 (this edition was an ARC provided by the author)

Description (from Goodreads)

Greek cuisine, smog and domestic drudgery was not the life Australian musician, Melody, was expecting when she married a Greek music promoter and settled in Athens, Greece. Keen to play in her new shoes, though, Melody trades her guitar for a 'proper' career and her music for motherhood. That is, until she can bear it no longer and plots a return to the stage--and the person she used to be. However, the obstacles she faces along the way are nothing compared to the tragedy that awaits ...

My thoughts
String Bridge tells the story of Melody, an Australian musician, who came to Greece to sing and ended up getting married to a Greek music promoter, Alex. But life in Athens is not what she expected it to be. She is not doing any gigs, but instead has sort-of settled into the roles of businesswoman, mother and wife. Over the years, she has come to miss that feeling she got when she was creating and performing and it has instead been substituted by the dreary monotone of doing the same - unenjoyable - thing, day after day. Her relationship with Alex seems to have lost its spark, with Alex not wanting Melody to have anything to do with performing music of her own and Melody having that nagging feeling that Alex may be cheating on her.

In this book, we get to see how Melody deals with all these things that seem to have come upon her. And the way with which she does that is realistic. During the course of the book, Melody encounters the everyday, small scale problems everyone has to deal with, but she also comes to deal with other, much bigger events. There was one in particular that I found to be so devastating, I was actually wondering at the time: "Oh, Jessica, how could you have done this??".

As a character, I couldn't always sympathise with Melody, because I did feel she overreacted a few times. I suppose it's just a different kind of temperament, that I am just not accustomed to. But she was real, strong, not afraid to chase after her dreams. Alex, on the other hand, took a bit of getting used to. His attitude changed considerably in different parts of the book, but that didn't make him a bad character; just one who seemed to have made some not necessarily wrong, but rather misguided choices.

All in all, String Bridge is one of those books that is not all that easy to put down. While I was reading it, I just had to keep going just to find out what the author had prepared for the characters next. Jessica Bell's writing is very good and rather lyrical, but it all fit together with Melody's musical personality! And seeing as Jessica is just as talented as her character, there is also an soundtrack to accompany the book, entitled "Melody Hill - On The Other Side", links to which you can find below.

Rating: 7/10


Author:
Jessica Bell is a literary women's fiction author, poet and singer/songwriter who grew up in Melbourne, Australia, to two gothic rock musicians who had successful independent careers during the '80s and early '90s.

She spent much of her childhood travelling to and from Australia to Europe, experiencing two entirely different worlds, yet feeling equally at home in both environments. She currently lives in Athens, Greece and works as a freelance writer/editor for English Language Teaching publishers worldwide, such as HarperCollins, Pearson Education and Macmillan Education.

In addition to String Bridge, Jessica has published a book of poetry called Twisted Velvet Chains. A full list of poems and short stories published in various anthologies and literary magazines can be found under Published Works & Awards, on her website.

From September 2012 Jessica will be hosting the Homeric Writers' Retreat & Workshop on the Greek island of Ithaca, home of Odysseus.




And now, for all the links!

Purchase links:

eBook

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/String-Bridge-ebook/dp/B005Y48DF6/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319369262&sr=1-1

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/String-Bridge-ebook/dp/B005Y48DF6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319370801&sr=8-1

Paperback

Amazon.com: (Coming soon)

Amazon UK: (Coming soon)

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/string-bridge-jessica-bell/1030101696

Soundtrack

iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=465313522

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Melody-Hill-Other-Side/dp/B005P7ARNS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317118328&sr=8-1

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Melody-Hill-Other-Side/dp/B005P7G02A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317118484&sr=8-1

Other links

String Bridge Website: http://www.stringbridge.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11502954-string-bridge

String Bridge Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv-hRMA0kqQ
String Bridge Merchandise: http://www.cafepress.com/janicephelps/8155170
Website: http://www.jessicacbell.com/
Blog: http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/author.jessica.bell
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MsBessieBell
Retreat & workshop site: http://hwrw.blogspot.com/

(Disclaimer: Anything stated in this review reflects my personal opinion of the book. Other than receiving a copy of the book for review purposes, I have not been compensated in any other way for what I have said.)

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
First published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in 2010 (this edition by Razorbill in 2010)

Book #2 in the Caster Chronicles
(My review of Beautiful Creatures - Book #1)

Description (from Goodreads)

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen. 
Sometimes life-ending. 
Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

My thoughts
When I spotted a copy of this one in a charity shop, I just had to buy it! I had really, really enjoyed reading Beautiful Creatures and I was excited at the prospect of reading the second book in the series. And for £1.99??? I just couldn't resist.

As this is the second book in the series, I will probably be mentioning stuff from the previous book, so if you haven't read it but are planning to, just proceed at your own risk. (There, you've been warned.) (I'll still try to be vague, though!)

Beautiful Darkness was every bit as good as Beautiful Creatures. When Beautiful Creatures finished, we were left with Lena in a bit of an inbetween state and with quite a bit of woe and sorrow going around because of the death of one of the "main" secondary characters. In this second book, things take on a completely different turn. Lena is becoming increasingly distant and hanging out with the "wrong" crowd. Ethan knows she is trying to find a way to cope with everything, but he is rather sad that she is choosing to distance herself from him in the process, knowing full well that she is also doing it to protect him from her. There is also the matter of Ethan finding out that he is more than he thought he was; that he really does play an important part in what is going on with Lena and not just in the way that he thought he did.

Link plays a much larger part in this book than he did in the previous one. It doesn't feel as if he is acting like a substitute for Lena, because he was an important character in the first book. It's just like any normal situation. When a boy (ie Ethan) "stops" having a girlfriend, he hangs out more with his friends (ie Link). We also have the addition of a few new characters. First, we have Liv, who came from the UK to Gatlin to work with Aunt Marian and who also knows more about the Caster World than she lets on. Then, we have John Breed, one of the "wrong" crowd Lena is hanging out with. But there is a bit of a problem with John Breed. We have no idea where he came from, what he is, what his intentions are. And also, we get to see a completely different Ridley. Remember the one who caused a lot of the problems in the first book? Yes, her. All pretty mysterious.

Beautiful Darkness has some pretty surprising revelations that keep up the interest in lieu of the third book in the series, Beautiful Chaos, which only just came out in October. Which I definitely will be buying!

All in all, Beautiful Darkness was neither better nor worse than Beautiful Darkness. I found each one of them as enjoyable as the other, a fact I was very glad of, because sometimes, second books aren't as good as the first ones. But, seriously, this series is definitely one to look out for. It's very well written and it also has a male narrator!! (Rather refreshing after all those female narrators!)

Rating: 8/10


Authors
You can find out more about Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl at the end of my post about Beautiful Creatures!


Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011, 2nd In A Series Challenge

One Day by David Nicholls

One Day by David Nicholls
First published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2009 (this edition by Hodder Paperbacks in 2010)

Description (from Goodreads)

'I can imagine you at forty,' she said, a hint of malice in her voice. 'I can picture it right now.' He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on then.' 15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY. 

My thoughts
One Day was a book that I had been seeing around quite a lot, especially since the trailer for the film (starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess) came out. I had seen it in my local bookshop a couple of times, but it always disappeared before I got a chance to buy it for myself. Sometime later, I was talking to my Grandma and the subject of books and my blog came up. She said that she had a book that is very popular, but which she read and pretty much hated. And then she said the book was called One Day.

So, you can see that when I got round to reading it myself, I was preparing for the worst. My Grandma has quite good taste in books (though not always), and it was one of the few times that she has expressed strong (bad) feelings about a book to me. But I still wanted to try and read it for myself and it sounded like a nice book to read on the beach, so I did.

The story is told in a rather different way. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the 15th of July 1988, the night of their graduation. Each chapter in the book is focused on events on or surrounding the 15th of July in later years. So, essentially, you get to see one day of every year in the lives of Emma and Dexter over the span of 20 years.

The book started off as rather promising. Both Emma and Dexter were perfectly likeable (Emma a little more so) and the story was progressing in a nice way. But then something happened that caused Dexter to act like a major idiot and resulted in my not liking him at all. And wondering why Emma puts up with all that idiocy (and other nice words I'm not going to mention). Emma was likeable throughout the novel; she has a lovely personality, is genuinely nice and sweet and definitely brings out the best in Dexter. Dexter is mostly an obnoxious, arrogant and supremely irritating boy (and, yes, I do mean boy, as he pointedly refuses to grow up for the greater part of the book) and it because of him that I ended up not enjoying the novel as much as I hoped to.

One Day is by no means a bad book. It is a lovely love story and it is told in a rather different, interesting way. The fact that the author chooses one day in each year to tell you about all things Emma and Dexter works very well and, essentially, allowed him to span the story over so many years, without it getting too tiring (seeing as there wasn't much space to put unnecessary information in). And then, there was that ending. I was shocked; I was appalled; I am still trying to figure out what on EARTH possessed the author to finish the book like that. You'll know what I mean when you read it.

Rating: 6/10


Author:
David Nicholls is a British author, screenwriter and actor. He studied English Literature and Drama at the University of Bristol. After he graduated, he won a scholarship to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. Upon returning to the UK in 1991, he worked as an actor, as well as a screenwriter and script-editor. Other books by David Nicholls:

Starter for Ten   |   The Understudy

You can find out more about David Nicholls from his official website.


Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011, British Books Challenge 2011

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black
First published by St. Martin's Griffin in 2010 (this edition by Pan Macmillan in 2010)

Book #1 in the Faeriewalker series


Description (from Goodreads)

Dana Hathaway doesn’t know it yet, but she’s in big trouble.  When her alcoholic mom shows up at her voice recital drunk, again, Dana decides she’s had enough and runs away to find her mysterious father in Avalon: the only place on Earth where the regular, everyday world and the captivating, magical world of Faerie intersect. But from the moment Dana sets foot in Avalon, everything goes wrong, for it turns out she isn't just an ordinary teenage girl—she's a Faeriewalker, a rare individual who can travel between both worlds, and the only person who can bring magic into the human world and technology into Faerie.
Soon, Dana finds herself tangled up in a cutthroat game of Fae politics. Someone's trying to kill her, and everyone seems to want something from her, from her newfound friends and family to Ethan, the hot Fae guy Dana figures she’ll never have a chance with… until she does.  Caught between two worlds, Dana isn’t sure where she’ll ever fit in and who can be trusted, not to mention if her world will ever be normal again…

My thoughts
Glimmerglass is the story of Dana, a young girl who lives with her alcoholic mother and has never had any contact with her father. One day things with her mother go too far and she makes the decision to leave her home and go to live with her father in Avalon: the only place on earth where faeries and humans co-exist. Her arrival in Avalon isn't what she expected and she soon finds out that a) her father is a pretty important man in Avalon and b) she is a Faeriewalker, an individual who can travel between both world and the only person who can bring technology to Faerie and magic into the human world.

Glimmerglass is the 4th faerie book I've read this year and I was very glad of the fact that it differed significantly from the others I've read (Wings by Aprilynne Pike, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr and The Iron King by Julie Kagawa). They all follow the same basic outline (with Seelie and Unseelie courts), but each one of them has very distinctive features that set it apart from the other faerie books. (I'm always referring to the ones I have read myself) In Glimmerglass, there is a strong focus on politics. Dana's father and aunt are directly involved and Dana herself - because of the revelation of her status as a Faeriewalker - is thought to be a valuable asset for each and every one of the political big-wigs.

Dana, as a character, was ok. It is obvious in the beginning of the story that she is just plain fed up of "clearing up" after her mother (which is why she decides to up and leave), but then, as the story goes on, and she discovers more and more about her new friends, her father and Avalon, she becomes confused, defensive and distrustful. She is headstrong and tries to make decisions for herself, and while I can't say I loved her, she didn't come off as too annoying.

I was really appalled by the "parent situation" in this book, too. Why is it that in every other young adult book the protagonist has to come from a broken/nonexistent/noncaring family??? Her mother's behaviour throughout the book was pretty bad and irritating and her father wasn't so great (but without being too bad either). As for the boyfriend situation, I have to admit that I didn't really like Ethan. I much preferred a certain other person who appears later on in the book! (If you've read the book, you know who I'm talking about!)

Glimmerglass is a book that is definitely worth reading, if you are in the mood for something fairy-like, but with a splash of something else too. The characters are well developed, the storytelling is good and the plot while, in my opinion, isn't very fast paced, it is definitely engaging and appealing enough. I, for one, will definitely be reading the next books in the series.

Rating: 7/10


Author
Jenna Black has a BA in Physical Anthropology and French from Duke University. Initially, she wanted to be a primatologist, but then found out that primates spend most of their time doing ... not much! She has published quite a few books, including the next two in the Faeriewalker series.

Shadowspell (Faeriewalker #2)  |  Dark Descendant (Descendants #1)  |  The Devil Inside (Morgan Kingsley #1)

You can find out more about Jenna Black and her books from her official website!

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011, 1st In A Series Challenge 

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
First published by Simon & Schuster BFYR in 2011 (this edition by Simon & Schuster in 2011)

Description (from Goodreads)

Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew--just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn't seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she's coming to terms with her father's death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road--diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards--this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.

My thoughts

I really don't know where to start talking about Amy & Roger's Epic Detour is just that; epic! I enjoyed it so, so much that I started getting sad towards the end of the book, because then the characters would be gone and I would never be able to read about them again. That is sometimes the pity with stand-alone novels. But it's always nice to read a stand-alone novel, as so many books nowadays - especially new books, that are just being written now - seem to come out in trilogies or even multi(morethan3)book series.

In this book, we follow Roger and Amy while they travel through America (from the West Coast to the East Coast) in Amy's car. Amy is supposed to be driving her Mum's car from California to Connecticut, but she refuses to do the actual driving, because of the accident in which dad died. So, Amy's mum manages to rope Roger (the son of an old friend) into it, who is also supposed to be travelling east at the same time. Amy and Roger are supposed to be following a rather tight driving plan (courtesy of Amy's mother). But, of course, they decide to deviate from it and follow their own course on a once-in-a-lifetime trip across the United States.

When we first meet Amy in this book, we can see that she has sort-of "put her life on pause". She's avoiding her best friend and she is living in her house all by herself, while also trying to make herself scarce while the real estate person shows potential buyers around. As the story begins, Amy has just finished school and is getting ready to join her mum in Connecticut (where her mother has decided to have a fresh start). She only gets to meet Roger for the first time (after many, many years) on the day they're starting their trip across America, which is not something she's really looking forward to (Roger or the trip).

One of my favourite things about this book is the way Amy and Roger interact with other, as well as the way each of them grows up a little during this short trip. Amy is reluctant to get to know Roger at first, until she realises what a lovely, down to earth guy he is. She starts off by being confined in a small space (that she has created for herself), but Roger's being there is pivotal in helping her escape from her self-imposed prison. Though Amy is the one with the major "baggage" which she has to face (a recently deceased father and a brother who used to be as high as a kite and is now in rehab), Roger has some growing up to do, too.

Another amazing thing about this book - and I admire Morgan Matson for taking all the time to do it - were the playlists Amy and Roger made during their trip. There is a huge variety of songs on those playlists and it's obvious that the author has put great thought into putting them together. I haven't tried to listen to a whole playlist yet, but I have listened to certain songs and they do seem to fit in with the whole road-trip feel!

All in all, Amy and Roger's Epic Detour is a book you must definitely read! I'm pretty sure that fans of contemporary fiction are going to love it, but I also think that it will definitely appeal to people who are looking for something enjoyable, but, at the same time, not all that fluffy.

And, oh my gosh, but isn't that cover just so, so pretty?? (end of gushing)

Rating: 10/10 (because it is one of my favourite contemporaries of the year!)


Author
Morgan Matson has an MFA in Writing for Children from New School. She has been on three cross-America road-trips (!!!) and currently lives in LA. Amy and Roger's Epic Detour is her first book. Her second book, Second Chance Summer, is expected to be published in May 2012. You can check her website out HERE.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth
First published by Katherine B. Tegen Books in 2011 (this edition by HarperCollins Children's Books in 2011)

Book #1 in the Divergent trilogy

Description (from Goodreads)

Beatrice "Tris" Prior has reached the fateful age of sixteen, the stage at which teenagers in Veronica Roth's dystopian Chicago must select which of five factions to join for life. Each faction represents a virtue: Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity, and Erudite. To the surprise of herself and her selfless Abnegation family, she chooses Dauntless, the path of courage. Her choice exposes her to the demanding, violent initiation rites of this group, but it also threatens to expose a personal secret that could place in mortal danger. Veronica Roth's young adult Divergent trilogy launches with a captivating adventure about love and loyalty playing out under most extreme circumstances.

My thoughts
The time has come for me to finally write my review of the book that is possibly the "talk of the year"! (Concerning debut authors) Most of you, even if you haven't read the book yet, have probably seen it everywhere around the blogosphere. The hype that was going on about this book, even from when I had just started blogging and everyone I was starting to follow back then was getting ARCs of this book, Divergent, and then was gushing about it incessantly, telling everyone again and again how good this book is.

All of that hype let me to the decision to actually get the book and see for myself. And the same hype was what kept me from reading for such a long time after buying it. I kept hearing that Divergent is the new Hunger Games a lot and I think the fact that I only discovered The Hunger Games this year (and loved it) made me a little apprehensive about reading it. But I finally got round to reading it.

Divergent is set in a futuristic Chicago. There, all people have been divided into one of five factions, depending on each person's most prominent characteristic. All children are born into the faction that their parents belong to and after they turn sixteen, they are subjected to an "aptitude test" and are free to choose the faction they want to belong to. The main character in this book, Tris, has grown up as part of Abnegation and is now ready to choose the faction which she believes best characterises her. Her choice of Dauntless is surprising both to her and her family and her initiation to the Dauntless faction may be more than she bargained for. But it's what she discovers about herself during her Dauntless initiation that is likely to cause her the most danger.

The book really is beautifully written. Veronica Roth has a way with words that makes you want to keep reading in order to find out what exactly is going to happen to Tris next. She keeps you "on the edge of your seat" (so to speak). I don't know why, but I always find it astounding when (debut) authors manage to do that with their first book. It also makes me a much more severe critic for their next books, as they themselves have set the bar very high. I found the characters to be excellently developed and to have many hidden depths (that actually remained hidden until the last 100 pages of the book). The "unveiling" of those depths were absolutely essential to the continuation of the plot. I really enjoyed having Tris as a main character. She is not sure of what she wants in the beginning of the novel, but seems to mature substantially while she is undergoing the Dauntless initiation process; she finds out more about herself. But the character who steals the show (in my opinion) is Four. Though I hated the name from the first time we meet him in the novel, he really is a great character. You can tell there is something there (hidden depths, as well as attraction to Tris), but the refreshing fact is that he doesn't mollycoddle her or favour her in any way. He pushes Tris to her limits, because he knows she is strong and that she can take it(even though she doesn't know it herself).

Divergent definitely deserves all the hype it has been getting. I am not one for comparing books while I am reading them, but even in retrospect, Divergent did not strike me as "the next Hunger Games", as it is being labelled. Divergent is a story in its own right, despite the fact that it may belong to the same genre as The Hunger Games. I enjoyed reading them both for different reasons and in all honesty, did not find that many similarities. Though, if people mean that it's going to be the next "big phenomenon" in YA dystopian literature (just like The Hunger Games was a few years ago), then ok!

Rating: 10/10

Author:
Veronica Roth was born in August 1988 (oh my gosh, she's only a year older than me!) in Chicago and studied creative writing at Northwestern University. Divergent is her first book. The second book in the Divergent trilogy, Insurgent, will be coming out in May 2012. And here is the pretty cover:

You can find out more about Veronica Roth by following her blog.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011, 1st In A Series Challenge, Dystopian Challenge

Spellbound by Cara Lynn Shultz

Spellbound by Cara Lynn Shultz
First published by Harlequin Teen in 2011 (this edition by Harlequin Teen in 2011)

Book #1 in the Spellbound series

Description (from Goodreads)

What's a girl to do when meeting The One means she's cursed to die a horrible death?                                              Life hasn't been easy on sixteen-year-old Emma Connor, so a new start in New York may be just the change she needs. But the posh Upper East Side prep school she has to attend? Not so much. Friendly faces are few and far between, except for one that she's irresistibly drawn to—Brendan Salinger, the guy with the rock-star good looks and the richest kid in school, who might just be her very own white knight.
But even when Brendan inexplicably turns cold, Emma can't stop staring. Ever since she laid eyes on him, strange things have been happening. Streetlamps go out wherever she walks, and Emma's been having the oddest dreams: visions of herself in past lives—visions that warn her to stay away from Brendan. Or else.

My thoughts
Spellbound was a book that I had seen around quite a bit on different blogs, but not one which I felt I had to read sometime (and the sooner that time came the better). I am sure that, had I not won this book in a giveaway, I would not have bought it for myself in the near future, as the whole story did not sound so original or so compelling. That blurb up there, which is the one I had read before I got my hands on a copy of this book, just makes it sound like yet another of those YA books where the main character fancies a boy who is the bad guy and ignores her and then things start going weird.

To be honest, the book isn't much more than that. But I did find myself enjoying Spellbound much more than I thought I would. Emma is a girl who has been through much in her rather short life: she has lost her mother and her twin brother and was made to live with her irresponsible stepfather for some time, until she finally decided to go and live with her aunt in New York City. There she attends a very high class private school and on her first day there, she manages to make an enemy. (Yep, pretty typical.) And she also manages to find a guy that she is "irresistably drawn to". (Yep, again, pretty typical.) And that, by some peculiar (or not) coincidence, they happen to be "soulmates". (... you know)

So, all in all, the storyline is not what you might call very original. Just from the blurb alone, this is not a book I think would cause someone to want to read it straight away, because of the fact that it follows a pretty predictable storyline. But, as I said before, I enjoyed Spellbound more than I thought I would, mainly because of the fact that the writing was rather good. It flowed naturally and, while I was reading it, did not make me feel as if I were reading the same old story, yet another time. What I enjoyed the most was the story behind the story. (I don't want to say more than that, so that I don't spoil the book) Suffice to say, that the explanation given for the "soulmate" theory, while a little cheesy, was sweet and I enjoyed reading the parts where it was explained.

The characters themselves were okay (what I can remember of them, at least). Emma, the main character, though she came from a rather tough background was not very much of a whinge-y person (at least to me) and I appreciated that. As for Brendan, he was rather cool, in an aloof, mind-your-own-business kind-of way and though in the beginning I was just okay with him, I ended up rather liking him. The whole romance between the two of them did feel a tad too instant-romance-y, but at least it wasn't an all-consuming type of romance (like the one that has come to get on my nerves a little in Alyson Noel's Immortals series). One of my favourite characters was Angelique, the school weird-witch. She really is just great.

To sum up, Spellbound is a book worth reading, if you feel that you're not sure about it (as I was). It's not THE most original thing in the world, but it is interesting and well written and will definitely account for some hours/days of enjoyable reading.

Rating: 6/10 (just because it's not a very original plot)

Author:
Cara Lynn Shultz obtained a degree from Fordham University and currently works as a senior editor at People.com. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines, including Teen People, InStyle and Us Weekly. Spellbound is her first novel and the sequel to it, Spellcaster, will be out in March 2012. You can keep up with her updates by following her blog.


Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011, 1st In A Series Challenge 2011

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
First published by Little, Brown and Company in 2005 (this edition by Sphere in 2010)

Description (from Goodreads)

Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history. 
In those few quiet moments, she unwittingly assumes a quest she will discover is her birthright - a hunt for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the Dracula myth. Deciphering obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions, and evading terrifying adversaries, one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. 
Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions - a captivating tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful - and utterly unforgettable.

My thoughts
Before deciding to finally read this book, The Historian had been sitting on my bookshelves for a little longer than it should have. I did have a rather good excuse for that; its size. The Historian is over 700 pages long and it has tiny (and I do mean tiny) print. So, when it came round to me choosing the next book I wanted to read, I always ended up skipping it.

I am going to be completely honest here by saying that, though the book was great and I really enjoyed reading it, I felt like it could have been a little shorter. There were parts of it that just seemed to go on and on without really adding that much more new information to the story or helping much in the character building. But, despite that "slight" problem, The Historian really is an excellent book. It has a great narrator, great characters, lots of historical facts (if you are into that kind of stuff) and some weird things going on. What is weird about this book is that I am pretty sure the daughter (a young girl and the narrator of our story) is - as far as I noticed - never actually named. And I just realised this now, when I sat down to write up the review.

The story itself focuses on the legend of Vlad Dracula. Vlad Dracula is actually a person who existed historically, and who was evil and a little perverted. He ruled the region of Wallachia (in what is now part of Romania) and is also known by his other name, Vlad the Impaler, because of the fact that he used to impale his enemies on great poles (it was his favourite method of execution). The book contains a large number of facts about the mythology surrounding Vlad Dracula, particularly the mythology that also surrounds the inspiration of Bram Stocker's classic book, Dracula.

The story progresses through various methods. The main part of the book is about Paul and Helen's (who are closely related to the narrator) journey to find out the truth about some weird and unexplained events that seem to bring lots of people from rather different backgrounds together. Everything starts off when our narrator is in her teens and finds an ancient book on her father's bookshelves. She then proceeds to ask him about it and he slowly starts telling her a story, which began even before she was born. Later on in the book,  the author used other meant to keep on telling the story of the past (other than the father - Paul - 's storytelling), with just a few paragraphs on what is happening in the present time. (It might sound confusing, but it's not, really)

What I found to be a bit of a problem with this book was the fact that too big a part of it seemed to take part in the past. The vast majority of the book was taken over by the father's storytelling (as well as by the other devices the author uses to bring the past into the present), with only a limited number of pages left over for the narration of what is happening in the present. Sometimes, those "past" parts seemed to go on for too long (without much of a "present" break) and I was a little put out by the fact that we didn't get to focus on the actual narrator as much. She was mainly used as a device to introduce the "past" and didn't seem to have as much of an active role as I would have liked. More specifically, her interactions with Bailey were so refreshing and lovely, that I was a little sad that there weren't more of them in the story.

All in all, though it is a rather hefty book, The Historian is a worthwhile read. It is enjoyable and very informative (without becoming too heavy on information). Elizabeth Kostova has a wonderful way of writing and it is obvious that she has spent a large amount of time researching historical information to write this book. I will definitely be looking out for more of her books in the future.

Rating: 8/10


Author:
Elizabeth Kostova is an American author. She holds a degree from Yale University, as well as an MFA from the University of Michigan. The Historian was her first novel and was published in 2005. She has since published a second book, called The Swan Thieves.

You can find out more about Elizabeth Kostova and her books from her official website.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Fake Me A Match by Lauren Barnholdt

Fake Me A Match by Lauren Barnholdt
Expected publication in October 2011 by Aladdin (this edition is an e-Galley, courtesy of the S&S Galley Grab programme)


Description (from Goodreads)

Avery LaDuke is in the market for a new best friend. Her former BFF, Sophie Burns, dumped her to hang out with the popular crowd at school. But the good news Avery's getting a new sister who's bound to be her new BFF too! Blake is her age and she's from New York. How cool is that? But things don't go quite as smoothly as Avery hoped. And what's with Blake becoming BFFs with Sophie? Huh?? That wasn’t supposed to happen!When Avery gets put in charge of the eighth grade charity project, an on-line matchmaking service, she thinks she can use this project to get Blake back on her side. She decides to fix the matches so that Blake gets matched with Sam, the most popular boy in school, but when the matches come out something has gone seriously wrong! Not only is Avery matched with Sam, but the class advisor knows that someone tampered with the program. On top of that, Avery discovers that she actually kind of, sort of, likes Sam . . . and he likes her back. Torn between the guy she likes and her sister/best friend, Avery is left wondering: is there any possible way she can keep them both?

My thoughts
Fake Me A Match is a cute little book. And it's the first book I've read in ages that has that rather large font size that you get in children's books! Maybe because this is a children's book! Anyways, I am going off topic here.

I chose to read this book not because I had really been wanting to read it, but because I was participating in a readathon (and I was also reading The Historian at the time), so I decided that something short, cute and easy to read was just the thing to refresh my mind after too much historical information about Dracula,

Fake Me A Match is the story of Avery. Avery lives with her  mum, who is going to get married to a guy, who also has a daughter, Blake. So Avery is absolutely sure that she and Blake will end up being BFFs. But then Blake starts to get chummy with Avery's ex-BFF, Sophie, and she doesn't know what she's doing wrong. Avery is also on the student council and is put in charge of the eighth grade charity project, where they're going to raise money by playing matchmaker. Things start to get complicated when Avery, knowing that Blake fancies Sam, decides to tamper with the "matchmaking programme" and set the two of them up. But, of course, things go wrong and Avery ends up pairing herself with Sam. And then she realises that she actually likes Sam and that Sam also likes her back. It does get a little complicated, doesn't it??

This is a book that is aimed at younger readers and it shows. The language isn't dumbed down in any way, but it is a lot simple. Lauren Barnholdt really has done an excellent job of getting into the young teenager's mind and depicts their mannerisms, thoughts and worries in a lovely and very sweet way. Character development is okay, despite the fact that I really could not stand Avery. To me, she came of as a bit of a whiny little girl who is overenthusiastic about everything and ended up getting on my nerves. As for Blake, she wasn't really very nice for the most part of the book. Sam, on the other hand, was a lovely character. We first meet him through Avery's preconceptions about him, but through their charity project and their dog-training sessions, we get to see what he's really like. I love it when the boy in the book is a good boy!

All in all, Fake Me A Match is a great book for younger readers, but might not be very appealing to older ones. I suppose that what this book really is is a light fluffy read (just like chick lit) for young teenagers. Definitely a book to check out if you like that kind of thing! (I am definitely going to try reading one of her titles for older readers, because I really liked her writing style!)

Rating: 6/10 (I can't give it a higher rating because I just liked it - I didn't love it - but it is still a very good read)

Author:
Lauren Barnholdt seems to be a very secretive person and I can't find anything to write here. Some of her books include:

Two Way Street   |   Aces Up

The Witches of Santa Anna

You can find out more about her books from her Goodreads page as well as from her website. She also has a blog but it hasn't been updated in a while now.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Fury by Elizabeth Miles

Fury by Elizabeth Miles
First published by Simon Pulse in 2011 (this edition is an e-Galley, courtesy of the S&S Galley Grab programme)


Book #1 in The Fury Trilogy


Description (from Goodreads)

Sometimes sorry isn't enough....                                It’s winter break in Ascension, Maine. The snow is falling and everything looks pristine and peaceful. But not all is as it seems...
Between cozy traditions and parties with her friends, Emily loves the holidays. And this year’s even better--the guy she’s been into for months is finally noticing her. But Em knows if she starts things with him, there’s no turning back. Because his girlfriend is Em’s best friend.
On the other side of town, Chase is having problems of his own. The stress of his home life is starting to take its toll, and his social life is unraveling. But that’s nothing compared to what’s really haunting him. Chase has done something cruel...something the perfect guy he pretends to be would never do. And it’s only a matter of time before he’s exposed.
In Ascension, mistakes can be deadly. And three girls—three beautiful, mysterious girls—are here to choose who will pay.
Em and Chase have been chosen.

My thoughts
Before I got round to reading Fury, I remember that I used to see it everywhere for a while. Reviews, IMM posts (lots of IMM posts) etc. And then it was on Galley Grab. Since Galley Grab is pretty much the only way I can get to read books before their release that is available to people outside the UK and the US (along with NetGalley, of course), I grabbed it. And was I glad I did! (By the way, is it only me who didn't get a September Galley Grab email?)

Anyway, I had read a few reviews of Fury before I started reading it myself and their main characteristic was that they were very mixed. I tend to like it when reviews/ratings are mixed, because then I don't feel the pressure of having to like a certain book, or feeling as if I missed something when I didn't like a book that everyone seems to. In the case of Fury, I am very happy to say that I am on the side of the people who enjoyed it.

Fury is the story of a group of teenagers, with the main characters, according to the description, being Em and Chase. When I was reading the book, I was under the impression that Em was the main character... Things are definitely happening to Chase, too, but the focus wasn't on him enough to classify him as a main character (in my opinion).

The actual storyline itself rather surprised me. The title should have given me a clue as to what it was about, but never did I think of the Furies (Erinyes) of Greek Mythology. (It was pretty obvious, but I probably just couldn't see it.) The fact remains that weird things are happening in Em's hometown of Ascension, starting with a teenage girl who decided to try and end her life by jumping off a bridge and continuing with the appearance of three mysterious girls, who no-one knows where they came from. And they always seem to appear whenever something weird is actually happening; they're never too far away.

I found the writing in this book to be superb! The choice of words and the sentence building was so good, that I kept reading and reading and reading, without realising how many pages I had actually read, and I ended up finishing Fury in just a few hours. (Which is really good considering I was reading from my computer screen.) The characters were well developed, though not particularly nice. Each one of them, excepting a couple of "secondary characters", had some sort of irritating quality. Em, for example, was very selfish, a little immature and quite self-delusional, but, by the end, you could see that her heart was in the right place (most of the time).

Some of the things that happened in this book shocked me. In the sense that I really was not expecting them to happen. And that they were also rather sudden in happening, with limited build-up to the event. But I suppose that is what the author was trying to do; present us with events we didn't think would happen and shock us.

All in all, Fury is a book that I am definitely going to be buying when it comes out in paperback and one that I think is worth reading. If you want to look up some different opinions about this book, then just check its Goodreads page. Looking forward to reading the next two books in the trilogy!

Rating: 8/10


Author:
Elizabeth Miles grew up in a city/town not very far from New York City. She has a degree from Boston University and has worked ever since as a journalist for an alternative newsweekly. Fury is her first novel. You can find out more about Elizabeth Miles from her official website/blog.




Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011, 1st In A Series Challenge

Angle of Incidence by Christy Hayes

Angle of Incidence by Christy Hayes
First published as a Kindle ebook in 2011 (an electronic copy was provided from the author for review)


Description (from Goodreads)

Gwen Perry has the picture perfect life. Her Washington D.C. based photography business is booming, her husband's law career is lucrative, and after years of trying, they're only months away from the birth of their first child. 
While a nasty turn of fate leaves Gwen devastated, angry, and on the verge of depression, her husband Rob walks a dangerous tight rope. He's hiding something from Gwen that could destroy their marriage. But even the deepest secrets won't stay buried forever.
When Rob's past is revealed, Gwen agrees to join her college friend at the artists' retreat he's leading in Colorado despite the consequences to her marriage. But Rob's not the only one keeping secrets from the past and her trip down memory lane could burn the bridge leading her back home.

My thoughts
Angle of Incidence was a book that I wasn't sure what to expect of. The description was informative enough to make me want to read it, but not much more than that. So, when I started reading it, I was pleasantly surprised by both the story and character development, as well as the writing. I have read a few self-published books and what is most prominent about them was their rather obvious lack of proper revisions. While the writing was not perfect, it was definitely a lot better than other self published books I've read.


The story itself is good, despite the fact that it is about a pretty popular issue; marital problems. In this case, we have Gwen and Rob, a couple who have been together for years and they are - at the beginning of the novel - expecting their first child. But then, something happens and Gwen loses the baby, leading her to become a shadow of her former self, who can't even open up to her husband and share a little of her pain and anger. And as if losing a baby wasn't enough, new secrets begin to come to light, leaving Gwen betrayed and hurt, despite the fact that she also has secrets of her own she's never told anyone about.


The characters in this story were very well developed, despite the fact that sometimes what they said or did, did sound a little over the top. Gwen, for example, is an ok character. She has a good heart and is capable and strong, but her grief over her lost child sounded a little too over the top to me (I do not mean that losing a child should be easy to get over, just that the choice of words to describe what Gwen was going through at the time needn't have been so strong). Another thing that annoyed me a little about Gwen was the fact that she went on and on about how Rob betrayed her (through not telling her his secret), but then again, she hadn't told him hers. So it made her sound a little selfish and cruel and two-faced. Rob was a little better. He was trying to make the most of a bad situation foisted upon him and has no idea what to do to help his wife get out of the pit of despair and denial she has pushed herself into.


All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. One thing I especially liked in this book were the little photography related definitions at the beginning of each chapter, each one of which was chosen specifically for a certain chapter because of what was going on in it. I thought that was a lovely touch, especially since Gwen is a professional photographer. (Though having said that, I did notice that a few of them kept being repeated. Maybe it would have been better if each definition was only used once.)


Rating: 6/10


Author:
Christy Hayes is an American author from Atlanta, Georgia. She writes women's romantic fiction. She has been writing seriously since 2004 and made the decision to publish her novels independently in 2011. Other than Angle of Incidence, she has also written:

Heart of Glass   |   Shoe Strings

Misconception

You can find out more about Christy Hayes and her books from her official website.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011






(Disclaimer: Anything stated in this review reflects my personal opinion of the book. Other than receiving a copy of the book for review purposes, I have not been compensated in any other way for what I have said.)