Mercy Thompson fans who have been eagerly anticipating this book will love the complicated twists of the plot, and romance readers will absolutely adore Adam.
I may have mentioned (a few hundred times) that Patricia Briggs is one of my most recent author finds. Yes, I’m late to the Mercy Thompson party, but believe me, I’ve made up for lost time! At book seven—not counting the Alpha and Omega spin-off books—this series is just as exciting and perhaps even more romantic as when it all began.
The story starts off deceptively gently, with Mercy having some bonding time with her new stepdaughter, Jesse. When they’re involved in a car accident, Mercy is puzzled and then increasingly alarmed when she can’t get in touch with Adam or anyone else in the pack.
It turns out that Adam and most of the pack have been ambushed. Ben, who managed to escape, tells Mercy what happened, and Mercy has no choice but to tap every resource and contact she can draw on for help. This includes using Marsilia’s shiny new Mercedes AMG to transport a bleeding werewolf—and that’s just for starters.
Readers who love Mercy’s narrative voice won’t be disappointed with Frost Burned. The first part of the story is dominated by Mercy trying to work out what’s going on around her and making the best of a bad situation. Her choices between bad and worse provide fodder for snark as well as tension.
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A book to hand someone with the words, ‘Please enjoy’—something you can have fun with without having to think too much.
Ethan Wate was born and raised in the southern USA town of Gatlin, where people are very proud of their confederate history and nothing every changes. He longs to escape Gatlin and start a new life—until he meets Lena Duchannes. Lena has just moved back into town after living with her grandmother for many years. She is mysterious, beautiful and there’s something about her he can’t quite pinpoint. She’s also not like the rest of the bubble gum cheerleader crowd, which makes her an automatic candidate for outcast-dom. Ethan is drawn to Lena for reasons he can’t explain, and they fall in love—against strange supernatural odds.
I originally picked up this book because I found out it will be made into a movie with Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson. I then proceeded to read the entire series in about five days—I was so sucked in and captivated by the story I just had to know what happened next. The plot is fast paced, full of twists and way more interesting than Twilight. (There. I said it.) Lena is not a wimp, and although, in the second book ,she goes into a bit of a sad bitch mode reminiscent of New Moon—I stopped after that book, just so you know—she gets over it, moves on, and gets her shit back together. (Take that, Bella.)
But let’s get back to this book.
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A book for people who enjoy fairy tale retellings with a twist.
Sunday is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. In a large family she is much overlooked, and she spends her time writing stories, which have a tendency to come true. Sunday can only write about the past, because she’s afraid of what may come true if she writes about the future.
She meets an enchanted frog in the wood behind her house and begins to share her stories with him. She and the frog become fast friends, and one night, when she kisses him goodbye, he turns back into a man. Except he’s really the prince of the kingdom, and when she meets him, she doesn’t know who he is. How will he ever get her to fall in love again?
This story is more than it seems. Alethea Kontis builds a world where every fairy tale you’ve ever heard of exists and has been integrated to the story in such a way that even the characters themselves know about it. (Oh, it’s a talking frog. It must be enchanted. Or remember that girl who pricked herself on a needle? Well actually…) If it were not for the richness of the language and the way the stories are told by Sunday, the narrator, you could almost feel like you were gossiping with the neighbours about the girl down the road who got pricked by the spindle. I quite enjoyed Kontis’s fresh spin on fairy tales, where everyone is aware of what might happen and takes care to make sure it doesn’t…although that doesn’t always work either.
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A fresh, new series that will appeal to teenagers and adults alike. Also, killer nuns, historical intrigue and romance!
Ismae is the 17-year old daughter of Death. Rescued from her life and delivered to the Convent of St Mortain, she is trained to be an assassin. Her mission is to protect the Duchy of Brittany’s heir, Anne, from her many enemies. Ismae is sent to court to kill the traitor set on destroying Anne’s future but finds that all is not what it seems.
I loved this book. First of all, there are killer nuns. Ismae is rescued from her father (who was always pissed that death sired a child with his wife) and sent to the convent. She discovers a natural expertise in poisons and learns how to kill people with different weaponry. I love how the nuns have their own talents, and how their many weapons are hidden in what I feel are realistic ways under their clothing. (Anyone ever seen an action movie and wondered just where the women put those giant guns under their mini-skirts? (No, not that giant gun!))
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This book is heavy on the intrigue and light on the introspection, but there’s plenty of room for strong, independent female characters.
This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
Catherine lost her mother to cancer and her twin brother in an apparent suicide. When she visits the cliff where she last saw her twin, she’s compelled by a voice in her mind to jump.
So she does.
Catherine wakes up in a strange land in which she is apparently the long-lost Princess Khatrene and her brother, now called Mihale, is the ruling king of Ennae. Though she dies after her jump, Talis, her Guardian, saves her using his special brand of magic.
What follows is a kind of epic road trip interspersed with battles, pursuits, magical machinations and political intrigue. It’s not always easy to follow the plot. There are so many characters and strands that you need to be fully invested in the story to keep track of it all, and I admit that the story couldn’t always sustain my attention.
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The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa (The Blood of Eden, Book 1)
A compelling read, given Julie Kagawa’s brilliant writing and ability to create characters we can sympathise with, but it offers nothing new in terms of the vampire mythos.
Oh how I wanted so badly to LOVE this book! It had all the ingredients of a five-star read—most especially in today’s young adult (YA) market. Post-apocalyptic? Check. Vampires? Check. Did I hear you say, What about zombies? Check that, too (though they’re not named thus in the book, they are pretty much the mindless, walking dead with a one-track mind: to eat you).
Throw in a feisty katana-wielding female lead and a love interest worthy of being swooned at and it should have been a straightforward A+. Ach, but it pains me to admit that it falls short of being mind blowing.
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Twilight: The Graphic Novel (Volume 1) by Stephenie Meyer and Young Kim (Twilight Saga)
Twilight lends itself to the shoujo manga format much better than in prose or in film. Young Kim’s renditions of the characters are disarmingly gorgeous, but even they can’t redeem Stephenie Meyer’s story of destructive co-dependency. And then there’s the font.
Jen, graphic designer extraordinaire and pop culture aficionado, generously agreed to do a guest review of this graphic novel. You can read more of her writing at Evening Hour.
Ah, Twilight, the stuff that dreams are made on. It’s not every day that one book, whose very premise was born out of a dream—so its creator, Stephenie Meyer, says—can reduce the time-honoured traits of popular culture’s great vampires to glittering giftwrap in the sunlight. When Kat offered the comic for me to review, who was I to refuse the chance to return to all the loltastic awfulness that encompasses Twilight?
These days, comic book adaptations serve as extended editions in a sea of franchise fodder. Often poor and hurried productions, they’re an easy marketing tactic to gain revenue on the side and to appease the voracious and loyal consumer. For the disinclined readers among us, comics can be a great alternative to absorb a self-contained story without sifting through the boring bits, like watching the film version in one sitting.
Unfortunately, no fast-food serving of Twilight could possibly make me hungry for more.
Yet, despite the frequent jibes I make at the popular YA book, this first volume of the graphic novel is mostly successful.
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Children of Scarabaeus (Scarabaeus, Book 2)
Not quite as compelling as the first book and the romance is underdeveloped, but still a satisfying conclusion to the Scarabaeus duology.
When Edie is recaptured by the Crib, she discovers they’ve been grooming four Talasi children to become cyphertecks for her former mentor’s pet project, Project Ardra. Edie is torn between her freedom, her obligation to free Finn, her desire to save the children, and as she learns the motives behind Project Ardra, to find a way of preventing colonised planets turning into uninhabitable mush.
This book is a continuation of the events in Song of Scarabaeus, and it’s best to read the books in order. Unlike its predecessor, Children of Scarabaeus relies on a series of smaller arcs and plots to keep the momentum going. The pacing isn’t as strong, nor are the conflicts as compelling. There are a lot of antagonists, and they’re not all well developed enough to be interesting.
There’s a bit of deus ex machina in the resolution, which is disappointing given that, for the most part, it wasn’t easy to predict how the story would go. The world building in this book also becomes mired in twists and complications.
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Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy (Scarabaeus, Book 1)
A page turner for science fiction readers who like a bit of romance, not the other way around.
Edie is desperate to escape her life of service to the Crib empire, so when she’s kidnapped by mercenaries and forced to cooperate with their plans, she’s worried but not exactly anxious to get back to the Crib.
But when she’s leashed to Finn, an ex-slave who turns out to belong to a group of highly trained fighters, she’s given no choice. If she ventures too far—for example, in an attempt to escape her new masters—Finn dies. If Edie refuses to help the mercenaries, they’ll both be killed.
Edie is a cypherteck, and her job for the Crib was to help seed newly discovered planets in order to make them viable for human occupation. After the planet is occupied, the Crib charge its inhabitants to keep the seeds viable. The mercenaries want her to extract keystones from existing planet seeds, which are then sold to Fringe planets so they can be free of the Crib’s control.
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This is a book to be sped through, then read again and savoured and, when it’s tattered and the pages are curling, passed on to your kids.
This is the Melina Marchetta I thought I wouldn’t finish.
The story begins with a shocking scene of children trapped in a car wreck on the Jellicoe Road. But this isn’t the main story.
Twenty-two years later, Taylor Markham is elected to lead Jellicoe School in the annual territory wars against the Townies from the local public school, and the Cadets, who camp out in town for the summer holidays.
But Taylor has other things to worry about. Her dreams are filled by a boy in a tree who whispers in her ear. Hannah, the closest person she has to a mother, has mysteriously disappeared, and Taylor’s teetering on the brink of a breakdown—or worse.
What happened to the kids in the car accident and the boy on the bike who came along to save them? And what do they have to do with Taylor?
I was so confused, I killed a fairy before I even reached page 50.
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