Blog Tour: Fire on the Island by J.K. Hogan

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Information:

Title: Fire on the Island

Author: J.K. Hogan

Publisher: Sapphire Star Publishing

Series: Vigilati #1

Target audience: Adult

Genre: Paranormal romance

Length: 376 pages

Story: All Isla Macallen wanted was a simple existence on her little Scottish island, free from her mother's insanity and the prying eyes of neighbors. What she got was embroiled in a war for the souls of mankind. A war of good versus evil, of witches versus demons, and Isla learns that she alone can end it.

Dr. Jeremiah Rousseau was a self-proclaimed nomad, traveling the world researching paranormal phenomena. He doesn't expect his research to lead him to Scotland, and to the woman who will turn his world upside down.

Together with a facetious shapeshifting animal spirit guide, Jeremiah and Isla discover that she is part of an ancient bloodline bred to protect the gateways between the human world and the spirit world, to keep evil demons from destroying them. They must find the key to defeating Alastore, the demon king, and closing the gate before Samhain, when the veil between the worlds is lifted. As the war for their souls wages around them, Isla and Jeremiah will risk it all for love—a love neither had ever thought possible.

Thoughts and impressions: First of all, what a setting! I love the Scottish islands: they’re picturesque, they’re remote enough to each have a very distinct personality, and they’re the perfect getaway. I’ve been to several of the Scottish islands (Colonsay, Jura, Mull, and Islay) and my memories of them are all of a rural paradise, the kind that you don’t tend to find very often in Britain nowadays (though the beaches leave a lot to be desired). The author shows an obvious passion for her setting and managed to create that isolated island feeling that is just so important (in my opinion) in such a story. I felt that she did  her setting justice. I hope that inhabitants of these islands would think so too.

Though perhaps not entirely original in subject matter, the story is definitely one of the more interesting paranormal romances that I’ve read so far this year. There was just the right balance of romance and action that I needed – one didn’t outweigh the other and there was no getting bogged down in the details to the point where I just lost interest in it all. Beyond this, as the character herself is not actually initiated into this supernatural world that she’s a part of, the reader was able to follow her baby steps. Isla is unaware of her heritage as a witch and so it never felt like she was taking the time to break away from her story in order to explain her world to me. I was able to discover everything alongside her and I felt that this gave the story a much smoother and more authentic feel.

There is one character, Marduk, who is quite the funny guy. I’m not as sure about the quotes he spews as you have to be aware of the general culture they come from in order for it to really work. This means that anyone not entirely familiar with Hollywood won’t connect with him as well. It really dates the story more than any other aspect of it. Some people like this but I’m one of those who are wary of it. Despite this, he was a great character and one of my favourites!

The romance did advance possibly a little on the fast side, but whirlwind romances do happen like that (my own included, so I can’t judge). I did have some issues with passing time on occasion – the narrative would tell me that X time had passed but I didn’t get the impression that it had been that long while reading.

The witches were fabulous. I’m particularly interested in witches right now (along with ghosts) so any book set on a Scottish island (part of my childhood) that adds witches (part of my paranormal preferences) is a definite hit for me before I’ve even cracked it open. There are other paranormal creatures also present and they're just the icing on the cake. I really enjoyed them all, even the ones that I'm usually not that big on in this genre.

What’s more, the characters caught my interest and they didn’t let go, each developing at a believable rate, allowing me to connect with them and really come to root for them in their fight against the evil demons. This is just what I look for in a book. Obviously this one turned up to be just my cup of tea.

I will definitely be tuning in for book two!

Final verdict: A really enjoyable, well-developed and addictive paranormal romance. 4.5 stars

Extra notes: Both bad language and sex are present.

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I am a member of Reading Addiction Blog Tours and a copy of this book was provided to me by the author. Although payment may have been received by Reading Addiction Blog Tours, no payment was received by me in exchange for this review. There was no obligation to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and may not necessarily agree with those of the author, publisher, publicist, or readers of this review. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255, Guides Concerning Use of Endorcements and Testimonials in Advertising*

The author:

J.K. Hogan has been telling stories for as long as she can remember, beginning with writing cast lists and storylines for her toys growing up. When she finally decided to put pen to paper, magic happened. She is greatly inspired by all kinds of music and often creates a “soundtrack” for her stories as she writes them.

J.K. resides in North Carolina, where she was born and raised. A true southern girl at heart, she lives on a farm with her husband and their three horses, one miniature donkey, one cat, and two champion agility dogs.

In addition to writing, she enjoys training and competing in dog sports, spending time with her large southern family, camping, boating and, of course, reading! Please feel free to visit J.K.’s contact page—she’d love to hear from you!

Author Website
Twitter: @JK_Hogan
Facebook

Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

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Information:

Title: Infinity

Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Series: Chronicles of Nick #1

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Target Audience: YA

Genre: Urban fantasy

Length: 306 pages

Story: I control my destiny and my life.

Nothing controls me.

Ever.

Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is renowned. But his whole world is suddenly turned upside down on the night his best friends try to kill him.

Saved by a mysterious warrior, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters – immortal vampire-slayers who risk everything to save humanity – and he quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one that’s filled with all kinds of evil. Nick knows he’s in real danger and he soon has a lot more to deal with than high school – all without getting grounded, suspended… or killed.

Thoughts and impressions: I know that this series is a spinoff of the author’s long-standing paranormal romance series for adult readers. I’ve never read any of the Dark Hunter books, though I’m aware of their existence (who isn’t?). It’s entirely possible – if not likely – that reading this book will be a completely different experience for someone who’s read all of the other books prior to this one. For me, I felt like I was missing a lot of information. There was a lot of name-dropping and I suspect that long-time readers will recognise the names and appreciate the nods to old characters that they’d come to love and adore. However, this wasn’t the case for me, nor I suspect for many of the YA readers who will be new to Sherrilyn Kenyon.

These names meant nothing to me and just served to confuse me as, it has to be said, there were an awful lot of peripheral characters who were all named but tended to play very small roles. Indeed, I often found myself trying to keep up with the who’s who. Occasionally I’d find myself in a situation where I thought there were two characters having a conversation when a third would intervene but I had no idea who they were or when they’d come into the story. I’m a big believer in the rule that if you (the author) can tell the same story without introducing character X, then character X should not be introduced as they obviously don’t play an essential enough role to merit being there.

The synopsis is also misleading and relies on knowledge of the Dark Hunter series. There’s that little bit popped in there about how the Dark-Hunters are “immortal vampire-slayers who risk everything to save humanity” – but there’s nothing in the book about them being vampire-slayers, or even that they’re trying to save humanity. In fact, they’re not really expanded on much at all in this particular book.

So what is the book about? It’s about a young teen, Nick Gautier (who pronounces his name, Gautier, with an “sh” in it for some reason, but I just spent the whole book pronouncing it the French way – Go-tee-ay instead of Go-shay). He comes from a difficult background – his father is in prison for murder and his mother struggles to earn enough money to keep them going – but is a pupil at a prestigious school. Because of just how different he is to everyone else there, he is often bullied not only by his fellow pupils but also by the head teacher. His mum doesn’t pay any attention to his complaints and Nick is very frustrated by the existence he leads. Frustrated enough to lash out and agree to participate in something illegal at his friends’ prompting. This results in Nick getting shot and a mysterious stranger stepping in to save him from certain death.

The mysterious stranger accepts Nick into his employ in exchange for paying his hospital bills (which his mother cannot afford). This throws Nick into a new world of supernatural creatures that he’d never even dreamt could actually exist.

This first book deals with one supernatural creature in particular: zombies!

Argh… brainssss…

But these zombies are a little apart from the norm. Those who become zombies are still living. They’re no longer in control of their motor functions and seem to be actually hunting their targets rather than just going for the closest piece of human meat. Unfortunately for Nick, he’s one of those targeted. For someone who didn’t believe in the supernatural mere days earlier, he gets quite the wake-up call.

There are some fabulous characters in here, such as Bubba and Mark the zombie hunters. They’re the bit of humour to bringer a bit of lighter laughter to a story that’s supposed to be fairly on the dark side. I liked them both and their rules for fighting zombies (shoot first; cover yourself in duck urine; etc.)

For the most part, the novel was fairly tightly woven but there was one thing that was never really resolved: the game that induces living zombie-ism was only given to one person. It is hypothesised that someone else distributed the game to all the others who “changed”. But this is never expanded on. We never discover who distributed it beyond the original victim.

Style: There was some serious abuse of the “…” in this style. They’re all over the place!

Beyond this, there were some places where I found it hard to follow the sentence structure, but I don’t know whether that was just my head being slow or the actual style.

Final verdict: Even though I felt like I’d missed out on a lot by not having read the Dark Hunters series, I did enjoy this book. I intend to read the second book at some point later this year. 4 stars

Extra notes: Bad language is present. Sex is not.

Dark Kiss by Michelle Rowen

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I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley.

Girl gets her soul sucked out of her body via a kiss? Yes please!

Information:

Title: Dark Kiss

Author: Michelle Rowen

Series: Nightwatchers #1

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Target Audience: YA

Genre: Paranormal (romance)

Length: 384 pages

Story: I don't do dangerous.  Smart, über-careful, ordinary Samantha-that's me. But I just couldn't pass up a surprise kiss from my number-one unattainable crush. A kiss that did something to me...something strange. Now I feel hungry all the time, but not for food. It's like part of me is missing-and I don't know if I can get it back. Then there's Bishop. At first I thought he was just a street kid, but the secrets he's keeping are as intense as his unearthly blue eyes. If he's what I think he is, he may be the only one who can help me. But something terrifying is closing in, and the one chance Bishop and I have to stop it means losing everything I ever wanted and embracing the darkness inside me.... NIGHTWATCHERS When angels and demons must work together, something beyond evil is rising...

Thoughts and impressions: I admit that when I picked this book up, I did so with trepidation. When I came to read it, I’d just read another book that tackled religious views and that had succeeded in offending me. So, knowing that this book was going to tackle angels and demons, I figured that there would be some form of religious background to it that might turn my pre-existing spark of frustration into something more. Luckily, I had absolutely nothing to fear.

Michelle Rowen tackles the concept of angels, demons, Heaven and Hell admirably. I think that this is the first time I’ve ever read a book about angels where there wasn’t a specific religious ideology behind it. It was set up perfectly so that there was no clear cut line between who gets to become an angel in the afterlife and who becomes a demon. In fact, it’s presented that there’s an eternal war for soul currencies between Heaven and Hell, which is rather a unique twist on things, in my opinion, and serves to blur the line between good and bad.

It was the idea that you could have your soul sucked out of you via a kiss that caught my attention with this one. It seemed so tantalisingly good! The story completely lived up to the fabulousness behind the concept. My emotions were pulled this way and that as I lived through the torment of being soulless right along with Sam. Rowen’s style was so good that I could feel the desire to feed, to drain others of their souls as it battled with both Sam’s and my sensibilities of right and wrong. Add Sam’s best friend Carly to the mix with relationship issues of her own and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a wonderful best friend relationship to build these teens’ lives from.

The angels and the demons added to the paranormal fun set in motion with the soulless kissers. I liked the concept of angels and demons working together and Kraven, one of the demons, in particular made for a fantastic character. In fact, he often outshone the romantic interest, Bishop, but that could have been just because his personality was much better developed. The remaining angelic / demonic characters were a bit flat, though, and I found it hard to really get a grasp of a distinguishable personality from them. This is in part due to how little “on page” time they receive compared with Kraven and the angsty love-inspired scenes between Bishop and Sam.

The romance wasn’t really what I go for in a relationship in my fiction. The love word is thrown around but the characters don’t know each other well enough, in my opinion, to be able to move beyond the lust stage of the relationship. A lot of the time Sam and Bishop would either be arguing or talking about the big bad behind all the soulless “grays” (as they’re termed) running around town. They didn’t really get to have any conversations that allowed them to get to know each other beyond the basics. As I mentioned, I think Sam gets to know Kraven better than she does the guy she’s supposedly in love with!

Despite this, the plot advances at a swift enough pace to not let the slightly disappointing relationship get the better of it. I was happy with it as it was and I found that I wanted to keep reading before bed to find out what would happen next – always a good sign, though bad for my concentration levels the next day if I give in to the urge!

Dark Kiss leaves things in such a place that things can only get more intense in the second book. I certainly hope that certain devastating events can be resolved somehow and look forward to meeting a particular demonic character with a vested interest in Sam.

It may have been superficial at times, but in the long run I found that I really enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to seeing where things will be taken from here in the sequel.

Style: I found the style to be captivating. Michelle Rowen has that particular sort of style that allows you to easily overlook a book’s weaknesses and enjoy it in spite of them.

Final verdict: A great read! The romance left something to be desired but hopefully that will be worked on in the next book in the series. 4 stars

Extra notes: Some bad language. No sex.