Blog Tour & Giveaway: Bayou Myth by Mary Ann Loesch

Information:

Title: Bayou Myth

Author: Mary Ann Loesch

Series: Bayou Myth #1

Publisher: Dragonfire Press

Target Audience: YA

Genre: Urban fantasy

Length: 240 pages

Story: As a sixteen year old voodoo queen in the making, Joan Renault just wants to be like all the other girls in the small town of Monte Parish, Louisiana—obsessed with boys and swamped with social lives. If the other kids would quit calling her “hoodoo hag,” she might have a small shot at normality. It would also help if Joan’s weekend outings with her secret crush, Dave, weren’t always being interrupted by her dead Grandmere, the legendary Marie Laveau. After all, it’s hard to make out with your best friend when your grandmother is watching! But when you come from a long line of voodoo priestesses with dried gator heads decorating the wall of their huts, normal doesn’t come easily. 

When Joan witnesses the brutal sacrifice of a child to a tree Druid, she learns her Grandmere’s scandalous past has come back to haunt those living in the present. Hera, a vengeful voodoo priestess is determined to use the residual energy of Pandora’s Box to revive a sleeping voodoo god and declare war on the descendants of Marie Laveau, especially Joan. Suddenly, Greek myths are being re-enacted all over town, and Joan has her hands full trying to sort it all out. With the approach of Samedi’s Day—the voodoo day of resurrection—Joan must learn to accept her destiny in order to stop the approaching threat to her family and friends.

Thoughts and impressions: As soon as I read the synopsis for this one I was sold. Voodoo and Greek gods? Cool! Totally sounds like my sort of thing... Then I stopped and thought about it for a bit and I started to have a few reservations about whether or not the author would be able to successfully pull off a believable scenario that mixes voodoo and the myths and legends on Ancient Greece. So I went into the book in a state that was somewhere between excitement and trepidation.

Excitement won.

I read the book in two sittings. One that was about 1-25% (I only stopped because it was late and I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore!) and the second was the other 75% of the book. The fact that I sat down and read 75% of a book with no breaks says everything. I could finish the review right here… but I’m not going to.

I’m not going to spoil how the author manages to merge the two very different cultures of voodoo and the Greek myths and legends, but I thought the way she did it was rather ingenious. It allowed them both to stay true to themselves without forcing either into an uncomfortable situation. I was so glad that they were mixed together in such a way rather than trying to shove two pantheons together and require them to work.

The story itself turned out to be addictive. I was in one of those “just one more chapter…” phases. You know, the ones you never slip out of until you’ve turned the last page and then you have an oops moment as you realise just how much of the day you’ve lost. Oops. But it was worth it! I’ve never seen Marie Laveau portrayed in a positive light before so this was an interesting experience for me from that point of view. I was also captivated by the Louisiana bayou setting. For someone who grew up in the Pennines and the Alps, the bayou is a far cry from any environment I’ve known. That could be part of its mysticism and the charm it weaves on me. I loved how the author managed to really bring it to life for me, despite the huge distance separating me from it.

Joan, the main character, was also very interesting. Chosen to be the next great voodoo priestess, she’s still in the phase where she resists her calling despite her grandmere’s consistent intervening. Of course, events line up just so and she can no longer ignore the destiny that is before her. I did occasionally get the feeling that she was a little too blind to things around her. For example, at one point she thinks she’s talking to her best friend and just blurts out her whole plan when he’s practically interrogating her. Only later does she realise that her best friend might not actually have been the one controlling the body she was interacting with.

There was also a fair amount of exposition through dreams. This is not something that I’m usually fond of, preferring other means to be used to uncover secrets, but I have to say that it did work fairly well in this particular novel.

I wasn’t aware that this is actually the first of a series. In a way, I’m slightly bummed out because I want to have the answers to my questions already – in the form of the next novel of course! Things are not really rounded off at the end of the story and a lot of threads are left dangling to be picked up come book two. I really want to find out how Joan’s relationship with her best friend, Dave, will progress now that she’s finally uncovered the truth about the secrets he’s been keeping. I’ve got my fingers crossed for them as Dave turned out to be a very decent guy.

Possibly the very best thing about this novel is the role that the parents play. There are far too many YA novels out there where the parents either aren’t there or just don’t give a damn about what their teenage child is getting up to. In Bayou Myth the parents played a very positive role.  They cared about Joan, gave her limits to what she could do (not that she always respected them) and helped her when the going got tough. There should be more YA books out there where the parents are portrayed in such a positive light.

Overall a fabulous book. When’s book 2 coming out?

Style: There were some problems towards the end of the book. It felt like the editor had just got bored and so missed some fairly obvious mistakes.

Final verdict: Not at all what I was expecting but so much the better for it. I really enjoyed this book! 5 stars

Extra notes: Bad language is present. Sex behind closed doors.

The author:

 Mary Ann Loesch is an award winning fiction writer from Texas. Her urban fantasy, Nephilim, was published in July 2011 by Lyrical Press Inc.  An avid blogger for All Things Writing (http://www.allthingswriting.blogspot.com) and Loesch’s Muse (http://www.loeschsmuse.blogspot.com), Mary Ann has also contributed stories in the horror anthology, All Things Dark and Dastardly. Her latest book, Bayou Myth, was released in June 2012. While she loves dirty martinis and cuddling with her dachshund, she loves fan mail even more! Contact her through her website at www.maryannloesch.com.

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Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson

Buy the book: Amazon US ; Amazon UK ; Barnes & Noble ; Book Depository

Information:

Title: Hunting Lila

Author: Sarah Alderson

Series: Lila #1

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Target Audience: YA

Genre: Paranormal

Length: 318 pages

Story: 17-year-old Lila has two secrets she’s prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she’s been in love with her brother’s best friend, Alex, since forever.

After a mugging exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust—her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organisation called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother five years before. And that they’ve found them.

In a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realises that she is not alone—there are others out there just like her—people with special powers—and her mother’s killer is one of them…

Thoughts and impressions: The last few books I’d read prior to this one (my reviews do not appear on my blog in chronological order), I’ve found myself bemoaning the state of the romance. It turns out that Hunting Lila was just the book I needed! Despite the fixation on Alex being well on the obsessive side, it’s balanced out by how completely natural this obsession feels. Lila has loved this boy her whole life, of course she’s going to fixate on him. He has a heft presence in the book as well so the reader also has the chance to get to know him and come to understand the foundation of Lila’s love for him.

I really appreciated how insecure Lila felt about everything with him, especially the potential of what he most probably had got up to with other girls – something she’d rather not contemplate but thoughts that she can’t escape. At one point she says that it’s like playing Russian roulette with a full barrel – I couldn’t agree more! I love that imagery! It’s a feel that I could very easily associate with, one that I’ve felt myself.

Alex quickly took on epic proportions and became grossly misrepresented as he was alternately placed on a pedestal of perfection then had his every action obsessed over and picked apart. I realise that he was too much on the perfect side but we see him through Lila’s eyes only so I’m willing to let that slide. He gave me the warm and fuzzies for a few days after I finished a book, so definitely something I’m willing to forive!! It’s been a fair while since I took that sort of feeling from a book, so bravo miss Alderson.

Though the romance is really the main focus of the story, the plot really revolves around Lila’s telepathic abilities and where these place her with regards to the special ops team that Jack (Lila’s brother) and Alex are members of. Admittedly it was fairly easy to unravel the secrets here but this was such a character-driven novel that this didn’t matter to me in the least. It was all about how other characters reacted upon learning of Lila’s abilities and how this affected their preconceived notions.

The other characters with special abilities also made for quirky characters that really added to the dynamics of the novel. I’m not sure how it’d work with the telepath, though as she didn’t seem to be able to shut out Lila’s thoughts. I’m not sure whether this was because she’d been told to listen in or because she genuinely couldn’t tune her out. It seems to me the constant stream of another person’s thoughts would quickly start to have adverse effects and eventually result in insanity. Oh well.

It did take a while before event seemed to start to get anywhere at all but this was because there was a fair amount of ground work being put in place. It had me hooked from start to finish despite the slower first half. Now I just want more!

Style: I really enjoyed Lila’s voice. She appealed to me a lot – I could see a lot of the memory of the person I was as a teen reflected in her. I soon found myself very reluctant to put the book down, preferring to read rather than sleep on a Sunday night.

Final verdict: It turns out that this was just the book I needed to get me back in a more balanced reading state of mind. I loved it! On the one hand I wish I’d read it sooner, but on the other I’m glad I waited until now as the sequel is out soon! 5 stars

Extra notes: Some bad language is present. Sex is not.

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Much to my frustration, I discovered that reading ebooks while on the train does not work for my head. However, I’m perfectly fine with physical books in the same situation. I don’t know what it is about ebooks that give me a headache in such situations, but as I had six hours on the train ahead of me, I invested in this book to help pass the time.

Information:

Title: The Lifeboat

Author: Charlotte Rogan

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Target Audience: Adult

Genre: Historical fiction

Length: 275 pages

Story: Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she'd found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.

Thoughts and impressions: This book is a far cry from what I usually read. I knew this at the time of purchase and yet I still found myself inexplicably drawn to the book. Even more confusing is that the synopsis didn’t really sell me but I still wanted to read the book… and I’m so glad that I did!

Obviously, earlier this month (I finished this book April 30^th) I read a couple of books about the Titanic’s sinking. The Lifeboat seemed to be in something close to the same vein when I read the back of the book. This book, however, does not bother itself with the petty mentalities of events on the ship the Empress Alexandra before disaster strikes, except the occasional reference to them throughout the narrative. In fact, we never actually find out what the disaster was, what precipitated the Empress Alexandra’s sinking. This book deals with the aftermath of the disaster – with being stuck on an overcrowded lifeboat riding love in the water, and the drive to survive.

There are a lot of unanswered questions at the end of the book but they are dealt with so skilfully that as the reader I accepted the limits of Grace’s knowledge and it didn’t matter to me that I didn’t get all of the answers I would normally have desired.

The way that the differences between basic human nature from one person to the next were portrayed was simply masterful. From Hardie the seasoned seadog with too many secrets he couldn’t share, to Mary Ann the sheep willing to follow wherever the shepherd leads, to the pastor whose staunch belief in God hides a weakness of character, to Mrs Grant and Hannah whose motivations are never really revealed.

As of the start of the book – when the lifeboat is desperately trying to make its way clear of the sinking wreck of the Empress Alexandra, when the occupants of the already overloaded lifeboat have to turn away other survivors in favour of better assuring their own survival – it is clear that there will eventually be a standoff between Mrs Grant, who appeals to others’ sensibilities, and Hardie, who offends them but ensures their survival where Mrs Grant could not. It is not, however, clear why Mrs Grant desires complete control over the lifeboat and that is one of those bits of knowledge that the reader will never be privy to.

I was completely caught up in this intense struggle for survival against the forces of nature. It reminded me of that line from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”. The occupants of the lifeboat are slowly dehydrating, slowly starving to death, and yet there is still a pronounced will to survive.

The author did an absolutely amazing job of bringing these events, these weeks in the lifeboat, completely to life for me. My jaw is dropping in awe of this book – it really is that good!

There are of course also the events of the present – of when Grace has survived her ordeal in the lifeboat only to be implicated in a murder and to find herself on trial. This part was just as introspective and just as good. I would have liked to have got to know Mr Reichmann better so as to understand things hinted at in the epilogue better, but that’s only a minor thing.

My only complaint is that some of the more important side characters were not always distinguished enough for me to really realise what was happening to whom, but with an original cast of 39 people in the lifeboat, I suppose that is to be expected. There’s no way the author could possibly have made all 39 of the characters stand out from the others.

The Lifeboat may not be something that I would ordinarily read but I am incredibly glad that I did. It completely transported me.

Style: The story is narrated by the ‘present day’ Grace, so she often interrupts her own narration with little side stories about this, that or the other or hints at events to come. It’s also a fairly formal style, but considering Grace is from the upper classes at the turn of the 20^th century, this is not out of the ordinary and keeps a good feel to the narration.

Final verdict: I am so very, very glad that I gave in to the temptation to read this book. It’s one of the best books I’ve read so far this year! 5 stars

Extra notes: I think there was some more mild language. No sex.

Darkness Falls by Cate Tiernan

I found the first book in this trilogy, Immortal Beloved, at my local bookstore at the start of last summer. It was one of those books where the cover was just so gorgeous that I snapped it up without ever looking at the back of the book! That turned out to be ok, though, as I adored Immortal Beloved and it ranks among my favourite reads of 2011.

So I knew I wanted this one, the sequel, as soon as possible and though I started with the good intention of waiting until the paperback version was released, I very quickly gave up on that idea because I needed more! There were two options for the pre-order: hardback or large paperback. I went for the paperback but then the publisher didn’t make that version available! Nooooo! Thankfully I was able to get the hardback at no extra cost.

As soon as it was delivered I had my nose in it and I didn’t pull it out again until I’d reached the last page.

Information:

Title: Darkness Falls

Author: Cate Tiernan

Series: Immortal Beloved #2

Publisher:

Target Audience: YA

Genre: Urban fantasy

Length: 398 pages

Story: You can run from your past, but it will always catch up.

Nastasya has lived for hundreds of years, but for some reason it never seems to get any easier. She's left behind her days of debauchery to find peace and forgiveness at River's Edge, a safe haven for wayward immortals. There she's uncovered her family's epic history, reclaimed her magickal powers, and met Reyn, whom she dubs "the Viking god. " Just as she settles into her new life, Nastasya learns that her old friends might be in town....

Reuniting with her gorgeous and dangerous ex-best-friend, Innocencio, Nas wonders if she'll ever be truly free of her dark legacy. Is Incy dangerous, power-hungry, and wicked? Or is he the only one who truly understands Nas's darkness? Either way, Nas is desperate to find out who she really is-even if the answer kills her.

Thoughts and impressions:Immortal Beloved was one of the books that I read while in France last summer. I left it with my mum for her to read but I wish I hadn’t now. She didn’t read it anyway and I would really have liked to have reread it before going into this one. This first book caught me up, took me on one hell of a rollercoaster ride and left me in awe. Everything about Nastasya had me intrigued, always wanting to know more, to understand things better.

As soon as Darkness Falls was delivered to my door, I had my nose in the book. It was one of my most awaited books of 2012… and it did not disappoint!

Things pick up shortly after they ended in Immortal Beloved. Nat is still confused about life, the universe and everything. She’s constantly having to re-evaluate things she thought she knew to fit with the world view she is acquiring staying at River’s. She’s also battling her attraction to Reyn – their past is intertwined in a way that should leave them enemies, not lovers. The reader realises that Reyn is the Viking warrior that this Icelandic princess needs, though! Their relationship does undergo a transformation in this book but there are still many promises for what is to come in the final novel in the trilogy. I absolutely adored the interaction between Reyn and Incy towards the end of the book and what such reactions reveal about Reyn as a character!

Speaking of Incy, he completely fascinated me in in the first book. Everything about him was an enigma that I simultaneously wanted to unravel and leave intact so I could wonder him from afar. He does cme into things in this book and as his enigma unravels a bit, more questions are posed. The final showdown reaches epic proportions. Is it morbid of me that I’m rather hoping that he’ll figure in the next book and that both he and Nat will have to confront the repercussions of his actions as well as the irrevocable damage they did to a hundred years of friendship? I want to see how they would react to the other’s presence when she has to face the man behind the monster and he has to stand before the friend he so badly wronged.

But more importantly, it is through Incy that we are introduced to the portents of what is still to come in the final novel. Incy had some seriously dark magics at his disposal and to think that he was merely the student means that we may only have touched the tip of this particular iceberg.

Once again, Nat has to battle her own worst enemy: herself. She runs and hides from things she doesn’t want to face, like her attraction to Reyn or Incy running the show for her, or she steps in and does more damage than good, like at the store. On top of that, things keep going wrong for her and she’s soon convinced that she is the bane of everyone’s existence as well as her own. This, interspersed with recollections from various periods of her past, makes her a very complicated character who struggles to grow. In fact, she regresses for a time before she’s able to take two steps forward from her one step back.

Everything is put in place for a wonderful, thrilling conclusion. If only I didn’t have to wait until January for its release!

Style: The book is written in a very colloquial, chatty style. I don’t always like this particular sort of style but it works really well here!

Final verdict: I loved it! I want to know what happens next. Is it January 2013 yet? 5 stars

Extra notes: A fair amount of bad language is present. Sex is not.

Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson

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

I discovered this title through a fellow blogger a few weeks ago. We seem to have fairly similar tastes when it comes to urban fantasy so when she listed this book as one of the best books she’s read so far this year, I know that I absolutely had to get my hands on a copy! In this case I was very fortunate and got approved for the ARC on NetGalley.

Information:

Title: Royal Street

Author: Suzanne Johnson

Series:  Sentinels of New Orleans #1

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Target Audience: Adult

Genre: Urban fantasy

Length: 352 pages

Story: As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ's boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.

Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.

While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.

To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.

Thoughts and impressions: I adored the opening scene of this book! DJ, our heroine, is on a mission to send Jean Lafitte – one of New Orleans’s historical undead – back to the beyond and she finds herself very disturbed that he’s adapted to the modern era by carrying around fruit-flavoured condoms on his person! I think it takes guts to open with a scene like that but Suzanne Johnson pulled it off flawlessly!

The world building was fairly strong, though with some plot holes. The biggest one of these was that it’s mentioned that the wizards from Europe and America step in to help each other in dire situations – be this the American wizards travelling to Europe to fight in a war between wizards and other preternaturals (“pretes”), or the European wizards travelling to the US to deal with the preternatural aftermath of a hurricane in Florida a few years before. And yet, after Katrina hits and devastates the New Orleans area, only one other human preternatural – European or American – steps in to help this deputy with the task of getting things back under control.

Other than this most glaring problem, the world building could easily stand on its own two feet despite the fact that we didn’t meet many of the various preternatural races that exist here. There’s no rush of course; in fact, I believe that it was much better this way with lots still left to explore in future books. The series has a lot of potential to be one that hooks UF readers across the board. It certainly succeeded in hooking me!

In this first book, the pretes that are dealt with the most are what are called the historical undead. These are those people who lived and died in a certain area during their natural life and even after their deaths they remain in the collective memory of current society. So long as people remember their names, they are essentially immortal but if their names are forgotten then they will disappear. I have, of course, come across ideas like this before but I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve seen them used to this extent in a book. It was actually a very interesting idea as it allowed for use of such historical figures as Louis Armstrong, Marie Laveau and Jean Lafitte (though I have to admit that I hadn’t heard of Lafitte before – I’m not exactly “up” on New Orleans culture).

I actually really liked Lafitte’s character. He was the sort of baddy that you can really root for as the reader. For a while I even entertained the prospect of him as a potential romantic interest. He might be several centuries dead, in it for himself and a reprobate (he’s a pirate – what pirate isn’t a reprobate?) but he was quirky and fun. Hey, I’ve read books where the romantic interest was much worse than Jean Lafitte in Royal Street! He wasn’t the romantic interest, but he was still a fun character.

It was also interesting to view hurricane Katrina through the eyes of a local. I don’t think it really packed the emotional punch that the author was aiming for, but it was certainly a very different experience to the one I went through at the time. Still, I didn’t really feel complete despair at the loss of human life or the death of a beloved city. I was, however, able to build these emotions up for myself through what was not said in the narrative. The quotes from the newspapers were a good touch as well.

DJ was a good character, if slow at times. She so desperately wanted to reach that happy ending where she’d get her mentor back and no one gets hurt that she was willing to overlook some blindingly obvious evidence. This said, I have to admit that she did often allow herself to get distracted by her feelings towards her new partner, Alex, and his cousin, Jake. It meant that sometimes the plot would stagnate as she floundered in waters that she tried very hard to pretend didn’t even exist. She was frustrating at times, but in the long run I liked her and I suppose that’s what’s most important.

All in all, I found this book to be an interesting introduction to a new series that I want more of. Apparently the next book is going to be about undines (mermaids) – I can’t wait!

Style: I liked the dry sarcasm of the style that would rear its head from time to time. Just little things like when DJ mentions that luckily she got hit on the other shoulder to the one that was already bruised because she likes to have symmetrical bruises.

Final verdict: I really enjoyed this book! I had some minor issues with it but they were so minor that they didn’t affect my enjoyment of it in the least. I’d definitely recommend to fans of this style of urban fantasy. 5 stars

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

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

About a month and a half after I read and adored Across the Universe by Beth Revis, I discovered the synopsis for this other book that sounded fairly similar. I was caught between excitement at something that would be in the same vein and trepidation that after having enjoyed Across the Universe so much, Glow could never live up to my expectations. Then I won a giveaway where Glow was one of the five titles I could choose as my prize. There was never any doubt for me. It was always going to be Glow. As soon as it got here, I looked at the simple yet stunning cover and fell in love with it but had to force myself to ignore it during exam week. It kept looking at me, though, and I knew that as soon as exams were over, I would not be able to resist it anymore!

Information:

Title: Glow

Series: Sky Chasers #1

Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Target Audience: YA

Pages: 307

Chapters: Unknown – titled rather than numbered

Story: What if you were bound for a new world, about to pledge your life to someone you'd been promised to since birth, and one unexpected violent attack made survival—not love—the issue? 

Out in the murky nebula lurks an unseen enemy: the New Horizon. On its way to populate a distant planet in the wake of Earth's collapse, the ship's crew has been unable to conceive a generation to continue its mission. They need young girls desperately, or their zealous leader's efforts will fail. Onboard their sister ship, the Empyrean, the unsuspecting families don't know an attack is being mounted that could claim the most important among them... 

Fifteen-year-old Waverly is part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space; she was born on the Empyrean, and the large farming vessel is all she knows. Her concerns are those of any teenager—until Kieran Alden proposes to her. The handsome captain-to-be has everything Waverly could ever want in a husband, and with the pressure to start having children, everyone is sure he's the best choice. Except for Waverly, who wants more from life than marriage—and is secretly intrigued by the shy, darkly brilliant Seth. 

But when the Empyrean faces sudden attack by their assumed allies, they quickly find out that the enemies aren't all from the outside.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions: This is another book where I went into it all expecting a teen romance, as the synopsis leads you to believe the story will focus heavily on the romance aspect, but got something very different. This story isn’t about the fight for love; it’s about the fight for survival, the fight to make your own choices and not have another’s choices forced upon you.

Things quickly get around to the action and within one chapter the crew of the New Horizon have set their attack in motion and Kieran finds out that they were never able to conceive children aboard that ship. The girls are separated from the boys and the story gets underway.

We’re soon made aware that the crew of New Horizon are all religious while the people on the Empyrean are mostly atheist. Because of this I thought that the story would tackle the dangers of religious zealotry, and it does but it also takes a good, hard look at the darker side of human nature. Nothing is black and white here: there is no obvious good side confronted by the bad guys.  At some point in her life, Anne Mather, the captain of the New Horizon, became corrupted by her own religious convictions, but at the same time the captain of the Empyrean and his inner circle also because corrupted by their belief in their own importance – the belief that they can take what they want, when they want, which is reflected in the older girls’ stories.

I’m glad that the author looked at both of the sides here and didn’t just point the finger of blame at the manipulation of people through religion to attain your own goals. Although it has to be said that Anne Mather made for a very scary villain due to her manipulative abilities in the name of religion, which we also see in another main character that is currently still a hero. I wonder how the author will tackle this in the sequel.

The story has two parts to it: Kieran’s story and Waverley’s story. On the Empyrean, Kieran is trying to keep the ship running after most of the adults were killed in the initial attack or chased after their kidnapped girls and those remaining were forced to submit themselves to overexposure to radiation in an attempt to save the engines. Both Kieran and Seth, the named potential romantic interests, feature in these chapters. If I’m honest, I didn’t like either of them. I felt that Kieran was lost in his own opinion of himself and his importance whereas Seth was prone to violence and physical bullying to get his own way. I sincerely hope that either one or both of them will undergo significant character growth in the sequel that will allow me to grow to like them.

The other half of the story follows Waverley and the girls on the New Horizon. I found this to be by far the superior of the two plot lines. Everything that Waverley and the girls are submitted to just doesn’t bear thinking. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would react in the same situation. The web of lies and deceit aboard the New Horizon makes for an infinitely more interesting setting and the danger there felt real in a way that was never quite present in the boys’ chapters. I liked Waverley: I liked her spirit, her determination and the way she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.

The setting was good and the descriptions of the ships made for a complete and interesting image in my mind. Really they were like glorified prisons. Then again, I suppose any ship is: there’s only so far you can go on a ship – from one end to the other – before you’re forced to go back the way you came. Can you imagine living like that? That has got to be a form of hell.

Style: The author tends to use a lot of subordinate clauses introduced by the prepositions “which” or “who”. Generally speaking, I’m not keen on the over use of these in literature as they make it sound clunky.

Here’s an example: “They entered a new room, which was full of people.” (This is not a direct quote though there is something similar to it early in the book.)

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d much rather have a second sentence about people milling around in this new room than the subordinate clause.

Except for this minor thing, the style is engaging and I really enjoyed it.

Final verdict: This book receives a big thumbs-up from me! I can’t wait to see where the story will go in the sequel. 5 stars

Voyage on the Great Titanic - The Diary of Margaret Anne Brady, 1912 by Ellen Emerson White

As with the review of Destined by Allison Kraft earlier this week, this review is in order to commemorate the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic. Originally I had planned to review three books about the Titanic this week, but unfortunately circumstances meant that I only had time to read two of the three.

This particular book is one that I’ve owned since I was only ten or so. I read it a few times before we moved to France but I never touched it again after that. This means that it’s been at least 11 years since I last read it. As my mother brought it over with a batch of other books that had been stored in my room there, I figured now was as good a time as any to revisit it.

I had no strong memories either way of this book so I went into it with a clean slate.

Information:

Title: Voyage on the Great Titanic, The Diary of Margaret Anne Brady, R.M.S. Titanic, 1912

Author: Ellen Emerson White

Series: My Story, Dear America

Publisher: Scholtastic

Target Audience: Children (8+)

Genre: Historical, diary

Length: 189 pages (story stops at p159)

Story: Monday, 15 April 1912
It was after midnight, I could still hear people moving about in the passageway. Before I had time to go out and join them, there was a sharp knock on my door. I opened it to see Robert. He was smiling, but his eyes looked urgent.

"Good evening, Miss Brady," he said "Need to put on something warm, and report to the Boat Deck with your life belt."

Miss Brady? When I heard that, I felt alarmed for the first time, but I was also startled....

"A routine drill," he said. "No need to fret."

I knew he needed to get on with his duties, so I found a smile for him and nodded.... Robert started for the next stateroom, but then stopped. "You'll not want to take your time," he said in a very quiet voice.

It did not seem possible--but maybe this was not a drill.

Thoughts and impressions: I have to be honest, the first third or so of the book is not particularly interesting or inspiring. The story starts several days prior to the ship sailing and a lot of scene setting takes place. The reader learns that Margaret is an orphan who was left at a convent by her brother when living on the streets meant that her health had taken a turn for the worse. He left to make a living in America, the plan being for her to join him there as soon as he’d saved up enough for her crossing. Fortunately for her, an American woman in need of a companion chooses to take Margaret with her on the Titanic.

The first third is mostly talking about the orphanage, the hotel where Mrs Carstairs is staying, Margaret’s own past, etc. Eventually they get to Southampton and they’re on the ship. Margaret’s from a family that always struggled to get by even before she lost both of her parents so travelling first class on such a ship as the Titanic is something that she would never even have dreamt of under normal circumstances. It also means that the reader gets the unique perspective of a young girl (she’s 13) discovering such opulence for the first time in her life. It also means that she’s able to give a specific commentary of those on board with her.

Unfortunately, it also means that she’s in the dark about certain things. When the ship hits the iceberg she naïvely believes there to be enough lifeboats for everyone on board and spends most of her time just observing the other people on deck. The very simplistic voice of a younger narrator also lends a very poignant side to this story. The way the final, devastating events are shown in such terms reduced me to tears (though I have to admit that this could be due to fatigue and emotional levels). This commentary of events was far more effective than any flowery prose ever could be.

Taking into consideration that this book is aimed at children, it is a wonderful exploration of how circumstances were that night for the first class passengers for such an audience. Moreover, there are a historical note, a timeline of events and a number of photographs after the final page of the story that will ensure that the reader has a good grasp of the actual history. It’s a sad, sad day when people believe in ignorance that the 1997 Titanic film was entirely fictional (I have to wonder whether these people slept through school or even paid attention to the start of the film with all the footage of the real Titanic at the bottom of the ocean).

Anyway, this story is a wonderful introduction to the story of the Titanic. It is one that I will be keeping for the day when I have children of my own and they are old enough to appreciate the book.

Style: As mentioned, simplistic but all the more poignant for it.

Final verdict: In spite of the fact that the start of the story was slow and not all that interesting, I’m giving this book the full 5 stars.

Extra notes: No swearing. No sex.

The UnTied Kingdom by Kate Johnson

Buy the book: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble

This book caught my attention some time ago. The title, for me as a Brit, was already sure to catch my attention. The cover conveys the war-torn idea as well as the romance. The synopsis immediately had me sold. But the book in paperback was fairly expensive. When I got my Kindle, though, I had this light bulb moment to check the price on Amazon. At that time it was 99c (it’s a bit more now) so I bought it immediately and read it that same night, putting off sleep because I just wanted to read more, more, more!

Information:

Title: The UnTied Kingdom

Author: Kate Johnson

Publisher: International Publishers Marketing, Inc.

Target Audience: Adult

Genre: Sci-fi, romance

Length: 403 pages

Story: The portal to an alternate world was the start of all her troubles – or was it?

When Eve Carpenter lands with a splash in the Thames, it’s not the London or England she’s used to. No one has a telephone or knows what a computer is. England’s a third world country and Princess Di is still alive. But worst of all, everyone thinks Eve’s a spy.

Including Major Harker who has his own problems. His sworn enemy is looking for a promotion. The general wants him to undertake some ridiculous mission to capture a computer, which Harker vaguely envisions running wild somewhere in Yorkshire. Turns out the best person to help him is Eve.

She claims to be a pop star. Harker doesn’t know what a pop star is, although he suspects it’s a fancy foreign word for ‘spy’. Eve knows all about computers, and electricity. Eve is dangerous. There’s every possibility she’s mad.

And Harker is falling in love with her.

Thoughts and impressions: I feel that this review requires a bit of a disclaimer. It’s very important for me to point out that I read this book when I wasn’t in the best place emotionally (it’s ok, I’ve snapped back now! =) ) but The Untied Kingdom was the perfect book for me at that time. I loved it. I absolutely adored it. It was exactly what I look for in a romance. There was a slow-burning attraction between the two main characters buoyed by events in a war-torn England.

The main character, Eve Carpenter, is a washed up celebrity has-been who lost everything in her fall from grace. Now, in order to make some money, she’s participating in a TV show designed to humiliate such fallen celebs. Unfortunately for Eve, when she loses control during a paragliding event, she ends up falling through a hole between worlds. The world she ends up in is also England, but in an alternate reality. Columbus never discovered America so the technology in this world is not as advanced;  King Charles is living with the King of California while ex-Queen Diana is in Egypt with her lover.  The French Empire rules the industrialised world, and the decision to let them into England is what sparked this new English civil war.

England is war-torn, with the rebels targeting the King’s forces with uncanny accuracy. The King’s forces believe they have computers given to them by the French Empire. Eve seems to know all about computers, knowledge that no English person should have considering technology is practically inexistent in the country. Obviously, Eve is a French spy. Or a mental case. Either way, she gets locked up in the local loony bin / prison. Eve herself even starts to believe that she must be some sort of mental case and loses all confidence in her own memory.

But when the man who saved her life, Major Harker, is sent north to steal a computer, he realises that he needs someone with him who actually knows how to use the thing. The only person who he knows who supposedly has any knowledge about how computers work is Eve Carpenter. So he gets permission to take her with him and she gets a crash course on life in the army in a third world country.

There are some really powerful scenes in this book that really shine. The scene where Eve is roped in to being an emergency nurse in a church-turned-hospital after a rebel attack was particularly good. Then there’s the one where Eve is removing pieces of shattered keyboard from Harper’s chest. There are more, of course, but these were two in particular that have really stuck with me.

Of course, Eve, as a former pop star is particularly interested in music. The people in this England have never heard of The Beatles or the Broadway version of Les Misérables, or even Les Misérables at all! Eve sings for the company that she’s travelling with, but often enough Harper does not agree with the messages in her songs and will forbid her from singing them again. This leads to tension between the two as Eve feels stifled by this world she’s found herself in and then even more stifled by Harper’s rules. At the same time she’s a bit like a ship without anchor and Harper presents the closest thing to an anchor that she has around her.

The romance between Eve and Harper was exactly what I wanted to read after a few books that had romances that hadn’t really tickled my fancy too well. This romance was just my cup of tea. It was allowed to build slowly on both sides and when it finally came to a head it felt so much more fulfilling for it!

I have to admit that it’s true that the book is not really as polished as it could have been but that really didn’t matter to me at all once I’d started reading. It is rather like a modern day sci-fi (in that it’s an alternate reality) version of a Mills & Boon, but who cares? If it’s good, it’s good. And this book was good.

Style: It could have been more polished in places but overall that didn’t matter to me at all.

Final verdict: I love, love, love this book. It’s one of my new favourites. I already want to read it a second time!

Extra notes: Both bad language and sex are present. This book is set in a warzone, so there’s a fair amount of blood, gore and some torture.

The Prophet by Amanda Stevens

I received this book courtesy of the publisher from NetGalley.

Once I’d finished The Kingdom, the second book in the Graveyard Queen series, I was already antsy waiting for the third book. I practically trolled NetGalley waiting for this title to be made available! Again, the acceptance email was met with a flutter of excitement this intensity of which is really something that maybe I shouldn’t be admitting to! Oh the joys of favourite authors / series!

I was in the middle of another book when I was able to download this one. I briefly toyed with the idea of finishing that one first but that was quickly discarded. The lure of Amelia Gray and the promise of more John Devlin proved to be more than enough to tempt me away from previous reads and leave me ensconced in my chair all evening, oblivious to anything going on around me!

Information:

Title: The Prophet

Series: The Graveyard Queen #3

Author: Amanda Stevens

Publisher: Mira

Target Audience: Adult

Pages: 400

Chapters: 41 + epilogue

PoV: 1^st person

Tense : Past tense

Story : My name is Amelia Gray. 

I am the Graveyard Queen, a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. My father passed down four rules to keep me safe and I’ve broken every last one. A door has opened and evil wants me back. 

In order to protect myself, I’ve vowed to return to those rules. But the ghost of a murdered cop needs my help to find his killer. The clues lead me to the dark side of Charleston—where witchcraft, root doctors and black magic still flourish—and back to John Devlin, a haunted police detective I should only love from afar. 

Now I’m faced with a terrible choice: follow the rules or follow my heart.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions: This third book brings Amelia back to the setting of the first one. A lot of familiar names and faces crop up with a good number of the (surviving) characters from The Restorer making a reappearance, however brief. Reading it, it almost felt as though the events second book was merely an interlude as although the events are alluded to, they didn’t play a part in this plot.

The notion of the malevolent entity that Amelia calls Evil was introduced as being the consequence she has to face for ignoring her father’s rules. There was, however, no mention of it in this book. The ghosts made a comeback – though with things revolving around John Devlin again that was to be expected. That said, there is an unexpected surprise involving Shani’s ghost. It’s a shame that Evil wasn’t expanded on – I would have liked to have learnt more about it.

Traditional African spiritual beliefs are also introduced in this book in the form of Mariama Goodwine’s cousin. An awful lot of research must have gone into putting all of this together and I was utterly fascinated by all the lore. It was really interesting and a good look into the beliefs surrounding death in another – very different – culture.

The Prophet chronicles Amelia’s investigation into who killed the cop we met as a ghost in The Restorer. He wants release and he’s willing to go so far as to haunt Amelia to get her to do this for him. What’s more, it would seem that whatever message Shani is desperately trying to communicate to her father is also of great importance and the plot soon becomes a mix of unravelling the both mysteries.

This is another way that this third book is very different from the other two. In those, Amelia spends a lot of her time working in graveyards but comparatively little time was spent in one in this book. This meant in turn that there were fewer spine-tingling moments. I’m not sure that my adrenaline really got pumping while reading this one as it did when I was caught up in the other two. Rather, I was pushing on in the mad desire to see where the relationship between Amelia and Devlin would lead. I wouldn’t say that this is a bad thing, just different. As such, it may not work for everyone, especially readers who were more caught up in the graveyard aspect of the books than the romance subplot.

John Devlin is of course back. The scenes between him and Amelia were everything I could have hoped for and more. I was right when I said that Thane Asher was just a diversion to allow Amelia to grow and that it would all be about Devlin in the long run. Even Amelia admits this to herself, and later Devlin, this time around. Of course, his dead wife’s spectre looming over them does tend to put a stopper on things.

The truth about who Mariama really was comes out bit by bit here. Unfortunately, what we know of her (that she’s a malevolent spirit unwilling to pass on, using the ghost of her child as a tether to the realm of the living and intent on making Devlin’s life a misery) clashes with what various people tell us of her from before her death (that everybody loved her). I just couldn’t quite bring myself to buy this. It would have been made more believable if there had been even just one character who hadn’t thought the world of Mariama at some point.

As for the mystery itself, I found that I’d unravelled this one as of early on in the book (which wasn’t the case in either of the first two books) and there weren’t ever really any big, unexpected shocks. A number of things did go unanswered, though, such as why Darius Goodwine chose to return now. In fact, a lot about Darius Goodwine remains unclear. Some of it is understandable, such as the mystery surrounding his traditional practises and the sway he holds over people, but it would have been nice if some things were made clear, such as whether or not he was actually a bad guy.

The ending was the only thing that I didn’t like about the book. It felt uncomfortably rushed. There had been a good few slower moments leading up to this finale, but when it finally took place, a huge number of things seemed to all happen at once – too many for me to fully take everything in and I was left feeling dissatisfied, much as I hate to say it.

I had thought that The Graveyard Queen was a trilogy for some reason, but having finished this book it is blatantly obvious to me now that there are still any number of questions left to be explored. I’m definitely looking forward to where things will take Amelia and Devlin next.

Style: Amanda Stevens has a great, strong voice in Amelia. As soon as she starts, I get hopelessly sucked in.

Final verdict: The Prophet turned out to be a very different ride to that of the first two books but it holds its own against them, even surpassing them in some respects. I was caught up from the first until the very end. Again, I’m left longing for more. 5 stars

Extra notes: Some bad language. Sex is present.

Blood Bound by Rachel Vincent

This book found its way onto my TBR at some point last spring. At the time I was rocking back and forth between urban fantasy and historical mystery and this book’s blurb really appealed to me. I found the book itself in one of those 3 for 2 offers at the end of summer. I snapped it up at that time then I did my usual: popped it on my living room bookshelf and promptly forgot about it until I just picked it up at random.

I know this, that and the other about the author’s other books and it left me unsure as to whether she would appeal to my tastes. Then again, the book is published by Mira and they also publish some of my favourite authors so I kept hope!

Information:

Title: Blood Bound

Series: Unbound #1

Author: Rachel Vincent

Publisher: Mira

Target Audience: Adult

Pages: 463

Chapters: 30

PoV: 1^st person

Tense: Past tense

Story: Bound by blood, condemned by fate 

As a bloodtracker, Liv is extremely powerful. And in a world where power is a commodity that can get you killed, Liv's learnt to survive by her own rules. 

Rule number one? Trust no one. 

But when a friend's daughter goes missing, Liv is bound by a potent magical oath. She can't rest until the child is safe. 
And that means trusting her dangerous ex, Cam. 

A sinister prophecy tells that she and Cam will be the death of each other, yet Liv's tired of being a slave to destiny. She's ready to play the forces controlling her world at their own game. 

No matter what the cost.

Thoughts and impressions: Well, I can say with absolute certainty that my worries were completely and utterly unfounded. Within the first few pages, I knew that this was the sort of urban fantasy that would sweep me off my feet. And sweep me off my feet it did! As I said, the first chapter told me that this would be the sort of book that I love but it took a couple more chapters until I was so caught up in the action that there was no way to extricate myself until I’d finished the book.

The synopsis is a little misleading. Everything mentioned in it does take place, yes, but the action is really kick-started by the murder of this same friend’s husband, which precipitates the kidnapping of her child much later on in the story.

Anne, the friend, and Liv have a contract along with two other friends that requires them to help in any way they can if it is asked of them. In the context of the novel, should they refuse to help their body will start to systematically shut down until the heart stops beating. Certainly far from a comfortable way to die.

As Anne specifically asks Liv for help, there’s not much Liv can do other than accept. When Anne expands this request that she work with Cam – the man she’s been avoiding due to a foretelling that they will kill each other – Liv is catapulted into a world of syndicate secrets that she’d done her very best to steer clear of all these years.

I’m not entirely sure that I bought the relationship between Liv and Cam. Obviously the romance was already there so there was no budding relationship. She walked out on him six years ago, though, and six years is a very long time to not move on from a three year relationship. Stukkm their interactions were often intense and leant a very different aspect to the book.

The story is written in the first person and follow’s both Liv and Cam’s PoVs. I would have liked to have seen Cam’s reaction to how things played out in the climax but the story stayed in Liv’s PoV at that point. At first, I transferred this hope to getting this from him in the next book in the series but the sequel is going to follow Kori, another of the four friends contracted to help each other. Then again, maybe Kori’s story will also showcase Cam and Liv a bit just as she featured in theirs. A girl can hope! I’d say that Cam and Liv’s story is far from over, though, so maybe things will come back to them in a future book. I certainly hope so.

Occasionally, the characters were somewhat slow on the uptake. Not too-stupid-to-live slow, but slow nonetheless. I’d find that I had pegged the next reveal as obvious but Liv or Cam (or both) would continue to blunder about in blissful ignorance until the obvious really would not be ignored anymore. When I see things like this, it makes me wonder whether I’m sometimes just as slow when faced with the facts. I’d guess that I probably am but it can still be frustrating in novels when the characters are blind to what’s staring them right in the face. As I said, at least the characters weren’t stupid – just a bit slow at putting two and two together.

The world that Rachel Vincent has dreamt up here is fascinating. There’s no specific era or setting (other than it being in the US) but I’m tempted to imagine it being in the near future somewhere near the East Coast. I don’t know why, that’s just where I situated it in my head.

In this reality, certain people have what are called Skills and these Skills have led to the rise of two crimes bosses in “the City”. It was very mafia-esque in this dog-eat-dog world where allegiances collide quite spectacularly at times. I love the idea that a tattoo on your arm could bind you so tightly to a syndicate that any attempt to go against your boss’s orders would result in your body killing itself. Certainly a very bleak image of life though I have no doubts that this is what organised crime would become in such a world.

I really enjoyed my foray into Liv’s life and I hope that the series will return there in a future book. As it is, I’m looking forward to learning more about Kori later this year.

Style: I’m not entirely sure that Cam and Liv’s voices are very distinct, a pitfall of having multiple first person narrators. This didn’t matter to me as I was reading, though. I was too engrossed to care.

Final verdict: The book exceeded all of my expectations. I loved it! 5 stars

Extra notes: Both bad language and sex present.