Hacienda Moon by KaSonndra Leigh

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Information:

Title: Hacienda Moon

Author: KaSonndra Leigh

Publisher: TriGate Group

Target Audience: Adult

Genre: Paranormal

Length: 280 pages

Story: Love, obsession, and betrayal, the most powerful human emotions, are spun together in this gothic novel. Tandie Harrison is a police medium who has just suffered a divorce after losing both her psychic visions and her daughter in a car accident. When she leaves New York City to start a new life near her hometown, she moves into the alluring plantation house, Chelby Rose, and falls for its charismatic caretaker, Eric Fontalvo. Their burgeoning affair ignites a centuries old curse, ensnaring them in a web of danger, deceit, and intrigue. Soon Tandie learns that in placid Bolivia, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected.

Hacienda Moon is a seductive tale of one woman’s journey to confront the demons of her past and find the courage to face her future. It is a mesmerizing novel that explores the deepest depths of human nature, and the characters will hold and haunt you long after you have read the final chapter.

Thoughts and impressions: As soon as I read the synopsis for this one, I was intrigued. I wanted to know more and so when the promo tour also offered six review copies, I immediately signed up for one of the six. I didn’t actually receive my copy until after the promo post (here) and I had a couple of other blog tour books to read before I could crack this one open, but I had itchy-finger-syndrome when it came to this one.

I cracked it open for the first time after having just finished another book of a very different genre. In hindsight, that wasn’t the best idea ever. I should have given myself some time to unwind from the first book before I cracked open this one. I also only allowed myself the time to read the prologue and things might have been different had I been able to immediately continue on to the first couple of chapters. The consequence of not doing so was that the prologue left me thrown and not entirely enraptured. This is my own fault, of course, and I suspect that my experience of starting the book would have been very different had I approached it differently.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been very busy recently, which meant that for the first few chapters I was only managing to snatch a chapter or two at a time rather than sitting down and reading a large chunk all at once (which is my preference). As a result of this style of reading, the story felt very slow-burning to me. This is not at all a bad thing. The author took her time to present each part of the story just as she wanted it to be presented, taking the reader down a dark path of confusing twists and turns and more than a few dead ends rather than rushing in to things head on.

There were certain things that were certainly confusing. At times I could tell that the person Tandie, the main character, was interacting with was not of our time. In fact, it seemed odd that she herself didn’t stop to question why on earth these people would be wearing period dress rather than jeans and a t-shirt. At other times I couldn’t figure out whether she was interacting with someone living or with one of the dead. These sorts of scenes really leant to the spooky feel that was gradually being built up in the story.

Right now I have a thing about ghosts in my paranormal / urban fantasy stories. They’re not as used and abused as vampires and werewolves (yet) which gives the author a little more leeway to make their ghosts relatable characters who are still unique in their own way. I liked all of the characters but one of the ghosts in particular (not naming names so people can deduce which of the characters are ghosts on their own should they choose to read the book). She was a chilling but fabulous character, very complex.

Though I had some reservations to begin with, the story soon smashed them all apart and turned out to be a gripping thrill ride. Well, I say thrill ride but I want to stress that it is slow burning. Things come together very slowly, but once all of the pieces are in place, it is definitely worth it! I really enjoyed the book.

Style: I noticed a tendency to repeat the same word sometimes rather than using synonyms. There were times when it felt like it verged a little too far on the tell instead of show side, but overall a style that I enjoyed.

Final verdict: A highly enjoyable ghost story that takes the time to draw the reader into the world created. 4 stars



First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

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This book was the very first one to pop up on my screen when GoodReads first introduced their recommendations based on what you’ve already read and enjoyed. It took a while but eventually I got myself a copy of this book, though this may have been more to do with the fact that people who like similar UF to me sign its praises!

Information:

Title: First Grave on the Right

Author: Darynda Jones

Series: Charley Davidson #1

Publisher: St Martin's Press

Target Audience: Adult

Genre: Urban fantasy

Length: 315 pages

Story: A smashing, award-winning debut novel that introduces Charley Davidson: part-time private investigator and full-time Grim Reaper

Charley sees dead people. That’s right, she sees dead people. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e. murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an Entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.

Thoughts and impressions: The opening of this book was a bit… weird to say the least – a bit intense? I have to say, I usually prefer my sex scenes to come a bit later on in the book! The author does deliver with a longer, better sex scene later on, but I was surprised to find one as the opening passage.

I was obviously being particularly slow while reading this book. It wasn’t until Charley pointed it out herself that I drew the parallel between her name and Harley Ds! She was definitely as cocky and in-your-face as a Harley D so I’d say her name was well chosen. In fact, at times she was a little too cocky for my tastes but this was easily overlooked.

The narrative was meant to be humorous and there were plenty of times when it pulled it off and I’d snigger out loud, but there were other times when the humour felt forced or was too repeated. This can easily be explained away by the differences between British and American humour, but at times I found it to be more on the side of tiring than funny. Still, in the long run I enjoyed Charley’s narrative voice. Due to her role in life, she’s used to keeping everyone at arm’s length and this shows – usually by her insulting anyone who tries to get to close.

Charley is, of course, the grim reaper. The ghosts of the departed go to her to get some closure to their lives before they go into her light. She works with the local police force where her uncle Bob, Ubie, is an officer, giving the “anonymous tips” necessary to put the bad guys behind bars. She also runs her own P.I. business on the side, keeping busy with both the living and the dead (as the dead obviously don’t tend to pay).

But when three lawyers working to get an innocent man’s name cleared of a murder he didn’t commit are all assassinated on the same night, Charley finds herself caught up in an investigation that seems hell bent on getting her killed. Luckily for Charley, she seems to have a guardian angel in the form of some unknown entity that scares her shitless. I have to admit that she did get injured a bit too often for it to really be believable. I think not a single day went by without her having a brush with death. It would have been easier to accept it all if it had been set over a slightly longer period, giving her a little bit of reprieve each time.

The romance with Reyes felt rather… unfounded. The two of them never had an interaction that didn’t end up giving in to lust. I knew next to nothing about his personality, because Charley didn’t know it either – she just felt this inexplicable attraction to him. This led to me feeling that I didn’t know enough about him to be particularly interested in their relationship – or maybe invested is the better word. That said, I really liked the sentiment behind the idea that Charley is quite literally the girl of Reyes’s dreams! There are enough tantalising hints about his role in life, the universe and everything that I’m interested in finding out more about him, but I wish I’d been able to get a better handle on him in this book.

I would have liked to have seen more of Charley’s family as well, especially her father’s reaction to her stepmother’s open animosity towards her. I suppose that this could easily be explored more in future instalments but it’s one of the things I’d be interested in exploring.

A fabulous introduction to an urban fantasy that deserves its position in the fantasy market!

Style: Very catty, very chatty. Informal, but fun.

Final verdict: A fun read that had me laughing out loud at times! I’m already looking forward to reading the second book! 4 stars

Extra notes: Both bad language and sex are present.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

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Information:

Title: The Name of the Star

Author: Maureen Johnson

Series: Shades of London #1

Publisher: Harper Collins

Target Audience: YA

Genre: Paranormal / thriller

Length: 374 pages

Story: The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper events of more than a century ago. 

Soon “Rippermania” takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him. Even her roommate, who was walking with her at the time, didn't notice the mysterious man. So why can only Rory see him? And more urgently, why has Rory become his next target? In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, full of suspense, humor, and romance, Rory will learn the truth about the secret ghost police of London and discover her own shocking abilities.

Thoughts and impressions: I’m all about things Jack the Ripper. Like many people, I share a sort of morbid fascination for these horrible crimes that were committed but never solved. So when this book came on to my radar as something playing with a present day re-enactment of the Ripper murders, I was intrigued. For some reason, though, I wasn’t sold and it took a long time before I gave in to the temptation to buy the book.

Now, though, I can honestly say that I shouldn’t have avoided it for so long. Or maybe it’s a good thing that I did as I’m now much more at ease with YA fiction than I was back when the book was first released. Nevertheless, this book is good! It’s a fascinating view of London’s dead, a gripping thriller that doesn’t lose itself in a soppy romance subplot or get embroiled in (too many) unnecessary details.

I say unnecessary details, but a lot of what I found unnecessary was probably an introduction to British culture. Here’s quite a lot of this, which I can well imagine as being of interest to readers who are not well acquainted with this culture. Being a Brit myself, of course, this isn’t really necessary for me. The author actually did very well at portraying our culture from an outsider point of view but there were a few general slip ups, such as the news on BBC1 being at 7 when really it’s the news at 6, and some vernacular slips, such as British people saying “have gotten” when we conjugate it as “have got”.

There was a little bit of a romance subplot present between Rory and Jerome, another of the students at the East End boarding school. It was fairly transparent that this was going to be built up as of the very first time that we meet Jerome, but I felt that it was well balanced within the context of the story. However, when Rory almost dies, she’s left with the ability to see ghosts and we’re eventually introduced to a number of other characters who also share this ability – one of whom, Stephen, turned out to be a very complex character and showed promise of becoming a potential romantic interest in the future. I certainly liked him better as a character than I did Jerome!

The ghosts themselves made for really enjoyable lore and I really connected with a couple of the dead characters. They were surpassed though by the characters with the ability to see them. Even though they come across as fairly shallow characters upon initial introduction, they all become very well-rounded, damaged people who were fascinating to read about.

Jazza deserves a mention as well. She was so sweet and supportive of Rory in her first few days at the school – the absolute perfect roommate. I loved her feud with Charlotte, the head girl, and how this would push her outside of her comfort zone, often egged on by Rory. I hope that she’ll be back in the next book!

Rory herself made for an interesting and original narrative voice. She’s spunky when it counts, strong when necessary and ready to make sacrifices in order to secure the safety of those she loves. I really enjoyed some of the anecdotes of her life in the Louisiana swamp that she tends to regale the reader with and how she draws parallels between these experiences and those of her new life in London’s East End.

And the ending? It was jaw-droppingly good! It leaves things in such a position that the author could take things just about anywhere in the second book and I’d read it just to find out what this will all mean for Rory. It’s definitely a series to keep your eye on. I’ll certainly be following it!

Style: I have nothing in particular to mention about the style. It was good and it drew me in. What more could I ask for?

Final verdict: I loved it, really enjoyed the book! Why did I avoid it for so long?! 4.5 stars

Extra notes: Some bad language. No sex.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I bought this book a long time ago – well, it can only have been four years ago at most but it feels like I made the purchase a long time ago. A friend recommended Gaiman to me, this book in particular. I listened to them in so much as I bought the book but whenever I sat in front of my bookcase looking for my next read it just never caught my eye until now.

Well, as they say, better late than never!

Information:

Title: The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Target Audience: Children’s / YA / Adult???

Pages: 307

Chapters: 8

PoV: 3^rd person

Tense : Past tense

Story: After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own. 

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family . . . 

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions: My first thought upon starting this book was that the style was very singular. The opening scene is of a man wiping blood from the knife he’s just used to kill three people but the language used almost makes it sound as though the story is aimed at a younger readership.

The style continues in this same manner but the events described are sometimes quite complex. The reader is only given part of the information and left to draw their own conclusions. I’m not sure that some of what’s going on wouldn’t just go over the heads of much younger readers. That said, the content is not particularly scary – I’ve read scarier books aimed at ten-year-olds – as you might imagine from the title, the synopsis, the knowledge that a man wants to kill the main character and the fact that it all takes place in a graveyard. I found it difficult to place the target audience with this one. Whenever I see the book in the shops, it’s always in the adult section but I think the story would appeal to younger readers too.

Each chapter follows a certain even in Bod’s life and each time these events take place two years apart. For the most part, the stories aren’t particularly interconnected but they show Bod’s evolution from a toddler to a young man. In each the reader is invited to explore an area of a reality that exists alongside ours – whether this be a trip along a plane where the “ghouls” live or an encounter with a millennia-old power.

I enjoyed each and every one of the short stories from Bod’s life, though at 80+ pages the 7^th was a bit of a push (I like to read chapter by chapter and not stop in the middle of one if at all possible). My favourite story was when Bod meets the ghost of a young woman who was burnt as a witch and buried on unconsecrated ground. She, Liza, has no headstones and this makes her sad so a young Bod decides to go out into the big wide world and buy one for her. I found this really sweet, especially as he’s only eight at the time.

Of course, the recurring theme across the novel is Bod’s existence in the graveyard living with the dead in a world apart from the living. Sometimes this is hard for him as he fights the urge to socialise with others like him – especially as he gets older. His struggles were always worthy of a child at whatever age he is in the chapter, though his speech did seem a bit formal. This could be put down to his having effectively been brought up by people who died anything between a hundred and just under two thousand years ago.

At one point, I thought it might turn out that “the man Jack” was some form of Jack the Ripper, what with his blade and all that. I’ve read a few novels over the past few months that incorporated Jack the Ripper in some way and I have to say that I’m glad that this book did not go down that same road. The idea of the Jacks of all trades really intrigued me; it was certainly something very different though I would have liked to have learnt more about them.

In all, this is a fairly short book. I read it in an afternoon. Dave McKean’s illustrations really serve to set it apart from the norm and I’m sure that they will make the book appeal all the more to certain readers. I have to admit that once or twice I couldn’t work out just what was being illustrated, though!

Style: The style was fairly simple, which was what led me to speculate about just what age of reader this book is aimed at. It’s one that a ten-year-old could likely tackle on their own, but it also hides more advanced hidden ideas.

Final verdict: As mentioned, this was my first Gaiman read. While I enjoyed it, I’m not chomping at the bit to go and read more by him. At times I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue reading or take a short break from the book. I might have enjoyed it more had I taken my time with it but instead I pushed through it all. This meant that I did occasionally feel worn down by the book. I’d advise other readers to not do as I did and to go at the pace their minds dictate. Maybe the book will earn a full 5 stars from these people but it gets a still good 4 stars from me.

Extra notes: I don’t think there was any bad language. No sex.

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.

Beyond (The Academy) by T.P. Boje

I received this book as part of the ARR (authors requesting reviews) programme in the Basically Books group on Goodreads. Many thanks to the author for providing me with a review copy of her book!

Information:

Title: Beyond (The Academy)

Series: The Afterlife #1

Author: T.P. Boje

Publisher: self-published

Target Audience: Younger readers

Pages: ebook

PoV: 1^st person

Tense: Past tense

Story: Have you ever wondered where you go when you die? 

Meghan is 16 when it happens to her. She wakes up on a flying steamboat on her way to a school run by Angels in a white marble castle. It is a school everybody has to go to before they are let into Heaven. On the boat she meets Mick who has been dead for more than a hundred years but still looks like a teenager. He helps her past the difficult beginning at the new school in a new world. One day some of Meghan's roommates find a mirror in the cellar of the school and they persuade her to go through it with them - well knowing it is strictly against the rules of the school. Meghan ends up back on earth where she meets Jason. But Jason is in danger and Meghan knows something important. Something that is a matter of life and death. Soon she is forced to choose between the two worlds. The one she belongs to now and the one she left. 

Beyond is the first novel in T. P. Boje's Afterlife series and is great for children and teenagers ages 9 and up.

Thoughts and impressions: I suppose first and foremost, the similarities between this book and Harry Potter should be mentioned at least in passing. I don’t want to focus on them too much but they’re certainly there in various forms. T.P. Boje did go to lengths to change the things borrowed from the Potterverse and adapt them to her creation. Honestly, their presence didn’t fuss me all that much but I know that some readers didn’t appreciate the ties to one of their favourite series.

The way that the story starts, the narrator, Meghan, is addressing the reader and explaining the world of spirits: what a spirit is, how they appear, etc. I’m not sure that this was necessary. I understand why the author did this as it was her way of setting the scene for her world, but the downside is that in doing so she’s laid the whole of her universe before the reader before anything even happens. I think I would have preferred it if the book opened with Meghan waking up on the steamboat with no memory of how she got there and then all these concepts from the first few pages be introduced slowly throughout the book. For the most part, these things are actually rehashed at various points in the narrative so it wouldn’t have harmed the book if the first few pages had been removed.

One of the things mentioned in that part, though, is that a spirit appears in the clothes that they were wearing at the time of their death. All I could think was what would happen if the person died, say, in the bath? Would that spirit be forced to spend eternity in their birthday suit? Maybe I’m thinking too much, I know I have a tendency to do that at times.

I soon found that I was actually very interested in this afterlife that T.P. Boje had created with the idea that spirits train to later go back and interact with the living in order to try to sway them towards doing good things in life and joining them on the good side of the afterlife upon their death. And then God and Satan were introduced. I was really upset and frustrated at this point (obviously I didn’t pay much attention to the synopsis mentioning angels and heaven). I’d been really eating up this concept of the afterlife and then it was all reduced to a Christian concept. Christian because Satan is a Christian concept, not Jewish, and he is much more recent than the concept of God. There’s a scene where it’s mentioned that Satan is leading Adam and Eve somewhere, I forget where, but that’s not possible because he didn’t exist for several thousand years after the idea of Adam and Eve. The snake in the Garden of Eden is actually a representation of the god of the religion that had been popular in that area prior to Judaism and it was fairly normal standard at that time to take the imagery of the previous religion and vilify it. Enough religious side-tracking there, but yes, I was so disappointed when this world was made to revolve around God as I’d been hoping for a really interesting afterlife concept that didn’t hinge on religion. Really I suppose that I should have seen it coming as of the Hebrew terms introduced right at the beginning.

I’m not sure whether this book is aimed at teens or YA. Meghan herself is about 16 but the narration is fairly simple, which would be better for younger readers. It also leant heavily on believing what Meghan told you. I’ve got two examples for this:

1)  Meghan is shown to go cloud surfing with Abhik, a young Indian boy who died of cancer. After that one scene together, Meghan suddenly considers him a good friend whom she has to protect - I suppose from himself - when he is coerced into going to visit the humans (something against school rules at this point in their education). I didn’t see enough interaction between the two characters to warrant Meghan feeling this way about Abhik. Had they had more scenes together to show the growing friendship between them, then I would have been more willing to accept this premise. Instead, I found myself having to just accept Meghan’s word for it.

2) When Meghan first arrives in the afterlife, she is sorted into a group of teens around her age. There are six girls who are all introduced when they’re together in the dorm. One, Portia, is soon presented as a spiteful persona and a ringleader with two cronies, Mai and Acacia. Later on, we get this quote: “Everyone who started to hang out too much with Portia seemed to be affected by that [poisoned heart]. I had seen it in Mai and later in Acacia, how they slowly turned more and more vicious every day.” Maybe Meghan had seen it, but I didn’t. Mai and Acacia were never presented as being nice. As of the very introduction of their characters, they were Portia’s cronies and they were not particularly kind, preferring to kick those who are already down. To back up this quote, there should have been scenes earlier in the book where Meghan is interacting with Mai and Acacia and those two girls are slowly changing from being nice girls who could have been her friend to being Portia clones.

There were a few other times when the reader was asked to just accept things on Meghan’s say so. A little bit of tell is ok but this book was occasionally heavily tell. There was show too, but I did find it to rely on tell a tad too much.

There were also certain things that didn’t make sense, such as Mr Grangé, the spirit who will teach the new students how to fly, was guillotined during the French Revolution and he carries his head around under this arm… yet he compares flying to being “the best roller-coaster ride you have ever tried”. How would Mr Grangé have had the experience of a roller-coaster to compare the two thus? I know that in the first few pages Meghan mentions that the spirits can choose to be visible and move around amongst the living, but it’s not expanded on in this first book and, anyway, Mr Grangé was decapitated – he’d stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd! Also, they don’t seem to get enough new comers. I know there are supposedly around 400 of these schools for spirits, but Meghan is there for approx. three human years and we only see one new intake of students. An awful lot of people die around the world in a span of three years. I know some of these will become bad spirits, but surely there’d still be a fair number of good spirits to contend with. Just little things like these left me scratching my head on occasion.

The last thing that I want to mention is that Meghan makes friends with a human boy, Jason, despite this being against the rules. This is fun and I enjoyed reading about the friendship blossoming between the two of them and the subtle hints that Jason was growing up as Meghan stayed the same age. I thought it was well done and I liked the concept of friendship and even romance between a living person and a ghost. Hell, I’ve liked that concept ever since I was convinced that Casper the ghost and Cat the human girl should totally have had their happily ever after! But then Meghan realises that the abuse Jason receives at his stepfather’s hands is going to go too far one day. She feels understandably powerless to do anything to change the situation but she doesn’t want Jason to die. Instead of either trying to find a way to prevent it, or coming to terms with what she can’t change, she just goes all Bella Swan on us and that is never a good thing. She just lies around in bed for a few months and mopes for the boy who’s not even dead yet but who she cannot save. I didn’t like this Meghan at all. I never like characters that choose to mope rather than be proactive, even if their proactivity does not give results. It’s better than reading about a depressed person failing classes and avoiding their friends.

Despite the fact that I’ve mentioned a number of things that didn’t work for me with the novel, it does have redeeming features as well and I did enjoy it. One of these redeeming features is the on-going plot of how Meghan died. We do not yet know what happened to her, but there are hints that maybe her parents never discovered her body and they’re still looking for her. This is actually heart-breaking. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if your child did not come home one day and then you never even had the closure of knowing whether or not they lived or died? That is one of the hardest realities I can imagine. The author also deals with child soldiers in Africa and I think she treated the subject admirably, even if it was only in passing.

As I said before, it was an interesting concept of what happens to us upon our deaths, and I did like the world that was presented even if I also harboured reservations about the religious side of it. I would have preferred it without the religious undertones, especially as the book brings together people of all sorts of different cultures who are not all Christian yet does not address this issue. But then, there is a large market for Christian fiction out there.

The book also ends at a point where Meghan’s next steps will define her as a person (or spirit as the case may be) and I’d like to see just how she’ll go about rectifying the negative impact she has had on events.

Style: As mentioned, it’s fairly simple. There are also repetitions at times, such as the first conversation between Meghan and Jason where the word “well” appeared what felt like twenty million times in a short space. Occasionally there are odd things that stand out, such as incorrect prepositions, but this could be due to the author being Danish and writing in English.

Final verdict: I think that this book will appeal to younger readers, maybe 12+, or those who are not too overzealous about Harry Potter. I had my reservations about certain things, but in the long run I did enjoy the book. 3 stars

Extra notes: A couple of occasions where bad language is used. No sex.

Crossing Over by Anna Kendall

At some point late last spring I came across this book, Crossing Over, at my local bookstore. It was one that I’d never heard of before but I purchased it all the same – if I’m honest likely on the strength of the very appealing cover. It wasn’t until later when I looked it up that I realised that this book a) isn’t rated particularly well and b) is a far cry from even having its own niche in the fantasy market. I’m not one to pick up a book based solely on glowing reviews and I’m not one to ignore a book because it only has mediocre reviews. My mind made up that I would give this book the fair chance that all books deserve, I decided to give it a go when my mum stole my Kindle from me for 10 days (thus putting all of my reading obligations on hold).

Information:

Title: Crossing Over

Series: Roger Kilbourne #1

Author: Anna Kendall

Publisher: Gollancz

Target Audience: YA

Pages: 330

Chapters: 32

PoV: 1^st person

Tense: Past tense

Story: Whether it's a curse, or a blessing, or an ability, the fact remains: whenever Roger is injured or in enough pain he crosses over to the land of the dead. Once there, there are rules: only the newly dead will talk, for example, and nothing will raise the longer dead from their tranquillity. 

There are rules in the land of the living as well; rules which would have Roger hanged for witchcraft if he was ever caught. But refusing to cross over isn't an option. His uncle depends on Roger to hide under the table in their fairground act, listen to the recently bereaved asking questions of their dear departed, and then cross over to find the answers. It's a hard way of life, made all the harder as his uncle's fists usually provide the trigger for Roger to cross over. 

It's not the only way of life, though, and when Roger sees a chance to escape he fights for it - little knowing that love, loss, shocking revelations and, ultimately, war lie ahead of him. 

Just because Roger can cross over into the land of the dead doesn't mean he wants to.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions: The story starts by putting its best foot forward as we observe Roger, a slave to his uncle, being forced to cross over to the land of the dead in order to scam mourners out of their money. The author’s idea of this land where the dead exist is not at all what I was expecting and so much the better for it. The way that it’s described, it’s as though the dead are all waiting for something maybe? They sit and stare at nothing; they’re, for the most part, unresponsive and only a few will rouse themselves long enough to interact with Roger. But then, though Roger describes this land as being heavily populated, I can’t imagine that there were nearly enough dead there. This led me to speculate about what could possibly have happened to all those other dead from times gone by. Whether or not the author intends to address this in future books I couldn’t say, but it certainly opens the door to vast opportunities.

After this strong opening, though, the story gets a bit weird as Roger arrives in the court of his Queendom. There were a lot of slow parts here, though I have to take into consideration that I was rarely able to read more than a chapter at a time and this may have affected how I saw the advancement of the plot.

The reader is introduced to Lady Cecilia at this point and Roger’s infatuation. The story is told in Roger’s voice and he believes himself to be in love with the pretty little flirt but it’s obvious that it’s only infatuation as there’s actually very little substantial communication between the two characters, not to mention that Cecilia always treats Roger as her inferior (which in the court he is but he can’t see that this means she could never bring herself to view him as a potential suitor). I didn’t really like his obsession with Cecilia, mostly because I didn’t buy that he could be that obsessed just due to her looks.

There is also, of course, a bigger political intrigue going on around them. This is court and what’s court without political backstabbing? In this case, the Queendom is ruled by a queen who is supposed to pass power to her daughter when the daughter turns 35. However, this time around the old queen didn’t consider her daughter fit to rule and refused to pass on the power. This didn’t stop her daughter from having herself crowned and setting up her own court within her mother’s court. She’s also determined to get her Queendom at any cost.

Roger comes into all of this in that the young queen recognises him as one able to cross to the other side and she tries to use him to gather intel there. Of course, for the most part the dead won’t talk to him so he invents a lot of this intel. This is another part of the book that I wasn’t particularly fond of. The parts in the land of the living and the passages where Roger crossed over to the land of the dead had nothing to do with each other and it left me feeling unsatisfied. I understand why it was there and done like this, I just didn’t enjoy it much.

Once Roger’s out of the court again, chasing Cecilia as she’s brought the queen’s wrath down upon her head, things pick up again for a while. I really liked the intrigue of Soulvine Moor – a place no one will speak of but the place where Roger’s mother died. I really liked the hints at who Roger is and I was fascinated by the picture painted at this point. I found myself really immersed in the book.

And then Cecilia comes back into it again and everything collapsed. I didn’t like Cecilia to start with and Roger’s unhealthy obsession with the girl and his selfishness that dictates all his actions at this point pushed me to the point where I didn’t like Roger either. I found this part to be particularly boring as all it focuses on is both characters’ bad points. I just ended up feeling really frustrated with both characters.

Thankfully, it picks up again for the final climax. I found myself completely immersed in the story at this point. I was itching to read all evening but couldn’t slink away to find a quiet spot. Eventually, I managed to finish the novel, though. I feel that it left off in just about the perfect place; it has certainly caught my attention enough for me to want to read the sequel. Especially as there won’t be any Cecilia in it!

The setting was very interesting and about the opposite of what might be expected. The world is fairly reminiscent of a mediaeval landscape but then the wild savages come with heir firesticks that they call guns – usually it’d be the more civilised society that gains the secrets of guns first but I really like what the author did here. As mentioned before, the land of the dead was also very interesting, particularly when Roger starts inadvertently affecting it. That was an original twist even if the twist itself could be seen a mile off.

However, I have to admit that I often found Roger to be a frustrating character. He had a lot of character flaws and at times these eclipsed his good points so much that I found myself wondering whether I really wanted to continue with this series after this book. The ending means that I do but it was touch and go for a while.

The whole thing with Cecilia really didn’t work for me either. The problem with this is that it’s Roger’s desire for Cecilia that pushes certain points of the narrative. It just wasn’t founded beyond Cecilia’s beauty, which meant that Roger’s obsession with the girl came across as creepy rather than romantic. I liked Maggie. She gave it to him straight and would put him in his place. I look forward to getting to know her better in the next book.

Choosing to write this book from a young male’s point of view was an interesting decision on the author’s behalf. It certainly made the book stand out from the masses of books written from a female point of view. I’m not completely sold on all Roger’s bodily reactions, though, but that said not being a male myself I don’t really know how all that works and maybe it’s justified by the rampant hormones of a 14-year-old boy!

Style: There were occasional sentences in the present tense among all those in the past tense. I suppose it could be said that it’s the future Roger intervening in the narrative to comment on events, but I would have preferred if it had been kept to the past tense.

Final verdict: This book was like a pendulum. It swung between very good parts and incredibly boring parts. There were parts that were easily 4 stars and parts that were bordering on 1 star. It’s very rare that I ever come across books that are quite so polarised. It also leaves me conflicted in just how to rate it. I’m going to go with 3 stars.

Extra notes: There is some bad language but not much. There is one sex scene but it doesn’t go into detail. There is, however, a strong sexual side to the story as Roger reacts to the nearness of women, which leads me to consider the book inappropriate for younger readers.

The Kingdom by Amanda Stevens

I received this book from NetGalley.

In early September 2011 this book got delivered to my door. It was called The Restorer and the idea of ghosts and murder mystery really intrigued me. That day I was alternating between reading chapters of my English book and letters from my French read. I think I managed all of about six alternations before the French book was left, forgotten, to one side.

The Restorer took me on such an emotional ride! I loved every moment of it and spent the last four months of 2011 gushing about how it was my favourite 2011-published read. The Kingdom, the second book in the series, was due for release in October 2011 but the release date got pushed back. I awaited its now-2012 release date with baited breath and when I got approved for the book on NetGalley in January, the approval email was met with a high-pitched squeal and much fan-girling. That’s how excited I was to get my hands on this book! The boyfriend had this look on his face that clearly said that he thought I’d gone temporarily mad but who care? More Amelia Gray!

Information:

Title: The Kingdom

Series: The Graveyard Queen #2

Author: Amanda Stevens

Publisher: Mira (Harlequin)

Target Audience: adult

Pages: 400

Chapters: 40

PoV : 1st person

Tense : past tense

Story : Deep in the shadowy foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains lies a dying town... 

My name is Amelia Gray. They call me The Graveyard Queen. I’ve been commissioned to restore an old cemetery in Asher Falls, South Carolina, but I’m coming to think I have another purpose here. 

Why is there a cemetery at the bottom of Bell Lake? Why am I drawn time and again to a hidden grave I’ve discovered in the woods? Something is eating away at the soul of this town—this withering kingdom—and it will only be restored if I can uncover the truth.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions : The very first page. That’s how long it took before I was completely and utterly hooked. The events in this book take place six months after the end of the first book. Amelia is on her way to a restoration project in an area cut off from everything else when the lake expanded several decades ago, flooding some areas of the town. All those houses, all those lives are still down there, not to mention all those ghosts of the past trapped in this backwoods place.

Right off the bat I was completely head over heels for this setting. It’s remote, it’s spooky – it’s perfect for this sort of book! The reader becomes just as immersed in these secluded surroundings as Amelia herself and I felt that the author did a fantastic job of creating an eerie location in what feels almost like an abandoned ghost town.

There are various different intrigues woven into this story that keep the pace racing along and the tension (often) high. Some things I’d figured out long before they became accepted fact (Freya’s role) but others left me completely stunned (Papa). Amelia was a bit slow on the uptake regarding the main theme in this book – her heredity – but then this is a first person narration and I got the feeling that this was a case of an unreliable narrator. I think that deep down Amelia knew the truth as of fairly early on but she shrank from this knowledge until she could no longer pretend that it wasn’t staring her in the face.

In the first book, Amelia has four rules that she follows in order to protect herself from the ghosts that she can see but must never acknowledge. When she meets John Devlin, a haunted cop, she breaks each of these rules one by one. Now she has to pay the price as bigger things start to stir, calling out to her, drawing her to them. There are worse things than ghosts.

The Restorer introduces the concept of ghosts and what they are as well as dark creatures that always remain a bit mysterious. The Kingdom takes things a step further with witches, strange creatures that do not belong to our world, and a dark menace that Amelia calls pure Evil, adding a fascinating layer to the lore in this series. Though I liked the concept of a force that influences the people who let it in, I didn’t really so much understand exactly what it was or how it could manifest itself in so many different ways. I suspect that explanations are still to come, hopefully in the next book.

The Kingdom separates Amelia from next to everything that was in The Restorer, including John Devlin. Despite his absence (he didn’t figure in the book at all), he’s often referred to and I’m fairly sure that Devlin is Amelia’s long-term romantic interest in the series. I kept hoping that he’d show up but the author stuck to her guns and in the long run I suspect that this was better for Amelia as it allowed her character to grow. And grow she certainly did! She is just the sort of heroine that I adore.

However, there is still an important romance subplot in this book with a new romantic interest. At first I was fairly guarded and not quite willing to give Thane Asher the time of day that he deserved – after all, he was Devlin’s replacement and I wanted Devlin! – but once I’d put my prejudices aside, he grew on me. He was certainly an interesting enigma and I never knew quite where I stood in how I felt about him, much the same as Amelia did really. Unfortunately, his chemistry with Amelia just wasn’t on the same level as the Devlin-Amelia chemistry that we saw in the previous book. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t like their relationship, I did, Thane just didn’t impact me the way Devlin did. The Prophet’s blurb confirms that Devlin will be back in the third book and I can’t wait to see how he and Amelia will act around each other!

Angus deserves a mention too. Poor, sweet Angus. What happened to him was a horrible but very real reality and I’m glad that Amanda Stevens chose to address it in the book. He was completely adorable. Now that Amelia has adopted him, I’m really hoping that he’ll keep his status as a main character in the next book.

As of the very first chapter I had tingles going down my spine. That’s quite some feat. Every time I put the book down, I had an overpowering urge to delve right back in putting off everything I could in favour of reading. I never once lost interest in the narrative. And that last line? Oh so many promises for the next book in fewer than ten words.

The Kingdom has cemented a spot for Amanda Stevens on my favourite authors list. It was all I could have asked for and more. It took me on a ride I won’t be forgetting. I urge everyone to read this series!

Just one question: who on earth licked her neck?!

Style: Colloquial at times but very absorbing. Absorbing to the point where we ate a burnt dinner because the story was just far more interesting than keeping an eye on the cooking!

Final verdict: Two words: More Please!! 5 stars

Extra notes: I was too absorbed by the narrative to pay any attention to the language but it didn’t stand out. Sex is kind of there but nothing explicit.

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber

This book came as a recommendation from www.fantasticfiction.co.uk as one that I should try when I was on my historical (murder mystery) bend last year. I took down the title and considered the purchase once every so often but it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I decided to go ahead and take the plunge.

Due to the nature of the book from which I got this recommendation, I expected a story close to historical fact with an unexplained death at the centre of the plot. That’s not quite what I got, though…

Presentation: large paperback with medium-sized type that is well-spaced. The chapters continue on the same page after a small jump – I point this out because if you’re anything like me, you won’t be capable of putting a book down if there’s no page break. There are 324 pages and for some reason I didn’t write down how many chapters were in this book. (It is now in storage.)

Story: Miss Percy Parker arrives at the esteemed Athens Academy determined to receive an education. After her mother sadly passed within days of her birth, Percy was raised in a convent where she was kept away from the world at large because of her unique colouring.

Having persuaded the abbey mother to give her this chance at an education, though, Percy is determined to make the most of it. If the other students avoid her because of her lack of pigmentation, then so be it.

She excels at language studies but is also required to take a maths and science course. This course is taught by the enigmatic Alexi  Rychman. a man in his mid-30s. Percy immediately finds herself drawn to him but is embarrassed by her poor abilities in his class and how this forces him to give her private tutoring.

Little does she know that Alexi is one of the six members of a secret group, all inhabited by spirits, sworn to protect humanity from the things that go bump in the night. A prophecy looms over them: in time a seventh member, their equal, will join them, but they will also be tempted by a false member and should they choose the wrong person, they could bring down the walls between worlds.

Is Percy that seventh member or the one destined to doom the world at large? Alexi just doesn’t know.

Thoughts and impressions: First of all, let’s get the bad out of the way. The language use was often clunky with terms and expressions that really didn’t fit the era. As for the foreign language use, I couldn’t believe how bad it was considering this book was published by traditional means: close to every single sentence in French (that went beyond one word) had either grammar or spelling mistakes – or both. I did write them all down but then I lost the piece of paper it was on. In German, it’s not “heisse”, it’s “heiße”. It’s really not that hard to find the eszet in the character map, but ß is always used after the diphthong “ei”, and not double ‘s’. (I know some people say that’s it’s pretty much the same thing, but all of the Germans that I know, and living next door to Germany I know a fair few, are adamant that the eszet should be used.) The Russian I can’t comment on.

It can’t be that hard to get native speakers of these languages to quickly proof read the little excerpts written in them, especially not in the USA where so many people speak multiple languages fluently.

The other bad thing came at the end of the story when Percy did a complete 180 character turn and became a snivelling, useless lump of lard when she gets rejected. She’d been such a strong female character up until that point. Why change her into a woman dependant on the affections of a man at this point? She morphs into this ridiculous character that I no longer wanted to read about.

Now the good. The author takes a Greek tale – that of the goddess Persephone being tricked by Hades into leaving her winged lover and becoming his wife in his domain – and adapts it to Victorian England life. I have to admit, at first I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the prologue. It became clear soon enough, though, with the legend coming out in bits and pieces throughout the plot. Somebody more familiar with Greek mythology than I may have been able to spot what it was all leading to sooner than I did.

The reader is aware that Percy is Alexi’s eternal lover, whom we meet in her goddess form in the prologue, but neither of the characters is aware of this. It was actually rather sweet watching them interact with each other as Percy tries to stamp out her attraction to this much older man, and Alexi tries to figure out just what it is about Percy Parker that draws him to her. They had some very interesting scenes together during his private tutoring of her and I liked how their relationship grew. Well, until it destroyed everything Percy was and had stood for, as mentioned above.

I liked the other members of Alexi’s group as well. They were all interesting characters and I hope to see more of the romance Michael feels for Rebecca now that Rebecca has to face the fact that, despite her feelings, Alexi will never be hers. It was also fun, in an infuriating way, to watch them all being blind-sided by the woman the reader knows to be Hades’s envoy while rejecting Percy because she’s “too young” and so couldn’t possibly be their equal.

One thing that I wasn’t so sure about was that Jack the Ripper was actually a Cerberus sent by Hades to bring his wife back to him. It was an interesting take on the events, but I didn’t really buy it. Over the years, I’ve seen better interpretations of just what Jack the Ripper was (with him not being a normal human being) and this own seemed a little too far-fetched to me. Nevertheless, the Cerberus was still a formidable foe!

Oh, and from the way he’s described, I imagined Alexi as Alan Rickman!

(That’s ok, ‘cuz Alan Rickman’s pretty darn good looking!)

Style: As mentioned in the review, the style was clunky with too much of a mix of modern and forced period language. It didn’t flow perfectly, but it could easily just be the author still finding her voice. The foreign language mistakes really bugged me, though. They should have been checked – and not with Google Translate!

Final verdict: An interesting and well-plotted tale let down by Percy’s character change (I was considering 5 stars up until that point) but still good. 4 stars.

Extra notes: I don’t think there was any bad language use. No sex.