Wraith's Forest by L.J. Leger

Beauty and the Beast retelling… is there any wonder that I requested a copy of this book for review? Considering my addiction to all things B&B, I think not. Time kind of got away from me with this book and I missed the deadline review date, but I guess better late than never, right?

Information:

Title: Wraith’s Forest

Author: Judith Leger

Publisher: Pinewood Press

Target Audience: 15+

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 44 pages

Story: Fairy tales and haunted woods lead us through L.J. Leger's Beauty and the Beast story of one girl with the weight of a village on her shoulders and the attention of a very unlikely soul.

Jenna is chosen for the coveted task of gathering the magical fruit to preserve the peaceful balance of the secret valley where she and many others live. During the harvest, one fruit is damaged and the task of healing the bruise falls on Jenna’s shoulders. She must enter the Wraith’s Forest, retrieve a magical blade from the specter who lives there so the valley will remain a utopia. But once she makes contact with the Wraith, her fear slowly disappears and her curiosity is aroused with more questions of why the Wraith is in the Forest and the true purpose for the harvest. If you love Beauty and Beast type fairy tales, Wraith’s Forest is the book to read. 

Thoughts and impressions: The problem with novellas is that often enough it’s hard for the reader to form a substantial opinion of the characters. I found that to be the case here. I had my opinion of Jenna but that was because the story followed her and so she was in every scene. I actually liked her and how she came across as a very rounded, normal person: doing her duty because she knows this is what is expected of her and not because this is what she wants to do. I find that’s the case with most people. If my mother was heavily pregnant and needed my help around the house, I suspect I’d feel frustrated and put out at having to walk to a tree and collect its fruit for three days straight, even being aware that it was for the greater good of the valley as a whole.

Jenna, however, was the only one I really had an opinion of. Nole, the wizard, was obviously going to be playing the role of the bad guy but he wasn’t fleshed out enough for me to really understand why he was playing this role (something about a woman and jealousy of his rival, but it was passed over too quickly that it didn’t stick). The Wraith, playing the role of the Beast, in his broken castle that is a mere shadow of its former glory, trapped in a spell he never wanted to be part of – yes, he inspired empathy in me as he did in Jenna and he was actually a very good basis for a Beast character. Perhaps the most important thing was that the growing attraction between Jenna and the Wraith just wasn’t really there for me. I mean, first off, they were only together for a day or two and secondly while their interactions were poignant, I didn’t feel they contained the seeds of future love.

At the length it was, the story was good and Jenna in particular made for a good character, the idea of a spell for balance in the valley was interesting and well-used. I actually feel that the author had all the necessary ingredients there to have made this novella longer, to have built up more – especially the interactions between Jenna and the Wraith – and to have had an absolute stunner on her hands. As it was, things did feel rather rushed. As a rule of thumb, romances in novellas are rushed simply because there isn’t the length of book to have them slow-burning, but this one just didn’t have the basis for me to readily accept Jenna’s actions at the end (though I could accept the Wraith’s as she was the one who freed him).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the idea behind the story was one that had me completely sold and my interest piqued, but the length of the story didn’t allow for the evolution necessary to really tickle my fancy.

Style: I went through phases with the style of the book. I read it in two goes: once waiting for the pharmacy to open and then I finished it on my way to work (because I was caught up in the story and wanted to finish it as soon as possible but then I suffered the headache I get from reading in that particular bus so that may have tampered with my view of the style). Up until the point where Jenna goes to the Wraith’s castle, I was enjoying the style. Once she got there, though, I noticed that the sentences tended to be very short, which lent a rather choppy feel to the style, and sometimes bordered on telling too much rather than showing. From time to time there would be two or three sentences in a row that would follow the formula: “she *action verb* *object* (full stop).” I’m not really a fan of such short sentences that start with personal pronouns, but I readily admit that this is personal taste.

Final verdict: If I’m honest, I think that the length of this story did let it down in certain areas. If the author ever decides to expand on this novella and make a full-fledged novel out of it, I think it could easily be one of my favourite YA Beauty and the Beast retellings! 3 stars

Extra notes: No bad language, no sex.

Blue Sky Days by Marie Landry

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review with the Authors Requesting Reviews program on Basically Books.

This book came recommended to me by Tana, the fabulous queen of the ARR program. Although this is not a genre that I often dabble in, I found I was actually feeling fairly excited about the prospect of the story and stepping out of my comfort zone.

Information:

Title: Blue Sky Days

Author: Marie Landry

Publisher: Self-published

Length: 207 pages

PoV: 1^st person

Tense: Past tense

Story: A year after graduating from high school, nineteen-year-old Emma Ward feels lost. She has spent most of her life trying to please her frigid, miserable mother - studying hard, getting good grades, avoiding the whole teenage rebellion thing - and now she feels she has no identity beyond that. Because she spent so many years working hard and planning every moment of her life, she doesn't have any friends, has never had a boyfriend, and basically doesn't know who she is or what she really wants from life. Working two part-time jobs to save money for college hasn't helped her make decisions about her future, so she decides it's time for a change. She leaves home to live with her free-spirited, slightly eccentric Aunt Daisy in a small town that makes Emma feel like she's stepped back in time. 

When Emma meets Nicholas Shaw, everything changes - he's unlike anyone she's ever met before, the kind of man she didn't even know existed in the 21st century. Carefree and spirited like Daisy, Nicholas teaches Emma to appreciate life, the beauty around her, and to just let go and live. Between Daisy and Nicholas, Emma feels like she belongs somewhere for the first time in her life, and realizes that you don't always need a plan - sometimes life steers you where you're meant to be. 

Life is wonderful, an endless string of blue sky days, until Nicholas is diagnosed with cancer, and life changes once again for Emma in ways she never thought possible. Now it's time for her to help Nicholas the way he's helped her. Emma will have to use her new-found strength, and discover along the way if love really is enough to get you through.

Thoughts and impressions: I have to be honest as I start this review: I think that this is one of the most difficult reviews that I have ever written. Even in my own head I am very torn about this book. On the one hand, I did like the story and the message that it conveys, but on the other hand it was lacking something for me. But what, exactly, was it lacking? Well, I’m finding that I can’t quite put my finger on that. I’m going to try to figure it out for myself as I write this.

So what’s the book about? The synopsis covers that extensively. Emma, having always lived in her mother’s shadow as she strives for her approval, finally sets out to discover life and what she wants from it. So she goes to live with her aunt Daisy in the small town of Riverview and there she embarks on a voyage of self-discovery. She soon meets Nicholas and her voyage of self-discovery becomes the adventure of falling in love for the first time. But her summer happiness is doomed when Nicholas is diagnosed with cancer and Emma has to find new pillars of strength inside herself in order to be the rock that Nicholas needs to help him weather this storm.

I much preferred the second half of the story, but why? I think that the answer lies in the fact that in the first half of Blue Sky Days there is no threat in any form. There’s nothing hanging over their heads as the reader knows that the cancer problem is coming, but the characters don’t. It’s not even really the story of Emma and Nicholas falling in love as that happens right off the bat. It’s more a chronicle of what they did together that summer. There are two what I’m going to term “speeds”. Most of the time things were set on “play” and the reader would experience events as Emma lived them. Other times it was like things were on “fast forward” as Emma gave the lowdown on what they’d been doing until we’re caught up with her present again.

Because there was no threat to what was going on, to their happiness, I felt a bit like a voyeur standing at a window and looking in on these people, which in turn left me ill at ease. More than this, though, the physical interactions between the characters left me uncomfortable. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly touchy-feely person and I’m all about hugs and kisses (much to my boyfriend’s ever-lasting frustration!), but these characters took touchy-feely to a whole new level. They were constantly kissing each other on the cheek or forehead or hugging even when it was the first time they’d met. This may be a culture issue, I don’t know. Again, I just felt bordering on voyeuristic by the intimacy of it all.

I didn’t really feel the growing relationships between the characters at this point either. Daisy and Emma already had a close relationship before the events of the book even started; Maggie and Vince, Nicholas’s friends, didn’t really get much on-page time and the reader just had to take Emma’s word for it when she mentioned that they’d become friends during one of the fast forward passages; and I felt that the scenes between Emma and Nicholas were more a way of chronicling the events of the summer than really showing the evolution of their feelings as the feelings just seemed to be there as of the get go.

It was interesting to watch Emma come to find her own two feet with the help of these other characters but I found that my discomfort during this half of the story was often hard to overlook and the fact that for 50% of the book there was nothing to threaten their happiness meant that I felt that they had nothing to lose. Consequently, it was hard to stay interested at times.

The second half of the book really picked up. I know that some readers were reduced to tears when reading this half of the book as Nicholas has to fight leukaemia. Personally, I didn’t cry but I suspect that this stems from my difficulties connecting with the characters in the first half of the book.

Funnily enough this part of the story reflects events that took place in my boyfriend’s family just before I was drawn into the fold. We’re talking almost the exact same trials and tribulations as Emma and Nicholas and the same mentality on coming out the other side. It’s very true that such an experience leaves you with a very different outlook on life. There were a good number of quotes in this part of the book that really impacted me. The most important of these was something that Daisy says to Emma when Emma’s feeling close to breaking point as things go from bad to worse.

"You're going to give him all you have, just like you've been doing, and when you don't think you've got anything left to give you're going to dig deeper and somehow find more strength..." I loved this quote. It meant so much to me. I wish I knew how to add quotes to GoodReads so I could add that one to my favourites, alas I don’t.

This was a very poignant insight into the horror that people – friends and family of cancer sufferers – go through every day. I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt, though my experience was diagnosed as terminal so there was never a point when raised hopes were dashed as they are in the book. I think the most striking scene for me was when Emma climbed into her car and just broke down, she felt so powerless and that translated really well.

In fact, the author’s ability to portray these feelings (as several of the characters end up feeling like ships without anchors) was really admirable. She’s got great talent for bringing such emotions to life for the reader. Had I connected with the characters better, I’m sure that I too would have been reduced to a blubbering mess.

Emma’s dad also makes his appearance in the second half after having been more or less absent for the first half of things. He’s supposedly breaking free from the chains that shackle him to his selfish, unfeeling wife but most of this goes on off-page so the reader doesn’t really get to observe his evolution. I would have liked to have seen more or it. As it was it felt like it was a little too much in the way of tying things up with that bow of perfection. It didn’t help that I found the mother’s character very hard to believe. I just feel that had she really been jealous that her only child chose to spend her time with her aunt instead of her mother, the mother would have gone to lengths to get her back rather than just keep pushing her farther and farther away at each point.

So I find that I’m torn about this book. I think really this is in part my own fault as the reader for not connecting very well with the book.  When I look at it from a distance, I’m aware that this book is worth at least 4 stars, but it just didn’t work that well for me. I enjoyed it for the most part but I wasn’t invested in it.

The message, however, is perfect. May we all strive to make every day a blue sky day.

Style: I don’t know what it was exactly about the “fast forward” passages that didn’t work for me, but they just didn’t work all that well for me. That said, Georgette Heyer is one of my favourite authors and I don’t like her “fast forward” passages either, so maybe it’s just this particular style of recounting events. Other than that, the style was very enjoyable and flowed well. For an indie book there were remarkably few issues with the editing, so much respect is deserved there!

Final verdict: Though I realise that the book deserves a high rating, it wasn’t a 4 or 5 star read for me. It wasn’t a bad read either. I’m used to reading books where there’s a very definite threat throughout the book and I think the lack of one here definitely affected my enjoyment of this one. 3 stars

Extra notes: Some bad language. Sex behind closed doors.

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.

Exiled by Rashelle Workman

Ok, I’ll admit it: I fell in cover lust with this book. I mean, just look at that cover! It's so good that at first, I thought that the book was one that had gone through the traditional publishing houses and it wasn’t until much later that I realised my mistake when I couldn’t find a paperback copy of it.

Exiled is one of those titles that have purportedly taken the indie market by storm, and with all that cover lust I can quite understand why! So I got hold of this for a dollar and after two mind-blowing reads, I was hoping for another.

Stats:

Binding: Ebook

Chapters:  56 – some very short, some quite long

PoV: 3^rd person

Tense: Past tense

Story: Worlds divided them. Chance brought them together. Only love will save them. 

An alien princess exiled to Earth. 
An arrogant boy. 
One week to get back to her planet or she'll die. 
And, her only chance for survival? She must help the boy find his soul mate. 
Piece of cake! 

Stubborn, sixteen-year-old Princess Venus of Kelari wants one thing, to become immortal, that is, until someone exiles her to Earth, kills her irrihunter and takes her family. 

Now she wants revenge. 

First she’s got to get home. But before she can return to Kelari, the Gods have commanded her to help an arrogant boy named Michael find his soul mate. 

Only she doesn't know the first thing about love. 

Rather quickly, her inexperience with human emotion is obscured by other matters--alien-controlled psychotic teens that are out to kill her, and a government group that is set on capturing and dissecting her. 

Worst of all, Venus will suffer a painful death-by-poisoning, thanks to Earth’s atmosphere, if she remains on the planet longer than one week. 

Still, Venus is a Princess and she's got a plan. Surely, with her help, Michael will fall in love with a human. 

But time is running out and Michael is falling for the wrong girl--her.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions: Time for another admission: I didn’t reread the synopsis before going into this book. This meant that I read the first chapter, encountered the alien world and settled myself in for a story set on another planet. Then I flicked to chapter two and suddenly I’m on Earth with this human boy. This is my own fault as had I read the synopsis, I would have known what I was getting myself into, but I still felt a bit thrown by it.

It didn’t help that as soon as Venus was on Earth, it was like she knew everything about American culture. It was justified by saying that she’d taken Earth studies class but speaking as someone who’s changed culture twice, class never prepares you to slip right in. You’re thrown by how much you didn’t know about the culture and you’re overwhelmed by things that are general knowledge that you didn’t know about. What’s more, you never stop finding new things that you weren’t aware of for whatever reason.

You only see that take place once in the book with Venus when she gets called out for using a word that went out of style a few years ago (not that it was ever in style for me.) I stopped buying the Earth studies thing when she knew a brand of footwear that I, as a human being living on the other side of the pond, have never heard of. On top of that, there was some cartoon that she was talking about having watched in class that, again, I have never heard of. I don’t care how many hours a day you spend in Earth studies, you are not going to know American culture like that.

However, as it is their culture anyway, this may mean that it’s easier for Americans to buy it.

Another thing, what’s with the requisite love triangles? I’m starting to get bored of them because often enough they’re not very well-written anyway and you end up with “teams”. If I have to be on a team, I’m on “team Zaren” because he knows the Princess, had more than a week to “fall in love” with her, stood by her despite all her bad decisions, and… oh yeah, didn’t end up almost getting her killed. What’s more, Zaren was probably one of the most rounded characters in the story. Both Venus and Michael, despite much of the story being told in their voices, stayed pretty flat.

I didn’t like Michael much at all. He was supposed to be a damaged teen – hard on the outside but with plenty of love to give on the inside. In the end, he just came across as being a moody pushover, always twisted to fit others’ desires and allowing that to be done of him, just grumbling a bit in his thought flow.

I’m a bit worried about where this Michael-in-love-with-Venus thing will leave poor Zaren. Venus herself seems to become a wet sack of emotions each time either one of them is around and doesn’t know what she wants. The way she constantly reacted got annoying after a while. Then again, I never liked Venus much anyway as she was a bit of an airhead fool. She never failed to make a bad decision should one be presented to her. She never shut up about how the planet was killing her, either. That is tell. Her coughing blood and getting weaker each day is show. It really isn’t necessary to always combine the two of them as the author did. Venus would complain about feeling weak, then cough blood, and then complain that she was dying. Just show her steady decline and don’t back it up with thoughts or speech.

Talking about scenes where Venus was practically on the verge of death, there were some major issues with consistency. Venus would be very weak, unable to get herself back on her feet, then something would happen to, say, Michael, and she’d be practically buzzing with energy before she returned to being unable to lift her own head. And this happened several times. Consistency is key. Consistency did not exist here.

One last useless thing: what was with Tawny deciding to steal Venus’s boots – even getting her own PoV for a chapter – and then just running away when she makes her attempt, never to make another appearance in the book? What was the point behind the whole scene? I really don’t know.

All this said, the story itself was quite interesting even though almost every twist and turn is given away in the synopsis (yes, I’ve read it now!). The alien society was intriguing and I would have liked to have had the chance to explore it more as it really appealed to me. It would seem that the sequel will be at least in part set in Venus’s society, so I’ll definitely be checking back to find out what happens next.

Plus, I’d like to see Zaren get more depth!

Style: Fairly polished but with one glaring grammatical problem. In normal sentences, there was no issue:

“I would love to go to the cinema.”

But as soon as ‘to’ was the last word in the sentence, it morphed into ‘too’ for some unknown reason.

“Would you like to go to the cinema?”

“I’d love too.”

I can’t believe that no one pointed this out to the author at any point.

Beyond that there are some missing speech marks which can make things confusing at times.

Final verdict: Satisfactory and interesting entertainment but nothing very special. 3 stars.

Extra notes: No sex. Occasional language. Stronger language is usually replaced by invented words.

The Sting of the Scorpio by Monique Domovitch

Back in September last year, I won a copy of Monique Domovitch’s novel, Scorpio Rising. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down and I’d finished it in a day. I really enjoyed the book, the to-the-point style, the characters’ quirks and the way they battled through the tough hand life dealt them. I can’t say that I read all that many indie books last year as I was reading on my PC at the time and it would kill my eyes for a day or two afterwards, but Scorpio Rising was my favourite. It just really spoke to me.

So when Monique gifted me the second book, I was over the moon! I was really excited to find out just how life would treat Alex and Brigitte as they embarked on their life together in the States. Let’s just say that it was nothing like what I expected.

Presentation: E-book. First one I read on my darling boyfriend’s X-mas gift of a Kindle!

Story: Alex and Brigitte, newlyweds, have moved to New York to start their life together. Alex is determined to be the sole provider for his new family - despite current difficulties in the field of architecture - and when his wife - through a chance meeting with a former Hollywood actress - is graced with a potential lucrative career as an artist, he is far from impressed.

Alex, always striving for the next, bigger, goal, is ruthless in his quest to become one of the biggest names in architecture, not caring who he tramples over on the way. What’s more, it isn’t long before he starts to view his marriage as a trap while Brigitte is ready to drop everything if only it will make Alex love her.

Thoughts and impressions: Before I start with the actual review, I’m going to point out one very important thing about me: I view fidelity in marriage as being of utmost importance. I do not tolerate infidelity and if you read my recent review of Secrets by Freya North, you’ll be aware that this affects my enjoyment of books as well. Now, I’m not religious, so this isn’t something I take from any religious text, it is simply part of my moral code. I could ramble on about how we, as humans, are not really meant to enter such long-term monogamous relationships scientifically speaking, but that’s neither here nor there right now. What is important is that a character incapable of fidelity never sits well with me.

Coming back to the book, I’ve mentioned this because Alex is simply incapable of keeping his dick in his pants. He resents being trapped by marriage, which is ironic as he’s the one who so doggedly pursued Brigitte in the first place, insisting that they marry. This leads to him having a string of affairs, which he doesn’t even bother to hide very well, while treating Brigitte like she’s below him. Scumbag. This extends to his treatment of her in all aspects of their life together, often speaking down to her.

Brigitte, meanwhile, does all she can to make Alex happy. She bends over backwards for this guy and it’s never enough. I kept hoping that she’d grow a backbone and stand up for herself. In the long run, that would probably have been more effective; it certainly worked the first time around in Paris! But she just put up with his antics, even when they spread to the treatment of her son.

Speaking of David, though he is mentioned fairly frequently, he doesn’t actually appear in the story until a third of the way in. I missed him during this time and would have liked to have watched him growing up and adapting to life in the USA.

There’s that old fable of the scorpion and the frog. I forget who supposedly told it, but the story goes along the lines of: the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the water if the scorpion agrees not to sting him. The scorpion promises that he won’t but half way across, he stings the frog anyway. When asked why he did it, he says that he couldn’t help himself, it’s just in his nature.

Really, I suppose I could have guessed this from the title of the book. I think I was expecting Alex and Brigitte to work as a team against whoever was trying to ‘sabotage’ Alex’s work, and that would be the sting, but I was far off the mark. Kudos to the author for weaving this retelling of the tale, though!

Alex, a Scorpio, is the scorpion and Brigitte, a Frenchie, is the frog. At least, that’s how I saw it. I’m not actually sure whether Brigitte’s nationality was chosen on purpose, but I’m tempted to say it was. The whole thing was ingenious, anyway! Alex, as such, cannot help himself and stings everyone that he comes into contact with. Whereas in the first book, Alex was driven but still a relatable character that the reader could root for, in this book I steadily slipped further and further into a state of hatred for him. I’m fairly sure that I was meant to feel this way too, as Alex does not present any redeeming or sympathetic qualities. He destroys everything of importance that he touches and I was torn because as the reader, I no longer knew what I wanted for either of the characters. Alex had gone from being the hero to being the villain and I wasn’t sure how to readapt my focus on the character.

In less deft hands, I believe that this story would have repulsed me, but as it is, Monique Domovitch instilled a sort of morbid fascination in me. Even though I was repulsed by the events in the story, I was also so caught up in them that I had to know what would come next.

The one other thing that really surprised me was that Anne, who swore revenge on Alex at the end of Scorpio Rising, waited decades before actually acting on her promise. It was good reading when she did, though!

(N.B. Time moves quickly in this novel: months, even years, can pass in the jump of a paragraph.)

Style: Monique Domovitch has a strong, blunt voice that really appeals to me. She’s not afraid to tell things as they are. The one part of the style that didn’t work for me was the incorporation of one or two scenes from the first book in the first chapter. I didn’t feel that they were necessary.

Final verdict: I loved the story of two young people trying to survive in a dog eat dog world that was Scorpio Rising. Despite Alex becoming the bad guy (easy to see how his character would evolve in that direction, mind), this book was still a very good portrayal of how greed and the drive to always reach new heights will only hurt everyone else around you if that is the only thing that you put your time and energy into. That said, my dislike of Alex tampered with my like of the book: while I enjoyed it, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one. 4 stars

Extra notes: Aimed at adult readers. Sex and infidelity present.

Find the author!

Site: http://moniquedomovitch.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Moniquedomovitc

Scorpio Rising by Monique Domovitch

The first book in a planned series by indie author Monique Domovitch, I won this title in a giveaway in August. I know how hard it can be for indie authors to get their work out there and recognised, so as soon as I found the energy to spend a day reading from my PC screen, I got to it.

I would like to point out that all opinions are my own and I have not glossed this review for the sake of the author.

Presentation: E-book. My copy was 335 pages long with 21 chapters. Some of the chapters are long (30+ pages) others very short (the shortest was only 2 pages long).

Story: Alexander dreams of escaping his life - the dingy little flat where he lives with his mother who has to sell her body to make ends meet – and making it to Manhattan to become a big name in architecture. He pushes himself, never allowing himself to connect with another too much in case they get in the way of his dreams becoming reality.

Brigitte is thrown out of her home with nowhere to turn to when her jealous mother catches her stepfather in the act of raping her. She finds herself with a benefactor looking after her every need, but when she learns that not only is she pregnant with her rapist’s child but also her benefactor’s motives go beyond wanting to help a girl in need, she runs away and starts a new life for herself, determined to make ends meet with her art.

Thoughts and impressions: Right as of the first chapter, this book hit me with its blunt approach to events and sex in particular. This actually worked really well in the story’s favour. It was refreshing to see a blunt and rather detached view of sex rather than flowery “love’s milk” or treading lightly around the subject. One quote in particular really got to me: ‘“This will be our little secret,” Lucien told her when she opened her eyes. “If you even think of telling anyone, I’ll kill you.” Then he raped her.’  (chap 2) The simplicity with which this horrible action is portrayed really worked for me. I think it’s very hard to portray rape with words because there’s so much in the action that goes beyond mere words. I commend Monique Domovitch for not trying to even go into the character’s thoughts about how she is treated, but hinting at what consequences it has on her life, thus allowing the reader to supply those thoughts for Brigitte in whatever manner works for them personally.

I was expecting a love story in this story. I expected the characters to meet and form some form of relationship and then make their way through at least some good portion of the story together working out their differences.  In actual fact, they don’t meet until very close to the end of this book. I would have liked to have seen more relationship growth between them: once they do finally meet it does seem a bit rushed. I would also have liked to have seen more consequences to certain plot points that were brought up closer to the end, but as naming them would lead to spoilers I will refrain from doing so and simply state my hope that they will be addressed in the sequel.

This said, the characters not meeting until closer to the end does not have any negative effect on the story itself beyond how rushed their relationship felt. The story is about the growth of both of these people from disillusioned youths to adults who have fought tooth and nail for what little they have. The story occasionally slips into a side character’s head for a bit – my favourite of these was Anne. She’s one of those characters that you love to hate. You can understand her actions, even her motives, but you still condemn her for them (which she deserves) but this just served to make her a more interesting antagonist. I can already see her causing all sorts of problems for Alex in the sequel!

There are some really precious gem scenes in this novel. One in particular involves Alex and a certain unexpected surprise when he accompanies a Moulin Rouge dancer home. I had to stop reading to laugh! The somewhat detached bluntness of the narrative just increased the humour to be found in this scene.  Loved it!

Style: As mentioned, detached and blunt. I don’t often like this style but in this case it really worked well with the story.

Final verdict: I really enjoyed this one. It was an honest look at the brutality of the dog-eat-dog world that these characters inhabit. 5 stars.

Extra notes: Infrequent language; references to sex, act itself is never described in detail but you know it is taking place.

It took me a little while to figure out the era but this is set shortly after WW2. I'm not entirely sure how to classify the book so for now I'm going to go with drama.






Find the author!
Site: http://moniquedomovitch.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Moniquedomovitc

Hidden by Shalini Boland

The first book in a planned trilogy by indie author Shalini Boland, I won this title in a recent giveaway. As I know how hard it can be for indie authors to get their work out there and recognised, I decided to put all my other reading to one side and concentrate on this one. I would like to point out that all opinions are my own and I have not glossed this review for the sake of the author.

Presentation: E-book. I read mine on Adobe Digital. It had 336 pages broken down into 30 chapters or roughly the same length.

Story: In 1881, Alexandre Chevalier and his family leave Paris for Cappadocia. There, they are to attempt to excavate a recently discovered underground chamber – if it leads to the fabled underground city, it could potentially be the archaeological find of the century. The locals fear the find, though, and tell of the city being a place of death. The Chevaliers dismiss the local fears as every archaeological dig is surrounded by local mistrust and fear of the past, so they and the Swintons – British friends who have joined them on this dig – pay no heed to these tall tales.

In the present day, Madison Greene is a bit of a rebel, always fighting against a system that so far has done very little to help her in any way. Her mother is dead, her father an absentee parent, and she’s stuck in foster care with a drunk with a temper looking after her; at least she and her brother, Ben, are together, though. Then, on her 16^th birthday, Maddy is approached by a strange man who claims that she is the heir to the Marchwood estate and the huge fortune that that entails. As per the stipulations in the will, Maddy and Ben make Marchwood their primary residence. Ben settles into life and school in the area while Maddy explores the house and grounds. In the basement she discovers a bricked up room and her curiosity gets the better of her. What could be in that room? Maddy intends to find out.

Thoughts and impressions: The story starts out alternating between Alexandre’s story in 1881 and Maddy’s story in the present day until the two inevitably meet some way into the story. Although this worked well and I much preferred this to any other potential setup, I often found myself far more fascinated by one of the storylines than the other (it alternated between the two), so I’d skip chapters in the other PoV and then go back later. This and the ending were stronger than the initial convergence when Maddy and Alexandre meet.

Maddy accepts Alexandre far too fast in a bipolar like manner of switching to wanting to kill him to wanting to protect him at all costs with no real period of indecision in-between. The plot got placed on a short hiatus to allow the two characters to become lovey-dovey as well. Proclamations of love came a bit too fast for my taste but I suppose that they do at that age. It also verged on Twilight-esque mentions of Alexandre’s physical beauty – repetitions that I’m really not a fan of. Teens may eat that up, but I prefer not to be reminded of just how physically attractive a character is – I feel like I’m being conditioned to find the character attractive; told the character is beautiful rather than shown. Once the plot started again, though, I enjoyed the conclusion to this first book - the last few chapters, when the antagonist had put in an appearance, were my favourite.

I found Alexandre easier to connect with than Maddy. Maddy just kept making what I consider to be stupid decisions (the party, dropping out of school at barely 16 with no real education, etc.) and isn’t much of a role model for girls – but at least she’s a character with real flaws.  Her clothes were frequently described in detail: this is something that a lot of authors tend to do, I’m not sure why. This is another case of a situation where I, as the reader, have been made aware of Maddy’s personality and the styles she prefers and can use my imagination from there on for the most part with only certain necessary exceptions where the clothes she’s wearing are very important. I really enjoyed the portrayal of Alexandre’s adjustment to modern society – his love of certain things, hatred of others – it was all handled very well and gave an amusing side to that stage in the story.

Some notes on the French:

Alexandre is obviously a French character and the author did a fantastic job of bringing this across in his speech patterns and she occasionally used French in the story, which worked in the story’s favour.

One of the French characters, very minor role, is called Zizzy. I’m not sure whether this is a period name but every time I read it all I could think of was ‘zizi’ (they’d be pronounced almost exactly the same way) – the French equivalent of ‘willy’. Might be my warped mind there!

At one point, Alexandre says “je vous mendie” – I beg of you. Mendier is when someone is begging in the streets. The verb here should be ‘supplier’ and you need an ‘en’ with it, I won’t pretend to know why (though I should know) but both my brother and myself would use the 'en'. “Je vous en supplie.”

Style: An enjoyable style suitable for YA. There are some instances of clunkiness in the beginning, especially with dialogue, but this soon improves as the author gets into the flow of the story. There are a few things that escaped the editing process but that is to be expected.

Final verdict: I enjoyed this one. It had an interesting take on vampires. I felt that this first book was slow in places but a necessary stepping stone to the second book, which I’m hoping will contain a more present antagonist and more of a threat. I suspect that this one will appeal to fans of Twilight. 4 stars.

Extra notes: Language didn’t stick out to me. No sex. Appropriate for teen readers.