Blog Tour: The Immortality Virus by Christine Amsden

 



Buy the book: Amazon US ; Barnes & Noble

 
Story: In the mid-21st century, the human race stopped aging. Those who know why aren't talking, and the few who are brave enough to ask questions tend to disappear. To an elite few, The Change means long life and health, but to the ever-increasing masses, it means starvation, desperation, and violence.

Four centuries after The Change, Grace Harper, a blacklisted P.I., sets off on a mission to find the man responsible for it all and solicit his help to undo The Change -- if he's still alive. To complicate matters, Grace's employer is suspected of murdering his father, and when the police learn of their connection, they give her a choice -- help them find the evidence they need to convict Matthew Stanton, or die. But if they discover Grace's true mission, they won't hesitate to kill her in order to preserve their shot at immortality.

Winner of the Epic Award for Science Fiction, the Global eBook Award for Science Fiction, and a finalist in The Next Gernation Indie Book Awareds.

Will Raphael tame the willful woman or love the untamed fire that burns within her?

 Thoughts and impressions: What would it be like if we, as humans, no longer aged?

Our intelligence as animals is really a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gives us a completely different view of the world around us, but at the same time it makes us very aware of our mortality. It leads us to fear our death, which is part of why we have such a fascination with the concept of immortality. There have long been stories of those who are able to cheat death, and if not then there are stories of death is not the end and so we get to live eternally in this fabulous place. We are afraid of our deaths. Just how far would some people go to assure their immortality if such a possibility were presented them? After all, we already have cryonics in place and some people actually get themselves frozen rather than live their life to its natural end.

Now imagine our world as a place where no one dies. We already have problems with overpopulation and lack of food. In the world presented in The Immortality Virus, these problems are taken to their next logical step. There’s not enough housing for everyone and what is available is beyond most people’s means. There’s not enough food to feed everyone, so only the fabulously wealthy are able to afford proper food while the hordes are given these shady protein bars that are suspected to contain human flesh. Yummy!

The society that is painted here is scary for one very simple reason: it is the sort of society that I can easily see arising should the key to immortality ever be found. There is a very small group of the elite few who dictate everything to the masses, who in turn are left to live in squalor. Life is not good and you can easily see that there is a reason why we are not immortal creatures – we are meant to die.

This fabulously crafted setting is the perfect backdrop to action full of the corruption of those who cling jealously to the power they have managed to horde. It was scarily realistic and that’s one of the reasons why it went down so well for me.

On top of this, we have a feisty, spunky heroine who quickly turned into a character that I enjoyed rooting for. She’s not perfect; she’s well-rounded and likeable most of the time. She was fun to read about.

From time to time the story became a bit on the slow side and I’d find my interest waning slightly, but it picked up again and the slower part was worth the faster, more action-packed moments.

 

Final verdict: A tought-provoking piece of sci-fi / dystopian with a great female lead and a plot brimming with twists and turns. 4 stars

 

Sneak peek:

 

“Check him for an ID chip,” McMillan said.

Grace checked both wrists, but didn’t find the tiny metal button that acted both as tag and as a neutral interface for portables. She also did not see any sign that such a chip had been ripped out of his skin by the same people who had stolen his clothing. This man had probably been born on the streets. “Nothing.”

“Good,” McMillan said. He subvocalized an instruction to his portable. It must have opened up a com link because a moment later he said, “Send a cleanup crew to my location beacon…no ID…10-4.”

McMillan turned to Grace. “All right, let’s go.”

“W-wait! Shouldn’t we find out what happened here? Someone murdered this man.”

McMillan actually laughed, a sound that infuriated Grace. He caught a glimpse of her face and the laughter died immediately. “Just like me. I bet I said all the same things my first day. It ain’t fair, is it?”

“So you’re just going to accept it? Accept a man being murdered in the middle of a crowd of witnesses? You’re going to accept not knowing his identity and not letting his family know he’s dead?”

“The cleanup crew will take fingerprints,” McMillan said. “The census gets almost everyone’s fingerprints. If they come up with a contact, they’ll let them know.”

“And if not?” Grace asked.

“Then he’ll join the ranks of the nameless, faceless dead. C’mon, let’s go.”

Grace didn’t move.

“Look, before the day’s out we’ll handle a dozen more like this. We don’t have time to ask questions or take statements. We don’t have time to properly examine the body or the area for clues – most of which have been taken away by other unfortunates.”

It took her a moment to find her voice. When she did, her words dripped out like acid. “Would we have had time if he’d had an ID bracelet?”

“We would not have. We’d have called in the homicide team and they’d decide. Get in the car.”

This time, Grace complied, but she sat in stony silence as McMillan lifted off and began circling the area anew.

“It helps if you don’t think of them as human,” McMillan said after a while. “More than one officer has called this job pest control.”"

 

The author:

 

 

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

 

At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that effects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.

 

When she's not writing, Christine teaches workshops on writing, usually at Savvy Authors. She also offers professional editing services. She maintains a book review blog on her website with occasional writing tips thrown in for the fun of it.

 

Christine lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and two children. 

 

http://christineamsden.com/wordpress/

https://twitter.com/ChristineAmsden

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christine-Amsden-Author-Page/127673027288664

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

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

Information:

Title: Glow

Series: Sky Chasers #1

Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Target Audience: YA

Pages: 307

Chapters: Unknown – titled rather than numbered

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

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

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

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

(from Goodreads)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The UnTied Kingdom by Kate Johnson

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

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

Information:

Title: The UnTied Kingdom

Author: Kate Johnson

Publisher: International Publishers Marketing, Inc.

Target Audience: Adult

Genre: Sci-fi, romance

Length: 403 pages

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

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

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

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

And Harker is falling in love with her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Destined by Allison Kraft

So many people out there are fascinated by the disaster of the Titanic – I am no exception. With the centennial of the ship’s sinking only a few days away, I decided to also set sail on this most famous of ships. 

April 10^th 1912: the Titanic leaves Southampton dock on its maiden voyage. April 10^th 2012: I bring you the review of Destined by Allison Kraft – a time travel story with romance, vampires and the knowledge of the looming danger of what is coming.

Information:

Title: Destined

Author: Allison Kraft

Publisher: Self-published

Target Audience: Adult

Length: 290 pages

Story: While flying across the Atlantic on the centennial anniversary of the Titanic's tragic maiden voyage, Apolline Greer, last in a long line of vampire hunters, finds herself suddenly transported from her airliner cabin to an eerily familiar ocean liner cabin—as well as the entirely unfamiliar body of her ancestor, Noelle Greer. Upon learning that she is, in fact, on board the very ship she’s been fascinated with all her life, she knows there's only one thing to do: get off as soon as possible. 

But whether by destiny, freak coincidence or a really vivid dream, Apolline finds that her trip back in time comes with three very good reasons to stay on board: Alexander Walker, a handsome and charming fellow vampire hunter; Cristof, the vampire that has tormented her family for generations and very likely killed her own mother; and Sasha, the vampire Noelle was sent to kill. 

Time, however, is not on Apolline's side. The Titanic is on a collision course with destiny, and she only has four days to complete her quest. What seemed like more than enough time at the start quickly becomes too short as she finds that hunting vampires on a luxury ocean liner is much more difficult than she expected. Sasha and Cristof become more elusive as each day passes, while her feelings for Alexander become increasingly complicated. As that fateful night approaches, will she regret her decision to stay and witness history first-hand?

Thoughts and impressions: The story opens in Ireland in 2012 with a bit of scene setting. Apolline is there on an assignment to take out a vampire, but with the impending centennial of the disaster, things are pretty Titanic-centric in Belfast, the city where the Titanic was built. At this point the book is rather apologetic about Apolline’s vast knowledge of the Titanic and it got old fast. There’s even this quote: “After all, it was the Titanic disaster that prompted all the maritime safety laws to be amended so that all ships had to have enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and all wireless rooms had to stay active 24 hours a day, not to mention the establishment of the International Ice Patrol. (I didn’t normally know that much detail about the disaster, but with it being the 100^th anniversary, there had been a lot of documentaries on TV lately, especially during my short stay in Belfast where it was even bigger news.)”  This, however, does not make sense. Especially when you take into consideration that later in the book Apolline is shown to have a vast library of both books and DVDs about the Titanic – the 1997 James Cameron movie being her all-time favourite – and her knowledge of the disaster supposedly rivals that of the tour givers at the Titanic exhibition. Why, then, are there so many passing remarks about her Titanic-trivia being due to the anniversary rather than just her interest in the events of the disaster? This did get a bit frustrating at times because it felt like the author was trying to excuse her character having so much knowledge about something she’s obviously interested in.

Things soon move to the Titanic in 1912. Rather than being transported there in body, Apolline is, instead, inhabiting the body of an ancestor, Noelle, who was actually on the Titanic. Being of a long line of vampire hunters who do not tend to reach old age, she figures that she has been sent there to complete and assignment that her ancestor was unable to complete before disaster struck and the ship went down.

Apolline has a “watcher” who informs her of her assignments. She’s never met him and he only communicates by mail. She calls him Giles in reference to the Buffy show. When she arrives in 1912, she discovers that the same Giles was communicating with her ancestor. Unfortunately, after this point Giles is pretty much dropped from the story and his role in everything, exactly what he is, etc. – none of it is ever brought up and explored again.

In fact, the whole vampire plot itself seemed rather contrived at times and a mere device to get a present-day character in this specific historical setting. The idea that Apolline is a vampire hunter is used as the explanation for why time travel is also possible, both being outside of the realm of the ordinary. The vampires themselves don’t actually play much of a role in the story and don’t tend to show up very often. Even the final climax on the Titanic between vampire and hunter was over so quickly that if you blinked you’d have missed it. I would have preferred more of an impact from that particular scene.

But as I said, that wasn’t the crux of the story. The crux was the exploration of the ship itself as well as the social mores at that time from the eyes of a modern character. There was a bit too much attention paid to the clothing. After all, they did get changed at least three times per day in that day and age and Apolline describes her outfits each time she puts on a new one. I know some readers do like to have clothes described in detail as that sort of thing helps them to build a better picture in their own heads, but I’m not one of them. I consider clothes to be an unnecessary distraction detail that detracts from the story itself. Other than that, I was completely fascinated by the picture painted here. It’s true that a lot of the time stories about the Titanic tend to concentrate on either the opulence of first class or the conditions in third class. Very few books explore how it was for a second class character. This book is one of those few that choose to take a look at second class and the people who were travelling there.

The author incorporated a lot of people who really were on the Titanic. I think only the two main characters – Apolline and her fellow vampire hunter / romantic interest Alex – are fictional. She treated each of these characters with the respect that the memory of a real individual deserves.

Alex himself made for a wonderful hero. He’s the first other vampire hunter that Apolline has ever met and he was a worthy romantic interest. He was obviously smitten with Apolline, even when it gets to the point where she feels that she has to share her unbelievable truths – that the ship will soon sink and most of those on the liner will not survive. He didn’t know what to make of it all, but he still felt drawn to this unusual woman.

It was obvious that it was going to be a bittersweet ending. At one point, Alex says “I’d follow you anywhere, even to the future.” I think I latched on to that line more than I should have. After all, the characters have no knowledge of how this time travel thing works, so how would he go about following the woman he’s fallen in love with from his own time to her time? The author works this in a very unexpected way. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it as when I latch onto a romantic interest, I very rarely budge enough to accept another one, even in spite of the links between the two that are present in this case. I recognise the sweetness behind how things are wrapped up, but at the same time I’m not sold about it.

The Titanic sinks around the 70% mark of the story and the final 30% is about Apolline getting to grips with how her life has changed with this experience. She accompanies her neighbour and original crush (before she went back in time) to a Titanic exhibition about the disaster. At the end of the tour, the passengers are listed with each one marked as having survived or lost their life on the 15^th April 1912. This section of the story is extremely poignant. I felt completely torn apart by it as it made me stop and think about some of the points that are brought up. What is said there is true, very true, and it makes me sad that sometimes we overlook the human tragedy to focus on the mystery of the disaster instead. All those who died were real humans who lived real lives and who lost them. They deserve to be remembered but they also deserve to be allowed to rest in peace.

I’ve got to the point where I’m feeling emotional now so I’m going to wrap up here.

Style: Very well-written that drew me in very quickly.

Final verdict: Although perhaps not the best novel out there about the Titanic, it was well-researched and really made me stop and think about some of things. I left me feeling very melancholy and with a novel like this I consider that a sign of success. 4 stars

Extra notes: Some bad language. No sex.

A Million Suns by Beth Revis

Discovering Across the Universe was more of a happy accident than anything else. I picked it up as part of a reading challenge and though I didn’t really have high hopes for it, the story blew me away. I enjoyed it so much that I gave it a spot on my GoodReads favourites shelf, which currently has a whole sixteen books listed on it!

This was a case where time gave me better perspective and even though nothing will change my enjoyment of the book, I became more aware of its flaws. Despite this, I was still really looking forward to the release of the sequel. I got the book at the time of its release but just didn’t get around to reading it until now.

Information:

Title: A Million Suns

Series: Across the Universe #2

Author: Beth Revis

Publisher: Razorbill

Target Audience: YA

Pages: 386

Chapters: 72

PoV: 1^st person

Tense: Present tense

Story: Godspeed was once fueled by lies. Now it is ruled by chaos. It’s been three months. In that time, Amy has learned to hide who she is. Elder is trying to be the leader he’s always wanted to be. But as the ship gets more and more out of control, only one thing is certain: They have to get off the ship.

Thoughts and impressions: A Million Suns certainly opens with a shattering game-changing revelation and this only intensifies as events take place and even more shocking secrets are pulled out into the light of day.

The plot here was definitely stronger than that of the first book. There, a lot was hinging on Amy and Elder just being slow when things were staring them in the face. Though that was occasionally the case here, too, it was much less common. The inhabitants of the ship are now off the Phydus, a drug that allowed them to be controlled, and Elder is faced with a community only just becoming aware of its surroundings.

There’s unrest, dissension and calls for a revolution – for the people to take the power rather than leaving it in the hands of the youngest person on board the ship. Elder’s got a lot on his plate and it’s a situation his training never prepared him for so he often does things that seem like a good idea in the heat of the moment but have serious consequences later on.

Elder’s very much not the alpha male hero. He’s much more subdued than that. He’s not really the sort of male character that would ever make one of my heart throb lists. That said, I do like him as a character. He’s very interesting to read about, especially as he struggles with his identity and the truth of his heritage. Often enough, when he does some things he won’t just question whether it was the right thing to do, but also how his predecessor would have handled the situation.

It’s true that he’s very brittle in this book and often quick to lose his temper but considering how much stress he’s under, I’m willing to forgive this.

I’m less willing to forgive Amy. There were times when I really wanted to reach into the book and slap some sense into her. She often acted like a spoilt child spitting out her dummy when she didn’t get her way, especially in her interactions with Elder. I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with her.

There was one quote from one of Elder’s chapters that really struck me: “When it’s her people who are dying it has to be the highest priority but when it’s mine who are dying she doesn’t care.” I’m paraphrasing this but it’s something along those lines. And yes, it truly did feel very much that way. I didn’t like who she became.

Other than the discontent spreading through the ship, the story also focuses on a series of clues about the ship’s secrets that Orion left for Amy. These were prompted by a quote from Dante’s Inferno. I don’t know how schooling works in the US but we never studied Dante and I wouldn’t have been able to place that quote in a million years.

That aside, the trail was certainly very thought-provoking. When taken hand in hand with another murdering spree on board, this time in the name of “the leader” made for a mystery plot that was easy to get caught up in. What’s more, whereas the perpetrator was obvious in the first book, time was far from the case here. I never really had a solid suspect in mind. The consequences were much more far-reaching, though.

Style: The author certainly knows how to get the reader caught up in the action taking place. I flew through this book.

Final verdict: Stronger than the first book but I couldn’t help but dislike Amy. I’m still very interested in seeing where things go from here! 4 stars

Extra notes: invented language (“frex”) for the most part but there is a certain amount of bad language here. No sex.

Motor City Mage by Cindy Spencer Pape

I received this book courtesy of the publisher from NetGalley.

Information:

Title: Motor City Mage

Series: Urban Arcana #4

Author: Cindy Spencer Pape

Publisher: Carina Press

Target Audience: Adult

Pages: 191

Chapters: 13 + epilogue

PoV: 3^rd person

Tense: Past tense

Story: As a cop who keeps paranormals in line, Des has a hard time trusting them. So why does he want the beautiful werewolf Lana more than his next breath? She's mouthy, flamboyant and distractingly sexy—not the type of woman for a reserved mage like him. Lana admires Des, but she can't be with someone who won't take her seriously, no matter how much she'd love to rip off his dress shirt. 

When a dangerous new drug shows up in Detroit, Des must locate the source, and Lana is determined to help. But their plan goes awry, trapping them in a demon dimension. To return home, Lana and Des must flee through a series of unpredictable alternate realities, fighting enemies while trying to shut down the drug trade. But if they're going to survive, they'll have to rely on each other, even though getting closer will add fuel to a fire that's already burning out of control...

Thoughts and impressions: First of all, let me point out that I went into this novel, the fourth in a series, without having read the first three books. While it is possible to read this book as a standalone, there are a lot of allusions of events in the previous books in the first few chapters that did leave me feeling a bit left out.

At first glance, this book seems to have all the right ingredients to be one that really tickles my fancy: various flavours of mythical beings all living among us humans and protecting us from various other flavours of mythical beings, magic and mayhem, and romance to boot. So it sounds like it’d by just my thing… but unfortunately it wasn’t.

For starters, Des and Lana both secretly desire each other as soon as the book opens. While I can accept that there will have been things passing between them in previous books, I would have liked at least some work up to their relationship, alas this was not to be. They soon (and we’re talking before the 10% mark here) get physical, which is much too early in a book for my tastes. For me, it’s the lead up to the sex that’s interesting and the sex itself is just the icing on the cake. Here I only got the icing and, as anyone who eats only the icing will know, it’s not as nice without the cake (and is, in fact, liable to make you feel ill).

By the time chapter two is over and done with, they’ve just slid right into this sexual relationship, no fretting, no awkwardness, no questions asked. I felt like I’d missed out on the whole of their courtship, and if I’m honest with myself, the courtship is the whole reason why I read romance novels in the first place.

What’s more, I’m not particularly fond of romances where events are just there to string together the sex scenes. I did occasionally feel that this was the case in this novel. Indeed, there are what I consider to be a large number of sex scenes present for a novel of this length and some – not all, but some – just really didn’t work for me. The language use in these “some” felt clunky with expressions like “she milked his cock”. Sometimes it felt like the author herself wasn’t quite at ease with what she was describing and as such these scenes came across as awkward.

Basically, the sex started too soon, happened too often and felt too central to the plot for my particular tastes.

Beyond this, in certain scenes there were just far too many characters present, all doing different things but without sufficiently distinct voices for me to be able to differentiate between them. This led to moments of frustration for me as I couldn’t remember who exactly X was, where Y came into it all, or what the relationship with Z happened to be.

In contrast, the scenes where only two to four characters were present worked well and I especially liked the scenes where Des and Lana were being held captive in a prison cell. Another was when they were travelling across a very cold planet and they come across an alien who offers them a ride in his cart. Scenes like these really shone.

As for the plot itself, certain things just felt like they were handed to the characters far too easily, such as Vin’s involvement with him immediately reaching out to them, or Des’s boss’s downfall at the end of the novel. Vin taking Des and Lana into the demons’ drug operation led to one particularly clunky fight scene too, which leads me to think that those sorts of scenes are not this author’s forte. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as every author has something they find harder to describe in a way that transports the reader. That was the only fight scene that left me cringing, though.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was Des and Lana’s trek through the other dimensions that they have to travel through in their attempt to return home to Earth. The author’s vivid imagination really brought these places to life for me. Now I want an ele-cow too! They sound so adorable.

Had the book been focused on these travels more than the sex, then I can quite see that I would have found this a very entertaining story. As it is, this just wasn’t the book for me. I think that it would appeal to other readers who do prefer more sex in their stories.

Style: Occasionally things were mentioned twice a few paragraphs apart and some scenes were particularly clunky. It was a very colloquial style with extra words where they’re not needed in places and words completely left out in others.

Final verdict: At the end of the day, this book just wasn’t my cup of tea. It had its redeeming qualities but unfortunately the things that didn’t work for me outweighed them. 2 stars

Extra notes: Bad language is present. Obviously sex is too.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

A couple of weeks ago, I won a giveaway on Manda's Movements. The prize was a choice between a number of titles, some of which I’d read, a couple that didn’t appeal to me and the other titles were ones I was longing to get my hands on. Under the Never Sky was my obvious choice, though, as of the very beginning.

Recent times have seen me become more interested in dystopian books and this one really appealed to me. The title’s snappy, the cover eye-catching and the synopsis had me hooked as soon as I heard about the book several months ago.

I was half way through Cinder (review in the works!) when Under the Never Sky was delivered but as soon as I’d finished that book, I scribbled down a review and cracked open this one.

Presentation:

Title: Under the Never Sky
Series: Under the Never Sky #1

Author: Veronica Rossi

Publisher: Harper

Binding: small paperback

Page count: 384

Chapter count: 45

Font: medium, spaced

PoV: 3^rd person

Tense: Past tense

Story: Aria is a teenager in the enclosed city of Reverie. Like all Dwellers, she spends her time with friends in virtual environments, called Realms, accessed through an eyepiece called a Smarteye. Aria enjoys the Realms and the easy life in Reverie. When she is forced out of the pod for a crime she did not commit, she believes her death is imminent. The outside world is known as The Death Shop, with danger in every direction. 

As an Outsider, Perry has always known hunger, vicious predators, and violent energy storms from the swirling electrified atmosphere called the Aether. A bit of an outcast even among his hunting tribe, Perry withstands these daily tests with his exceptional abilities, as he is gifted with powerful senses that enable him to scent danger, food and even human emotions. 

They come together reluctantly, for Aria must depend on Perry, whom she considers a barbarian, to help her get back to Reverie, while Perry needs Aria to help unravel the mystery of his beloved nephew’s abduction by the Dwellers. Together they embark on a journey challenged as much by their prejudices as by encounters with cannibals and wolves. But to their surprise, Aria and Perry forge an unlikely love - one that will forever change the fate of all who live UNDER THE NEVER SKY.

(from Goodreads)

Thoughts and impressions: I wasn’t ready to start this book until about 23:30 on a Saturday night. It was one of those times when I thought to myself that I’d just read a chapter before bed. One chapter turned into fifteen and even then I was reluctant to put the book down for the night! I was even toying with the temptation of not sleeping so I could get more reading done. It’s been a long time since I was so drawn into a book that late at night.

This one caught me and just would not let go! As soon as I got up the next morning, I was back with my nose in the book and manage to finish it off in one sitting. The boyfriend attempted to get me to put it down once but quickly saw the error of his ways!

The world invented here is really ingenious. At some point in the past, these things called Aether storms set in and killed a lot of people. No explanation about this Aether storms is offered: where they came from, what caused them. They’re just there and surprisingly the story does not suffer for it one bit! All we know is that after the storms set in, the remaining people protected themselves from this new weather phenomenon by building “pods” where they could live in safety. The only problem with this is that there’s not enough to do in such a small, enclosed area to keep everyone from getting bored and so the Realms were created.

The Realms are essentially virtual realities where you can do what you want, be who you want, and are accessible via a clear patch worn over the left eye. This is something that I can readily see being the future of man in a technologically advanced world.

There are, of course, people who survived outside the pods as well. We’re not really filled in on why there are outsiders – whether they did not want to enter the pods, failed to get to them in time, or just were not permitted entry – but they were there and over time their genetic makeup allowed for certain changes, as seen in Peregrine, our hero.

As the story opens, Aria, the heroine, is so desperate to hear news of the pod where her mother has been working after days of no communication that she wrangles her way into what is supposed to be fun and games in an Aether-compromised area of their pod with the son of the head of security and three others. It soon becomes clear, though, that she may have bitten off more than she can chew and when a terrible event takes place, Aria is used as a scapegoat.

She finds herself cast into the Death Trap – the world outside the pods. Her reactions to all these new experiences in a world she’d always been told was full of dangers that she would not survive were always realistic and occasionally heart-wrenching. The only thing that I’m not sold on is the idea that she walked for days while the skin on her feet was shredded and full of blisters. My experience with severely blistered feet has always been that they slow you down considerably as you’re forced to hobble and running on them is the very last thing you’d want to do.

Perry has got his own interesting story and motives, joining forces with Aria only in an attempt to get his nephew back from Aria’s people, who kidnapped him. But together they end up on quite the adventure, learning to tolerate one another as they run from a cannibalistic tribe and meet a boy with a most peculiar and deadly ability.

I loved the outside world that was created and the dangers they pushed through in their separate quests: her to find out about her mother and him to rescue Talon. I loved Perry’s genetic difference and how that filled him with a duty he felt he has to honour but also left him feeling cursed. This gave him a hard but vulnerable edge that made me adore him just that much more. And I loved how Aria seemed to slowly come to the realisation that maybe the Realms aren’t really all that great but still struggled with the feeling of needing to go home. Especially towards the beginning, when she wanted to wear the Smarteye over her eye because it was simply something she was used to really rang true for me. It was the little details like that that made the story something really special.

The progression of the relationship between Aria and Perry was also just perfect. It didn’t take too long and it didn’t rush into anything forced. I admire the way that Rossi was not afraid to take the relationship to the next level when it was time.

I’m interested in seeing how their relationship will progress. There are already certain hurdles placed in the way and I want to see how they will overcome them. I’m also really looking forward to discovering more about some of the other characters (Liv, Cinder and Brooke (in particular Brooke’s reaction to Aria as it’s made obvious as of fairly early on that Brooke hopes Perry will choose to be with her)), and the dangerous world they live in.

This book was just my cup of tea and I loved the adventure that it took me on.

Style: Occasionally a bit rocky. The main perpetrator was when two or three sentences in a row would start with the PoV character’s name. Despite this, it really drew me in.

Final verdict: I was really lucky the weekend I read this (a week ago now). I was on a real YA high. I read two books in two days and both of them were absolutely brilliant reads that have ended up on my favourites shelf! I really cannot wait for the next book in this series! 5 stars.

Extra notes: I didn’t notice any bad language. Sex behind closed doors.

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.