This book was a bit chaotic and a bit confusing at times and it checked off some of the 'standard YA fare' boxes, but I still enjoyed it. I think I poThis book was a bit chaotic and a bit confusing at times and it checked off some of the 'standard YA fare' boxes, but I still enjoyed it. I think I possibly might have enjoyed it more if there hadn't been a glossary at the front of the book. It explains some terms that you either don't actually need to know because they aren't used in the book, or they tell you things the MC uncovers across the course of the book anyway, or are just things that a lot of people seem to already know courtesy of pop culture. But because of that glossary, I already had a heads up that the book was headed in a certain direction and it took the gloss off some of the mystery for me. Not too much, thankfully. There was still plenty of unknown and unexplained to keep me guessing.
And the first two chapters of book two at the end of this one...!!! They were a very good hook into the next book.
Sometimes I really don't care about characters after I finish a book. Sometimes too much unexplained stuff is just annoying and makes you feel like you didn't get a full story in the first book. Neither of those situations was at play here. I actually got really pulled into the story and the characters and got enough information to whet my appetite without feeling unsatisfied, although, of course, I won't actually be satisfied until I know everything....more
This is not the edition I read, but none of the editions available on Goodreads show the cover for the version I read. Go figure. It was definitely thThis is not the edition I read, but none of the editions available on Goodreads show the cover for the version I read. Go figure. It was definitely this book by this author, but my version has a blonde girl's face in close-up as she's looking back over her shoulder. She seems to be wearing something dark, like a jacket or a jumper and her forefinger and thumb are resting just below her mouth. There's also a stylistic shape of a bird with outstretched wings on the lower third of the book, just below the title. It says it was published by Limitless Ink Press, LLC and the copyright is 2011.
Anyway, this book is quite typical of books in this genre but different enough to stand up. And where often those traits that they all seem to have feel like weaknesses, here they serve as comforts, like touchstones to let you know what territory you're in.
We have a chick from a broken home with one parent who lives with her but both of whom are essentially absent and who therefore automatically has some angst in her life. Check. She only seems to have one close friend. Check. We have a new guy in school who she feels drawn to but who is also troubled and a bit mysterious. Check. We have a fair amount of stubbornness in the MC, which leads her to do some potentially stupid things. Check. And we have strange, hard to explain, goings-on occurring because, hey, that's what this whole genre is about. Check.
Here's what's different. This chick is an athlete. So often, the girls in these kinds of books are either loners or shy and bookish or really brash, rude and annoying in a supposed attempt to write a strong character. They're generally not athletic, nor are they generally part of a team. I'm not saying any more here because, spoilers.
She has other supportive adults in her life. Often these books will have one supportive person in the MC's life if they are lucky. Often they have no-one. Our MC gets blessed with two of them, although one is, admittedly, a bit crazy.
Her relationship with the one parent remaining at home improves across the book. So many times I've read the opposite.
She and her best friend are not social outcasts or misfits. They seem to be fairly regular girls and her best friend even starts dating a football player. Considering the nature of our MC's 'gift', it would be really easy to screw up and give away her fore-knowledge and become therefore a shunned person at school because she's too weird or strange. The author didn't go there.
Then there's just the fact that I've never read anything like this before. I've read of people who dream stuff but not in this way where it's so particular to her and I've never read about them interacting with another character in the way she and new boy do. For that matter, I've never read about anyone experiencing what he experiences.
So I like this book for the fresh things it brought to us in a YA paranormal romance story but also for the things which I was expecting and which acted as our jumping off point....more
From my personal notes: OK, so I have a history with this series. I attempted to read the first book once upon a time. I can't remember if it was in a From my personal notes: OK, so I have a history with this series. I attempted to read the first book once upon a time. I can't remember if it was in a collection or as a single title. Anyway, I didn't really like the writing style or the way the MC 'thought'. I didn't read past the first chapter. Then I came upon it at some other time, probably in a collection. This time I persevered and made it through the first book. It got more interesting as it went along. So when I noticed that I had the first four books of the series in a book bundle on my phone, I thought I'd give it another go. Read through the first book to refresh my memory. Read through the second book. Groaned a fair bit. Tried to read the third book and I just can't put up with this any more. No, no, no. The MC is headstrong and stupid and I just don't like her. And all the talk about power... It gets way too much. I'm not going to force myself to suffer through the rest of it. ...more
From my personal notes: This was promoted as a Regency Historical story. And…it is. But it's also a paranormal/fantasy story as the MC gets hit with a From my personal notes: This was promoted as a Regency Historical story. And…it is. But it's also a paranormal/fantasy story as the MC gets hit with a Faerie gift at the beginning of the book that allows her to shapeshift. All she wants is the opportunity to be independent and make a good living by posing as a man. She then stumbles into a mystery (see, another genre popping up there!) and falls in love with her employer. Which is a romance but that generally goes hand in hand with Regency Historical so it's almost not worth mentioning. Except that it is. So much of the motivation for the character's actions revolve around her growing feelings for her employer. Well written and fun story....more
This book had some issues but despite them, I liked it. Go figure.
When I first began reading this book, I nearly rolled my eyes at the overly dramaticThis book had some issues but despite them, I liked it. Go figure.
When I first began reading this book, I nearly rolled my eyes at the overly dramatic scene that greeted us in the first few pages. I felt it was OTT. Then again, teenagers. As they vary so widely in when their maturity seems to kick in, you can put almost anything in a book and get away with it because some teen somewhere will actually relate to it, even if the rest of the world are shaking their heads.
I liked that the book was more convoluted than it first appeared it might be. That held my interest. Having said that, there were times it was too convoluted. And the degree to which I liked various characters got less and less across the book. I liked Gray at the start. She seemed like the reasonable twin. She had some quite extreme circumstances to contend with but she turned into someone I disliked almost as much as her sister. This is not good when it's the MC that you're supposed to be rooting for.
I did like Raj, but mostly because he turned out to be more complex than originally painted and because I kept picturing Ram from the Dr Who spin-off 'Class', who is another character who seems like nothing but a jerk when you first meet him but who has hidden depths and develops as we watch.
The flow of the story was choppy in places and I'm not talking about the event where Gray loses a whole chunk of time. And sometimes I couldn't fathom people's motivations at all. Person X does a thing and it seems out of nowhere. Why was this a thing that a) had to happen and b) had to happen right then? Sometimes it was because the plot needed it to happen, even if it appeared apropos nothing, but sometimes it didn't even have that excuse.
There were a whole lot of unexplored things that I would hope would be addressed in later books because otherwise they appear more like plot inconsistencies or something. And we had a few throw away characters, a thing I dislike.
And yet I liked the book. I liked that it was not just your average teen romance or even paranormal romance. There was a really interesting idea behind this story. And I can see that what has been set up for the next book could be really interesting as well. But I don't think I want to pursue it....more
I did enjoy this. Well, aspects of it. This is another book where I really enjoyed the first chapter. It sounded like it was going to be a really greaI did enjoy this. Well, aspects of it. This is another book where I really enjoyed the first chapter. It sounded like it was going to be a really great fantasy story. And then a woman was introduced to the story and it completely changed from what I thought it was going to be. *shrugs shoulders*
I realise that the whole point of the story is about the sheva bond and the strength of the sheva bond and the destiny of the sheva bonded couple etc etc etc...but I felt like the sheva bond thing was actually belaboured. I got it. I really did. I didn't enjoy feeling like it was being shoved down my throat. It was instalove with a rationale, sure, but I also got tired of hearing about how much they had the hots for each other. Call me old and curmdgeonly, but it was OTT to me. It wasn't what I was looking for from the story, not why I read it. So I did a fair bit of skimming at times. That might be my fault though. When things have been sitting in my Google Play Books for a while, I often have no recollection of the blurb that I read when I first downloaded the book and though the cover implied there was going to be some romance in it, I didn't realise there would be that much of it.
To me, it's actually a shame. I have much more interest in the potential fantasy world that I thought the author was constructing than in what we ended up getting. But I know this will be exactly what other people are looking for. Oh well....more
This book begins with a crime. A murder has taken place. So there's a mystery, obviously. But this is no cozy. We add a drop of the paranormal with ouThis book begins with a crime. A murder has taken place. So there's a mystery, obviously. But this is no cozy. We add a drop of the paranormal with our psychic main character. I've seen these before. I know where we're going.
No. I don't.
Our psychic is not actually a psychic. She's more...a witch. A practitioner of Wicca, certainly, but also a magic-containing witch. OK, let's call it urban fantasy. Some 'ghosts'? Add supernatural.
This would still put the story within the realms of things I've read before if it weren't for the man she runs over late one night who, as it turns out, is not from our world at all, but from a world of swords and sorcery. Well, I'm not sure about sorcery exactly (although it probably qualifies), but definitely a place where magic is known and accepted.
Wait. What? Our paranormal murder-mystery possible urban fantasy with a side order of what would normally qualify as supernatural just got a lot more fantasy fantasy. You'd think that so many genres existing within the one story would create massive potential for it just to become one big, messy stew of nothing identifiable. Which is not the case. We've even got a little romance thrown in there and it's not out of place.
Instead of each new genre reveal feeling like a twist that complicates and constrains the plot, it instead feels like everything just got bigger and broader and has more scope. And the ending does not qualify as a cliffhanger and yet it had a much better hook for the next book than some of the other cliffhangers I've read in the past.
If you like crime, mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy, supernatural, romance and/or fantasy, you might want to check this book out. Ignore the flaws, suspend your disbelief, and just see where it takes you....more
This book feels long. And it unfolds very slowly. Normally, that would put me off. But I was caught by the strangeness of what was going on and had toThis book feels long. And it unfolds very slowly. Normally, that would put me off. But I was caught by the strangeness of what was going on and had to keep reading.
I don't know how true to life the depiction of KLS is in this story but if any of it is true, then Damn! Often in books, a character will have a particular complaint or illness and it impacts on their lives and informs to plot to a degree but it doesn't necessarily revolve around it. This did. It felt as much like an exploration of living with a non-terminal but debilitating illness as it did anything else.
There are a lot of supporting characters in this story and they all help to shape things but some of them also feel like red herrings in their own right. What is going on with Grandma and the garden, for instance? I felt like she knew more than she was letting on the whole time and yet nothing ever came of it. Red herring or as-yet unresolved plot point? Don't know. Yet.
There are a few things we're chasing across the course of the story that aren't resolved by the end of book one, but it doesn't feel like those stories where it's all cliffhanger to get you to read the next one. I mean, there is a hook to get you to read the next story, but we do have a fairly major issue resolved and yet not, in the same way that answering one question can often raise a crop more related questions.
I just...don't know if want to read the next book. Because the build was so slow, there was a sense of urgency missing for me, and although I am naturally saying, "Ooh, what happens next?" after the events at the end of the story (that last line!), I did feel like something major(ish) was resolved and I feel strangely content with that at the moment. We'll see if this story continues to haunt my mind....more
This book was a bit all over the place. The beginning was pretty awful. Choppy. Cliched set up. Characters who put my back up immediately. But I perseThis book was a bit all over the place. The beginning was pretty awful. Choppy. Cliched set up. Characters who put my back up immediately. But I persevered.
Things began to look up when the MC met an old friend of hers from school whom she hadn't seen for several years. I did enjoy the attention and gifts her friend lavished on her. But then we had a melting pot of more cliches stirred together to make the plot, which, while nothing I've ever actually read before, was a whole bunch of other things I'd read before with a few bits of originality thrown in.
Our MC was such a teenage girl. I realise I'm not the target audience for this book because she annoyed me endlessly. But so did just about everybody at some point. Everybody got handed the idiot ball on more than one occasion and dumb moves abounded.
Having said that, there was a lot to the story. Perhaps more than there should have been, really. It was long. More twists came the longer I read, which rewarded me somewhat for having got that far. And some of it I enjoyed. So my feelings about it are a bit mixed.
I think the story needed a good trim, a tighten up, some fleshing out in some of the beginning, proofreading and some polishing. To wit, a good editor. I'm not convinced it would be a sterling story after that, but it has room for improvement....more
I stumbled across this again and realised I'd read it last year. I don't remember too much about it except feelings and impressions. I remember the toI stumbled across this again and realised I'd read it last year. I don't remember too much about it except feelings and impressions. I remember the tone of the writing was not my cup of tea. It seemed a bit heavy on the ... I don't even know. Just heavy. Like it was taking itself very seriously indeed.
The twists and turns and betrayals were interesting. They made the book a lot more readable, although I think I lost track of what was happening and who was currently in league with whom etc because I was putting the story down and reading other things at the same time. So I got a little confused but I don't know that I can blame the writing for a lack of clarity. It's probably more down to my faulty memory and too much other stuff in my head.
I'm not terribly fond of stories with demon or half-demon characters, so that always sits uneasily with me, and particularly bringing romance into the equation, because for me, demons just don't do romance. Combine that with the fact that it's all actually more about people using each other and succumbing to things inside them and what have you, not to mention those betrayals, and I didn't feel I could trust anyone's emotions or expressions of feelings and as soon as I felt like I just might be able to, I was blindsided again.
Overall I'd have to say that it wasn't bad, just not really my cup of tea in the end....more
I got barely into the first chapter and I was already done with this book. I just couldn't read it.
Something 'shocking' happens, we barely find our fI got barely into the first chapter and I was already done with this book. I just couldn't read it.
Something 'shocking' happens, we barely find our feet with the characters and there was all this attitude and unpleasantness and at the same time events happening that you don't understand, and I get that it might have been an attempt to both show and tell but it didn't work for me. Too much angry posturing from everyone and it is not written smoothly. I don't like the characters. Interesting idea plus trying too hard plus poor writing means I cut my losses and ran early....more
OK, so I had trouble picking a shelf to put this onto. It seems to fall into a few different categories all at once. Let's leave all that alone, shallOK, so I had trouble picking a shelf to put this onto. It seems to fall into a few different categories all at once. Let's leave all that alone, shall we?
I liked this. It was different, but familiar, had some nice twists but some predictable moments. Sometimes things were a bit too convenient, but seriously, it was kooky and fun and I just ran with it.
Because of it moving to Sedona, it reminded me of another series I'd read the first book for well over a year ago. I'd never read more in the series, but it had kind of lodged little bits of it in my brain. And wouldn't you know it? I've just discovered it was the same author who wrote both of them. No wonder it made me think of the other book....more
It has some flaws, this book. It does. There was some redundant text and, at times, a fair bit of telling instead of showing. And some very bad decisiIt has some flaws, this book. It does. There was some redundant text and, at times, a fair bit of telling instead of showing. And some very bad decision making on the part of our heroine. Although, fair to say, it's not all exactly her fault. There were some small formatting problems where spaces were missing, usually between the word 'I' at the beginning of a sentence and whatever word came next. And they weren't there all the time. But they would pull me out of the action for a moment.
However, having said that, I found the premise interesting and the plot just engaging enough to carry me through. And I liked the ending. I really liked the ending. It made me sit up and pay attention. Three stars....more
I've read a few teen werewolf type of things. They are often much of a muchness. I wasn't expecting much from this book, but I was pleasantly surpriseI've read a few teen werewolf type of things. They are often much of a muchness. I wasn't expecting much from this book, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. While it remained supported by a lot of the usual canon, there were enough things that were handled differently to help the story feel fresher than it might have otherwise. I have to admit that I found the beginning tough going. When our MC was being a bit of a typical whiny teen and hating summer camp, that felt tired, but at the same time, you needed that to happen so that later plot events could unfurl. If you're looking for a fun read that doesn't tax your mind too much, this could be just what you're looking for....more
I read this book sometime last year and then it sat in my Google Play books for a while. I recently re-read it because I couldn't quite remember what I read this book sometime last year and then it sat in my Google Play books for a while. I recently re-read it because I couldn't quite remember what it was about. I enjoyed some aspects of this story. Some things bugged me, in varying amounts . I particularly disliked the ending, but I won't say it was a bad ending, more that it left me feeling so anxious about what might happen next that I don't want to read the next book. That's a personal thing. I do like the underlying premise of this book. I just got irritated with people and events at times....more
This was way too similar to something else I read around the same time. Whatever the other book was, (I can't quite remember), it was marginally betteThis was way too similar to something else I read around the same time. Whatever the other book was, (I can't quite remember), it was marginally better. Marginal, but better. I'm not sure I've read anything by Chrissy Peebles that I've liked yet. She keeps appearing in anthologies with a similar roster of artists, or should that be a roster of similar artists? Point is, I really just don't like her writing. *shrugs*...more
I think I kinda liked this one. I know there were things about it that annoyed me (how the MC didn't twig what the love interest was is beyond me), buI think I kinda liked this one. I know there were things about it that annoyed me (how the MC didn't twig what the love interest was is beyond me), but some of it was fun....more
I read this ages ago, and couldn't remember much about it. I went and looked up which books were in it, and some of them I remembered and some of themI read this ages ago, and couldn't remember much about it. I went and looked up which books were in it, and some of them I remembered and some of them I have no recollection of so I can only assume I didn't finish it? EDIT: I tried looking for this last night when I was writing the review and couldn't find it and assumed I'd deleted it. I just found it. I'll try and read the other books in this collection and give an updated review and rating....more
I'd read this book before, I realised as I was reading, and it was kinda interesting the first time around. This time around it was still interesting I'd read this book before, I realised as I was reading, and it was kinda interesting the first time around. This time around it was still interesting but frustrating because I've read so many more ebooks since then and know how much more the author could have given us in the first book depending on how she structured the series.
Still, it was a frustratingly satisfying (or should that be satisfyingly frustrating?) courtship going on and it was also a very different take on the shifter genre, which made it fun to read....more