Book: Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston

Published by HarperTeen

Purchased for my Nook (352 pages)

Genre: YA: Paranormal- Fairies

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Goodreads Summary: Since the dawn of time, the Faerie have taken. . . .

Seventeen-year-old actress Kelley Winslow always thought faeries were just something from childhood stories. Then she meets Sonny Flannery. He’s a changeling—a mortal taken as an infant and raised among Faerie—and within short order he’s turned Kelley’s heart inside out and her life upside down.

For Kelley’s beloved Central Park isn’t just a park—it’s a gateway between her ordinary city and the Faerie’s dangerous, bewitching Otherworld. Now Kelley’s eyes are opening not just to the Faerie that surround her, but to the heritage that awaits her . . . a destiny both wondrous and strange.

I didn’t like Wondrous Strange at first.  But by the end of the book, I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

There’s a lot of setting up in Wondrous Strange, and it isn’t until the end that things really pick up.  I’m glad I gave it a chance, because it is interesting.  I like the idea of four different courts, and the Janus, who protect the gate that Oberon closed (except for one day a year).  There’s some interesting fairy mythology in this book.

Now that I think about it, there were quite a few clues in the book that I didn’t pick up on.  I really liked the theater aspect of the novel.  And how fairies popped up everywhere.

Wondrous Strange is narrated by Kelly and Sonny.  I thought their stories were interesting together, and I think it worked better with the two of them as narrators than either of them on their own.

Kelley did handle things a little too well.  You find out you’re the daughter of a fairie, and you act like it’s perfectly normal?  It was a little weird for her at first, I think, but overall, she was a tad bit okay with the family secret.  Of course, I’m totally basing her reaction on what I’d do if I found I was the daughter of 2 fairies…which would be freaking out.  Kelley did crack me up, I have to admit.

As for the other characters, they were just okay.  None really stood out, except for Sonny, but there’s something off about him.  It was hard to care about most of them in this book, but maybe in the next book…

I give Wondrous Strange a 3 out of 5.  I enjoyed it, especially towards the end, but it took a little too long to get going.

Book: Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Published by HarperCollins

Purchased for my Nook (352 pages)

Genre: YA: Paranormal

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Goodreads Summary: A hidden truth. 

Mortal enemies. 

Doomed love.

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki—a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. The only bright light is Will. Gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will’s dark secret: He and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slowly slipping away—if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She’ll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy.

Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.

The main reason I wanted to read this book is because it’s about dragons.  How often do you see a book focusing solely on dragons?  Not very often.

I wasn’t sure about this book at first, but I ended up really liking it.  I thought the characters were interesting, even the ones I didn’t like.  Jacinda’s mom and her sister Tamra were really irritating.

I just loved Jacinda, and how much being a dragon (or draki) means to her.  There’s an element of needing to stay hidden because they’re being hunted, and it’s even worse for Jacinda because she had to flee to the mortal world.  If she doesn’t stay in touch with her inner draki, she’ll become human, just like her mother did.  And since her twin (Tamra) never showed an ability to shape-shift into a draki, her mom let her inner draki die.  It was so hard to see them tell Jacinda it would be better once she was no longer a dragon and how desperate Jacinda was to stay one.

I love how the color of each draki indicates what their talent is.  That is such a great idea!  I really love what Jordan did with dragons.  Seriously, these are not your typical dragons.  Okay, so Jacinda is a fire-breathing dragon- which is really rare- and that she’s set to marry Cassian, the future alpha.  It was still an interesting story, and very unique.

It gets a 4 out 0f 5.

Book: The Dead Girls’ Dance by Rachel Caine

Published by Penguin Group

Purchased for my Nook (256 pages)

Genre: YA: Paranormal

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Goodreads Summary: Claire Danvers has her share of challenges—like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains, dealing with the homicidal girls in her dorm, and above all, finding out that her college town is overrun with vampires. On the up side, she has a great roommate (who tends to disappear at sunup) and a new boyfriend named Shane, whose vampire-hunting dad has called in backup: cycle punks who like the idea of killing just about anything.

Now a fraternity is throwing its annual Dead Girls’ Dance and—surprise!—Claire and her equally outcast best friend, Eve, have been invited. When they find out why, all hell is going to break loose. Because this time both the living and the dead are coming out—and everybody’s hungry for blood.

I just love this series, even thought I’ve only read the first couple books.  It picks up where Glass Houses left off.

I just love the characters but they were all over the place.  Like the thing Michael did at the end?  Not what I expected.  Monica didn’t seem like her usual  crazy, threatening self either.

I really enjoyed the race to save Shane from being burned alive.  Definitely a lot of mystery- even though it was pretty obvious Shane would be saved at the end.  Things between Shane and Claire seem rushed, especially at the end, but overall, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  I didn’t like Shane as much in this novel but hopefully he’ll be more like the Shane we met in Glass Houses.  Eve was just okay, and Michael is really interesting.  He’s still him, and I’m really curious as to what Caine does with him in the rest of the series.

I really love the town of Morganville and how I can picture everything so clearly.  Plus, I love the way the town is set up and structured and how they deal with things.  And Shane’s relationship with his dad (who is slightly crazy but still interesting) is also interesting.  Plus, learning about his sister and his mother and how they died was interesting.  Learning about characters is good, and so far, Caine seems pretty good about pacing the little tidbits we get.

Morganville is a crazy town, but I love that about it.  And I love that things aren’t progressing slowly- Claire and her friends seem to get more and more involved with the craziness.

It gets a 5 out of 5.  It was fun, and I just love the vampires in this series.

Book: My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent

Published by Harlequin Teen

Purchased for my Nook (279 pages)

Genre: YA: Paranormal

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Goodreads summary: She doesn’t see dead people, but she senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.

Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who’ll be next…

I thoroughly enjoyed My Soul To Take.  It’s about banshees (or Bean Sidhe)!  It’s a nice change from reading about ghosts (which I haven’t read a lot of) or vampires or fairies.

I love how Kaylee has to fight the urge to start screaming when she senses that someone is going to die.  What I loved most was the addition of male bean sidhe, who work with females in order to bring someone back to life.  That was a really good move on Vincent’s part, because it’s not something I’d associate with them.

I don’t blame Kaylee for thinking she was crazy- I’d think I was crazy too.  Her dad was irritating, the way he just bailed on her, but I totally get why he did.  I wasn’t expecting her aunt to make a deal with a reaper in exchange for youth, but at the same time, it wasn’t a big surprise.

I really liked the reapers and how one is going rogue.  I can’t wait to see how this resolves itself.  That, combined with the bean sidhe made this book really interesting.

It did take a little bit to get into it, but once you did, it was hard to put down.  I just loved reading about a different legend, because banshees aren’t something you read about in the world that is YA paranormal.  There was a lot of world-building, but it was so interesting that I didn’t really care.

I really want to know more about Aiden and Brendan.  And Tod and Nash.  Both sets of brothers and the relationships they have with each other intrigue me.

My Soul To Take gets a 4 out of 5.  It is different, which is good, and it was really mysterious and fun.

Book: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Published by Harper Collins (352 pages)

Purchased for my Nook

Genre: YA: Paranormal

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Goodreads Summary: Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her “power” to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he’s claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope that Jay’s intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she’s falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself.

I really liked The Body Finder.  I thought Violet’s ability to sense the dead and imprints that their killers leave behind was an interesting one.  I wasn’t too surprised to see that there was a serial killer taking and killing girls and that Violet used her abilities to figure out where the girls were buried and who was behind it.

I wish we saw more of her ability and what she can do with it.  It was interesting enough, with different people having different echoes, and a serial killer absorbing the echoes of all of the people they’ve killed.  I really liked how she could see or hear them.

As for the romance…really obvious.  At least Jay and Violet were best friends first, which is a nice change from the love at first sight romances.  And no love triangles, which is also nice.

Violet, other than her creepy ability to sense the dead, actually seemed relatively normal.

Something I just loved was seeing the serial killer in action.  It made everything much more creepy.  Plus, it felt a lot more real, as opposed to just being there.  Creepy ability + getting into the serial killer’s head = a suspenseful book!

I give it a 4 out of 5.  It started off a little slow but picked up.

Book: Whirl by Emma Raveling

Published by Mandorla Publishing (258 pages)

Purchased for my Nook

Genre: YA: Paranormal/Fantasy

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Goodreads Summary: Seventeen-year-old Kendra Irisavie is an ondine, a water elemental caught in the middle of an ancient war with the Aquidae, immortal dark demons who will stop at nothing to destroy the fragile balance of the Elemental world.

Fierce and independent, Kendra has always played by her own rules. Gifted with the powerful magic of Virtue and trained to be a deadly fighter, she has spent her life breaking hearts and getting into trouble.

When her life explodes one violent night in a northern California city, a dark stranger appears, promising answers to her mysterious past.

Alone and with no one to trust, she must now navigate through a dangerous new world, face the temptations of a forbidden romance, and remain true to her duty and destiny.

All while the Aquidae continue to hunt her down, in the hopes of eliminating her forever…

I love the concept of Whirl.  It kind of reminds me of Vampire Academy, in the the society is structured and how the school is set up.  But obviously with water elementals instead of vampires.

Okay, so Kendra falling for a prince and being the chosen one was a little obvious.  But there were a couple other guys I could see her with, and I’m not completely sure who she’ll end up with.  You have Tristan (the prince) and Julian, and I could see her with either one.  There was the possibility of her and a friend, but that’s not going to happen because he (unfortunately) died.  I like that it’s not completely obvious.  It’s a nice change from a lot of other books, where you know right off the bat who the main character will end up with.

I love that the water element is the focus, and that there are elementals who have Virtues (or super-special abilities) and elementals who don’t have any Virtues.  I thought Raveling did a great job with coming up with her own terminology- which is even explained at the end.  I wish I had read it first, but either way, I’m glad she included it.

I haven’t come across anything involving the elements to this degree.  I’m sure they’ve been in the background of something I’ve read, but they’ve never been the focus.  I just love this idea!  I really do.

Kendra was way too independent, and was determined to do things on her own.  I guess part of it is that she grew up “rogue” with her mother.  So while she’s the chosen one who has to defeat the Aquidae, she’ll (hopefully) learn that she can trust others enough to let them help her.

I did find some of the other characters more interesting.  Like Nexa.  I sort of want to know more about a mission she was on.  And I thought Julian and Tristan were interesting characters.  I was hoping for more scenes with both of them, but I’m really hoping we’ll see more of them in the rest of the series.

I think Whirl deserves a 4 out of 5.  It really is an interesting idea, and I love the idea of water elementals.

Book: Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake

Published by Tor Teen (211 pages)

Purchased for my Nook

Genre: YA: Paranormal- Ghosts/Horror

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Goodreads Summary: Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas’s life.

Anna Dressed In Blood got my attention because it’s about ghosts.  Not vampires or fairies or mermaids.  But ghosts!  They’re rare, it seems like, so I knew I had to read it.  Actually, there is a dash of horror, which seems equally rare in YA.

I liked it, and I loved seeing Anna’s story.  Okay, so Cas falling in love with Anna was a little unbelievable.  It is a paranormal book, though, so I’m willing to overlook that.  I do wish Blake had stuck with horror with a touch of paranormal, instead of the paranormal romance it seemed to turn into.  Cas as a character didn’t work for me, and I can’t exactly pinpoint why.  It is nice to see a male protagonist for once, but…I just didn’t really care about him either way.

But back to Anna.  Her story and the curse her mother put on her was interesting.  And I liked the creature that killed his dad.  Blake did create an interesting world, full of people with different abilities.

I don’t think I’m interested in reading the next book.  At least not right away.  It gets a 3 out of 5.  I liked it, but it’s not one of my favorites.