Book: Daughter Of The Forest by Juliet Marillier

Published by Tom Doherty Associates

Purchased for my Nook (384 pages)

Genre: YA: Historical Fiction/Fantasy

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Goodreads Summary: Lord Colum of Sevenwaters is blessed with six sons: Liam, a natural leader; Diarmid, with his passion for adventure; twins Cormack and Conor, each with a different calling; rebellious Finbar, grown old before his time by his gift of the Sight; and the young, compassionate Padriac.

But it is Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter, who alone is destined to defend her family and protect her land from the Britons and the clan known as Northwoods. For her father has been bewitched, and her brothers bound by a spell that only Sorcha can lift.

To reclaim the lives of her brothers, Sorcha leaves the only safe place she has ever known, and embarks on a journey filled with pain, loss, and terror.

When she is kidnapped by enemy forces and taken to a foreign land, it seems that there will be no way for her to break the spell that condemns all that she loves. But magic knows no boundaries, and Sorcha will have to choose between the life she has always known and a love that comes only once.

Daughter Of The Forest…it’s okay.  Marillier is so good at describing things, and I loved the setting.  It was so cool to see ancient Ireland and pieces of the conflict with Britain.

Let’s start with the characters.  I didn’t like Sorcha.  I appreciate what she did for her brothers and the sacrifice she made for them but I just couldn’t connect with her.  And the romance!  It is yet another boring and obvious romance.  Speaking of romance, I think one reason why I didn’t like Sorcha was because she didn’t want to get married.  Understandable, but given she’s the only girl in the family, and her dad wants to make things safe, her getting married was bound to happen.  Plus, it just didn’t seem to fit with the time period.

There were times when we got a lot of info, but also times when we didn’t get all that much.  Then there’s the fact that Oonagh is only around long enough to turn Sorcha’s brothers into swans, only to disappear and never be heard from again.

Plus, she was way too calm.  I know she wanted to save her brothers, and couldn’t make a sound for years, but you’d think she’d show more of a reaction when coming across obstacles.

Overall, I give it a 2 out of 5.  Interesting setting and time period but I didn’t particularly care for Sorcha or Red.

Book: The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones

Published by HarperTeen

Purchased for my Nook (336 pages)

Genre: YA: Paranormal- Fairies

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Goodreads Summary: Swept away into a court of magic and beauty, she discovers she is Tania, the lost princess of Faerie: the youngest daughter of Oberon and Titania. Since Tania’s mysterious disappearance on the eve of her wedding five hundred years before, Faerie has been sunk in darkness and gloom. The courtly Lord Gabriel Drake, who Tania was once to marry, has found her and brought her back.

With Tania’s return, Faerie comes alive again as a land of winged children, glittering balls, and fantastic delights. But Tania can’t forget Anita’s world, or the boy she loved there.

Torn between two loves and between two worlds, Tania slowly comes to discover why she disappeared so long ago. She possesses a singular magical ability and she must use it to stop a sinister plan that threatens the entire world of Faerie.

I love Faerie novels but this one didn’t work for me.  The idea was interesting and I liked that she’s a long lost faerie princess but I just couldn’t connect with Tania.

I loved the world Jones created, and how Faerie plunged into darkness after she disappeared and after Titania died.  And how the darkness disappeared after she came back to Faerie.  I loved the descriptions- they’re very vivid, and I could picture everything perfectly.  I also loved how Faerie coexisted with the mortal world and how there were places where you can go between the two was cool.

The idea of a faerie princess disappearing into the mortal world is interesting- and even more interesting was the fact that it was for 500 years.  What I didn’t particularly like was how we don’t know what happened to Tania for those 5o0 years.  It would have been nice to know what happened but it’s apparently too hard to get that info from her memories.  Plus, I felt like we didn’t get a good glimpse of who she was as a person.  I get why didn’t get a sense of who she was as a faerie princess, because she doesn’t remember that life.  But we also didn’t get a good sense of who she was…in general.  It was just hard to connect with her.

It definitely focused on her getting back to the mortal world, and how she was impressed by her faerie princess background but also didn’t want to leave her old life behind.  It’s a strange combination of wanting to accept Faerie but also wanting to live in the mortal world because it’s all she’s known.  She just went back and forth so many times that it was more annoying than anything else.  I wanted to like her, but I couldn’t.

The romance was boring.  Actually, it was pretty standard, and not a surprise at all.  I didn’t really care about either guy.  As for the other characters, there were a lot, and they just randomly showed up for a few scenes and then disappeared, only to randomly show up again.

It gets a 2 out of 5.  It was just okay for me, but it’s an interesting idea.

Book: Every Last Kiss by Courtney Cole

Published by Lakehouse Press

Purchased for my Nook (244 pages)

Genre: YA: Historical Fiction/Fantasy

Find out more: Goodreads~Barnes And Noble~Amazon~Courtney Cole

Goodreads Summary: 17-year old Macy Lockhart has the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

For thousands of years, she has been a Keeper in the ancient organization, the Order of the Moirae. She literally holds fate in her hands. 

But this is something that she forgets, because her memories are wiped clean when she is reborn each time, until it is time for her cycle to begin again in her seventeenth year in each life. 

And for the last two thousand years, this has never been a problem. Until now. But now, fate is being challenged and to fix it, she is forced to return to a previous life, one where she was Cleopatra’s handmaiden, Charmian. 

Cue up the second problem: Unless she interferes with the fabric of time, the very thing she has returned to repair, then her soul mate, Hasani, will die leading Marc Antony’s armies against Rome. Can she really stand aside and allow the love of her life to die all over again?

There is something very beautiful about Every Last Kiss.  I love the setting and how everything is described.  I mean, how often do you see ancient Egypt as a setting, and Cleopatra as a character?  It’s nice to see a novel where the character doesn’t travel back to medieval Europe, or history that isn’t European.  I so want to go back to ancient Egypt after reading this book.  Some of the details are great, and they really made the novel interesting.

The premise is interesting- she holds fate in her hands, and every 17 years, she starts over, with her memories wiped clean.  The reincarnation aspect isn’t that unusual, and is even the teensiest bit cliche now.  Her going back 2000 years, and then foward 2000 years…it didn’t work for me.  It starts and ends in a completely predictable way.  There are some random time shifts, which were a little distracting.  I feel like there’s this really big picture, and that going back in time are really important, but we don’t really know what’s going on.  It just felt convoluted.

I didn’t get the romance- it’s clear there is one, but it didn’t work because we don’t see enough of it.  It’s really hard to see and understand why they’re so in love.  Then again, romance isn’t the main focus of the novel…but it’s likely to take center stage in the remaining books.

Things moved along, but I just couldn’t connect with the characters, especially Macy.  I didn’t feel like there was enough conflict- she had to choose between not changing destiny because of the potential consequences and saving the guy she loves.  It was hard to see why she’d want to save Hasani, but I will admit that the idea of changing destiny and history was intriguing.  It’s a shame it wasn’t really explored and that she ended up accepting that she couldn’t change things.

I didn’t mind modern language, because she did go back in time, and that’s to be expected.

It gets a 2 out of 5.  It was okay, and I don’t think I’m interested enough to keep reading.

Book: Bloodspell by Amalie Howard

Published by Langdon Street Press

Purchased for my Nook

Genre: YA: Fantasy/Paranormal- Vampires

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Goodreads Summary: The spell was simple…

Cruentus Protectum (Defend the Blood)

But what do you do if your blood is your enemy?

Victoria Warrick has always known she was different. An outcast at school, she is no stranger to adversity. But when she receives an old journal for her seventeenth birthday, nothing prepares her for the dark secrets it holds — much less one that reveals she’s a witch with unimaginable power.

What’s more, when she meets the dazzling but enigmatic Christian Devereux, she has no idea how much her life is about to change. Enemies will hunt her. Friends will turn on her. The terrible curse that makes her blood run black will stop at nothing to control her. And Christian has a sinister secret of his own…

Without knowing whom to trust, can Victoria survive her blood’s deadly desires? Or will she lose everything, including herself?

Bloodspell…I thought parts of it were really interesting, but overall, it was just okay.

So, interesting parts  first.  I thought the truce between witches and vampires was interesting, and the rivalry between them was interesting.

I thought Tori being a witch with a really interesting power was interesting.  A blood curse?  Definitely different, and the role it played was really interesting.  She doesn’t have just any ordinary power, she has a really unusual one, which was nice to see.  And it was cool to see her struggle with controlling it and figuring it all out by reading a journal and consulting with her cat because there doesn’t seem to be anyone else she can turn to.  I liked her struggle with accepting and dealing with what was going on.

But it was just okay.  The romance was really boring, and way too expected.  They, of course, can’t be together, but I just found it way too uninteresting.

I didn’t find the characters terribly interesting either, and it was a pretty predictable story…and for me, this was not a good thing.  I was definitely bored reading it, and it just wasn’t memorable for me.  I wanted to like Bloodspell but I just couldn’t.

As for the magic, it could have been interesting, but wasn’t.  It made solving things really easy, and it was frustrating because she picked up on using magic way too quickly for someone who just learned about her family history.

It does have potential but overall, it’s just okay, so it gets 2 out of 5.

Book: Private by Kate Brian

Published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers

Purchased for my Nook (240 pages)

Genre: YA: Contemporary

Find out more: Goodreads~Barnes And Noble~Amazon~Kate Brian

Goodreads Summary: Tradition, Honor, Excellence…and secrets so dark they’re almost invisible Fifteen-year-old Reed Brennan wins a scholarship to Easton Academy — the golden ticket away from her pill-popping mother and run-of-the-mill suburban life. But when she arrives on the beautiful, tradition-steeped campus of Easton, everyone is just a bit more sophisticated, a bit more gorgeous, and a lot wealthier than she ever thought possible. Reed realizes that even though she has been accepted to Easton, Easton has not accepted her. She feels like she’s on the outside, looking in. Until she meets the Billings Girls. They are the most beautiful, intelligent, and intensely confident girls on campus. And they know it. They hold all the power in a world where power is fleeting but means everything. Reed vows to do whatever it takes to be accepted into their inner circle. Reed uses every part of herself — the good, the bad, the beautiful — to get closer to the Billings Girls. She quickly discovers that inside their secret parties and mountains of attitude, hanging in their designer clothing-packed closets the Billings Girls have skeletons. And they’ll do anything to keep their secrets private.

I liked Private.  It’s been on my to-read list forever, so I finally got around to reading it!

It’s about this girl who goes to boarding school and becomes friends with the popular girls.  There are quite a few cliches, but it was still enjoyable to read. It’s definitely another mean girl-type of story, but it’s one of the better ones, I think.

I’m not sure what secrets Reed is supposed to discover, but since Private is the first book in the series, it’s much more likely that secrets will be revealed in the other books.

There’s definitely an air of mystery and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.  Even though things were pretty predictable, I still wanted to know what happened.  There’s something very addicting about a series like this.

The characters are okay- pretty standard for this kind of story.  Thankfully, I’ve only the first book in the spin-off, and I don’t remember enough to have an opinion about the characters.  I get why Reed just went along with the Billings girls, and it’s interesting to see Arianna from a different perspective.  But I didn’t care too much about her.  I just couldn’t completely connect with her.

It gets a 3 out of 5.  I liked it, and I’ll keep reading, but it didn’t grab me the way I thought it would.

Book: The Patron Saint Of Butterflies by Cecilia Galante

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Purchased for my Nook (320 pages)

Genre: YA: Contemporary

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Goodreads Summary: Agnes and Honey have always been best friends, but they haven’t always been so different. Agnes loves being a Believer. She knows the rules at the Mount Blessing religious commune are there to make her a better person. Honey hates Mount Blessing and the control Emmanuel, their leader, has over her life. The only bright spot is the butterfly garden she’s helping to build, and the journal of butterflies that she keeps. When Agnes’s grandmother makes an unexpected visit to the commune, she discovers a violent secret that the Believers are desperate to keep quiet. And when Agnes’s little brother is seriously injured and Emmanuel refuses to send him to a hospital, Nana Pete takes the three children and escapes the commune. Their journey begins an exploration of faith, friendship, religion and family for the two girls, as Agnes clings to her familiar faith while Honey desperately wants a new future.

I really liked The Patron Saint Of Butterflies.  The title was intriguing, and I just love the cover.

I loved that we have two narrators- Agnes, who is a huge believer in the community, and Honey, who isn’t.  It worked really well, and you get two very different perspectives on what life is like at Mount Blessing.  Patron saints are really important throughout the book, and it was nice to see Agnes go from believing she needs to be perfect and to atone for any sins she commits, to realizing that doing the right thing is more important.

It’s a really good look at what a religious commune is like, and I could picture everything so clearly.  The grounds of Mount Blessing seem beautiful, and I loved the idea of a butterfly garden.

Obviously, patron saints were pretty important.  And while butterflies were mentioned, I’m not really sure why they were included.  I’m not too sure why Honey is so attached to butterflies and it didn’t really work for me.  Maybe it’s supposed to be a nice contrast or it’s supposed to represent transformation.

Emmanuel refuses to let Agnes’ younger brother go to a hospital after he hurts himself, and that is what leads Agnes and Honey out of Mount Blessing and into the “real world.”  This is where Agnes got really annoying but at the same time, she did try to stick to what she believed in, because it’s the only thing she ever knew.  But Agnes and Honey really were like kids in a candy store.

Of course, there’s a family secret that changes both of their lives…which I predicted at some point when I was reading.  It definitely changes things for both girls.

I thought it was great, and I loved seeing their journey.  They really changed a lot.

It gets a 4 out of 5.  I really liked it, but I didn’t love it.