Dreaming In Books

Title:  The Soulkeepers

Author:  G.P.Ching

Publisher:  Self-published

Series:  The Soulkeepers #1

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

Kindle freebies allowed me to discover this self-published YA novel.  I downloaded a ton of them, and The Soulkeepers sounded intriguing enough to warrant a try.  I loved the concept of a male protagonist being focused on for once, and the idea of being a soulkeeper sounded interesting to me.  Like many self-published books I read recently, The Soulkeepers seemed to be hitting the mark until I thought more about my reading experience.  For the price point, the novel is more than enjoyable, but it shares some problems that many other self-published YA novels have, and its problems cause its benefits to neutralize.  The Soulkeepers will be worth the time for some readers, but it will depend on how well they can handle some of the issues the book presents.

Jacob Lau has gotten into a car accident.  His mother has gone missing and no one seems able to find her, though she was with him that night.  His father's been dead.  Stranded at the hospital, Jacob is seemingly alone in the world.  His perception of who he is shatters when a strange man visits him in the hospital and claims to be his uncle on his father's side.  The idea seems preposterous.  How could his father never speak of a brother?  Everything seems confusing and out of place, and it only gets worse when Jacob is told that he will be going to live with his uncle until his mother returns.

It's bad enough that Jacob's mother may not be found, but having him restart his life at a new school just seems like torture.  Jacob has lived most of his life on Hawaii, and his half-Chinese race has never been an issue there.  In small town America, however, people seem to take a lot of issue with it.  Jacob finds himself being subjected to bullying and name calling from many students at the school.  Even his cousin gets in on it.  The world seems to be against Jacob, and the rage that results from it is too much to bear.  The only person that keeps him sane is Mailini, an Indian girl who understands what Jacob is going through and becomes a true friend to him in the process.

Jacob soon learns that there is more to this town than pain, though.  The secrets of his father's life start to unearth themselves as Jacob becomes closer with his uncle.  A next-door neighbor takes on Jacob as a worker of sorts after he smashes one of her picture windows in.  The ensuing relationship with the world-renowned botanist becomes more than as simple tutor/student one following an incident that involves Jacob's deepest curiosities and her private greenhouse situated in the back of her property.  Jacob uncovers countless secrets, and in those secrets he learns things about himself and his apparent supernatural gifts that will change his life forever.

I've not read a protagonist like Jacob Lau in YA for a while, and it was quite a change from the usual strong (or pseudo-strong) female lead characters.  Jacob is strong, true, but he's also a male perspective.  Ching uses third-person, so Jacob's maleness isn't as overt as it would be in first person, but the masculinity of the narrative rings surprisingly strong throughout the novel.  Jacob is a boy that is struggling with everything life is handing to him.  His mother is missing.  His father is gone.  A new side of his family that  he never knew existed appeared out of nowhere just recently.  On top of that, he's now living in a place that's prejudiced and so much smaller in scope.  I could easily identify with some of those feelings, and Jacob's extreme aggression at times was understandable.  Jacob's temper occasionally goes too far, though, and it's hard as a reader to be completely sympathetic with just how far it goes.  The narrative doesn't justify it as being overboard, but it makes getting to know and like Jacob harder as things go along.  Jacob also has some viewpoints that he struggles to accept that readers will find fairly accessible, such as his his distaste of religion because of his life's hardships.  Jacob struggles with a lot of viewpoints and iffyness that teen readers will understand, but the narrative tends to speak them in the most blatant black-and-white terms, and it made me dislike his voice in some parts as a result.  Religion in particular seemed to go from this gray-matter subject to being something to put in simplistic, dumbed-down terms. Those passages felt like they were over-simplified to attract the reader to later plot points, and Jacob's character seemed to suffer from the over-simplification.  Jacob's character growth also faltered after the plot took the full focus, and the transition was not strong in shifting the focus.

Other characters felt similar to Jacob.  There were times that I felt they really did well in terms of the narrative.  There's the harsh reality of Jacob's relationship with his cousin, who can be flat-out awful despite the fact that Jacob is her newly discovered kin.  Jacob's uncle has some surprising depth to him, and Jacob's relationship with him is arguably the most well-rounded of the relationships within The Soulkeepers.  Ching writes Jacob's uncle as an understanding character that is dealing with a lot of issues regarding Jacob's place in his life - he wants Jacob to accept life and to work with him on starting it over, but he also has lingering feelings about how his brother left his life, which are feelings that ultimately change how he feels about his brother's son, Jacob.  This relationship was actually one worthy of exploring in-depth, and the biggest problem regarding it was the lack of resolution with it on Jacob's part.  Jacob holds almost no feelings of care towards his uncle at the end of the novel.  He basically transitions from dislike to indifference, and it didn't ring true based on how much Jacob's uncle did for him when he was basically all alone in the world.  Malini was a surprising addition - the book didn't read as one that would involve a romantic relationship, and I was delighted to find Malini to be a fairly strong and able character.  Her romance with Jacob feels insta-love in nature - they say it about halfway through the novel, or at least Jacob does - and they mostly bond over being outcasts.  Malini is a strong female, and I appreciated how she was knowledgeable and knew how to stand up for herself, especially when Jacob made her angry.  However, their relationship goes stagnant after a while, and there wasn't enough romantic tension or growth in their relationship after a while to truly have me invested in it deeply.

Ching's world itself is very unique to YA in many ways.  It is essentially an angel-story if it is looked at by its bare-bones concept, but in reality there is a lot of intricacy to the idea that doesn't involve the religious aspect.  However, the execution is poorly done.  Ching introduces a lot of elements such as location-traveling trees, exotic plant species that are beyond the beyond, and confusing mythologies about other-worlds and people that don't feel very well-crafted.  The book's world building doesn't start until nearly midway through, and of it there are a lot of concepts that feel too easily accepted.  Some of them also feel over-the-top and unnecessary.  The biggest issue is that Ching attempts to connect all of this to religious concepts in Christianity, but it is tackled in such a way that things are far too cut and dry.  One cannot simply introduce religion without either A) making it a complex part of the world building or B) making it clear that the world building from the religion doesn't mean that the religion has to be the only answer to spiritualism within the text.  I'm sure for others it's different, but I am picky about how religions are handled, and most YA books dealing with angels tend to make religion more of a complex issue and focus on how Christian mythology relates to the world building - as opposed to the direct use of the religion.  For instance, Malini becomes a source of specific Biblical passages and tries to get Jacob to understand them and accept Christianity as a religion.  While the mythos of Christianity ties into the story, the info-dumping about it and how it directly connected to being someone a part of the religion seemed off to me.  It's not just the angelic parts, but everything, and it just wasn't to my taste.  This was in part due to how Jacob's struggles with it felt simplistic.  Making a religious struggle simplistic and then basing the world building off of it?  It doesn't ring true, and it's contradictory to how one wants to make the world seem complex and interesting to the reader.

Writing-wise, Ching has some nice stuff going on in this book.  Ching has a solid voice that makes the novel enjoyable, and there were easily periods within this book where it was hard to put down.  Some of the adventures are eye-catching, and Jacob does have sections where he is compelling as a protagonist for purposes beyond the plot of the novel.  However, as with many self-published works published recently, there is a huge issue with pacing.  The Soulkeepers has a giant trough in the middle of it that reflects that.  The attempt to focus on characters without much character or plot depth in the first half made it quickly go sour.  The read is obviously plot-focused, and the characterizations never got to a level deep enough to make the focus on characterization worth the effort.  A lot of it became regurgitated conflicts and information, and the actual point behind soulkeepers wasn't made clear until many, many pages had been flipped.  Not just that, but there wasn't a sufficient thread of subtle build-up to it.  All in all, though, the mythology was made to be interesting.  Ching's writing had a level of entertainment to it that allowed one to wave past the initial disappointment in how things were handled and move forward, and there were some interesting dynamics later on regarding good versus evil - they just weren't explored as much as one would like.  Some of Ching's descriptions also got old, such as how Jacob's mother's eyes were always described as "almond eyes".  It's a common description, but after it's said once I'd rather it not be said again - and again, stereotypical descriptions, especially in regards to racially diverse characters, feel regurgitated and old after some time.  The writing in general was smooth enough, although those occasionally problematic descriptions and editing errors got the best of it in some situations.  Pricing-wise, this book was still worth the time for the unique aspects, but only if you enjoy a more plot-focused read. 

Initially, this review is extremely critical of how The Soulkeepers was handled.  The novel in itself was entertaining, and getting it as a freebie meant that it didn't take much for me to feel satisfied with it as a piece of fiction.  Jacob Lau was an interesting character, as was Malini, and I particularly enjoyed the diversity of their issues and how they were addressed in relation to living in a small town.  However, the characters weren't developed as much as they could have been, and the plot was uneven, confusing, and hard to invest one's self in for some time due to the way things were simplified.  The religion wasn't a huge bother until the execution felt lackluster, and on reflection I'm not sure that I'll bother picking up the second one.  I may because of how I love to support diverse characters, but I would do so with reservation because of a worry that the second book will show similar issues.

Cover:  This cover is nice and reflects the protagonist, but I've seen this general stock image a lot for YA books - self-published and not - and it thus feels rather non-unique.

Rating:  2.5 Stars - My initial reaction after reading was better, but after remembering it for a while I was less than happy with some of the lingering feelings.

Copy:  Bought (Note - as a free download for Kindle)

I have to admit, I’m a small-town girl.

Most of my childhood was spent on a small farm in Indiana where even the nearby town of about five hundred people seemed big to us! Our closest neighbors were a half-mile away and our hundred-year-old farmhouse was surrounded by cornfields in every direction (great fun to play in, even when you’re not in a Stephen King book/movie about children and corn!).


The town where I live now, in the beautiful mountains of Northern Utah, has a population of about eight thousand (up two thousand people in the twenty years we’ve lived here!) but in many ways, it still feels very much like a small town. People still wave when they drive by, I can’t go to the single grocery store in town without leaving extra time for visiting and I’ve learned if I want to exercise in town, I have to either walk before all my neighbors are awake or drive to another part of town where I don’t know everyone. It’s hard to get your heart rate up into a good workout zone when you’re stopping at every other house to chat with someone weeding a flower garden or sitting on a front porch!


We have a son with some health issues and our neighbors are the first ones at the doorstep when we need help. That’s the kind of town I hoped to create in Hope’s Crossing, the Colorado town that is the setting for my books BLACKBERRY SUMMER (June 2011), WOODROSE MOUNTAIN (April 2012) and SWEET LAUREL FALLS (October 2012). Hope’s Crossing is a place where people reach beyond their own lives and troubles to lift and strengthen each other. It’s not perfect, though. Far from it. I think sometimes when small towns are depicted in fiction, they can be these superficially sweet places, rather like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon (which I love, by the way!): “Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.”

My heroines are strong and my heroes, of course, are all extraordinarily good-looking :) But in Hope’s Crossing, just like in my neighborhood, people struggle and grieve. They go through divorces, they lose spouses, they endure cancer, they have children who get off-track. Through it all, they learn to lean on each other and make their own lives and the lives of those around them a little brighter.



In the second book of the series, WOODROSE MOUNTAIN (HQN, available March 27) my heroine Evie Blanchard reluctantly steps in to help a brain-injured teenager and her father. In the process, she begins to heal the scars in her own life.

What about you? What do you like about where you live? What do you enjoy about reading small-town romances? What don’t you enjoy? I would love to hear!

Thank you so much, RaeAnne.  Note that I added the images, folks.  Ms. Thayne is not responsible for the random picture of Ogden.  Though it does look very pretty.  I truly enjoyed her book and hope you all do as well.  

Title:  Woodrose Mountain

Author:  RaeAnne Thayne

Publisher:  Harlequin Books

Series:  Hope's Crossing #2

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

*Note*  Stop by tomorrow to see a guest post from RaeAnne Thayne!

I'd heard great things about Thayne's book Blackberry Summer, which was her first foray into non-category romance with Harlequin, and when Woodrose Mountain got offered to me for review, I was interested in it enough to say yes.  I've been reading a small-town romance every month or so for one reason or another, and I've come to find it an enjoyable subgenre with reservations - mainly that some authors treat it as romance, and others as women's fiction.  Then there is the gigantic gap between authors who simply show the good aspects of small-town life with a level of fantasy, and others that shove it down the reader's throats as being the purest, best concept of living in today's world.  Coming from a small town, I appreciate the former, but the latter is so devoid of reality (and is so entirely wrong if you have ever experienced the prejudice of a small town like I have) that it can enrage the reader.  Thayne is going on my list of authors to watch, because while Woodrose Mountain straddles that women's fiction/romance threshold, she writes the small town in a way that is a romantic fantasy and a reality, and she seems grounded in a way that other small town romance writers aren't.

Occupational therapist Evie Blanchard is renowned for her abilities within physical therapy.  She's seen many patients through tough times, and she has made a difference in the lives of many people.  Evie has been living her dream.  She has helped people and touched their lives.  However, a few years that are the best - and the worst - of her life make her rethink where she is at in the world.  Those years, though cherished,end in a way that emotionally devastates Evie.  She can no longer risk getting close to her patients.  That's why she moves to Hope's Crossing and now works at a beading store.  Her life needs a change.  She has no expectation of returning to her old occupation.  The risk of investing herself emotionally is too great.

Evie never anticipated what would happen in Hope's Crossing.  A devastating accident that kills one teenager, gives another severe brain damage, and causes the accident's instigator to become vilified throughout Hope's Crossing.  Taryn Thorne has been recovering from it for a long time, and the news soon spreads that she'll be returning to Hope's Crossing after spending some time in a rehab center.  Brodie Thorne, her father and a relatively wealthy and successful businessman, comes to Evie about the reality of the situation.  Taryn isn't returning because she's made an astounding recovery - she's coming because she's uncooperative and isn't improving at the rehab center.  Brodie could send her somewhere else, but his fifteen-year-old spitfire of a daughter simply will not work with anyone in a rehabilitation center.

The hope for Taryn's recovery is placed entirely on Evie's shoulders.  Brodie knows that Evie has the skill to help his daughter.  Brodie's mother Katherine works with Evie, and together the duo convinces her to take on the job.  Katherine seems more reserved that Brodie to convince the former-therapist to return to her old job, but Brodie is too worried about his daughter to consider why.  Evie concedes on the condition that it will only be temporary.  Once things get set up, she's out of there and back to her beading.  Back to safety.  Back to keeping away from emotional attachments with disabled patients.  Evie finds it hard to resist becoming attached to Taryn, who is feisty and spirited, and to Taryn's father.  Brodie and Taryn touch her heart, and Evie's job becomes infinitely more difficult when she can't just walk away.

Readers will be touched by Evie.  There's no doubt about it.  Though I never read the first book in the series - and thus missed an introduction to her character - I felt immediately understanding in her emotional complexities regarding the situation.  Evie's life has been very difficult, and she has had to deal with a lot of pain because of her responsibility for vulnerable people.  She is a person who is almost too kind; too understanding.  While it sounds like Evie is perfect, that idea is directly contradictory when one realizes just how much philanthropy she's willing to give up in order to protect herself from further heartbreak.  Evie starts off as a woman that has been hurt too much to be outgoing and inspired about her chances for success.  She doesn't want to risk anymore.  She's content to remain where she is.  Beading can't help her recover from her emotional scars, though, and Evie cannot deny the emotional blackmail that Katherine and Brodie provide for her.  Watching her come out of her shell and risk emotional investment is scary but thrilling at the same time.  There is a strong connection with the reader and Evie's triumphs as a therapist.  The reader is infinitely delighted when Evie is, and much the same when she is depressed.  Evie connects in a sense that everyone fears that risk of total emotional attachment, and her past is heart-breaking and makes her hesitation easily understandable.

Woodrose Mountain really finds its heart in its other characters.  Evie provides a great window to the character that steals the show:  Taryn.  Specifically, Evie's interaction with Taryn.  Taryn is a complex character.  A fifteen-year-old girl who is hiding demons of her own, and combating physical ones on a daily basis.  Thayne writes her story with an incredible amount of emotion and weight.  Many of Woodrose Mountain's pages are devoted to Evie working with Taryn and providing her with the tools and the drive to move forward with her physical skills.  Simple things like walking, laughing more, and being able to speak with less pauses are cause for celebration.  Evie's relationship with Taryn is what makes this book so hard to put down.  The reader becomes entrenched in the need to follow Taryn's recovery and her interactions with Evie.  The process itself is insanely difficult and complicated, and I can't imagine someone writing it better.  There are many ups and downs, and Taryn is not a perfectly behaved girl - far from it.  Her father, Brodie, is the love interest in this romance, but he's not around nearly as much as his daughter is.  His absence is what prevents this book from really gaining the label of a pure small-town romance.  Brodie is complicated himself, and his relationship with Evie is, again, based on giving someone trust and emotional investment.  That theme runs very clearly throughout the novel and the character relationships.  However, Brodie just isn't around enough.  His chemistry with Evie is loaded and sets the page on fire when they are together, but those moments are so few that it becomes obvious that Evie's story isn't so much about her acceptance of simply Brodie, but Brodie and Taryn.  Her rekindled emotional fire allows her to realize that she loves both of them for different reasons, and it's a really touching story despite the sad lack of a strong romantic storyline within it.

My biggest concern with Woodrose Mountain is how to judge it as a reader.  I was extremely happy with it.  I read it in one day - and with the recent hustle and bustle of the past week, that was  miracle.  This is a book that refuses to be put down.  However, I dislike how it's labelled as a romance, and if I had gone in with harder expectations, I would have been more disappointed because of the lack of a strong romantic thread in the novel.  On the other hand, I understand why Thayne made the writing decision she did as a reader.  Thayne chose to write a story that required a lot of important showing in regards to patient recovery.  Woodrose Mountain comes across as a realistic story because of the focus on Taryn and how Taryn consumes Evie emotionally.  It wouldn't make sense to have a story where the therapist is more concerned with the patient's father than with the patient - and it would frankly come across as untoward if that were the case.  Evie does like Brodie and is attracted to him in the storyline, but she has no want to focus on that, and it makes sense.  So, readers going in expecting a romance will be disappointed.  This book straddles the line between women's fiction and romance, and I say this because the writing style still feels more romance-based.  The emotions are more complicated and passionate - though not in the sense of an h/H relationship - and there is a lot of emotional showing that I feel doesn't fit the traditional small town women's fiction of, say, Debbie Macomber.  That's an individual stylistic observation.  Ultimately, I don't hold it against Woodrose Mountain because the novel handled things in a way that did the characters justice.

All of that alone should prove what a talented writer I find Thayne to be.  Nothing felt like a lull in Woodrose Mountain.  Everything had a purpose, and the amount of emotional connection was amazing.  There was so much going on emotionally with Evie as a heroine, and what was great was that it was all shown.  Thayne doesn't go on and tell the reader everything - the reader sees it all in Taryn's recovery and Evie's relationship with the Thornes.  On top of that, Thayne knows how to write a small town.  Hope's Crossing is picturesque and filled with people who are down-to-earth and kind.  She nails the fantasy portion of living in a small town.  The darker side is also shown.  The character that initiated the crash that caused Taryn's brain to be damaged is hated throughout town.  Small-town hate can be awful.  Evie reaches out to him and shows the reader just how wrong the pure hatred is when it involves a complex and sorry human being.  It may not be it every time, but Thayne didn't want to leave this kid as a one-dimensional villain.  He becomes a lovely incorporation in the text that also shows that Hope's Crossing isn't perfect.  It can easily drive people to dark places if its feelings are misguided.  That's what made me love the setting, and Thayne's writing hit all of the right notes.

If you're looking for a pure romance, Woodrose Mountain may not be for you.  If the idea of a small-town anything makes you want to crap a brick - it may not be for you.  However, if you want a tale of emotional depth between a woman, her patient, and the man she's falling in love with....this book will hit the spot.  Thayne respects her characters, respects her setting, and aims to show reality without losing the romantic tone to her writing style.  This book has made me a fan, and I cannot wait to read more from Thayne.  What's better- this is only the second book in the series, so it won't be hard to catch up.

Cover:  This cover is very picturesque and shows the setting well enough, but it doesn't really stand out.

Rating:  5.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thank you, Harlequin Books and Planned TV Arts!)

Title:  Deadly Cool

Author:  Gemma Halliday

Publisher:  Harper Teen

Series:  Deadly Cool #1

Other Reviews for this Author:  None

Sometimes, I honestly go into these things with low expectations.  I've had varied amounts of luck with Harper Teen's paperback originals.  Heather Terrell's Fallen Angel was fun but had tonal issues.  The Carrier of the Mark just wasn't for me.  Deadly Cool got mixed reviews like those two above, and I just wasn't sure what I was going to get out of it.  The general consensus seemed to show that Halliday had a humorous tone, and I was feeling up to the humor enough to give it a try.  I was not disappointed.  Deadly Cool may be a lighter read, but Gemma Halliday writes the teenage voice and humor with an alarming alacrity that will suck you in.

Boys can be assholes.  Hartley knows this, but she firmly believes that her boyfriend Josh isn't one.  At first, anyway.  He's nice to her and seems to respect her wishes not to have sex right away.  Hartley is a girl that needs more than lust in order to give it up, and finding a boy to respect that is hard.  Very hard.  Josh may very well be the one for Hartley.  Rumors persist that Josh is less than sanctimonious, though, and Hartley aims to find out if it's true or not.  What she discovers is more than shocking.  A leftover condom in Josh's locker - a condom that she had obviously never seen before - suggests that all of the rumors are true.  Josh was effing someone else.

The irony of Josh's transgression is all the worse.  Rumor persisted that Josh was having the affair with Courtney Cline, a color guard member and the president of the high school Chastity Club.  Hartley immediately decides to confront Josh after school, as he avoids every attempt at communication with her about the issue.  Hartley and her friend Sam drive to Josh's house after school in order to get the truth.  Josh's house is locked, but his car is waiting outside.  Believing that he has to be in there, Hartley and Sam perform an act of cat-burglary and sneak into his room via an open window lying above a shed.  Illegal?  Maybe, but Hartley has more pressing matters on her mind.

She doesn't find her ex-boyfriend in his bedroom, but something much worse.  Courtney Cline's dead body.  A pair of iPod headphones wrapped around her neck.  The clear sign of strangulation; a clear sign of murder.  Josh's notorious absence from the scene puts him in as the lead suspect, but Hartley dated him long enough to know that he would never be a murder.  At least, Hartley believes that Josh would never be a murderer.  The evidence seems stacked against him, and Hartley's instincts are the only things keeping Josh's arrest at bay (okay, so his going-into-hiding from the police helps, too).  With the help of Sam and a hot, brooding boy named Chase, Hartley becomes a sassier version of Nancy Drew in her attempts to figure out what really happened to Courtney.

Humorous protagonists are always a win for me.  How is it that a protagonist that can make you chuckle wins their way into your heart so easily?  I'm not sure, but it's safe to say that Hartley fits the bill.  Her humor is brash and crude the way teenage humor is - and being around it and participating in it every day, I can safely say that it feels authentic.  Hartley also has the benefit of being a strong heroine.  She has a purpose and sticks to it like nobody's business.  Yes, at times it can feel misguided and ridiculous because of the mystery-solving aspect, but Hartley makes it seem believable.  She's angry and frustrated with her ex-boyfriend, but the murder itself represents a key need for closure in her relationship with him.  This furthers Hartley's understandable conflicting feelings in regard to his cheating.  Anyone who has had a break-up with someone like that will understand the muddled emotions and how one can easily be unknowing to what they really feel.  Hartley is relative in this sense, and her emotional confusion makes sense.  One would like her to just kick Josh in the balls and be done with it, but I appreciated the realism and how Halliday made it feel genuine.  Hartley's strength as a character also keeps her from being pushed around, and her agency really made the story in this case.  The reader is easily invested in Hartley's mystery-solving plotline because they want to see her come out on top with her determination and skills.

As to the other characters, readers will find a suitable cast of people that remains interesting.  Hartley's boys are both interesting, and Halliday managed to incorporate both of them while making it clear that it wasn't a love-triangle situation.  Josh brings out many confusing feelings in Hartley.  He is pitiable in some ways because of his situation.  Yet the reader never forgets his cheating transgression, and Halliday manages to make him sympathetic while retaining a level of distance.  The reader never finds him attractive, and that keeps his true placement in the plot firmly in tact.  Chase, by contrast, is basically Halliday writing to the audience.  Chase is brooding and reads classic books, yet he is also sweet and the editor of the school newspaper.  But he's also ripped and wears black.  I say this because Chase is basically caught up in Hartley's plans, and the reader doesn't see his character as fully as they could.  We get a sense of his intelligence, impertinence, and all-around awesomeness, but his perfection was really all we got to see.  I did enjoy that his relationship with Hartley started out as something argumentative, though.  It happens a lot in romance, but not so much in YA.  I liked that they kind of despised each other for a good portion of the book, and the chemistry in their arguments was quite hot.

What astounded me about these characters and other sub-characters like Sam was how realistic they felt.  Yes, they tended towards the two-dimensional end because of the mystery focus, but they had realistic voices.  Halliday knows how to play up on the various tropes and stereotypes of high-school, though it's amusing in how they can seemingly be reversed.  In Halliday's high school setting, the color guard girls are the saints and the cheerleaders aren't so, but in high schools like mine, the reputations are either less defined or reversed completely.  She makes it funny, though, and I found it amusing that Halliday knew the workings of teenagers so well.  Everything read like a realistic look into the high school of today.  At times it shows itself as being a very difficult place for a portrayal of sexuality - every high school is like that, and it's awful - but for the most part I liked how she tackled it.  Hartley in particular isn't against sex, but she is very healthy in her want to have it in a healthy relationship.  She didn't come across as prudish or overzealous about it, and that worked in favor of the novel.  The dialogue in particular flowed with a sharp level of understanding, though I have heard some people comment on the use of "dude" between some of the characters.  I did notice it, but it didn't get on my nerves.  I found it to be overused in that regard - I don't know of any girls that say "dude" between each other - but I still hear it said today.

The plot of Deadly Cool is pretty self-explanatory.  Deadly Cool is a classic genre mystery for the YA set, and in that regard I found it interesting, too.  I read mysteries very rarely, and when I do they are usually something light ala Lillian Jackson Braun.  The fact of the matter is that I'm very bad with mysteries.  I second guess everything to the point where I can never actually see what's coming.  My judgement of this mystery is pretty much the same, although in this case I actually did see the solution coming.  Halliday does a fair job of leading the reader around for the first half of the novel, but as the threads start to come together it's not too hard to guess as to who the murderer really is.  The pieces don't take long to add up, and Deadly Cool doesn't  have a plethora of side characters to make the situation confusing - and the ones that are around can be written off fairly easily based on motivation, closeness, and the like.  Halliday still makes the mystery suspenseful, though, and I felt like it developed well enough to be entertaining.  It surprisingly worked well with the romance, and for the most part I found the ideas pretty ingenious.  Although using Myspace as a way for Josh and Hartley to communicate while avoiding the police?  The reasoning behind it was funny, but I questioned if it was true or not, as adults tend to be behind the times on social media.  If the police force is fairly ignorant as to what's going on, I would assume that would be one of the social media outlets they would check.  It was a minor issue, though, and belief was easily suspended for the story.

The ending of Deadly Cool was the only downside I found within the novel that really bugged me.  Hartley does in fact make a stupid decision at the end of the novel that results in someone else saving her life, and I thought her strengths as a character would have allowed her to at least succeed on her own...or be smarter.  The resulting effect of her actions involved romantic growth, but at that point I mainly felt disappointed that this strong heroine couldn't save the day on her own.  Hartley's intelligence managed to get her far enough in the mystery, and like any good sleuth we want her to be the one to save the day should the process get scary.  That was the most disappointing portion of the book for me, but it didn't ruin the reading experience by any means.  I just hope it doesn't become a pattern, in which case I will find more serious issue with it.  Strong characters like Hartley need to stay strong.  The other niggle was that Halliday pretty much purposefully took the swearing out of her book - probably at the bequest of the publisher, but still.  It's pretty obvious that Halliday is writing a realistic group of teenagers, and when they constantly say "eff" instead of the actual f-word, it comes across as an excuse purely fabricated to avoid that hardcore word.  I was humorous for the most part, but at times it took away from the intensity of the story and felt like an unrealistic point of verbal awareness when the word probably would have slipped out - pledge to stop swearing or not.

Readers will have mixed reactions to Deadly Cool.  This book is very much a fluffy read that is focused on giving the reader a good time.  I laughed - quite loudly, I might add - at many of the scenes and comments in this book.  It's hilarious.  Think an American Georgia Nicholson crossed with Nancy Drew.  The publisher compares it to the show Veronica Mars, which I have not watched, but from what I gather the comparison is not entirely mislead.  This book features a strong female protagonist, a surprising subtheme of sex in teenage relationships, and a light mystery plot that will keep you reading until the very end.  I found this book very hard to put down, and the problems that came to light after finishing it were mild and didn't diminish any of the fun I had while reading it.  I very much look forward to reading more of Halliday's work - both adult and young adult - and hope that she continues this theme of a realistic and snarky teen voice.  It's much too fun to let go.

Cover:  The creepy teen girl's face I could do without.  The eyes are striking but very unnatural.  The point, naturally, but not really my thing.  I love how the dead look and the headphones tie into the plot, though, and in that regard the cover actually makes sense.

Rating:  4.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thank you, Heather and Harper Teen!!)

Title:  Irises

Author:  Francisco X. Stork

Publisher:  Scholastic Press

Series:  None

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

I've heard countless things about Stork's books since his debut novel, Marcello in the Real World, was released to critical acclaim in the YA community.  He's since published two novels - The Last Summer of the Death Warriors and Irises.  Strangely enough, though I love "literary" YA and aim to read more of it, Stork has never struck me as someone to immediately pick up as an author.  Irises came as an unexpected surprise in my mailbox, and though the experience started rocky, I can safely say that Stork's reputation as a quality writer of contemporary YA proceeds him.

There is nothing more important than family and God.  These are the beliefs that Kate and Mary have known since they were very, very young.  Their father, a reverend at a local church, has raised them alone for years.  Their mother had become a victim of a driving accident that resulted in her present vegetative state.  Medically, they know that there is no hope of their mother returning, but the girls have lived with the slim hope that their mother would be returned to them.  Their father loves them, but his strict ways have lacked any kind of gentility and passion that their mother provided them with.

He dies without any fanfare, and the girls find themselves alone in the world.  An aunt of theirs drives up from San Francisco to help them settle into things, but Kate, having recently turned 18, is technically an adult and able to take care of Mary and her mother.  The death of their father hasn't devastated them directly so much as it has indirectly.  The small things that now seem so large.  Where will they live?  How long will they be able to live in a house designated to the church's reverend, considering that a new one will have to be hired soon?  How will they pay for it all - especially considering their mother's medical expenses?

Kate has to become an adult in more ways than one now that things are up to her.  She has to determine where she's going to college - if she's going to college - and the choice between a local school and Stanford is beyond difficult.  The chance of getting into Stanford with a full-ride is one and a million, but the dream of going there was always something of a secret that Kate had with her mother.  Is it worth vocalizing?  Is it worth the heartache?  Mary has to come to terms with things of her own - the death of her father, the absence of her mother's conscious, and the way that her paintings, though beautiful, have never given her light since her mother's accident.  These two sisters must prepare to make some of the most difficult decisions and realizations of their lives, and they will inevitably come out of those decisions with scars.

In a novel of dual-narrations, it is very difficult for an author to candidly portray two separate characters.  It is even more so when one or (in this case) both of the characters are of an opposite gender that the author wouldn't initially connect with.  Stork starts off on rocky footing with his dual narration, but manages to ease out the characters in such a fashion that they become endearing and believable to the reader's perception.  Kate is the eldest of the two girls, and she is the first character that we see into the head of.  Of the two girls, Kate is supposed to be the one dealing with the brunt of the emotional heaviness that surrounds the family.  Her story is less about her pure grief and more about how the world around her is difficult because of the sudden thrust into adulthood.  This status as a sudden-adult makes her voice easier to get into, as Stork writes the girls with a very formal set of emotions and dialogue that gets back to their upbringing.  On some levels, this works for Kate more than Mary because of her age and the position she plays in the story.  The voice is still initially off-putting, and in some cases Stork misses the voice of a teenager completely in his attempt to portray Kate, but the reader can feel more of a sympathy towards her narrative voice because of the events.  Kate's growth is substantial, though, and her relationships with Simon (a boyfriend that is more of a friend than anything) and Andy (a fresh-out-of-school reverend that has worked with her father) are complex and very realistic.  Kate ended up being the sister I preferred, as she was genuinely dynamic in the storyline and had a lot of emotional issues addressed within the novel.

Mary, on the other hand, did not work for me as much in the narrative sense.  Her voice is similar to Kate's, and while I could get around that, she's also younger and more inclined to speak in different ways.  The differences between them were nice and subtle, but at times they got lost in the flurry of the narrative.  Mary is also less developed than Kate, and her viewpoint is more focused (and not necessarily on good topics).  Mary's concerns are more inclined towards her denial of her mother's vegetative state.  Her main issues with Kate and with other things revolve around this complex need for her mother, and the lack of passion she has for painting and other things makes the first half of the novel difficult to get around.  Towards the second half, Mary's story really expands to include observations she has on a boy named Marcos, who is himself a troubled artist.  Mary's relationship with Marcos is very interesting, but he didn't feel like a stressed presence in the book.  More so an afterthought with potential.  What grated on me was how Mary's denial was so extreme until the end of the book.  She had no issue with thinking that her sister shouldn't take a full-ride from Stanford.  Stanford is an extremely difficult college to get into, and a full ride to it?  Well, I think anyone would at least consider that it is an opportunity that is hard to pass up.  Mary on the whole just didn't grapple with the issues of selfishness that Kate did, and I think that missed out on making some of the overall themes of the novel as strong as they could have been.

Writing-wise, I think Stork has a lot going on that's well done.  I can see why people have set him up for critical acclaim.  His writing is verbose but each word is weighted, and he knows how to write characters, locations, and situations that feel unique.  I love his incorporation of the novel's setting and the numerous PoC characters involved.  That type of diversity is always welcome, and one can tell that Stork knows what he is writing about in those regards.  The secondary characters all had their own flair, too, and I believe that worked to the novel's advantage.  We see the simplicity of the small town via Simon and his satisfied ways, and we also see the relentlessness of the city in Andy's ambition.  Stork knows how to make his characters represent something.  Marcos in particular is a character one would want to see more of, as his placement in a local gang and the ensuing dialogues between him and Mary because of that are fabulous.  Really, in some ways Stork missed out on developing his character to a satisfying height, as he could have gone far within the novel.

The flow of Irises was another matter that didn't sit well with me.  The beginning was rocky because of the difficulty in fully believing the voices of the characters.  Stork refined them as time went on, and their dialogue felt more realistic as Stork showed them beyond their internal thoughts.  Excuses, however, seemed to pervade the text amid the showing for the character's dialogue, and despite the background, the dialogue on the whole retained a level of stiffness that seemed too adult for where they were as characters - especially Mary, who didn't have to grow up as quickly as Kate did.  Teenagers would still have an underlying tone to their dialogue, and I didn't feel that tone in either character, and that ultimately made it harder for me to be emotionally invested in the novel.  It also takes Stork a while to work up to the actual conflicts of the novel, and though I appreciated the character set-up, at times the pacing just didn't work.  Stork's tone saved the pacing, though, and the writing flowed and felt very unique.  Stork has a strong voice, and voice can make up for a novel's technical misgivings for a reader.  In this case, Stork's voice (combined with the interesting premise) allowed the novel to shine in ways that the pacing would have normally prevented.

What struck me most about Irises was the way Stork established running themes throughout the novel.  Some of Stork's threads did not pull together - as stated above - but a few of them wove themselves into the novel's very core.  Kate's conflicts with her parental figures, for example, and the debate between what is truly defined as selfish.  Kate as a whole has the opportunity to let readers think, but the themes she inspires do so even more.  I loved that Stork tackled selfishness with her, and the true meaning of what it means to be selfish versus making a difficult decision that's better in the long run.  It's something that people often tackle in real life but rarely understand to the fullest extent - and Stork is not afraid to pose the idea that doing something for one's self isn't necessarily a negative activity, such as Kate's goal of going to Stanford.  I also loved that Stork tackled the contrast between Simon and Andy.  Andy is lust-worthy, but neither of the characters represent a traditional romance like we see in YA.  It's more about what they add to the plot and theme of the story, and both characters are likable and unique in and of themselves.  One feels sympathy for Simon, yet at the same time they are glad that Kate is realistic about him - and the same goes for Andy.  They also have the representation of theme with Kate's choices in life, and it's so intriguing how Stork manages to have Kate reflect on herself because of her relationships between these two guys, and how Stork shows that both relationships are helpful to Kate and her character growth.

Having reflected on Irises, I'm not really sure how I rate it as a novel.  As novelist, I'd rate Stork highly.  His novel shows solid technical skills, unique writing, and a strong usage of theme.  Irises also has the benefit of sharing an unusual story with the reader that is filled with character diversity and beyond-the-norm heroines.  Ultimately, though, Irises creates a barrier with the reader because of the way that Kate and Mary's voices come into play, and Mary in particular remains a character that doesn't feel explored enough on multiple levels.  Irises is a solid novel that I enjoyed, but spending so much time with a view that felt underdeveloped kept me from truly finding the story worthwhile.

Cover:  I adore this cover.  It's emotional, telling, and gorgeous.  The way the irises are integrated into the chapter beginnings is also gorgeous.

Rating:  3.5  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thanks, Scholastic Press!)

Title:  Dating the Undead

Authors:  Gena Showalter and Jill Monroe

Publisher:  Harlequin Books

Series:  Shares some information with Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series

Other Reviews for These Authors:  Intertwined;  Unraveled

Have you ever wondered if your Immortal relationship with last?  What about the Dorito and video game addiction of your Zombie's?  What about which type of Immortal man you'd fall for - a fiery, passionate Dragon shifter, or how about the loyal Werewolf?  Dating the Undead promises it all.  Parodying the many women's magazines on market today, Dating the Undead is a semi-serious, semi-ludicrous attempt at putting all of that dating advice into terms that a paranormal romance reader can identify with.  Who wants to bother with mortal men anyway?  All of the good ones become Immortal.

Dating the Undead isn't a traditional book, and as I don't know how to review a magazine, I'm going to try my best to spell out why this was so fun for me, and why you should (or shouldn't) spend money and/or time on reading it.

I'm not a big magazine reader.  Some people love magazines, but I'm not one to sit down and read through magazine articles about style tips.  They're fun, yes, but there isn't a widely available one for gay men that I have access to, so I generally keep to myself.  Dating the Undead is more my style.  As a paranormal romance reader, I'm all for figuring out what kind of Immortal man I'd want to date, as well as what to do once I'm in a relationship with an Immortal.  I've read so much paranormal romance that this kind of thing is actually something that crosses my mind - and as an aspiring writer, the idea of how the tropes would make sense in a relationship is fascinating.  Dating the Undead puts them into a nicely modern context.

The mythology within Dating the Undead obviously doesn't apply to every paranormal romance story on the market, but the general ideas it presents are the same.  Some of them are obviously homages to specific paranormal romance series, such as a wine ad that mentions the Carpathian mountains (which is where Christine Feehan's Carpathian series takes place in).  There are also a lot of pop culture mentions and jabs, including which celebrities may or may not be Immortal.  The addition of pop culture is really what makes Dating the Undead so fun.  The adverts mock everything from Calvin Klein to Travelocity, and what's funny is that the products would actually make sense to some degree if our culture did in fact have Immortals in it.  It adds something extra to the humor, and they provide a lot of great chuckles as you read.

Subject-wise, the dating advice material in the faux-magazine is by far the best source of reading entertainment in it.  There's so much involved in Immortal dating, and the room for humor was used to its fullest effect by Monroe and Showalter.  Did you ever wonder if a demon's horn size effected the size of other things?  Well, you'll find out (and the news is good...or not, depending on what type of horns your demon has).  I have to admit that I actually laughed out loud at a lot of those articles in particular.  Everything is written like a serious magazine article, so some of the facts and advice thrown out just makes the laughter burst out of you.  If I had one content complaint, it would be that a few of the later articles involving food, cocktails, and vacationing weren't to my liking.  I believe the food recipes and cocktail recipes can actually be made, but I didn't have the resources (or the legality in the alcohol's case) to test that theory.  They still match the parody well, but it's not exactly the highlight of the read.

How could I complete this review without talking about the way Showalter's series was incorporated into the magazine?  Frankly, it was awesome.  This is shallow and biased, but the pictures of the Lords of the Underworld alone (okay, so the ones for the various species of Immortal were great, too) made my day.  These boys are hot.  They are all appropriate, too, but shirtless is more than enough to warrant a second - and third - look at the models chosen.  The bios for each of the characters were fun as well, and they got me interested in reading the series.  The magazine also comes with excerpts of the first Lords of the Underworld novel and the latest Lords of the Underworld novel.  I only read the former because the latter risked spoilers, but it was sufficient enough to get me to want to read the full book, especially as I enjoyed the prequel novella, The Darkest Fire.  Readers will find that little supplementary stuff a nice break from the magazine-like content, although reading it in traditional magazine format can be odd at times.

Other things like quizzes and Q&A's make the reading experience fun, too.  The overall effect of Dating the Undead is one of pure enjoyment.  This is the kind of thing that you buy for yourself or a good friend.  You enjoy it while having a spa day.  It's indulgence at its best, and what's great is that you can laugh as well as read the type of articles you enjoy while pampering yourself.  Considering that Valentine's Day is upon us, it would be a great gift for it, too.  I'm going to share it with a friend or two who is also single, as the humor in it is perfect for a paranormal romance reader.  They will laugh and be reminded about why they escape into paranormal novels.  The hot men.  I personally find it more than worth it, myself.  The images in this magazine alone will make you swoon, and it will give you a healthy reminder that reading paranormal romance is an enjoyable diversion from mortal romance.

Cover:  What can I say?  I like it.  He's shirtless and in a sexy pose, and it looks very much like a magazine.  I love the whole design of the book, really.

Rating:  I'm forgoing an official rating, but consider it an endorsement to buy it as a great gift book for yourself or a friend.

Copy:  Received from publicist/publisher for review (Thanks, Eric from Planned TV Arts and Harlequin!)

Title:  The Queen of Kentucky

Author:  Alecia Whitaker

Publisher:  Poppy

Series:  N/A

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

I think girl-moving-to-high-school-with-social-problems-and-tween-appeal should be a sub-genre.  Except it's an extremely long name for a subgenre.  I hesitate to call it middle grade or tween, though, because books in this genre often deal with problems that specifically target older teenagers.  Regardless, Poppy specifically is a publisher imprint that appeals to this particular type of young-adult book.  Jen Calonita's Secrets of My Hollywood Life series and Joanna Philbin's The Daughters series come to mind.  The Queen of Kentucky is of the same nature, but puts a country twist on things.  Instead of celebrity and fame clashing with high school...it's farming in Kentucky.  While initially off-putting, The Queen of Kentucky is a cute addition to books in this genre that brings a more realistic spin to this type of read.

Country-girl Ricki Jo Winstead has always been a hardworking girl.  She's had a long-standing friendship with her neighbor, Luke, who lives on a tobacco farm.  Ricki Jo is a classic country girl.  She loves rolling in the hay, getting dirty, palling around with Luke, and having fun.  Ricki Jo has never felt self-conscious about who she is before.  Her friendship with Luke has easily been the best she's ever had, and she's never felt like an outcast with him.  Ricki Jo and Luke are starting high school, though, and high school is completely uncharted territory.  Ricki Jo has the chance to make a transformation.  She doesn't have to be the plain country girl who has to read her Bible every night.  She could be someone new.

She could become Ericka.  She could become a popular girl.  A cheerleader.  She's been stuck in a fishbowl of a school until now; Catholic school just isn't like public school.  The transition promises to make Ricki Jo's - or rather, Ericka's - transformation a very real possibility.  However, she doesn't know many people.  A new girl by the name of Mackenzie becomes a fast friend to Ericka, and she soon realizes that it could very well be possible to get in with the popular crowd.  Mackenzie is just who Ericka wants to be - the spunky and well-liked new girl who manages to ease herself into the crowd of well-known people with ease.  Everything seems to go well.  Ricki Jo is slowly becoming Ericka, and the farm girl is melting away into the peppy JV cheerleader.

Ericka soon comes to realize that becoming a new person is harder than it seems to be.  Her friendship with Luke is on the rocks as she tries to smother bits of her old self.  Bits that Luke knows is a part of Ricki Jo, the girl that he's been friends with for ages.  Luke's father also has drunken episodes that increasingly get worse, and Ericka isn't there for her friend like she used to be.  She also comes to realize that the popularity game isn't so easy - much like cheerleading.  As Ericka becomes more and more ensnared in the idea of popularity, she realizes that leaving her old self behind has consequences.  Even the romance department gives Ericka trouble.  She has an incredible crush on David Wolfenbaker, aka "Wolf", but all he seems to do is tease her.  And what about Luke?  Is he really like a brother to her, or is Ericka's closeness to him something more?

The first half of The Queen of Kentucky had me questioning my reading choices.  Ricki Jo, or "Ericka", is a protagonist that is really hard for the older reader to get behind initially.  A younger reader would find her relative, but even as an older teen reader I've read that song and dance before.  Without any celebrity issues in the mix, the book was very much focused on Ricki Jo's transition into Erick and how high school was a social challenge for her.  As a result, she starts off as a character that's hard to like.  She's easily caught up in the popularity machine, and she doesn't stop to think about a lot of her impulsive decisions because of how young she is and how little she knows about traditional upper-school social constructions.  She's also very selfish in her actions, and a lot of them in the beginning hurt other characters that the reader very much likes.  It's all character behavior that's real, but it's hard for an older reader to get behind supporting a character that acts like that for over half of the novel.  The halfway point, however, became a game-changer for the novel.  Ericka becomes more aware of how life is complicated, and she changes from a selfish character an endearing one.  Some things fall apart around her, and she realizes that it's bound to happen because of her selfish tendencies.  It becomes a surprisingly sweet tale of a girl who realizes who she is and who she isn't.  Younger teenagers and older middle-schoolers will appreciate Ricki Jo more so throughout the novel, and I have to admit that her character transformation - the intended and the unintended - was well-executed and managed to make her a character worth following.

The secondary characters will endear themselves more readily to the reader, and for the most part they are well-written and engaging.  Luke is the easy favorite, as he is intelligent and kind while still dealing with some dark things.  The reader sees his pride and self-preservation, but also his awkwardness as he tries to navigate who his best friend has become with their transition to high school.  He's also a very attractive country-boy character, and readers will easily root for him and Ericka to become a couple.  (Because he's obviously the best one, but that's just me.)  Mackenzie, as well as the rest of the girls Ericka becomes friends with, is a character that will at one point delight and another anger.  The girls are very high school in that respect.  High school girl dynamics are strange and work at those frustrating levels, so readers will naturally come to understand and sympathize with how Ericka reacts to them.  Mackenzie becomes steadily more and more genuine throughout the book, but the reader also sees how the other girls can be shallow and less-than-stellar friends.  What's interesting is that Whitaker doesn't intend on making them flat-out antagonistic, and I think that helps the realism of the book stay true to form.  Wolf was probably the most frustrating character for me, and that's just because I could never get a handle on him.  He's very hot-and-cold in how he acts towards Ericka and the other characters, and at times I felt he sent a little too many mixed-messages to get an idea of who he was as a person, and it didn't help that Ericka's viewpoint with him was already biased.  Other minor characters get some fairly nice characterization, but overall the only real stress is on Ericka and the kids her age.

Whitaker's writing is, at the heart of the novel, really easy to read.  She has such a unique voice for Ericka, and it feels very genuine to the experience that Whitaker is portraying in the novel.  It's down-to-earth and normalized to the way of life in that area of the country.  She mentions things like reading the Bible and doing chores in a way that is simple but suggests first-hand experience.  It also doesn't seem overdone, which tends to happen if the author overstresses what they want the character's voice to project.  I also appreciated that the religious upbringing was subtle and didn't make it uncomfortable for someone who isn't religious to read the novel.  Whitaker on the whole really gets how to deal with her characters and their issues, and she addresses a lot of very important topics in The Queen of Kentucky, ranging from parental drinking problems to simple popularity and social issues that occur in a teenager's life.  Where Whitaker loses things is in the tailoring of it all.  As fun as The Queen of Kentucky is, sometimes the plot threads feel inconsistent.  One would see a lot of one social issue before occasionally returning to another one, and it didn't feel like the threads were running consistently throughout the book.  I would have liked to see more of Luke's family situation, for instance.  There's a lot addressed and not all of it feels consistent with the feel of the story.  In some ways, I would have liked to see it addressed later on, or at least in a deeper manner.  Whitaker does weave an enticing story despite it all, and the only other complaint is that some sections of the book simply drag because of what's being addressed and because of Ericka's attitude.

The Queen of Kentucky is a pleasant romp into a teen girl's journey into high school.  The main character will be hard for older readers to connect to at first, but there's a certain charm about Erick and the side characters that keeps the story interesting.  Whitaker deals with some heavy themes, and though they don't always come across as fully-developed, she retains a nice theme of realism and quirk to the book.  This is a great read for fans of similar books, and I look forward to seeing where Whitaker goes from here as a novelist.

Cover:  It's cute, but it honestly doesn't do much for me.  I do enjoy the yellow, though.

Rating:  4.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher for review  (Thank you, Faye and Little, Brown!!)

Title:  Spellbound

Author:  Cara Lynn Shultz

Publisher:  Harlequin Teen

Series:  Spellbound #1

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

There are some books that you read purely for fun.  The type of books that hit all of your reader hot-spots and are executed in a way that makes them enjoyable, even if you've read them many times before.  Spellbound was that type of book.  It had shades of Warped by Maurissa Guibord (a debut last year that was underrated in my opinion) with its foray into some fairy-tale like flashbacks set in another time period, and on the whole it was structured very much like one of those tales of old.  Spellbound is a young adult novel that uses current genre conventions in ways that will appeal to readers who enjoy paranormal young-adult books, but it will surprise in how fresh the enjoyable aspects feel.

Being orphaned is generally not a favorable outcome for one's life, and in Emma's case it leads to a host of unexpected moves and changes that accompany her grief.  Emma has to be uprooted to live with one of her aunts in New York City, leaving behind the life of small towns and public schools.  She's been there before, as two of her aunts have lived there since she was a child, but she's never been there as a resident.  A teenager accompanied by her grief on a move to the big city?  It scares the heck out of Emma.  She feels comfortable living with her aunt Christine (technically great-aunt Christine), but starting a posh new boarding school while knowing next-to no one doesn't seem too appealing.

Emma clings to her cousin Ashley.  Going to the same school as someone she's known all her life makes things easier.  Emma is ready to swallow her fear and to get on with things, but she quickly comes to discover that boarding schools are much like public schools.  The student body seems to have an unseemly amount of money at their disposal, but the classic high school stereotypes remain tried and true.  The mean girl who seems to have a general vendetta against those that she can't boss around.  The popular hot guy that everyone seems to love, but who is actually quite sleezy.  It isn't long before Emma starts to realize that dealing with high school as a new girl can have stressful side-effects.

Underneath it all, Emma manages to meet a few people that make it worthwhile, including two guys that she can't help but be interested in Cisco, a mildly flamboyant guy she meets after confronting the mean girl, who manages to become one of her best friends, and Brendan, a very attractive loner who seems to have every girl at school lusting after him.  Brendan intrigues Emma beyond reason, and as she gradually introduces herself to the social scene, he appears more and more.  The connection between them is more than this intrigue.  Emma has dreams that seem to involve her and someone like Brendan.  Brendan randomly starts ignoring her as the dreams begin to progress, and it isn't long before Emma realizes that there's more to their connection than a crush.

Spellbound was quite a surprise for me, and despite the fact that it was blatantly suggested to me, I was iffy on whether or not it would rise above the genre conventions and utilize them in effective ways.  Emma was a great way to break that idea for me.  She is a heroine that easily connects, as she is likable and sympathetic without becoming enamored with the darkness of her past.  There's something familiar about her actions throughout the book.  One wouldn't be surprised to discover that popularity problems and boy-liking problems crop up in a lot of YA books, and in that regard Emma seems like a protagonist that we've all read before.  She deals with things differently, though, and that is where she gets appreciated as a unique protagonist in the YA field.  Emma stands up to the sleezy guy that tries to come on to her in a scene that is really, really brave and beyond what one would anticipate.  She does get assistance during the scene, but Emma herself is bold and it works.  She also does more than simply take crap from the mean girl.  Seeing a main character have such a strong sense of courage in real life is hard because of how authors often want to relate them to the people who don't feel able to fight back, but in Emma we see a character who shows the reader that fighting back is worth it.  She's much the same way with Brendan, and what's interesting is that she manages to make her sudden attraction to him conflicted and worthy of exploration. Emma is a character type that we're seeing more of in YA, and readers will enjoy how proactive she is in relation to her social problems.

The other characters were surprisingly enjoyable.  Brendan is very much the perfect-boyfriend figure, and it went along with the fairy-tale feeling of the story.  Because of that general theme, I felt like his perfection was more tolerable within the narrative.  He's the kind of character you want and need to imagine sometimes, because you just aren't ready to be reading about a difficult hero at that moment.  Some readers won't be up for that, which is understandable, but Brendan is mostly sweet and caring.  In the beginning he can be anti-social, and that helped to make him seem more dynamic, but his relationship with Emma is sweet, caring, and based a lot on love.  Insta-love or otherwise.  Cisco was my favorite of the bunch, and it's because he's flamboyant and fun without being a stereotype.  I loved that the author created a realistic and fun gay character that was friendly and managed to not only have a boyfriend (!! - they never have love lives, and it always bugs me) but to be his own person.  I'm a huge fan of good secondary LGBTQ characters, as they help normalize LGBTQ characters in the young adult world, and Shultz has a winner with Cisco.  I also loved that Emma's relationships with Cisco, Ashley, and her aunt were explored to some extent.  Her new friendship with Angelique - a girl who is a type of "witch" - was also shown as being interesting, and there was a lot of ground covered that could easily be given depth in a sequel.  What was great was that I felt all of the characters had personalities, and that they mattered beyond the romance (as all-consuming as it was).

Shultz has an accessible writing style that will appeal to a lot of YA readers.  Spellbound reads quickly, and Shultz incorporates some interesting plot points that make the fairy-tale vibe unique.  She deals with curses and mild enchantments without making it too much of a paranormal story, and I liked that it gave some sort of reason for the ultra-fast-acting romance between Emma and Branden.  It won't work for everyone, but it was nice to have a reasoning for the two of them being fated for each other.  Shultz surprisingly kept things suspenseful and interesting, and I particularly loved the flashback scenes incorporated.  The mythology behind the curse that befalls Emma and Branden is rich and fully-formed.  It brings to mind classic stories of star-crossed love, and the writing as a whole just seems to relish those moments within the narrative.  The dialogue felt modern and so did the characters, and the general feeling of the story was a happy, fast-paced one.  The only trouble I had with the plot in particular was the way the ending played out.  The villain-y of the characters seemed beyond reason, and I could suspend disbelief for that particular moment of the story.  At times the story as a whole was a bit too light, but I was so caught up in the romance and the mythology of the curse that it was a minor reading inconvenience.

Reading Spellbound was a nice break from reality.  Everything about it was fun and worthy of taking the time to read, even if the tropes initially sounded like the same-old, same-old stuff.  Readers who are fans of the traditionally hot-stuff hero and a heroine who can stand up for herself will enjoy the story, and the tale of centuries-old love will have more than a few romantics enjoying what Shultz has to offer.  Some will find the villains and suspense to be over-the-top, and as a result the ending of the book isn't as strong as the rest of it, but the cast of characters and the writing is more than enjoyable enough to assure another go with the second book - which releases in a month, I believe.  I'm going to keep an eye on Cara Lynn Shultz, because she is one of those YA authors that reminds me why I find paranormal romance so gosh-darned enjoyable.

Cover:  This cover is beyond wonderful.  I love the shards, the font, the way the girl and the bridge are fading away...it's eye-catching and unique.  Also, the broken lamp post is totally relevant to the story.

Rating:  4.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thank you, Natashya and Harlequin Teen!)

Title:  The Girl of Fire and Thorns

Author:  Rae Carson

Publisher:  Greenwillow Books

Series:  Girl of Fire and Thorns #1

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

I'm just now getting around to writing a review for what was one of my favorite reads of 2011, and I honestly can't even begin to describe just how wonderful this book was.  There are very few books in this world that are high fantasy and avoid using so many arduous tropes.  There are so very few books in this world that are of this length and never seem to slow down or have sections that are irrelevant.  The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a novel that is unique in so many aspects.  This is a novel that would be a surprise from a seasoned author, let a lone a debut author.  Its strength as a fantasy and as a YA novel put it among my favorites, and Tamora Pierce's blurb on the front is proven to be more than justified.

She is the princess of a powerful country.  She is getting married to someone that she has never met in order to provide their two countries with a strong alliance in the wake of possible war and political unrest outside of their borders.  Elisa, at sixteen, has been the wild card of her country.  She's been divinely chosen to be of Service to God.  A crystal within her navel is her connection to Him.  One that warms when she speaks prayers from the Scriptura Sancta, or asks something of Him in the wake of troubling times.  Elisa is loyal and devoted, but the thought of being married to someone that she has never met shakes her solid beliefs.

Elisa's marriage to Alejandro de Vega is one that starts of promising.  Well, if promising counts as Alejandro not being reviled by Elisa's body.  Elisa is actually surprised to find that Alejandro is kind.  Understanding, even, of the fact that Elisa would be scared senseless by marrying a man that she's never met before.  Their marriage night and the following time before Elisa departs is short.  As Alejandro's wife, Elisa must travel with him back to his country.  To be the queen to his king.  The journey is long and crosses through treacherous jungles.  Elisa makes the journey with her new husband and her closest attendants, Ximena and Aneaxi.  The journey brings to light the beginnings of Elisa's new life, and the dangers of her new position.

Politics and war are only the tip of the iceberg for Elisa.  She realizes all too soon that her marriage to Alejandro was born of many complications, and that her status as his wife and queen will be more than brought into question.  Elisa's faith in God and her knowledge of her status as someone chosen for Service grows as well, as she realizes that her life before marriage was ignorant in many ways to the scriptures and legends of her religion.  The Godstone, forever living with Elisa, means more than she could begin to imagine.  Elisa's journey has only just begun with her marriage to Alejandro.  With the Godstone, Elisa will come to question her faith and herself as the world around her becomes ready to burst with thoughts of war, intrigue, and deception.

I cannot express just how much I love Elisa as a heroine in YA literature.  She is beyond compare, hands-down one of the best written characters I've read to date within the genre.  I always go on about how I love the heroines in YA because most of them have been strong (at least, they've been getting strong) in one way or another, and I'm all for that positivity within the feminine character.  We need it.  However, it's rare that you see a character go through a very deep and emotionally taxing transformation that makes her strength something more.  The heroines often show their strength, but it rarely goes anywhere beyond the narrative.  I'm fine with that, but Elisa takes it ten steps further.  She starts off as a strong girl with a strong faith in what she knows and understands.  However, there is a major contrast with how she views her overweight body.  She knows that she is overweight and doesn't like her body image in the least.  Elisa still uses her brain in order to make her decisions, though.  She starts off as a strong female who cares more about showing that she is equal with her new husband and equal with the people around her, even if she is overweight or has big breasts.  That's the kind of girl that you want to read about.

However, Elisa's growth from that period is huge.  She transforms when she realizes that she has only seen a small part of the world and its mentalities.  Her brain expands and her understanding of human motivation does, too.  There's so much about Elisa that refuses to stay stagnant throughout her journey.  She comes across new people and lands, and what's amazing is that each one has a direct effect on Elisa.  It's not an episodic series of events and actions, but a complex chain of things that is meant to move along Elisa's character development as well as the plot.   The connection between Elisa, the world, and the plot was just so strong in this novel.  There was no getting around that Elisa became a stronger woman because of her circumstances and the knowledge that she gained from them.  Elisa becomes a woman who realizes that her body doesn't have to work against her, and that she can be more assertive and independent, even if people don't believe in her.  It's that kind of female character that I love in YA novels these days, and Elisa sets a new standard for them.   She's not the average fantasy heroine.  She's something infinitely better.

With such a strong protagonist, it's hard to believe that the other characters are equally praise-worthy in comparison.  The people that Elisa meets within the book are vast in number, but also in personality and purpose.  Ximena and Aneaxi alone provide a lot of great emotional drama and depth to the story, and one doesn't even have much page time when one looks at the novel as a whole.  Elisa's connection to her two companions is very compassionate and complex.  She trusts them in a way that allows them to immediately challenge the reader with thoughts and ideas about the protagonist and her choices.  They also often surprise.  These two women are not just simple royal nurses.  Then there's the prince Alejandro.  At first, he seems to be the perfect, dashing prince that we come to expect from a YA novel.  Elisa's viewpoint shifts as she gets to know the prince more, and we realize that he's not so perfect.  He's troubled and can be cowardly.  He is no more debonair and perfect that Elisa is weak-minded.  Seeing how he changed alone because of Elisa's narration showed just how well the characterization was done.  Everything had a consequence within the characters, and within pages they would show new faces and ideas that the reader wouldn't catch at first glance.  It makes it so much more complicated when new characters are introduced.  Servants, spies, priests, and other royals.  Love interests.  There is a fabulous love interest within this book, and I honestly cannot even begin to describe the frustration that comes with it.

It's also worth mentioning that this book made me cry because of how the characters get into your soul.  They stay there and become real people to the reader.  It makes it so hard, because The Girl of Fire and Thorns is not an easy book to read at times.  Carson does not pull punches.  She treats her readers with a sense of respect, and she tells the story like it would actually happen.  There are wars and deaths and hardships that one cannot imagine.  They are not so numerous as to be devices to capitalize on the angst factor of drama, but they are not so few as to make the book and its plot unrealistic in its execution.  This is where the book really takes to its high fantasy roots.  The brutality of the narrative and its richness leave the reader feeling drained because of the emotional connection to the story.  I was so sucked into this book that I read it in two days, and I could not put it down because I feared leaving the emotional tie for too long.  I couldn't leave it.  I was frantic in my need to finish reading, and in the process I became mad.  My hands would shake during some sections.  This book just struck so many chords.

Carson's writing is honed and sharpened like a deadly blade.  An author cannot leave me in such an emotional state as expressed above without good writing.  Carson's writing is polished and doesn't feel like that of a debut author making her way into the publishing world.  It feels like someone who has spent years within the industry and has been able to make their craft sharp and defined.  Her descriptions are fluid and unusual.  The exposition in this novel alone is lovely and paints a portrait that is not the usual fantasy scene.  Carson sets her story in jungles and deserts.  Characters are tan and not the usual pseudo-white European types that are seen in almost every other high fantasy work that's become successful.  The culture takes so much from Arabic and Mediterranean influences in its foods, mentalities, and settings.  The world is rich.  It breathes and sweeps the reader right there under the hot, sweltering sun found in a far-off desert.  The world-building doesn't stop there, though.

Carson deals with many religious themes and uses within the novel that manage to be extremely intelligent without pushing any kind of agenda.  Religion is a key factor because of Elisa's faith and the role of the Godstone within the narrative.  Yet, religion never is demonized or praised as something required.  The lesson is instead that Elisa can change her own life and take charge.  The Godstone can help, but not every action Elisa takes is related to the Godstone and to her faith.  It's very easy to tell that work was put into this portrayal of religion, as it is sweeping and shows the motivations that it can bring without any of the prejudice that most authors inevitably have within their works (prejudice either towards or against religion).  An author who can pull off such themes for me has to be good, because I honestly find it quite hard to accept a simplistic viewpoint of religion in novels of any type.  All of these key elements are packed into this book, and the pacing is marvelous as a result.  Nothing results in filler or unnecessary action, and the exposition and world-building are detailed without being info-dumpy.  There's always enough information to wet the curiosity and to allow the reader to learn, but never so much that the reader is repelled by the image the author wants to create.

Just read this book.  Read it and discover something in it that people have been missing in young-adult fiction.  This is spectacular fantasy that will emotionally drain you in the best way.  I still think about it and get jittery because of how good it was.  I'm typing this review with flying fingers.  My brain simply is too excited at the very prospect of this book's existence.  Praise is not enough to describe it and how much I loved it.  As someone who understands every inch of who Elisa is, I cannot say how fabulous and inspirational it is to have books like this out in the world.  The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a novel of epic proportions that has only started to shed light on an amazing new fantasy world - and an amazing new author that created it all.

Cover:  Eh.  I prefer the UK cover for this book, as it is more accurate with the character's appearance and the setting.

Rating:  5.0  Stars  (Can I give it a million stars?  Is that allowed?  I give it a million stars.)

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thank you so, so much Heather and Harper Collins!)

Title:  Eve

Author:  Ana Carey

Publisher:  Harper Teen

Series:  Eve #1

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

Reading books involved with the book packager Alloy tends to be a very specific type of experience.  You usually get a character-centric piece that focuses on how the characters deal with plot twists and other addictive factors to the work.  The writing is usually great in tone if not in execution, and the books end up being the kind that appeal to teen readers because of their addictive quality.  Eve is one of Alloy's latest projects, and I was interested to see how it would live up to series like Pretty Little Liars.  I was also interested to see how debut author Anna Carey would appeal.  I had my doubts about it as a dystopian - because I honestly can go either way with dystopian YA fiction - but it was hard to put down despite some issues with story execution.

Eve has always been at the top of her class.  She's the valedictorian.  The artist.  When she goes off to the College, she'll make something of herself.  She'll study painting with the best of them.  She will provide a contribution to the society that no one else can.  That's the goal of the girls at the School: to go on to college and to become someone that can help rebuild society via the City and all of its promising glory.  Eve has trusted the School for so long.  She has followed their rules, and has never spoken to a man or listened to a man since she arrived at the School as an orphan.  Eve has only trusted the King, whose status makes him the only man that the girls at the School can trust.

A girl by the name of Arden ruins all of this for Eve.  Arden is the rebellious one at the School.  Eve speaks to her one night, shattering the School's fantasy for good.  The girls don't really go off to College - they go off and become tools to repopulate the nation.  Eve's status as valedictorian means nothing when it comes to artistry and creativity.  The only way she's set-up to help the City is via her ability as a woman to produce children.  Eve doesn't really believe Arden, but her curiosity gets the better of her.  The shocking reality of what the College is destroys Eve's doubts, and her life at the School suddenly comes with a countdown - a horrifyingly morbid one.

Escape is the only option for Eve.  She either becomes farmed for children or can risk the untamed worlds beyond the school.  The world with desecrated roadways, crumbled buildings, and ruined people struggling to survive amid the chaos.  Gangs and wild dogs lie beyond the walls that surround the School, too.  There is also the possibility of running into men.  Eve has no choice in the matter, and makes the struggle to escape from what has become a prison for her.  She manages to get to the other side, but has no idea wait awaits for her.  The world is harsh and unforgiving, and Eve's place in it is bigger than she could have ever imagined.  Will she be able to survive, or will she break under the pressure and destruction of the untamed lands?

Readers will have a lot of trouble connecting to Eve.  Out of everything in this novel, I think she's arguably the most difficult thing to accept.  The dystopian premise is something one can shrug off as-needed, but Eve as a main character is a hard sell.  She starts out quite ignorant and put-together because of her intelligence and artistry, but as soon as she goes out into the world, Eve is selfish.  There is a much different aspect about Eve's personality prior to her leaving the School.  She's not there for a long time, but one gets a sense that Eve has more of an idea that her selfish actions involve preservation, and that self-preservation can come at a cost.  As Eve goes out into the world, though, her selfishness quickly morphs beyond its initial capacities.  She makes decisions and performs actions without much of an idea as to their true effects on the world and the people she comes to know.  I dealt with it in the beginning because of Eve's ignorance, but Eve's ignorance seems to prevail throughout most of the work.  Her personality deals with some harsh lessons that don't seem to come with enough force until the end of the novel.  The result is a character that's hard to stick with.  The reader can sympathize with Eve for the abandoning of her initial view of the world, but they will find all of the lack of long-run thinking hard.  It's built into her character in such a way that there is some reasoning behind why she is so distorted and unthinking in some instances, but the reward for sticking with her throughout the novel doesn't necessarily meet all of the reading required to get there.  However, I did find it intriguing that Carey would go with a main character of this type for a dystopian - a genre which focuses on main characters like Arden more so than Eve - and am interested to see why she did so. 

The other characters in the novel are much more interesting in how dynamic they are.  Arden is a character that sticks with Eve throughout most of the work, and she has much more backbone and sense to her than Eve does.  Arden is the type of character you love to read about in dystopian YA.  She's tough and knows more about the world because she is observant and rebellious.  Her character isn't new, but it's a character type that allows the protagonist to be less than ideal without ruining the reading of the story.  In that sense, Arden functions as a good foil character and allows Eve to make her decisions without the reader completely losing the idea that some people in the book have sense.  Caleb - a boy that appears in the wilds and helps the two frenemies - was much more interesting than I expected him to be.  Yes, he is very much a YA hero and is mysterious and dark, but he also has a past that keeps the reader interested.  He's tough and hardened because of the world around him.  His characterization made sense.  He also worked really well with Eve.  The chemistry between the couple was quite understandable and read as a type of romance that felt fresh despite the usual components.  In that regard, Eve felt above-par in the characterization.  The romantic aspects worked for the novel and felt accurate.  Eve became a tentative girl who wanted to explore beyond the brainwashing she always knew, and she turned to a semi-heroic figure in her life that she felt a connection to.  The romantic scenes felt surprisingly sweet and tense.

Carey's writing surprisingly hits a lot of good notes with this debut novel.  It's not without it's flaws in execution, but she captures a world that is interesting - if familiar - and gives the novel a tone that is hard to match.  The world of Eve is extremely dark and desolate.  It manages to convey a very strong idea of the future, though it is a very scary one as well.  I loved how dark it was and how Carey tried to keep it simple.  I understand that, on some level, it's very bland to just call things the City or the School, but on another level it makes things so much easier for me to process.  I could see the world going back and reverting to an aloof simplicity to prevent itself from becoming so emotionally invested in its happenings.  It makes sense, really, that we would want to distance ourselves from giving things names because of the fear of their imminent collapse.  Going farther into the world building, one finds some pretty disturbing images that make for good reading.  There's no expressing just how interested one gets when the realize that the world is so primal in how it is trying to repopulate itself after 98% of the population fell to a terrible disease.  People would go to any number of lengths to do those types of terrible things, and it's a horrific but able way to garner control of at least one half of the population.  Whether this stuff is realistic or not, I cannot say.  Carey's writing puts you in the moment, and you don't find yourself questioning things because the scary stuff seems just real enough to make you feel like it makes sense.

There was an undertone to the book that I felt particularly invested in seeing towards the end, and I think it's worth mentioning because of how interesting it is.  This book explores a lot of dystopian themes that deal with the placement of women in society and how it sort of reverts because of the dystopian/post-apocalyptic nature of the work.  There is an immediate negative connotation attached to the usage of women as tools for making babies (thankfully), and as Eve escapes the theme of women and their role in the new society becomes more paralleled to the old way of things when Eve and Arden effectively become teachers and cooks to a band of boys who escaped from the work-camps made for male orphans.  Eve becomes the female figure the boys put on a pedestal; the girl that teaches the young ones and encourages the sensitivity in a group of people that seemed in some ways like savages.  This theme initially came off to me as troublesome, but as I read the book I felt there was more to it than this.  The ending of the book takes things in a completely different direction based on where Eve ends up.  It and her name suggest a new beginning of sorts to occur within the world, or at least with Eve.  She escapes the traditional role that seems to follow her and ends up somewhere.  I don't know how much of that was intentional and how much of that was just pure coincidence within the story, but it struck something within me as I was reading.

Readers will take to Eve with either addiction or revulsion.  The protagonist strikes a strong chord with the reader, and the enticing nature of the world and its secondary characters may not be enough to lure readers back into the story if Eve repels them.  My personal reading yielded some surprisingly intriguing aspects about the book, and I managed to like Eve enough by the ending to want to read the second book - especially because of the romance.  This isn't a book for the reader focused on the scientific and social details of the dystopian, but a reader looking for a fun romance and a slower story pace my find a winner in Eve.  Personally, it's a fun start to a series that I look forward to being addicted to.

Cover:  This cover is very industry-standard right now.  I love the background more so than the model.  The fading and mist looks really cool with the title font.  The model, however, I can live without.

Rating:  4.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thank you, Heather and Harper Collins!)