Review: Slipping Reality

 Title: Slipping Reality
 Author: Emily Beaver
 Pages: 272
 Published: July 2011
 Source: NetGalley

Summary: In a time of hardship and heartbreak, sometimes, reality just isn't enough. Slipping Reality is the story of fourteen-year-old Katelyn Emerson, who, when faced with the glaring reality of her brother's illness, rebels against the truth by slipping away into the depths of her own imagination. There, she finds the kind of support and comfort she feels she deserves. There, she does not have to feel so alone. And yet, as Katelyn's grasp on reality begins to unravel, so too does the story of a girl who grew up too fast and fell apart too soon. Emily Beaver's debut novel is a coming of age story that deals with the trials of young grief, insight, and growth where it's least expected.

Review: I tried. I really did.

When I started reading Slipping Reality, it was probably a few weeks ago, closer to the end of February, but I had to set it aside because after reading only fifteen pages, I was bored to the point that I wasn’t sure how to continue on. It wasn’t that there was a flawed plot, because I still think that the plot could create an amazing book if it were given more time and attention. It really had to do with a flawed character and amateur writing.

Before I say anything else, I want to say that it’s amazing that Emily Beaver write this novel at the age of fourteen and got it published. Having just graduated that awkward phase known as teenagerdom, I’m slightly jealous and definitely in awe that she’s managed to write, complete and publish a novel while entering high school. Kudos!

That being said, it was a bad decision to take on such an intense project and release it at such a young age. Maybe she’s experienced this exact feeling and somehow has managed to write it down in an almost diary-like fashion, but this novel needed time to mature in both writing styles and character developments. There’s only so many times that I can read about the Katelyn listening to her iPod, taking a shower and complaining about the fact that she’s given easy books to read in her English class before I start to go crazy.

The actual plot concept is really intriguing, and with editing, could make an amazing novel, but at the level of writing and characterization that it’s at, this is not something that I could put myself through, which is disappointing. I was really looking forward to reading this novel, and I’m really sad to say that it’s something that I couldn’t finish, let alone get over the halfway point. There was just too much showing, not enough telling. Too much of the same thing over and over. It wasn’t until about a fifth of the way into the plot that anything actually started to happen, and when it did, the uneventful, repetitive daily motions were introduced and the character went on internal monologues that were pages long and ended in resolving nothing.

It’s impressive that someone so young managed to publish their novel, but it’s unfortunate to say that it was a disappointment and could not be finished because of poor construction. I always hate to give novels bad reviews, and I hate it even more when I give a novel that I couldn’t manage to finish a bad review, but that’s just how it has to be, and hopefully the next attempt will succeed far better than Slipping Reality did.

Rating: ★★ 2/5 Stars

Review: Wanderlove

Title: Wanderlove
Author: Kirsten Hubbard
Pages: 352
Published: March 13th, 2012

Summary: It starts with a question. Are you a Global Vagabond?

No, but 18-year-old Bria Sandoval wants to be. In a quest for independence, her neglected art, and no-strings-attached hookups, she signs up for a guided tour of Central America—the wrong one. Middle-aged tourists with fanny packs are hardly the key to self-rediscovery. When Bria meets Rowan, devoted backpacker and dive instructor, and his outspokenly humanitarian sister Starling, she seizes the chance to ditch her group and join them off the beaten path.

Bria's a good girl trying to go bad. Rowan's a bad boy trying to stay good. As they travel across a panorama of Mayan villages, remote Belizean islands, and hostels plagued with jungle beasties, they discover what they've got in common: both seek to leave behind the old versions of themselves. And the secret to escaping the past, Rowan’s found, is to keep moving forward.

But Bria comes to realize she can't run forever, no matter what Rowan says. If she ever wants the courage to fall for someone worthwhile, she has to start looking back.

Review: When I requested this book on NetGalley, I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had just seen that a few other people I follow had requested it and while the concept sounded interesting, I wasn’t sure that it’d be at the top of my reading list.

I was so, so very wrong.

Bria’s struggling to get away from memories of a bad breakup and the looming, overwhelming concept of college rushing in just around the corner. She and her boyfriend, Toby, ended up badly and her dreams of going to an art school with him were destroyed by the breakup, so she’s off to another country in search of a much-needed vacation, only to find that she’s ending up with more than she expected. I jumped into this book, a little bit scared to travel with Bria, but mostly excited at the chance to escape into a country that I’ll probably never visit through a book that I normally wouldn’t have picked up off a bookshelf. Travelling with Bria down to Guatemala was an exciting experience, but ending up on the Global Vagabond tour was not. When Bria signed up for excitement and a chance to explore a new country, she didn’t expect to get saddled with a trip full of elderly people and end up just stopping at main tourist attractions.

To be quite honest, I didn’t either.

But then Bria meets Rowan and Starling and her entire trip becomes a new experience. Up to this point, I was just liking the novel, but Bria’s chance to start backpacking around a country she knew nothing about (and even go to another new country) was what made me fall in love with the novel. The experience and the desire to take a journey like this was overwhelming and I found myself clinging to this novel, forcing my nose closer and closer to my Kindle as I followed Bria everywhere she went, and experienced all of her emotions.

Overall, this novel far exceeded my expectations. I knew, based on others’ reviews, that I was going to finish reading Wanderlove and like it, but I never even knew just how much I was going to love. The chance to jump into uncharted waters and just experience fun was something so thrilling and breathtaking that I couldn’t bear to tear myself away from this book!

When I was nearing the end, the last thing I wanted to do was actually let it end, but the ending itself was just as amazing as the rest of the book. The descriptions in the novel were so beautiful that I could picture the scenery and all I want to do now is take a month off of life and go down to Guatemala and Belize and just explore the entire world. I can’t imagine a better idea of what to do for the month of April! Unfortunately, it’s not happening, but I know that the second this book hits the shelves, I’m getting a copy to have on my shelves. If I can’t backpack in real life, at least I can in the literary world, travelling alongside Bria and her companions through the exciting world of Central America.

Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 Stars

Review: Wonder

Title: Wonder
Author: R.J. Palacio
Pages: 320
Published: 2012

Summary: I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?

Review: Where do I even begin with a book that has quite possibly managed to change all of my feelings towards books just by reading it? When I requested Wonder from NetGalley, I thought that I was going to read it and end up enjoying it since the few people I know have given it good reviews. I never, ever expected that I was going to fall in love with this book the way that I did. Not only did Wonder give me the chance to reflect on the way that I think about certain aspects of life, but it also made me laugh and cry from happiness and sadness and all the -nesses in between.

Ten-year-old August has been through more in his life than half a dozen people and he’s still going strong. Suffering from a chromosome deficiency, he was born with severe facial disfiguration that twenty-seven surgeries hasn’t managed to fix. His parents finally decide that August should go to school, and enroll him in a private school where the principal has three other kids who’ve volunteered to help him adjust and watch out for him.

This book is definitely listed as one of my favourite reads of 2012. Probably the absolute favourite, right up there with The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I stayed up until 6am to try and finish Wonder, and was so disappointed that sleep needed to take priority to reading. Reading about Auggie’s life through his point of view as well as others’ (his sister, Via, his best friend, Summer, his other best friend, Jack, Via’s beau, Justin, and Via’s best friend, Miranda) gave me the chance to fall in love with, not only the plot, but each and every character just because I got a chance to see how they interacted in the life of Auggie and his family.

My favourite person (but least favourite point of view, unfortunately) was Via’s boyfriend’s, Justin. While I really disliked the way that Justin’s part was written in the same aspect of David Levithan’s Will Grayson (worse, actually, because I wasn’t sure where the characters were speaking at some points) I really enjoyed the way that he had with words, and the feelings that he had for Oliva were the most beautiful in the world. I found myself wanting to cry a little bit when I reached the end of his part, when he said:

"olivia reminds me of a bird sometimes, how her feathers get all ruffled when she's mad. and when she's fragile like this, she's a little lost bird looking for its nest. so i give her my wings to hide under."

I know the focus of the story really isn’t about Via, but I really, really liked the way that her character was written. She was so understanding and protective of her brother, where most teenagers would have been somewhat selfish in that aspect. She never asked for anything, never tried to have her wants and needs taken care of first. She put everything aside for Auggie, and I found that to be the best part of the novel. Even though the focus of Wonder was on August, I found myself loving Via most when it came to the characterisations.

Speaking of August, that boy… He’s amazing. I can’t even begin to imagine going through twenty-seven surgeries and then being brave enough to go to school and try and be normal. Being two years younger than everyone else was enough for me to hate school, so I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for him. August is such a strong, wonderful boy, and while they mistreated him so much in the beginning of the novel, he grew, as did those who hurt him and those who helped him. I loved seeing the transformation when these kids realised that it wasn’t about how their friend looked; it was about who he was as a person.

Wonder is a book that will probably always live with me, and I can’t imagine a day where I’ll find myself completely forgetting that I’ve ever read it. It’s one of those books that touches your soul and makes you realise that there’s more to humanity than what’s on the surface. If you have this on your to-read list, or even if you don’t, stop what you’re doing and go pick it up, because I guarantee that by the time you’re done reading it, you’ll realise just how wonderful Wonder actually is.

Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 Stars
           I'd give it a million stars and it still wouldn't be enough.

Guest Post & Review: Back to You by Natalie-Nicole Bates

Title: Back to You
Author: Natalie-Nicole Bates

Summary: On the surface, Lynsey Reznor seems to have it all. She is beautiful, brilliant, and a successful true-crime writer who has been living the past decade in Miami. But what Lynsey lacks is what she needs the most—a family.

After the death of her mother, and yet another failed relationship, Lynsey makes an impulsive decision to return to her hometown of Unity. But Unity will present its own bittersweet memories, most notably, her first love, Nick Lincoln.

Twenty years ago, Nick broke teenager Lynsey’s heart when he decided to marry another. He had his own private reasons—reasons he never explained to Lynsey. Now she is back, along with a chance to reclaim her love. But Lynsey wants answers from him that he may never be able to give out of duty and guilt.



Natalie-Nicole Bates has been kind enough to let us read and review her book, Back to You on her blog tour. Today she has brought us an interview with her main character, Lynsey Reznor.


Today I’m pleased to get a chance to visit with my heroine, Lynsey Reznor, from my contemporary romance Back To You. Lynsey is going is going to talk a bit about her reasons for leaving Unity when she was a teenager.

NNB: Lynsey, thank you for agreeing to talk about your early years in Unity. Can you tell me about your life before you left at sixteen?

LR: Well, the only family I had was my mother. My father died when I was young—I don’t remember him. I had a normal childhood, I guess. My mother was always there for me. I loved her tremendously.

NNB: I understand you have always been a whip-smart cookie!

LR: I suppose so. I skipped over two grades, so I was actually sixteen in my senior year of high school.

NNB: When you were sixteen, you were offered a scholarship to a school in Lausanne, Switzerland. Did you feel torn between accepting the scholarship and staying on in Unity?

LR: Sixteen was a difficult age for me. I developed a crush on my best friend Suzy’s brother, Nick. I thought he liked me as well, but…he chose to peruse a relationship with another girl.

NNB: That must have hurt very much.

LR: My first love, my first heartbreak. It caused me to rebound to another guy.

NNB: Caleb Smith?

LR: Yes, Caleb. A decent guy, but he pressured me for a commitment I wasn’t ready for.

NNB: So you fled Unity?

LR: Pretty much. But I certainly don’t regret it. I even stayed on in Switzerland an additional four years. I feel quite grateful to have been able to travel and be educated in Europe. My French became fluid and effortless, and I learned to ski. All in all, a great life experience.

NNB: I heard there was also a romance with an Olympic ice hockey player?

LR: Ah…Jean-Luc. How I did enjoy my time with him. But the relationship ran in its course. We do remain friends to this day. He’s a coach with an NHL team now. Every time his team came to Florida we always would get together for dinner and speak to each other in nothing but French. He is still the smoothest man I’ve ever known.

NNB: Sounds like fun. Do you miss Miami yet?

LR: Not really. Like my time with Jean-Luc, my time in Miami was great while it lasted, but a thing of the past nonetheless. I am happy, excited, and looking forward to returning to my hometown of Unity.

NNB: Much luck, Lynsey, I wish you nothing but the best and I hope you find everything you are looking for in Unity.

Read more about Lynsey and her life in Unity in Back To You, available now at Bradley Publishing!

Back to you is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bradley Publishing.

~

Review: This book, if anything, was a short story. I’m really disappointed in reading this novel and I almost wish that I hadn’t. It’s not because of the fact that it was a bad novel, although it really had its dull moments. The thing that I disliked about this ‘novel’ more than anything was that it had the potential to be a really, really amazing novel, but it fell so very short of its potential.

Back to You started off right with plot line, and while that could be alright in most books, it wasn’t okay in this one. The plot line started off and we knew nothing about the characters, but then all of a sudden we were learning everything about the characters and yet we were learning nothing of intense importance. It was important to learn that Nick had lost his wife, and it was important to learn why Lynsey had moved back to her hometown, Unity, but we didn’t learn things that were actually potentially important about the characters. It took halfway into the book for me to learn exactly what type of writing Lynsey did and when the author initially mentioned that there was a ‘new division’ in Unity, I thought it meant her job, not a housing division.

In addition to that, everyone and their mother was a cop. Street cop, detective, sergeant. Every single guy that was interested in Lynsey had or was in the police force one way or another. The town didn’t seem that big of a town either, so it made absolutely no sense that three people that she’d initially known since childhood were in the police force and then there was another man who she knew from somewhere else who was also in the force. It felt like an overdose of police and it made me wonder if anyone else in the town did anything other than work for the police.

For a novel that wasn’t even 30,000 words, it had a surprising amount of insignificant detail. I mean, it was a great concept to have our Mary Sue (Lynsey) visit her injured friend, Evan (another of the males who was not only on the police force but was also after her), but there was absolutely nothing about Suzy’s divorce that had any relevance to the novel. I breezed through this, mainly looking for a reason to get it done and over with.

Between the bad quality of the PDF (putting the PDF on my Kindle completely ruined the formatting and made it difficult to read) and the downright ridiculousness of the concept of four guys hunting after a girl who clearly had her heart set on the man she’d been in love with since she was sixteen, I felt like I was reading a bad soap opera. Nick and Lynsey exchanged these little sentences that ended or started with words like ‘sweetheart’, ‘honey’ and ‘my angel’ which made it so very obvious that they were meant for each other at the beginning of the novel. And the attempt at sex scenes in here… It was like watching a car crash; terrible, horrible, but unable to look away for fear of missing something important to write about in the review.

Overall, I managed to finish the novel, so I didn’t despise it, but it really could have been something had the author actually sat down and gone over this with some thought and edited it a heck of a lot more. Back to You had the potential to be an amazing novel, but instead it was just a boring, lukewarm short story that made me want to fall asleep rather than read it.

Rating: ★★ 2/5 Stars

Review: Tainted Soul

Title: Tainted Soul
Author: Sam C. Leonhard
Series: Tainted
Pages: 314
Published: 2011

Summary: Gabriel Jordan, part-time werewolf and full-time private investigator, should be living a happy life. Three years ago, he was a homeless thief; now he’s got a loving partner and a job he enjoys, he lives in a nice house, and he doesn’t have to worry about tomorrow. So why the sudden urge to cheat on Aleksei, the handsome and occasionally deceptive fae he loves? Why does Gabriel feel compelled to flee the life he’s built for himself?

Someone’s calling him. Someone’s looking for him. Someone holds his destiny in her hands. The portals to the hidden worlds have become unstable, even dangerous. Fear and madness linger in the dark. Panic and nightmares chase him, but Gabriel can’t fight an enemy he can’t see, and even turning into his wolf form may not be enough to save him.

Review: I have been putting this review off for a while because of all of the feelings that have taken over my poor mind after having finished this book. When I initially read the first book in the Tainted series, Tainted Blood, I found that I really enjoyed the characterization and the way that Gabriel and Aleksei interacted. In Tainted Soul, I found that the plotline was far superior to that of the first novel, something that surprised me because I don’t tend to like sequels more than the original novel. It was a refreshing surprise.

In Tainted Soul, Gabriel keeps hearing this voice that’s telling him to harm his boyfriend, to cheat on him and even kill him. Now, I can’t begin to imagine what in the world I would do if I were in Gabriel’s situation, but I know for a fact that I would not be able to handle it nearly as well as he did. The way that he managed to ignore the voice so long and to the point that he actually thought he’d listened to it when he hadn’t…it was very impressive.

The thing that I liked most about Tainted Soul was that we finally got the chance to discover what Gabriel really was, and it’s pretty impressive. I can’t imagine being just a werewolf or just a faerie, let alone the combination that Gabriel discovers is what he actually is. The discovery and the plot line that led up to it was really what captivated me with Tainted Soul. I had started the book in the beginning of February and ended up setting it down after a little while because I was a little bit dissatisfied with how the story was starting

As with Tainted Blood, I had some issues with the sex scenes. They weren’t nearly as bad as in Tainted Soul, because there thankfully wasn’t an entire chapter worth, but there was one and a half that I really wasn’t sure needed to be in the novel and were just page fillers. I understand that the novel called for sex scenes, but I really don’t think that we needed all of the ones that were actually in Tainted Soul.

I have to say that the ending was quite literally my favourite part of the novel and what made the sequel better than the original novel. The climax of the novel was so dramatic that I was sneaking the chance to read it during my math class, almost daring my teacher to catch me as I desperately determined that I had, had to find out what happened next. There was a part of the novel that left me heartbroken and a part of it that left me screaming for joy (not in math class, I promise).

Overall, I’d love to see what would potentially happen next in Gabriel and Aleksei’s lives, but if the series ends there, then I would have to say that I’m very glad that I got the chance to read the books. Tainted Soul surprised me when I read it, proving to me that I could be wrong when it came to if I would like the book or not. I thought that I’d get bored with it around page 80 and that we’d get to the point of no return when I find myself unable to finish books, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was a joy to read, and I’m really very glad that I requested the title on NetGalley.

Thank you to Ariel at Dreamspinner Press for providing me with Tainted Blood so that I could read Tainted Soul, and thank you to Dreamspinner Press for providing Tainted Soul for review.

Rating: ★★★★ 4.5/5 Stars

Review: My Enchanted Life

Title: My Enchanted Life
Author: Laura Eno
Pages: 256
Published: 2011

Summary: An American teen finds herself thrust into a world she never knew existed in England's magical community of Wode Gate. While dealing with gnomes, a cranky dragon, murder and mayhem, Emma tries to cope with her unwanted duties as Sentinel and fights to get back home again.

She finds that things aren't always what they seem, people aren't who they pretend to be, and someone wants her dead. The king of the underworld wants her too, but he may be the least of her problems as Emma struggles to control her powers—while losing her heart to a demon.

Review: I know that the schedule said that I was going to review Divergent tonight, but due to some ridiculously annoying circumstances, Divergent has been pushed back to tomorrow.

I didn’t have many expectations for this book since I knew little to nothing about it, excluding the fact that I had requested it. When I realised that I had to read it for an upcoming review date, I just dug in without even rereading the synopsis. Sometimes it’s better to jump into a book blindly, without knowing what goes on in the book at all and just experiencing it firsthand. My Enchanted Life was definitely one of those books.

In My Enchanted Life, Emma finds herself relocated to Britain when her uncle dies and leaves her his home. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to be eighteen, just out of high school and finding yourself the owner of a home in a country that you haven’t been to since you were born. Emma bravely accepted the duty to go and see what the property was like and landed herself in a world that she never expected.

I knew from starting the book that it was going to be some sort of paranormal YA novel, but I hadn’t expected it to end up being such an intriguing novel. There were so many different types of novels in the YA universe these days that stick to one or two different kinds of concepts; dystopian, vampires vs. werewolves, mermaids, et cetera. It was nice to see that this one had a sort of different concept to it. There were the typical concepts inside of the novel and Emma had some Mary Sue qualities, but there was some uniqueness to it.

I enjoyed that there was a variety of paranormal and that they all lived together. My favourite had to be Cussard, a wonderful dragon that was the colours of the rainbow. He just had such a wonderful personality to him, and while he was supposed to be one of those ‘grumpy’ characters, I enjoyed him. I also have to say that I really liked Randolph despite the fact that he ended up being a jerk in the end. I wanted to see more about him and I really wanted him and Emma to get together.

Out of all the characters, the one I liked the least was Matthew. I was not a fan and I kind of wanted to punch him in the face within moments after first meeting him. Of course the Greek God-esque person with the hard past and the troubled heritage was the one and only fit for Emma. It bothered me, to be quite honest, that he was the one that she ended up with, and despite the fact that I really liked the story, I think it would have been better without his character, even though he was vital for about half of the novel to commence.

My Enchanted Life was an intriguing read, and if there is a sequel I plan on reading it, if only to hope that Emma and Randolph will end up together in the end and to see more of Cussard, Lizzy and the rest of the gang. I wasn’t a huge fan of the main characters, but then again, I usually am not when it comes to a novel. Even the best of them don’t seem to have MCs that I want to fall in love with. It’s the side characters that are my favourite, and Laura Eno managed to give me side characters that I fell in love with, side characters that make the novel one worth reading.


Rating: ★★★★ 4/5 Stars

Review: Between the Land and the Sea

Title: Between the Land and the Sea
Author: Derrolyn Anderson
Series: Marina's Tales
Pages: 248
Published: 2011

Summary: Something extraordinary is lurking in the deep waters off the coast of Aptos, California. A few weeks after moving to the charming beach town, sixteen year-old Marina has nearly drowned twice, enchanted the hottest guy in high school, and discovered a supernatural creature. If she can only manage to survive increasingly dangerous encounters with unpredictable mermaids, she might be able to unlock the mystery of her past and learn how to appease the mysterious forces that seem to want something from her... And maybe even find true love along the way.

Review: To be honest, I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I first requested a copy of Between the Land and the Sea to read. I feared that it was going to be like all the other young adult books out there which all seem to have the same sort of plot line that drags on and on and on and ends up with the boy and the girl together and everything's perfect in the end. While it doesn't fully deviate from the normal expectations of YA books, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I ended up liking the book more than I thought I would have.

Starting off, I felt like this was going to be a novel that I rushed through just to get it over with. I had a feeling that it was going to be adequate in the terms of a novel, and it would be something that I wasn't impressed by in the slightest. I think a lot of that came with the fact that initially I didn't like Marina at all. I was bored with her character and was much more interested in the side characters rather than her.

It wasn't until somewhere around a third of the way through the book that I realised that I really did like Marina as a character. She seemed well-rounded. Foolish, but well-rounded. She had a wide variety of feelings and they weren't too intense nor timid. She's a good character, and I really like the way that we got to experience the story through her eyes and yet still got a feel of what was happening around her. Most first person novels that I read have a tendency to completely forget that there's a world outside of the main character, and I was glad to know that Between the Land and the Sea wasn't like that.

My downright favourite character was Cruz. He is absolutely adorable and I want one for myself so that I have someone to design amazing clothing for me. Plus, fashion designer cousins are always a wonderful concept.

Between the Land and the Sea was a pleasant read, and I have a feeling that I might read this book again in the future. I greatly enjoyed it, and I hope that others will be able to enjoy it the way that I did. If you're looking for an interesting tale of mermaids and wonderful cousins and friends, then this is a book for you.

Rating: ★★★★ 3.5/5 Stars

Review: Worlds Burn Through

Title: Worlds Burn Through
Author: Vicki Keire
Pages: 78
Published: 2012

Summary: Chloe Burke has nightmares of a world burned to ash and the strange boy who saves them both.

Underneath the dreams lurks a deeply buried reality; Chloe and a handful of others are survivors of a decade old apocalypse that burned their home world to the ground.

Now their ancient enemies hunt them again. To keep their adopted world safe, Chloe must undergo a ritual of blood sacrifice that will have life-long consequences if she survives. Her lethal protector, Eliot Gray, must keep her alive long enough to do it.

Together they will uncover even more dangerous secrets buried in the past’s deepest, darkest ashes.

Review: Worlds Burn Through was a wonderful little novella about a girl named Chloe and how her life is changing after the death of her father, in mysterious ways of course.

I have to admit that I enjoyed reading Worlds Burn Through more than I thought I would. When I received the ARC from NetGalley, I thought that the premise sounded interesting but would just be one of those books that you enjoy but don't consider continuing with the series. Reading it proved to me that that wasn't the case at all.

Even if you end up reading the book and decide that you aren't a huge fan of it, there's no way that you can deny that Vicki Keire doesn't have a way with words. The way she writes is inspirational and while I was reading it, I could imagine everything so vividly thanks to the description and beautiful wording.

While I'm not sure I'll continue on to read the rest of the series (too many books, not enough time), I do know that I really did enjoy what I did read of it. I hope that whoever picks up a copy of it discovers the wonders of Worlds Burn Through the way that I did, and even if they don't, I hope that they find themselves submersed in the vivid imagery of Vicki Keire's writing.

Review: ★★★ 3/5 Stars

Review: Tainted Blood

Title: Tainted Blood
Author: Sam C. Leonhard
Series: Tainted
Pages: 296
Published: 2010

Summary: Gabriel Jordan lives a lonely life on the streets, taking the rare job that usually means spending hours in the cold, waiting for a chance to take a photograph of a cheating spouse. That’s how he meets Dr. Aleksei Tennant—who he sees suspiciously jumping from a window of a woman’s apartment. Tennant introduces Gabriel to the hidden worlds, magical worlds connected to this one by portals. Gabriel is eager to learn the runes for opening them, Tennant is eager to teach, and a fragile friendship develops amidst a series of murders.

These aren’t just any murders. The killer has a grudge against the mixture of other races: he doesn't kill humans, only those of the hidden worlds who are producing children of tainted blood. When the killer attacks them directly, Gabriel and Tennant have to team up to find the murderer, even though they’re putting themselves, their love, and any chance at a future together, in danger.

Review: Before I say anything, I would like to thank Ariel from Dreamspinner Press for providing me with a copy of Tainted Blood when I foolishly requested the second novel without realising that it was part of a series.

Tainted Blood has caused me to nitpick a little bit with my rating, earning it a whole 3.75 stars, something that one would never see unless they were attempting to average a bunch of reviews. The novel was something that I really enjoyed reading, but it didn't quite earn four stars because of some of the less-wonderful points in the novel which mainly revolved around moments where Gabriel whined about the fact that he loved Dr. Tennant and the man would never feel the same way.

While stereotypes were called on when it came to this novel, Tainted Blood was a refreshing read and I really did enjoy it. The feistiness of Gabriel's personality and the way that Tennant was so intrigued by Gabriel and his magical wonders was surprisingly refreshing.

I really did enjoy the fact that not only did Gabriel find his way out of his homelessness and his crappy job of having to take pictures of people doing things like cheating on their spouses for his creepy boss, but he found someone that he fell in love with. The entire time I was rooting for Gabriel, waiting for him to find love in Tennant and the man to love him back. I honestly just wanted them to kiss.

But they definitely did much more than that. SPOILER: [This was my least favourite part of the book, and it has nothing to do with the overdose on sex in the one chapter of Tainted Blood. Fuck or Die options are something that I have never been a fan of in any style of writing and I personally find them to be something annoying, so I was highly disappointed to find that that was exactly what had to happen in Tainted Blood.] It was an intense read for someone who hadn't expected it to go from nothing to everything, but I won't lie and say that I didn't enjoy it. I just think it could have been toned down a little.

The end of the book was kind of awesome, and I expected it to take a different path, but was rather pleased that it didn't. I'm so used to what I predict in a novel coming true but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't the case and the ending made me appreciate the book a lot more that I had the knowledge that the author chose a different route from the typical.

I really did semi-love Tainted Blood and I would definitely read it again. Right now I'm reading the sequel and I can't wait to see what comes out of it!

Rating: ★★★★ 3.75 Stars

Review: Enchantment

Title: Enchantment
Author: Charlotte Abel
Pages: 373
Published: 2011

Summary: When Channie falls in love with Josh Abrim, a BMX racer with dangerous secrets of his own, she rebels against her parents and turns to dark and forbidden magic to break the chastity spell ... with disastrous results.

Review: In my honest opinion, this book doesn't even deserve the one star that it has received, but there is no lower rating on goodreads so one star it shall be. The narration was horrible, first off, and I hate to say this but this was a book that really, really needed to be in first person and was not.

The narrative, also, was written in southern twang, or at least it was attempted. It did get a little bit better once moving past the first chapter but when something is written in third person and is also written in southern twang and refers to characters in the way that one would refer to them if the novel were written in first person clearly proves that the author didn't know what she was doing when she was writing this.

I hate bashing authors and novels, because I know just how long it takes to get these words down into a story and how much editing and writing and revising goes into it, but in my honest opinion, this is a book that should have stayed on the laptop or typewriter or paper, depending on whatever it was that was being used to write this. I couldn't finish Enchantment or even come close. The novel was poorly written and was constructed with an unbelievable plot line, and unbelievable plot lines can be worked with when reasonably explained, but this novel didn't even have that.

I was sorely disappointed with this novel, which is saying something seeing as it was a novel that I requested to read because the plot sounded interesting and it has such good reviews. I just honestly cannot comprehend that I managed to get as far in the book that I did, and I don't believe that this will be a book that I will ever be picking up again, even to give it a second chance. It has scarred me for life.

Rating: ★ 1/5 Stars (Being Generous)

Review: Meeting Destiny

Title: Meeting Destiny
Author: Nancy Straight
Series: Destiny
Pages: Unknown
Published: 2010

Summary: Lauren is visited in her dreams for years by a stranger claiming to be her destiny. Destiny becomes reality when paths cross during a failed robbery attempt. Lauren and the stranger experience chemistry like no other and now her doubt over her long time relationship with her high school sweetheart is not her only secret…someone else knows about her keen intuition and sixth sense.A mysterious clairvoyant seeks Lauren out and tells her not only of her life now but what the future may hold. Soon Lauren is in the middle of a murder investigation and a questionable friendship with the key suspect. Law enforcement, friends and family are concerned for Lauren but unfortunately they are unaware of the true danger…Sinister forces are at work and will stop at nothing to destroy Lauren’s abilities.

Review: I honestly want to know if everyone else was reading the same book that I was, because that was horrible. I don't even have words for how bad this was other than the fact that I could actually manage to get over halfway in reading it, and that only was because I couldn't manage to find it in me to stop before I gave it more of a chance than I had.

First off, the only thing that was good was the opening scene because I honestly wanted to know what was happening. It's not often that a book starts off with something downright intriguing like a robbery, so I was sucked in at the opening scene, but after that I wanted to kill someone.

Love at first sight is something that people believe in and others don't, so it's not that's a topic that's never been heard of before, but this book had absolutely nothing to do with love at first sight. No, this was all about destiny and the author completely and utterly failed on multiple levels to manage to keep this from being a somewhat-entertaining novel.

Lauren was the most annoying character I've ever had the displeasure to meet, and everything was irrational and frustrating in her world. Her mom and her 'boyfriend', Seth, were just so irrational when it came to everything, and don't get me started on Max.

Oh, and the fact that Lauren's 'power' allowed her to irrationally stop a robber and a 'murderer' and get a ton of money from people and showered in thanks, that was really so irrational that it's not even funny. The author could have removed the first forty percent of the book, excluding the opening scene, and you wouldn't have missed anything. That's how long it took her to barely even explain what was so special about Lauren, and even then it was impossible and irrational.

Maybe on a rainy day, when there's absolutely nothing else to do and I'm stuck with just this book I'll finish it, but there is no way that I can even attempt to finish reading this novel. It's horrid.

Rating: ★ 1/5 Stars

Review: Everblossom - A Short Story and Poetry Anthology

Title: Everblossom - A Short Story and Poetry Anthology
Author: Larissa Hinton
Pages: Unknown
Published: 2011

Summary: An anthology that will quench your thirst for more than the ordinary.

Everblossom is a journey through poems and short stories that may seem ordinary on the surface but dig a little deeper and the world not only shifts. It changes.

Review: Everblossom is definitely not a book that I would pick up and start reading if I saw it in a book store. It's not because the premise is bad (I don't think you can go bad with poems and short stories), but because poems and short stories aren't usually books that drag me in, unless they are a cohesive collection that ebbs and flows from one to the next.

Overall, reading Everblossom was an interesting experience, and I did enjoy each poem and short story on its own, but I really didn't see this as anything close to an anthology. Every time that I read a new poem or a new short story, I felt like someone had thrown me out of what I had just gotten comfortable in, and the WSV poems were just really rather annoying to me. They had to be my least favourite out of the entire book, but they weren't terrible. I just couldn't find flow in them, and that really bothered me.

Aside from the disjointed way that the book went, I did enjoy the characters and I definitely enjoyed the poems. I can't pick a favourite short story, but I know for a fact that the Rainbow poem was my favourite. It touched home with me, which was something that I greatly appreciated.

I would recommend that whoever is considering reading this anthology actually read it for the experience of opening yourself up to a new set of poems and short stories that you had yet to experience, especially since the paranormal aspect of them is a really fun aspect. I did enjoy reading this, and I would consider reading it again sometime in the future.

Rating: ★★★ 3/5 Stars