by Kay | Feb 16, 2011 | Author Interview, Reviews |
My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
Series: Soul Screamers #1
Published by Harlequin Teen, MIRA
Pages: 368
Genres: Paranormal YA, Young Adult
Source: Purchased myself
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Rating:
Also in this series: My Soul to Save, My Soul to Keep, My Soul to Steal, If I Die, Before I Wake, With All My SoulSomething is wrong with Kaylee Cavanaugh.
She doesn't see dead people, but...
She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.
Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about the need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next...
Thoughts: I really enjoyed My Soul to Take. It had characters that I genuinely liked, a universe that I adored and a focus on family that I found very realistic.
In fact, I found the entire book extremely realistic. For example, there was a great scene where Kaylee decides to Google her supernatural powers and comes to the conclusion that she has a brain tumour. How fantastic is that? I mean, honestly, that is the most logical answer. The idea that she would immediately assume she had inhuman abilities is just silly! As soon as I read that, I knew Kaylee and I were going to get on just fine.
You see, I’d read two of Rachel Vincent’s werecat series (Stray and Rogue) and while I had liked her writing style, I really disliked the main character. It made me apprehensive about starting My Soul to Take, as I was afraid I’d just be in for some more of the same. But I’d needn’t have worried, because Kaylee is fantastic. She stands up for what she believes in, but not to the point where she is making too-stupid-to-live decisions. My Soul to Take proved to me that Vincent can write a main character that I could enjoy – it has made me hopeful for the rest of the werecat series too!
While I liked Kaylee’s boyfriend Nash, I was most intrigued by Tod the teenage grim reaper. Now really, just the phrase “teenage grim reaper” should be enough to get you into this series. I am hoping to see more of him (and Kaylee’s BFF Emma) in the rest of the books.
Bottom Line: An original take on (what has become) the standard paranormal YA action/romance. Great writing, a unique universe and fantastic characters make this book a must for YA readers.
Interview with Rachel Vincent
Rachel was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about the Soul Screamers series and her upcoming literary plans. Here’s what she had to say:
Q. First of all, I am very excited to have your YA series released in the UK. What do you think of the UK jacket covers?
I love them! I think the UK covers are gorgeous, and I love that they capture a different aspect of the books than the US covers do. Both fit the series, but in different ways. 😉
Q. Any chance of a tour in the UK?
Oh, that depends entirely on my publisher. I’ll go wherever they want me to, but to my knowledge, there’s currently no plans for me to go overseas. Travel is expensive…
Q. A lot of Urban Fantasy authors have crossed over into the YA market – with great success. What do you think of this trend, and what inspired you to write a novel aimed at young adults?
I think any trend putting good books into the hands of teens who might not otherwise be reading is a good trend. As for why I’m writing YA, I write it because I like to read it. I love being taken back to a more fantastic, exciting version of my own youth.
Q. Could you introduce the Soul Screamers series to UK readers, new to the books?
The Soul Screamers books are about a sixteen year old high school junior who discovers that she’s a bean sidhe (banshee) who knows when someone near her is going to die. Along with her boyfriend, Nash, Tod the rookie reaper, and a growing and assorted cast of friends/family, she saves lives, returns souls, and battles evil hellions bent on owning her, body and soul. Also, there’s kissing. Lots of kissing. 😉
Q. With your werecat series at an end, will your be Young Adult series become your main focus or do you have something else in the works?
I have a new adult series debuting in the fall in the US, and I’ll be splitting my focus between them for as long as I’m fortunate enough to have both on my plate.
Q. What were your favourite reads as a teen? What YA reads have you recently enjoyed?
Oddly enough, as a teen, I read adult books. I was a huge fan of Stephen King, Robert R. McCammon, and Patricia Cornwell. Now, I read adult urban fantasy and YA paranormal and contemporaries. Recently I loved Matched by Ally Condie [see my review here] and Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers. Both are well-worth importing, if they aren’t shelved in the UK.
Thanks Rachel!
by Kay | Jan 27, 2011 | Reviews |
Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill
Series: Chicagoland Vampires #2
Published by Gollancz
Pages: 357
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased myself
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Rating: Ten months after vampires revealed their existence to the mortals of Chicago, they're enjoying a celebrity status usually reserved for the Hollywood elite. But should people learn about the Raves-mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle-the citizens will start sharpening their stakes.
So now it's up to the new vampire Merit to reconnect with her upper class family and act as liaison between humans and bloodsuckers, and keep the more unsavory aspects of the vampire lifestyle out of the media. But someone doesn't want peace between them-someone with an ancient grudge...
Thoughts: That I love Chloe Neill is not much of a secret. Her YA debut
Firespell made my Top Ten of 2010, and the first in her UF series,
Some Girls Bite, made me long for Merit’s BFF and her asshole-Mr. Darcy.
Friday Night Bites is a solid sequel to the aforementioned UF book, but not as good as her other works.
Friday Night Bites really deals with Merit accepting her new position in the vampiric world – she makes decisions based on what the responsible vampire action would be and it’s all very grown-up. But Merit starts to change in this book, and while it is not a bad change, we start to worry (and as does she) that she might lose herself to her new job. As someone who does that all the time, that really struck a chord with me. When does the responsible move become the move that suppresses your true nature? Great stuff.
I also liked how Merit’s relationships developed in this book – some for better, some for worse. It wasn’t what had changed that I liked, but how Neill went about the change. We all lose touch with people we love and we all find unexpected relationships. There doesn’t have to be a death or a betrayal to spark a dramatic change… time does that all on its own.
Unfortunately the action left quite a bit to be desired. Even though I have never read Neill for her action-packed baddies, in Friday Night Bites she dropped the ball. The evil!plot was rather coincidental, and a few of the non-central characters behaved like plot devices. I know it’s hard for series writers to come up with Big. Events. for every book, but this one was particularly poor. I really wish I could give more explicit details – because there are a couple that made me really roll my eyes – but I don’t want to spoil all of you who are expecting fab stuff.
Bottom line? Fabulous writer, great characters, great series – but just an OK novel. I am hoping for bigger and better things from Neill in her next books!
by Kay | Jan 22, 2011 | Reviews |
The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
Series: The Body Finder #1
Published by Harper Collins on 2010-03-16
Pages: 352
Genres: Young Adult
Source: Purchased myself
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Rating: Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.
Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.
Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself.
Thoughts: SLIGHTLY SPOILERY! This book started off so well. Derting had no qualms about showing violence and drinking and corpses – it was all slightly gruesome and ultra-realistic. I truly enjoyed the start. But once the annoying teen romance became disgustingly codependent and very unattractive, the flaws started to show. And I’m afraid The Body Finder descended into the deep, dark pit of cliche and boredom.
It’s such a shame, because The Body Finder could have been fantastic. I loved the main idea of the novel – a girl with unpleasant superpowers uses her gift in for good! She has parents that understand and support her, a best friend who understands and supports her, and some he-said-she-said romance to look forward to. It could have been a great murder mystery, without any annoyingly-avoidable teen angst.
And it was that, for about 150 pages.
But The Body Finder had some issues I couldn’t overlook. Some pretty serious ones. As soon as Violet starts dating her BFF-turned-love-of-her-life Jay (that can’t be a spoiler, right? even from the summary, you saw that one coming) he becomes almost parental. He starts meeting with her father to “discuss” her issues, while Violet’s sole focus in life becomes the friggin’ prom. Sure, the murders which dominated the first half of the book are important, but what-oh-what should she wear? Now let’s cuddle on the couch with Jay and consider what a nice guy he is.
My eyes were rolling so hard, something nearly broke.
Perhaps this annoying change in Violet and Jay could have been smoothed over by the excuse of first love and a fascinating mystery to focus on. Except, that murder mystery we’d all been enjoying? It also descends into the aforementioned dark pit of cliche. No motive for the villains – not even a slightly psychotic one. Hell, the villains are so generic, they aren’t even named! Literally, no names. “Oh, Violet, I’ll never forget the time you caught that murderer… He-who-was-never-named, was it?”
Oh, and we can add The Body Finder to the list of YA books that have sexual assault (not full-on rape, but non-consensual contact) go unpunished – in this case, actually forgiven by the main character. Not cool.
Bottom line? The Body Finder left a bad taste in my mouth. Although the book started off really well, I won’t be continuing with the series. However, Derting is a pretty decent writer and I could be coerced into reading something else by her… maybe.
by Kay | Jan 20, 2011 | Reviews |
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin
Series: Matthew Swift #1
Published by Orbit on April 6th 2009
Pages: 464
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased myself
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Rating: Two years after his untimely death, Matthew Swift finds himself breathing once again, lying in bed in his London home.
Except that it's no longer his bed, or his home. And the last time this sorcerer was seen alive, an unknown assailant had gouged a hole so deep in his chest that his death was irrefutable...despite his body never being found.
He doesn't have long to mull over his resurrection, though, or the changes that have been wrought upon him. His only concern now is vengeance. Vengeance upon his monstrous killer and vengeance upon the one who brought him back.
Thoughts: I really wish I could write a 5 star review for this book. Honest to God, A Madness of Angels has one of the most creative, mind-blowing universes I’ve ever read – filled with monsters and magic that are unfamiliar yet instantly recognisable. Yet, its’ length and dense writing made A Madness of Angels a difficult book to finish. Even though I loved it, I could only read 4-5 pages at a time – it took me 4 months to finish! There is just so much to absorb in every line, and there are many many many lines.
Griffin created a lead character with a hell of a wit. Matthew Swift is king of the one-liners. Even though I never became emotionally invested in any of the characters, I truly enjoyed their banter. I was constantly jotting down lines to remember and reuse! Speaking of which:
“Oh Matthew. How did things ever come to this?”
“You know,” I replied. “I’m only two restraints, a cramp and a cocktail of drugs away from shrugging contemptuously in answer to that one.”
What impressed me the most was the way Griffin wrote about London. Griffin understands London in a way that few do: the social structures, the transport system, the bizarre Londonite habits, the cities-within-the-city. And she takes “urban magic” into every inch of London – from Oyster cards to Muswell Hill, even the smallest urban habit makes up the magic of London. It’s fan-bloody-tastic. I picked this book up right when I moved away from the city, and every paragraph was like a trip home. Griffin set battle scenes in streets, restaurants and tube stations I knew backwards – it will be hard for me to go back without seeing Griffin’s urban magic in the air. If you want to know London – and it’s unique brand of magic – this is the book for you.
But as I mentioned, the characters in A Madness of Angels were rather… unfulfilling. I never particularly cared whether anyone lived or died, I never particularly hated the “villians”, and I never really bonded with any of the “heros”. You don’t have to like characters in order to enjoy a book, but they do need to strike some sort of emotion within you…. even if it is utter loathing! I never got there with A Madness of Angels, and it made the numerous climatic scenes rather anti-climatic.
Bottom line? Griffin puts the urban into urban fantasy. A Madness of Angels has the most imaginative writing/setting/characters I have read in a long time – although it’s not the most emotionally engaging work out there. This book is a masterwork – and as dense as an epic too.
by Kay | Jan 8, 2011 | Reviews |
Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott
Published by HarperTeen
Genres: Contemporary YA, Young Adult
Source: Purchased myself
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Rating: Dani has been trained as a thief by the best--her mother. Together, they move from town to town, targeting wealthy homes and making a living by stealing antique silver. They never stay in one place long enough to make real connections, real friends--a real life
In the beach town of Heaven, though, everything changes. For the first time, Dani starts to feel at home. She's making friends and has even met a guy. But these people can never know the real Dani--because of who she is. When it turns out that her new friend lives in the house they've targeted for their next job and the cute guy is a cop, Dani must question where her loyalties lie: with the life she's always known--or the one she's always wanted.
Thoughts: I was surprised by Stealing Heaven. I picked it up expecting a cheery, chick-lit read – Ocean’s Eleven a-la-Sophie-Kinsella. That would have been great, but what Scott delivers is about 20x better. Stealing Heaven is a serious book. Dani grows up with a mother who has indoctrinated her into a life of crime – a life that Dani is just not meant for. She’s never been to school, never been able to tell anyone her real name, never had any friends – and, on top of that, there’s her absent father and her mother’s manic relationship with thievery. Less than ideal is putting it mildly.
But even as Dani’s mom behaves in ways unbefitting a mother, Dani is able to recognise why her mother her is behaving so thoughtlessly. It’s really easy for a teen to just turn around and hate their parents – but Dani doesn’t because, even as a teen, she can see her mother with the eyes of an adult. I read this book wishing I could hate her mom – but I just couldn’t. It is fantastic, and adds a whole new level to what could have been a simple break-away-from-your-family book.
Stealing Heaven is about a girl working out who she is, and what that means for her family. About a girl who has to wake up, take her head out of the sand, and truly examine her life. She doesn’t do it for a boy – although she does have an extremely influential romance with, get this, a cop – and she doesn’t do it for a friend – although she makes pals with a lovely girl along the way. Dani changes her life for herself, and it is wonderful to read.
Bottom line? A fantastic contemporary read for young adults. This book is sweet, sad, and thoughtful – you’ll love it. I can’t wait to read more by Elizabeth Scott!
