Ash & Brambles is Sara's first foray into Young Adult Fiction and as a whole, she doesn't do too bad a job of it. She'd previously honed her fantasy writing skills on her Junior Fiction Magic Thief series which I still adore to this day, but I can't say the same for this novel. First, this book is...
This book had some creative ideas about pixies interacting with the human world, but what drew my rating quite low overall was the main character Zara. Everyone tells Zara, "Don't go outside." So Zara goes outside....okay. Then bad things happen. They tell Zara again, "Don't go outside." Zara goes outside...hmm, sensing a theme here. Bad things happen again. Everyone tells Zara, "Don't go outside." Guess what Zara does? Guess what I did...
Darn and double darn did I ever want to like this book. I liked the cover. I liked the idea of a steampunk Cinderella (who wouldn't after Marissa Meyer made such a hit of it with Cinder!). And the novel starts out very well. The first quarter of the book is solid. Tight pace, good build to our set of characters, nice creativity with the steampunk elements that are mixed seamlessly with our historical setting. It has all the component of a GREAT novel. But just before halfway through, things fell apart. It was as though a...
This is a big book in size, but does not feel like a long one to read. That's an art and indicates good plot, characters we are happy to invest our time in, and lots of action taking place. As Jack Nicholson would say, "Hoo ah!"
What I loved about this novel was how Lia came to Venda full of her own country's prejudices against these very different people, but as time goes by, understanding dawns on her. She does a...
In a sea of ho-hum reading this past month, Of Poseidon was the novel to make me sit up and take notice of a good book again. The timing was sweet as well with it being the middle of summer coinciding with a summery, swimming type novel.
This is a first for me, to review an entire six book series in one go. This smaller sized, young adult series was a hit with me for a light, summer read this year. If you've got time on your hands, you can gobble a book a day easily and I recommend highly that you not read other novels in between this set. Highly satisfying, at times funny, at times teary, this touching but slightly odd ball story will...
I loved the cover of this novel and it didn't sound too blood-sheddy so thought I'd give it a whirl. With the success of the Selection Series by Kiera Cass, there are some copy cats cropping up. The similarities include the wonderful dresses, the high society that touches upon royal interaction, the politics etc. But where this novel differs is delivery. The idea is prime for an intense ride...
I sure hope they never make a movie out of this novel. In stories, you can gloss over some of the gory details and thankfully Kat does this for quite a bit of her book but in visual format, it would be a blood soaked show.
Marketing is a tricky thing no matter the product. The marketing for this novel is to blame for a low rating on an author whom I usually love to bits. To fully explain we must go all the way back to Madeline Wickham. That was the name Sophie used when she first began writing paperback romance novels. A few years into this, she decided to use her real name because she was changing direction with her writing. She began to write comedy chick-lit romances and they were hilarious, awesome and much beloved by yours truly. Sophie's been writing her comedies for a while now and as a writer has decided to change course again. Not only does she change course, she jumps from adult into the young adult genre. In my opinion, Sophie needed to change her pen name again for this new direction. The problem with Sophie using her comedic author's name, AND advertising herself as...
Unique. It's a word we use quite often, ironically. But The Scorpio Races is unlike any book I've ever read and to call it, different, somehow doesn't seem enough. I'd read The Raven Boys by Maggie and thought it a bit too dark for my tastes, but in chatting with one of our many well-read patrons, she suggested I give The Scorpio Races a try. It IS dark - that seems to be Maggie's comfort zone. But darkness goes hand in hand with the...
