ZENA SKALA is freed from an asylum at age eighteen after serving time for a crime she didn’t commit—the presumed murder of her missing brother.
Unwanted attention from the police and media ensues. Zena’s only hope resides in the deserted Skala Estate and memories from her odd past.
Secrets await in her family home. Some more dangerous than others...
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
Warning Spoilers because the blurb gives me nothing to work with.
Confusing but interesting. Turns out that Zena is some sort of alien hiding on earth because her dad is an alien refugee. Only she doesn't know this. Her friends are also descendants of different aliens, (one knows, one doesn't).
In a very short space of time (a couple of days?) we learn all this and more. Everyone seems to have secrets and by the end of it we still don't really know what's going on or who is good and who is bad. Seriously, her parent's are messed up, but at least she got her brother back.
I would read the next book in the series but there better be some answers! What is the information hidden in Zena? How is it hidden/part of her? What is the floating head and why can her dad and her brother see it but no one else? Did Zena and Dom hookup or were their nights together platonic? ;)
Playing around one night, jokingly building a Wiccan altar in the dead of winter, Jacob accidentally summons the Spirit of Fire. And it has a message: the world will end unless a human sacrifice is made to the Old Gods.
He has two nights to find a willing candidate who doesn't think he's crazy. If he doesn't, his terrifying visions of flames will become horrifyingly real.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
A short story where nothing much happened. The writing pace was strange though. The first 2/3rds were written slowly and spaced out like it was a novel, then the last 3rd was rushed with a twist in plot. The twist was clever and stupid at the same time.
Without giving away any spoilers I think this book would have served better if the start had of been edited, then the book as a whole was presented as a '0.5 book' to a series. Kind of a way to introduce the main character and how he got his powers.
Saving the world, one tour stop at a time.
Eighteen-year-old Bitsy Butler has never quite fit in, not with the dragons who raised her, the druid who took her in, or even with the non-human members of the cirque noir punk band she thinks of as family. Her chance to prove she can make it on her own comes with her band's first big solo tour. It’s all going according to plan when an angel walks into a bar and demands help with his demon problem.
If she doesn't step up, a magical war will break out, threatening Arizona and all those who call it home. With the help of a human, a sexy dragon, and the members of her band, Bitsy must stop an angry mob of chaos demons before the band leaves for their next tour stop.
It’s nice to be needed, but Bitsy has no idea how to defeat the demons and she just might get herself killed trying. But then, at least one problem would be solved...
Fitting in doesn’t matter if you’re dead.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
Warning: Spoilers due to rant. ;)
The blurb is very misleading. Bitsy was the support/comedy element who got upgraded to main band member when the someone got injured. The dragon's who 'raised' her were apparently a cult that should not be mentioned. And the druid was mentioned and featured in a phone call but that was all. The plot was basically Bitsy trying to get out of stopping demons because she has shows to play.
My biggest problem with this book was lack of information.
- WHAT is Bitsy? She gets some clues but generally even she doesn't know what she is or what she can do. Her powers are not consistent, some times she can do magic spells, some times she can 'call' her sword, etc, etc.
- The current plot is very rushed (whole thing takes place in a couple of days) and its filled with lots of throwbacks to previous events with no explanations. Example: The whole 'Jule's Demon' story. Constantly mentioned, never explained.
- The world rules are confusing. Do humans know about magic or not? Is it just some of them? How many different types of magic/magical beings are there? How do they work?
Finally my biggest issue? THE ENDING. There wasn't one. The book just stopped. I initially thought I might have a gotten a bad copy because it was so abrupt. It was as if the author didn't know what to do upon reaching the climax so she just gave up and finished it as "to be continued". So glad I didn't pay for it.
Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of the world's greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, she was trying to keep people from finding out she's transgender. But then her second-hand superpowers transformed her body into what she's always thought it should be. Now there's no hiding that she's a girl.
It should be the happiest time of her life, but between her father's dangerous obsession with curing her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he's entitled to date her, and the classmate who is secretly a masked vigilante, Danny's first weeks living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined.
She doesn't have much time to adjust. Dreadnought's murderer, a cyborg named Utopia, still haunts the streets of New Port City. If Danny can't sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
< Minor Spoilers >
I feel like the idea of having a transgender main character was good, but the actual execution just made it feel cheap and gimmicky. It left the main character (and all the others actually) more annoying than anything. Danny was somehow very one dimensional and while she was young (15) she acted a lot younger which was annoying and off putting.
I love the whole superhero genre, but in this book, the world 'rules' were not explained and the heroes were not explained or fleshed out. What are their powers? How did each of them get it? How did Valkyrie's reincarnation work?/
Neither Graywytch nor Danny's father got their comeuppance and both got away with everything completely scot free which just pissed me off. Especially in Graywytch's case because she caused the deaths of innocent people by protecting herself and hiding while the battle was going on.
I might read book 2 if I got it for free, but I definitely wouldn't pay for it.
Kikeru, the child of a priestess at the sacred temple of Knossos in ancient Crete, believes that the goddesses are laughing at him. They expect him to choose whether he is a man or a woman, when he’s both. They expect him to choose whether to be a husband to a wife, or a celibate priestess in the temple, when all he wants to do is invent things and be with the person he loves.
Unfortunately, that person is Rusa, the handsome ship owner who is most decidedly a man and therefore off-limits no matter what he chooses. And did he mention that the goddesses also expect him to avert war with the Greeks?
The Greeks have an army. Kikeru has his mother, Maja, who is pressuring him to give her grandchildren; Jadikira, Rusa’s pregnant daughter; and superstitious Rusa, who is terrified of what the goddesses will think of him being in love with one of their chosen ones.
It’s a tall order to save Crete from conquest, win his love, and keep both halves of himself. Luckily, at least the daemons are on his side.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
This book was stupid and confusing.
- The descriptions of people and places were confusing and hard to follow. I couldn't picture anything in my head which really ruined the experience.
- God's were both real and not real, depending on the situation. Make up your mind on the cannon and world rules and stick to them!
- The whole man/woman business, WTF? Kikeru was born a man, he has man parts, however he can choose to be classed as a woman (which seems to be a reward of some sort?) because his mother supposedly got pregnant by a god.
- The end. Sub-par solutions where everyone is living a lie just so two men can have a regular sexual relationship. Would NOT class this as a HEA, all it would take is one snoopy neighbour, or one of the four main people saying the wrong thing, or Rusa leaving the house in women's garb for the whole ruse to be exposed and people to be punished. Stupid.
On a frigid winter night, college freshman Will stumbles into the shelter of a church during choir practice. His father has just discovered that Will is gay, and has beaten him and thrown him out of the house. But right now Will’s interested only in getting warm.
Will’s college roommate Quinn is a soloist in the choir, which is practicing for a Christmas program. He discovers Will in the church—and his friend’s condition. Will, who has grown up in a repressed environment, including church school, an abusive father and a passive mother, is taken aback by Quinn’s enthusiasm and determination to take care of him.
Does Will have a future after all, especially one that will include Quinn?
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
This was one of the classic short stories where nothing happens. The actual plot has been done to death and nothing new was added in this one.
The secondary characters that were Quinn's family were a lot more interesting than Will or Quinn himself, wish the book had of been about them/featured them more. The only real emotional response I got from this book was an annoyance that yet again the bad guy, in this case Will's dad, got away with his abuse. Nobody stood up to him and nobody called the damn cops! I mean the guy put his son in hospital, in the real world wouldn't someone on staff call the police?! Stupid.
Eddie Rodrigues doesn’t stay in one place long enough to get attached. The only time he broke that rule, things went south fast. Now he’s on the road again, with barely enough cash in his pocket to hop a bus south after his (sort-of-stolen) car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Midwest, USA.
He’s fine. He’ll manage. Until he watches that girl get hit by a car and left to die.
Local shop owner Grayson Croft isn’t in the habit of doing people any favors. But even a recluse can’t avoid everyone in a town as small as Clear Lake. And when the cop who played Juliet to your Romeo in the high school play asks you to put up her key witness for the night, you say yes.
Now Gray’s got a grouchy glass artist stomping around his big, empty house, and it turns out that he . . . maybe . . . kind of . . . likes the company.
But Eddie Rodrigues never sticks around.
Unless a Christmas shop owner who hates the season can show an orphan what it means to have family for the holidays.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
The whole basis of this book, the girl getting hit by the car, fell to the wayside and everyone just forgot about it until right at the end when it turned out that the 'bad guy' wasn't really bad, just stupid and the main characters felt sorry for him and took him under their wing. Weird and pointless with no repercussions for actions.
Both main characters, Grayson and Eddie are annoying and angsty. Lots of miscommunication, plain lying and no character development made me lose interest very quickly. I am actually surprised that this book didn't' end up as a DNF. The introduction of a new and different hobby/skill (glass blowing) was probably the only saving grace and there wasn't enough of it in the story to really learn anything.
Can you call yourself human if supernatural forces control your every breath, every emotion, every desire?
Posing as a folklore tour guide, Valya Svetlova takes a group of American college students and their professor, Chris Waller, to her summer home in the Russian village of Vishenky for a few nights of supernatural phenomena. She plays the perfect hostess. For Valya doesn’t want anyone to discover she harbors selfish motives when it comes to one participant, the only person who can refute a tale declaring her a stillborn resurrected by a paranormal entity.
Within hours of their arrival, Valya learns that the students foster some dangerous agendas of their own. Her nascent feelings toward the handsome professor inhibit her ability to control the supernatural manifestations and her inquisitive guests. When her unforeseen affection turns Chris into a target, Valya faces an excruciating reality. It’s no longer in her human power to ensure her guests’ safety. Yet to keep them alive, Valya must brush off her humanity and become the thing she fights so desperately to prove she is not—a soulless monster.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
This was a red hot mess. It was all over the place and the same chapter felt like it was constantly being repeated without anything actually happening. I was never sure what was going on, bits and pieces were thrown in half-hazardously, and the whole paranormal element was never really explained. Entities, Russian monsters, a witch that was goodish then bad and something to do with portals? And probably my biggest gripe SPOILER ALERT, if you were stillborn, then brought back to life thanks to an entity, that has to feed on portals to stay alive (I think) how do you magically turn into a normal human when you get rid of said entity? Wouldn't you just be dead with nothing to sustain you?
Wish I hadn't wasted my time.
Silent night, holy hell.
Thaddeus and Sarasija are spending the holidays on the bayou, and while the vampire’s idea of Christmas cheer doesn't quite match his assistant’s, they’re working on a compromise. Before they can get the tree trimmed, they’re interrupted by the appearance of the feu follet. The ghostly lights appear in the swamp at random and lead even the locals astray.
When the townsfolk link the phenomenon to the return of their most reclusive neighbor, suspicion falls on Thaddeus. These lights aren't bringing glad tidings, and if Thad and Sara can't find their source, the feu follet might herald a holiday tragedy for the whole town.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
I requested this book because I read somewhere that you didn't need to read the first book to understand this one. And that's true, you don't. However I don't feel like I enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I would have if I had of read the first book. The characters were good (though Thaddeus' self-righteousness and what he considered a sin was annoying. Having consensual sex with your boyfriend is a sin, but basically mind raping someone to control their mind is fine?) The story was a bit of a non-event though. That's the problem with in-between books, you can't have any type of change or growth that will confuse or annoy the people who only read the main books and that can leave them a bit dry.
If you've read book 1 'Vespers' definitely give this a go, otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Uncovering The Truth…Will Take An Exorcist
Jimmy Holiday, defrocked priest turned exorcist, is trying to get his life in order. With his on-again off-again witchy girlfriend moving in, the spirit of the little girl from his last exorcism hanging around, and a secret organization of exorcists hounding him, Jimmy equals stressed.
When a stranger calls in the middle of the night asking for help with a possession, Jimmy is about to land in a mess of trouble. Especially since the man on the phone claims to have gotten his number from Jimmy’s old mentor. Too bad his mentor has been dead for years.
After a mysterious silver flask arrives at his doorstep, Jimmy is left with two options: either ignore the newest enigma the universe has tossed him, or listen to Lucy and travel to Arizona to solve the mystery before all hell breaks loose…again.
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My Review: (Thanks to NetGalley)
SPOILERS!!!!
I don't know how I feel about this book. Nothing really which is weird. I'm not in love but I'm not hating it either. Kind of a 'eh'.
I would say that it is probably a good idea to read book 1 (Sorrow's Point) first because a lot of this book was dedicated to Lucy who was the victim of the first book. Then the rest of the book is focused of Nicholas Vespa. That bit just left me confused at the end. Was he or wasn't he aware of his demon half? Was it like a split personality? Why did he say he spent a year summoning the demon if it was always part of him? Was it? The end was kind of rushed, especially compared to the slow pace of the rest of the book. And it seemed like a bit of a cop out when the Devil just turned up to fix everything and then told them to 'be careful'.
Obviously a lead on to the next book but I don't think I'll bother.
