Nicky Peacock's Blog, page 28
April 14, 2014
Book Review: Wicked Hunger by DelSheree Gladden
Synopsis:
“Save him and hurt him, don’t save him and hurt him. Pain, either way. Delicious pain. Hunger will be the only one that wins. Hunger always wins.”
Vanessa and Zander Roth are good at lying. Their whole life is a giant web of deceit made in an effort to conceal the deadly secrets that plague their family.
Zander will do anything to forget his mistakes, including pushing everyone away. He was barely surviving in his self-forced solitude before Ivy Guerra entered his life. The new girl in school, with her pink-striped hair and unyielding curiosity, incites something wicked inside Zander that can only be blamed on his family genes. Now Zander is forced to fight an internal war and make a choice between loving Ivy Guerra and killing her.
Vanessa wants nothing more than to shed the strange powers she wields and be normal. Because if Van were normal, she’d be able to have normal things… Like a relationship with the boy she’s been secretly in love with for years. Unfortunately, her life is anything but ordinary. That boy who owns her heart just happens to be her brother’s kryptonite and a
potential liability for her entire family. When choices between love and family loyalty have to be made, Van finds herself faced with an impossible decision.
As if the Roth family needs anything more to worry about, a vicious plot to expose Van and Zander for what they are is uncovered. When it becomes apparent that someone close to them is at the center of this devious plan, the fight to maintain control and keep their cover ensues. It’s a seemingly impossible battle because something is causing their powers to stir stronger than ever before… and it won’t stop until Van and Zander give in to their wicked hunger.
About the Author: 
DelSheree Gladden lives in New Mexico with her husband and two children. The Southwest is a big influence in her writing because of its culture, beauty, and mythology. Local folk lore is strongly rooted in her writing, particularly ideas of prophecy, destiny, and talents born from natural abilities. When she is not writing, DelSheree is usually reading, painting, sewing, or working as a Dental Hygienist. Her works include Escaping Fate, Twin Souls Saga, The Destroyer Trilogy, and Invisible. The first book in the Someone Wicked This Way Comes series, Wicked Hunger, is scheduled to be released through Clean Teen Publishing on April 1, 2014.
Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads | Blog
My Review:
I always really appreciate an original idea when it comes to paranormal YA fiction. Wicked Hunger gives us something new, but unfortunately doesn’t really explain it too well, and left me with a big question mark. You can tell by the title that this is the first in a series, but I kind of feel a bit cheated that I didn’t get all the information I needed and a complete story in this first book. That said, I did enjoy reading it, it was much darker than the usual teen reads.
My personal reading taste is first person, so I enjoyed reading from the main character’s viewpoints, however I did find Zander a less than convincing teen boy. I found this same thing in Beautiful Creatures, and in my review there, posed the question how accurate can a female author be when getting into the mind of a teenage boy?
From a writer’s perspective, there were pacing problems and I felt teased as a reader with the ‘Hunger’ that kept materialising at the start of the book, without it being fully explained as to what the brother and sister were and what was really happening. I understand the need for intrigue in books and for authors’ to keep secrets close to their chests, but there should be a drip feed of information, and I really felt that there wasn’t much moisture at all until you really got into the book. This would mean losing less patient readers – which would be a shame.
Also, a note on the title. If you plug it into Amazon you’ll notice several books come up with the same/similar title – some of which are adult orientated. Although almost impossible to give a book a completely unique title, this perhaps should have been checked before hand.
The front cover is nice and has Vanessa on there, but as Zander shares the narrative, he really should be on there too. Gorgeous teen boys are like six pack magnets to the potential teen girl reader browsing the virtual book shelves.
Overall, I’d give Wicked Hunger 3 out of 4 stars – an interesting concept and a promising start to a new teen series.
Filed under: Book Review Tagged: DelSheree Gladden, Hunger, Teen reads, Wicked Hunger, YA fiction, Zander Roth
April 11, 2014
Book Review: Of Breakable Things by A. Lynden Rolland
Synopsis:
Alex Ash was born broken. Living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is like living on death row, but she is willing to fight for her frail life as long as it includes the boy next door. Chase has always held the pieces of her together, but when he dies tragically, Alex’s unfavorable fate becomes a blessing in disguise.
Faced with a choice, she finds herself in a peculiar world where rooms can absorb emotions and secrets are buried six feet under. Among limitless minds, envious spirits, and soulless banshees, Alex hardly rests in peace.
About the Author:
A. Lynden Rolland was born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland, a picturesque town obsessed with boats and blue crabs. She has always been intrigued by the dramatic and the broken, compiling her eccentric tales of tragic characters in a weathered notebook she began to carry in grade school. She is a sports fanatic, a coffee addict, and a lover of Sauvignon Blanc and thunderstorms. When she isn’t hunched behind a laptop at her local bookstore, she can be found chasing her two vivacious children. She now resides just outside Annapolis with her husband and young sons.
My Review:
There seems to be quite a few book around (especially YA ones) that deal with death. I’ve always found it an interesting topic, and it’s amazing how many unique ideas that authors can have that incorporate it. I found the story interesting and the characters likeable. It was very well written and had some lovely turns of phrase in there.
From a writer’s perspective, the book was a bit slow to get going. It seemed to dwell on irelevant information and take the character round in circles. With YA being such a competitive genre and books in general having to compete with such things as social media, video games and socialising with friends, a teen read needs to grab you by the throat from the very first page.
I love the front cover – so creepy and beautiful, this will definitely make it stand out on the virtual book shelf.
Overall I’d give Of Breakable Things 4 out of 5 stars – an interesting, well written book.
Filed under: Interviews with other authors Tagged: A. Lynden Rolland, Of Breakable Things, Of Breakable Things by A. Lynden Rolland
April 10, 2014
Book Review: Shadows of Fate by Angela Dennis
Synopsis:
After witnessing her husband’s brutal murder, Brenna Baudouin lost control of her Shadow Bearer powers and wreaked havoc on her home world. Her penance: one hundred years policing hordes of supernatural misfits that spilled onto the Earthly plane after a cataclysmic war.
She’s on a routine exorcism run when she learns she’s been assigned a new partner. But there’s something about this Shadow Bearer that sparks her suspicions. Particularly when people closest to her start turning up as piles of ash.
Gray Warlow holds tight to the glamour that allows him to get close to the woman on whom he plans to wreak vengeance for betraying his people. Yet as he skillfully manipulates his way past her distrust, he begins to see her not as the heartless monster he was led to believe, but a strong, vulnerable woman.
As they work to put together the pieces of a killer’s macabre puzzle, an attraction deeper than blood and bone flares between them. And they must reveal their deepest secrets to avoid becoming the final targets.
Warning: A thrill ride of supernatural proportions. Contains violent battle scenes, nail-biting suspense, crazy hot sexual tension, and enough twists and turns to make your head spin.
About the Author:
Angela Dennis lives outside Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, son and a sheltie with a hero complex. When she is not at her computer crafting stories, she can be found feeding her coffee addiction, playing peek-a-boo, or teaching her son about the great adventures found only in books.
You can visit Angela at her blog www.angeladennisauthor.blogspot.com or at her website www.angeladennisauthor.com . She loves to hear from her readers, so find her on Twitter for a chat @angeladennis
https://twitter.com/AngelaDennis
https://www.facebook.com/angela.dennis.7798
http://www.pinterest.com/angeladennis779/
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/26267274-angela-dennis
www.angeladennisauthor.blogspot.com
My Review:
I forget how much I miss urban fantasy; I’ve been desperately trying to widen my reading spectrum, and as strange as it sounds, have been deliberately limiting my fav genre; so it was lovely to get back to it, and Shadows of Fate gave me the fix I needed.
It was a great story and the female lead was strong, yet not annoying (a hard combination for an author to capture)
From a writer’s perspective, it flowed nicely and didn’t introduce too much world building too quickly – which is often how inexperienced writers start such books – its kind of like word vomit, only slightly thicker! Yuck! My only gripe about the book is that, although it’s written first person, which I prefer, it did head hop. I’m not a massive fan of this as it can pull you out of a moment too quickly and, from an evil commercial point of view, can give the reader an obvious place to ‘put the book down’. As writers we need to keep them reading, that way you get the ‘I couldn’t put it down effect’. Maybe leaving each character break on a hook could have accomplished this?
The front cover is a little cartoonish,and doesn’t really say much about the book – again, Urban Fantasy is a competitive genre and so maybe a bit more on the front could set it apart – no one reads the blurb of a book without choosing the front cover first.
Overall, I’d give Shadow of Fate 4 out 5 stars, a promising start and very well written.
Filed under: Book Review, Social Media Links Tagged: Angela Dennis, Shadows of Fate, Shadows of Fate by Angela Dennis 
Interview with Ghost Hunter Billy Roberts
How did Ghostly Tales come about?
As a professional medium and paranormal researcher I have been writing ghost stories for over 30 years. This is just one compilation of many I have written.
What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever heard?
I have been in many scary situations over the years; apart from my wife shouting at me to get ready for an important appointment: The location of the house that cried blood (now a desolate piece of waste land), the merciful cries of children who were slaughtered echoing through the night.
One of the scariest things I’ve seen recently is this painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hands_Resist_Him
I must admit, I’ve never seen anything like this painting.
What sort of ghost stories did you read growing up?
Growing up I read a lot of Edgar Allen Poe. I liked the SARDONIC SMILE.
What was the hardest part of writing the book?
The hardest part of writing the book was formatting it for the publishers. These stories are all true and so I found the actual writing of the book quite easy.
What is the most realistic ghost/ paranormal movie you’ve seen?
When my autobiography was first published in 1995 by Harper Collins, the publishers sent it to different movie companies. The Sixth Sense was exactly like my life as a child. I just thought it was a bit of a coincidence.
Which literary character do you feel you are you most like and why?
Nineteenth Century dramatist and mystic, Maurice Maeterlinck. I use to see him as a child in my head, and later in a crystal sphere I used for meditation. I now know him to be one of my disembodied mentors.
Going into a paranormal situation, what piece of equipment could you not do without?
The only piece of ‘Ghost Hunting’ equipment I need is my torch.
Where can fans find you online?
My website is www.billyroberts.co.uk
Filed under: Interviews with other authors Tagged: Billy Roberts, Ghost Hunting, ghost stories, Ghostly Tales
April 9, 2014
Book Spotlight: Shadows of Fate by Angela Dennis
Synopsis:
Redemption lies beyond the veil between truth and lies.
After witnessing her husband’s brutal murder, Brenna Baudouin lost control of her Shadow Bearer powers and wreaked havoc on her home world. Her penance: one hundred years policing hordes of supernatural misfits that spilled onto the Earthly plane after a cataclysmic war.
She’s on a routine exorcism run when she learns she’s been assigned a new partner. But there’s something about this Shadow Bearer that sparks her suspicions. Particularly when people closest to her start turning up as piles of ash.
Gray Warlow holds tight to the glamour that allows him to get close to the woman on whom he plans to wreak vengeance for betraying his people. Yet as he skillfully manipulates his way past her distrust, he begins to see her not as the heartless monster he was led to believe, but a strong, vulnerable woman.
As they work to put together the pieces of a killer’s macabre puzzle, an attraction deeper than blood and bone flares between them. And they must reveal their deepest secrets to avoid becoming the final targets.
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Indigo | Samhain
About the Author: 
Angela Dennis lives outside Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, son and a sheltie with a hero complex. When she is not at her computer crafting stories, she can be found feeding her coffee addiction, playing peek-a-boo, or teaching her son about the great adventures found only in books.
You can visit Angela at her blog www.angeladennisauthor.blogspot.com or at her website www.angeladennisauthor.com. She loves to hear from her readers, so feel free to email her directly at angeladennisauthor@yahoo.com.
Connect with the Author: Twitter | Facebook |Pinterest |Goodreads |Blog | Website
Filed under: Book Review
April 8, 2014
Book Review: No Refuge by Annie Nicholas
Synopsis:
Hunted to near extinction by an alien race called the Ko, my people have run from Earth and drifted so far among the stars we can’t remember the way back. We live everywhere, but call nowhere home. The Ko want us erased from existence and memory. They don’t even want our DNA in the space dust. Humans disguise themselves as other alien species and hide in plain sight. It’s the only way we can survive.
I believe in the myth of Earth. I’ve even discovered a bona fide book written in the dead language of my people. My man, Brody, dreams of a secret human colony. He’s searched for years, hunting any rumor we’ve run across, and finally he’s made contact. Usually, he’s the one grounding me to station and keeping my head out of the atmosphere. Time for me to return the favor…that is, if I can ditch the Ko who’ve discovered me, thanks to my incessant artifact-hunting. If we don’t make our rendezvous, and the Ko don’t kill me, Brody just might…
About the Author: 
Annie Nicholas writes paranormal romance with a twist. She has courted vampires, hunted with shifters, and slain a dragon’s ego all with the might of her pen. Riding the wind of her imagination, she travels beyond the restraints of reality and shares them with anyone wanting to read her stories. Mother, daughter, and wife are some of the other hats she wears while hiking through the hills and dales of her adopted state of Vermont.
Annie writes for Samhain Publishing, Carina Press, and Lyrical Press.
Website: www.annienicholas.com
Blog: www.annienicholas.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annie-Nicholas#!/pages/Annie-Nicholas/162716537103705
Twitter: https://twitter.com/annienicholas
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3132972.Annie_Nicholas
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/annienicholas/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/yt8Kv
My Review:
I’ve always had a healthy respect for sci-fi, the amount of effort that goes into building alien worlds, characters and customs is immense. I’ve not read much sci-fi though, although sat through a fair amount of TV and film. All that said, I find it pretty easy to spot a good book in this genre, and Annie has done it again! Reading a story that happens in a world that’s epically removed from our own (this includes sci-fi and high fantasy) can be difficult, so I can almost instantly tell how comfortable I am when reading a book in this genre. If I’m having to make notes (mental or long hand) about the details, then I’m really not going to enjoy it, it turns into a kind of long piece of homework. No Refuge was not like this at all; although it is very much sci-fi, it makes you feel comfortable, introduces the info you need as and when you need it, and gives you characters that you really feel for.
From a writer’s perspective, it was written incredibly well, and the plot moved at a fast pace that drew me in quickly and didn’t let me go till the end. The idea that humans are now an endangered species, hunted to the brink of extinction to the edges of the galaxy, was both tragic and kind of ironic considering our blase attitude to what we are doing to certain species on Earth. everything for a good story was present here: plot, theme, characters and originality.
The front cover is okay, but kind of lets the epic-ness of the book down a little. I’m a firm believer in how much front covers can sell a book, and feel that this could do with a bit f sprucing to really do the book the justice.
Overall, I’d give No Refuge 5 out 5 stars – if you’re missing Star Trek and Firefly and want a dash of romance, then look no further.
Filed under: Book Review Tagged: annie nicholas, Bewitching book tours, Science Fiction Romance, Space Opera
April 6, 2014
Interview with Margaret L Carter
Tell us about your publishing journey…
Reading DRACULA at the age of twelve changed my life. Because of that novel, I became fascinated with horror, fantasy, and “soft” science fiction, but especially vampires. At thirteen, not finding enough of the stories I wanted to read in the local library, I decided to write them. I particularly wanted fiction sympathetic to the “monster.” My first story involved a love affair between a man and a ghost. Soon afterward, I wrote a thirty-something-page (single-spaced) story from the viewpoint of a man inadvertently changing into a vampire. I wanted to read and write “good guy vampire” and paranormal romance fiction before the subgenre was invented. At the age of twenty-two, I sold my first book, a vampire anthology called CURSE OF THE UNDEAD, to Fawcett. At that time, I knew almost nothing about publishing except that you had to enclose a SASE. I thought the world needed a vampire anthology taking a historical overview of the field, so I assembled a proposal for one. Fawcett had held the submission for about a year without a word when I finally sent a follow-up query (in the form of a funny “why haven’t you written?” greeting card—as I said, I knew almost nothing). They replied with a publishing offer. I was just very lucky that anthologies were easy to sell back then. Two years later, they also published a second anthology from me, DEMON LOVERS AND STRANGE SEDUCTIONS. (Neither one earned out its advance.) My first professional fiction sale consisted of a short story to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s anthology FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER. That sale involved a bit of luck, too. The call for submissions got to me long after it was mailed, because the Post Office misplaced it. It did arrive, however, just in time for me to scramble to get a story written and sent. Naturally, I was thrilled when Bradley accepted it. In later years, she bought numerous stories from me for her Darkover and Sword and Sorceress anthologies. My first nonfiction book, SHADOW OF A SHADE: A SURVEY OF VAMPIRISM IN LITERATURE, was published by a small press while I was in graduate school. The book was produced in unattractive offset printing, way overpriced, and poorly distributed. Still, I’m rather proud to have written the first historical survey of the development of vampire fiction that I know of, even though my work was pretty amateurish at that point. After earning my PhD in English, I was invited to submit my dissertation to UMI Research Press (a short-lived book publishing division of University Microfilms), and they accepted it for book publication. They also published an anthology of essays, DRACULA: THE VAMPIRE AND THE CRITICS, and THE VAMPIRE IN LITERATURE: A CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. Also during that period, I had an agent for a while, but no book sales resulted. Around the same time as the vampire bibliography came out, a new horror small press, Design Image Group, started up, and I sent them a werewolf novel. Coincidentally, the head of that press happened to have edited a vampire fanzine in which I’d had a story or two—so he was glad to get a submission from me. I think Providence had a hand in my career at many points! Design Image accepted my werewolf novel, SHADOW OF THE BEAST (which is now with e-publisher Amber Quill Press), and, after much editing, put it out as a beautiful trade paperback, which got a decent review in LOCUS. Probably all these publishing credits helped in selling my first vampire novel, DARK CHANGELING, to e-publisher Hard Shell Word Factory. Thanks to e-books, I’ve had the opportunity to get published in horror, fantasy, paranormal romance, and erotic paranormal romance at all lengths. Since my natural lengths seem to be novella and category, the flexibility of e-publishing has been a great boon, and my e-publishers have been very good to me.
What do you love about being an author?
Seeing a book or story transmuted from an untidy cluster of words into the finished product, contemplating the final e-book file and/or printed volume, and enjoying the reactions of readers and reviewers. Unlike some lucky writers, I don’t enjoy the process of writing the first draft—though I do have fun outlining—so one of my greatest pleasures as an author is the satisfaction of thinking, “I actually finished another one.”
If you could have dinner with any literary character, who would it be and what would you eat?
The four Pevensie children soon after the end of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, when they would have fresh memories of their years as kings and queens in Narnia. I’d love to hear them reminisce about a generally peaceful era in Narnian history and perhaps narrate some untold adventures similar to THE HORSE AND HIS BOY. Being English, they probably like hearty, meat-heavy meals, so I would take them to dinner at one of the upscale steak restaurants near our home. Or maybe the Irish restaurant downtown, since C. S. Lewis was Irish and that kind of cuisine also tends toward substantial meat-and-potatoes themes.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who would you cast as the leads?
While I don’t have much awareness of movie actors in general, I could visualize Claude Darvell, the vampire hero in my novella “Tall, Dark and Deadly” and a major character in my novel CHILD OF TWILIGHT, played by a young Christopher Lee, because that’s the image Claude was originally based on.
Vampires – do you prefer them as sexy leads or blood hungry monsters?
Sexy leads, for sure! I see no reason why becoming a vampire should change an individual’s personality or make him/her incapable of living an ethical life. And I love ravishingly romantic vampires such as Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Count Saint-Germain and Dracula as played by Frank Langella.
If you had a time machine, which era would you go back to and why?
The late nineteenth century, if I could keep the same social position—wife of a high-ranking officer in the Navy (or, at present, a retired officer). The late Victorian era has always been my favorite period, but that century would not be a good time to be a poor or working-class woman. I love that time because so much of the classic fiction I’m fond of was published then, e.g. DRACULA, THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, the Sherlock Holmes series.
What life advice do you wish you’d been given sooner?
“Don’t wish your life away.” Actually, my grandmother frequently told me this when I was a little kid (saying things like, “I wish it was Christmas already”); I’m only now beginning to learn to apply it.
If you were a supernatural creature, what would you be and why?
I think it would be fun to be a were-cat. Cats don’t have to do anything but eat, sleep, and get petted. Also, I’ve always been more of a night person than a morning person.
Where do you write best?
On the computer in our home office, beside a window looking onto the back yard. Actually, that’s the only place I write.
What was the last book you read, and what were your thoughts on it?
DREAMWALKER, by C. S. Friedman. The sixteen-year-old heroine has strange, surrealistic dreams, which she tells to her thirteen-year-old brother, who incorporates them into his online roleplaying games. She also uses motifs from the dreams in her art, and when her works are put on display at school, a mysterious woman shows up wanting to buy them. Early in the novel, the heroine and her divorced mother get DNA testing to appease her pathologically suspicious father; the test result shows that she can’t be the child of her parents, which her mother insists is impossible. Soon afterward, their house burns down, and the heroine’s brother is kidnapped at the same time. The heroine has gotten in touch with two other “DNA orphans,” who help her travel through a portal to an alternate Earth in search of her brother. Amazingly, Friedman pulls all these elements together into an enthralling story. It’s fascinating the way everything turns out to be connected—the heroine’s true origin, her “dreamwalking” gift, the sinister Guilds that rule the other Earth (one of many parallel worlds), and the gray aliens they deal with. I especially like this novel because the changeling myth is one of my favorite motifs.
If you didn’t write in your genre, which other would you prefer and why?
I would enjoy writing mysteries if I had the gift for constructing a detective plot with cleverly embedded clues, because some of my favorite authors are cozy mystery writers (Dorothy Sayers, Susan Conant, Sharyn McCrumb).
Where can fans find you online?
Please explore love among the monsters at my website, Carter’s Crypt: http://www.margaretlcarter.com
My Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Margaret-L-Carter/212888768731562?ref=hl
I post weekly to the Alien Romances blog:
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/
Once a month, usually on the fifteenth, I post an entry on the VampChix and Bite Club blog about older, often neglected vampire fiction:
Filed under: Interviews with other authors Tagged: author interview, Elloras Cave, Erotic Romance, Margaret L Carter, paranormal romance
April 5, 2014
Book Review: Captivate Me by S.J. Pierce
Synopsis:
“My mom had always told me – when you meet “the one”, you’ll know; they’ll captivate your heart the moment you lay eyes on them. I had always wondered, though, if my mom’s words of wisdom were finite – if they applied to everyone. Maybe those who had found their one great love were the lucky few, and maybe the rest of us would have to settle for less than earth-shattering.”
Seventeen-year-old Kat Walsh is a Gifted – a human with paranormal abilities. With her mom a former Angel and her dad a dream prophet, it’s always been in her genetic make-up to be extraordinary. But, unfortunately for her, the world can’t handle the strange or unusual. So when she slips up and uses her powers at her high school in Ireland, the entire student body treats her like a freak – even the ones she thought were her closest friends.
Broken, but hopeful for a fresh start, she allows her parents to enroll her in a boarding school buried deep within the forests of a small Colorado town. At Midland Pines, School for the Gifted, she feels as though she can finally be herself; she makes new friends and even has the attention of the most popular guy in school – Levi. Everything feels normal again… or does it?
Not long after her arrival, weird dreams of an alluring boy whom she’s never met surface during the night, and the eerie, shadowy trees encircling their school seem to call to her. As these disturbing, yet enticing developments intensify, other bizarre occurrences happen – students and staff turn up missing, and mystery visitors leave gifts while she sleeps. With all of these other things fighting for her attention, a desperate Levi has to fight even harder to keep her interest. But with the dreams of the attractive boy slowly captivating her heart, Kat has to make a choice – will she settle for ‘great’ Levi, or will she search for her elusive dream visitor, possibly stumbling across ‘amazing’?
From the author of the Alyx Rayer Chronicles, comes a refreshingly different Young Adult series with plenty of love, suspense, and a new take on the Paranormal.
Recommended for readers 16 and up due to mature content.
About the Author: 
Susan James Pierce has a degree in Marketing Management, works for a Fortune 500 company in Atlanta, Georgia, and devotes her precious, spare time to writing Fantasy, Paranormal and Sci-fi novels.
Website Goodreads Facebook
My Review:
Captivate Me is a YA paranormal novel and really reminded me of Twilight. It was written in a way that made it easy to glide from chapter to chapter, and gave the reader a warm and traditional YA set-up of fated love and a circle of friends.
From a writer’s perspective, my only issue was the main character, although it’s told first person, which is what I generally prefer as a reader and writer, I found her hard to relate to and she didn’t really struggle much with her abilities. I think if she would have been slightly less powerfully, it would have been much easier to feel for her. But when you can move objects with your mind, well you need to stop complaining and just get on with it! Perhaps its me and I was looking for more of a troubled loner like Stephen King’s Carrie? I’ve said this many times before, but a YA book can commercially span the ages, if the characters and writing allow. Books such as Twilight, Beautiful Creatures and Warm Bodies, did this with ease – but in truth dancing that line is harder than it looks. You need to keep both teens and adults interested in the plot and characters.
The front cover is going to be very attractive the teen audience, it looks expensive and sets the tone for the book.
Overall, I’d give Captivate me 4 out of 5 stars – if you’re missing Twilight and looking for a YA book to fill the void, this one fits the bill.
Filed under: Book Review Tagged: Captivate Me S.J. Pierce, paranormal abilities, Susan James Pierce
April 4, 2014
Book Review: Living Dead Girl by Nessie Strange
Synopsis:
Jen MacLellan has hit a dead end…
Jen knows tattooed, blue-haired Jack Norris is trouble the minute he opens his front door. And being a mortician in the avante garde East Side of Providence, Jen has seen a lot. Jack has recruited Jen’s teenage brother Drew to play drums for his less-than-respectable punk band, and Jen has no choice but to follow their gigs to keep her little brother out of trouble. But when Drew goes missing, she finds herself in the awkward position of asking for Jack’s help. Shocked that he agrees, Jen decides she may have misjudged him. Worse, she might even like him.
But when Jen is brutally attacked, she awakens in the hospital where a Sid Vicious look-alike greets her with the news: she’s dead, and he’s the reaper assigned to take her away. Yeah, not so much. Refusing to leave, Jen’s spirit watches helplessly as her loved ones suffer, powerless to ease her family’s grief or prevent the police from accusing Jack of her murder. Desperate to help them, Jen convinces the reaper to bring her back. But reanimating corpses isn’t as easy as it looks, and neither is finding a killer before it’s too late…
About the Author: 
Nessie is a Massachusetts native and mother of two who has dabbled in everything from abstract painting to freelance sports reporting. She also loves a good story, whether it’s reading or writing one. Active membership in a writer’s critique group has helped erase the memory of two horribly written practice novels. LIVING DEAD GIRL is her first real novel.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19085911-living-dead-girl
https://twitter.com/NessieStrange
http://www.pinterest.com/nessiestrange/living-dead-girl/
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNessieStrange
http://nessieslivingdeadworld.blogspot.com
My Review:
Okay, so the storyline of this book sounded amazing, but I must admit I was kind of let down by the characters. Also, forgetting one scene in the book, it reads more like a YA than a NA or adult novel. And perhaps repackaging it that way might help with the sales and reviews. Teens love to read above their age group, so Jen would be the kind of protagonist they’d like. As an adult reader, I found the main relationship too sweet and the mystery part of the book, not much of a mystery to solve. The reaper/zombie part was interesting but not used to its full potential, which was a touch frustrating.
From a writer’s perspective, the relationships in the book seemed to occur outside of the paranormal aspect. In truth, if you had taken away the murder it would have read like a contemporary teen novel (which isn’t a bad thing) I just find that having a supernatural edge and not completely slicing down your characters with it, is a little pointless as an author. It also definitely need a bit more action too; it seemed to take a while to get anything juicy in there.
The front cover is very nice, again would easily appeal to a tweeny audience – so it wouldn’t actually take much to do a quick re-edit on the spice-ish scenes and re-release it under the YA banner.
Overall I’d give Living Dead Girl, 3 out of 5 stars. Not my cup of tea, but I still enjoyed reading it.
Filed under: Book Review Tagged: Bewitching book tours, etopia press, Living dead girl, nessie strange, Urban Fantasy
April 3, 2014
Book Spotlight: Dark Hope by H D Smith
Synopsis:
Loving a demon isn’t the end of the world—losing him is.
Claire, the Devil’s assistant, knows very little about the world she was dropped into five years ago, when she inherited her mother’s unpaid debt to the Demon King. She certainly didn’t expect to be a contender for the Fallen Queen’s throne, a target for the Druid King’s mafia, or a suspect in the murder of Junior, the Devil’s oldest hell spawn.
In a last ditch effort to save her life and get out of her deal with the Devil, she sets out to solve Junior’s murder only to be taken prisoner by the four most dangerous immortal hell spawn alive.
Not to be out done, the Pagan Queen Mab, claims Claire for entering her realm uninvited. She has an old debt to settle with her brother the Devil. Taking Claire from him after losing her years ago is just icing on the cake.
Will Claire win her freedom, and save herself from the Devil? Or be trapped by Mab forever?
About the Author:
HD Smith has been writing as a hobby for over ten years. DARK HOPE is her first traditionally published full length novel. She has previously self-published two middle grade novellas in ebook format. She is a software developer by day, working for an awesome cruise line in Celebration, FL.
HD grew up in South Carolina, but has called the Sunshine State home since 1997. She has Computer Science degrees from Clemson University (CS) and Florida Institute of Technology (MS). Her other hobbies include painting and screen printing. She enjoys creating t- shirts inspired by the places in her books. For more information, visit
HD’s website at http://www.hdsmithauthor.com/.
Website: http://www.hdsmithauthor.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hdsmithauthorpage
Twitter: https://twitter.com/floridaHeather
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7352038.H_D_Smith
Filed under: Book Review Tagged: Dark Hope, H D Smith, paranormal romance, Urban Fantasy
