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The Arrivals

Melissa Marr (Goodreads Author)

3.14 · Rating details · 2,481 ratings · 457 reviews

The Arrivals is the second novel for adults by internationally bestselling author Melissa Marr.

Chloe walks into a bar and blows five years of sobriety. When she wakes, she finds herself in an unfamiliar world, The Wasteland. She discovers people from all times and places have also arrived there: Kitty and Jack, a brother and sister from the Wild West; Edgar, a prohibition ...more

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Hardcover, 274 pages

Published July 2nd 2013 by William Morrow

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Mar 02, 2013 Laura Martinelli rated it it was ok

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy, own, arc, saved-from-work

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I really don’t like to sit here and say “How dare an author try to overstep their genres and try to write something different!”; I really don’t. I like it when authors I like do diversify and bring something different, even if it’s just a matter of how old the target audience is. Case in point: Melissa Marr. I really love the first three books in her Wicked Lovely series, enjoyed Carnival of Souls and I…have things to say about Graveminder. It’s not that I want her to just write YA urban fantasy ...more

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Jun 27, 2013 Mogsy (MMOGC) rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, magic, western, science-fiction

3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...

This book was a bit quirky and slightly odd at times, but for me it was like a breath of fresh air. It's different from the stuff I usually pick up, and ultimately it may have been a little too bizarre for my tastes, but I certainly don't regret reading it. When it comes to originality and interesting ideas, this book gets massive points.

My love for speculative fiction, especially when other genres are infused with a par 3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...

This book was a bit quirky and slightly odd at times, but for me it was like a breath of fresh air. It's different from the stuff I usually pick up, and ultimately it may have been a little too bizarre for my tastes, but I certainly don't regret reading it. When it comes to originality and interesting ideas, this book gets massive points.

My love for speculative fiction, especially when other genres are infused with a paranormal twist, is what drew me to this book in the first place. A fantasy western about a group of people from different times and places all mysteriously ending up in an unfamiliar world called the Wasteland? It sounded too intriguing to pass up.

Other than the fact this Wasteland is full of monsters and other unsavory types, however, I didn't know much else about the novel, so I settled back and prepared to let myself be drawn in. And that's exactly what the story did, thanks to the unusual but simply extraordinary ideas I found in here. The characters are a motley group made up of: Jack and Kitty, siblings from the Wild West; Edgar, a bootlegger from the time of the prohibition; Francis, a hippie; Hector, a former carnie; and Melody, a crazy 1950s housewife. And then there's Chloe, the newest addition to the team, who passes out one night in 2013 after a crazy night of binge drinking, and wakes up in the Wasteland.

These "Arrivals" were all ne'er-do-wells in the times they came from, but the most remarkable thing about them is what happens after they die -- or rather, what doesn't happen. Death isn't always permanent, but they don't find out whether it is or not until days later when the Arrival who died either wakes up good as new...or they don't. Their nemesis is a man called Ajani, a force of evil they have been struggling against ever since the first Arrival came to the Wasteland.

This is very much a character-driven novel, and their relationship dynamics form the basis for much of the story. Jack and Kitty take center stage most of the time and sometimes Chloe, even though I wished more attention could have been paid to the other Arrivals, such as Melody. I gathered she's pretty unbalanced through the fearful conversations the others have about her and their reluctance to get too close, but I would have loved to see more examples of Melody living up to her reputation. There are great characters here, but it's a pretty short book and it's just a shame the secondary characters don't get more screen time.

As I said, the book has many interesting and original ideas, and expect to have a lot of questions when reading this. If you're like me and prefer your books to also provide the answers, then you might find it a little frustrating, because at times you'll feel like you're only getting half the story. I was disappointed that there weren't more explanations, but the good news is that this doesn't diminish the quality of the world building. The Wasteland is not as desolate as it sounds, and the essence of the land and its creatures will constantly surprise you.

In many ways, The Arrivals is the kind of book you have to take as it is, and just go with the flow. I'm not a big fan of info-dumps, but I also like some explanations when they're warranted, and I have to say I enjoyed this book a lot more once I've accepted that I probably won't get answers to all my questions. What this novel offers, though, is a story of adventure about an unusual but fascinating group of people, and what they mean to each other. There's nothing out there like it! ...more

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Jun 30, 2013 Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies rated it did not like it

Shelves: why-do-i-hate-myself, did-not-finish, alternate-universe, parallel-time, boring-main-character, siblings

Possible DNF. Very brief review to come.

I cannot recall a damn thing that is memorable about this book. I can't even begin to tell you what the plot is because it is so forgettable and dull.

It is a spaghetti western that's the equivalent of riding in a bus full of tourists to Las Vegas and looking at the scenery outside the window (hint: there's nothing there but desert shrubs). ...more

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Aug 08, 2013 Mandy Moody rated it it was ok

Shelves: fanstasy

This was not very good.
My first instinct is to say that it felt unfinished but when I think about it for a moment longer I realize that it felt un-started and undeveloped, too. It was annoying.
The Arrivals is one of these books that drops you into a world without any explanation, and you go from there. This is a device that authors use with varying degrees of success. Sometimes it's exciting to feel a little lost, and then exhilarating when you begin to make discoveries about this world and how This was not very good.
My first instinct is to say that it felt unfinished but when I think about it for a moment longer I realize that it felt un-started and undeveloped, too. It was annoying.
The Arrivals is one of these books that drops you into a world without any explanation, and you go from there. This is a device that authors use with varying degrees of success. Sometimes it's exciting to feel a little lost, and then exhilarating when you begin to make discoveries about this world and how things work there.
But when it's poorly done it just leaves the reader stranded in this world where the rules are different and things are thrown at them without there being any hope of them figuring out how to manage any of it.
The Arrivals was the second kind.
Information about The Wasteland is just kind of dropped in our lap, without a lot of context or any explanation. I didn't feel LOST (it wasn't complicated enough for that) but I felt a mild irritation. Mild, because I didn't CARE enough about any of it.

The characters were equally under developed. Kitty and Jackson are sister and brother. They've been in the Wasteland for 26 years. They are close. Jackson doesn't love anyone. Kitty loves Edgar, but she's afraid to be close to him because she doesn't want to lose him and be hurt. Chloe is a new arrival. Jackson likes her more than he's ever liked anyone. There are ancillary characters - Melody is crazy, Francis is sweet, Hector is quiet but capable (incidentally, Hector is also the character that we hear the absolute LEAST about, which makes it entirely unremarkable when it turns out he was a spy for the bad guy.)
Ajani is a bad guy. He leads another band of arrivals. Daniel is one of them - a former member of our group and a former lover of Kitty's. None of this matters in the least.
Garuda is a native of the Wasteland. Jack trusts him. Kitty does not. He leads a group of bloedzuigers, which are kind of like vampires (the bloedzuigers were the only thing about this book that was even sort of cool, and they were in it for about 3 pages TOTAL.)
And my few paragraphs there give JUST AS MUCH information as Marr does in the entire book. I swear.

There's this romance element to the book that is just lame. Kitty and Edgar are the main story and their relationship is just one more annoyance. Edgar threatens Kitty constantly - "if you do this, I won't be here for you anymore." And she's all "Okay! You were right anyway."
Bleck. I am not drawn in, I am not rooting for anyone, I am certainly not breathless with anticipation.
Jack and Chloe were much better than that, but their relationship really wasn't about anything more than a physical connection (despite attempts to make it otherwise) and we never REALLY got anywhere with it. So it was unsatisfying, too.
Just like the whole book.

At least this was a stand-alone and not the start to a series! ...more

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May 18, 2013 Kayla rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: signed

I was fortunate enough to get an ARC of this at RT this year. That made me happy since I had been wanting to read it anyway. I'm so glad I did!

First of all, let me say that I'm not a big wild west fan. I never have been; dusty towns and cowboy shoot-outs have never interested me. But throw in some supernatural time-travely stuff and a band of misfits, and I am in!

The Arrivals tells the story of the Arrivals - people from our world that for one reason or another get transported to this place call ...more

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Aug 27, 2013 Amanda rated it it was ok

I wish I could give a full review, however I didn't even finish the book. I was only about 50 pages away from the end...and yet I have absolutely no interest in finishing it. I have no investment in the characters, I have no investment in the plot. I'm not one for western settings, but surprisingly I did enjoy this one in particular. However, I found the plot to be slow moving, the characters mostly unlikeable, although not 2-dimensional.

Perhaps for me it is Miss Marr's writing that I can't cop ...more

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Jun 16, 2016 Gabriel rated it it was ok

Shelves: gifted, did-not-like

this book did not meet my expectations

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Jul 04, 2013 Wyatt Packard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, sci-fi, favorites

The Arrivals takes place in the Wasteland, an alien desert environment with towns and characters strongly reminiscent of a classic western. The Arrivals themselves are people from our world that end up in the Wasteland. Each Arrival is from a different time, ranging from the Old West to the present day, making the novel filled with a very unique cast of characters. Kitty and Jack lead the group of Arrivals, taking odd jobs from the regions governor to earn some cash. One of The Arrival's strange ...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Shelley rated it liked it

Shelves: 2013-releases

*Genre* Western, Fantasy, Paranormal, Adult
*Rating* 3-3.5

*First Thoughts*

The synopsis of this book is kind of misleading in that it makes it sound as though Chloe is the main character and thus the story teller of The Arrivals. Which, in fact, is not true at all. I would say that Jack and his sister Katherine (Kitty) are the main protagonists, with the secondary characters being Edgar, Francis, Melody, Hector, and then Chloe who just happens to be the last Arrival added to the motley crew that h ...more

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Nov 12, 2013 Taylor rated it did not like it

I was excited about this book. The premise sounded super interesting and I thought it'd be fun to get into a Western swing of things. But the book just felt entirely too flat to me. Usually I'll finish a book pretty quickly, but i had to force myself to keep reading this one. I didn't care about any of the characters, and the plot itself seemed distant most of the book. Basically the bad guy is bad and we must kill him. Character relationships were lacking throughout, and both romances felt cont ...more

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Sep 17, 2020 Margaret Bamford rated it liked it

A different book than I usually read but one which I found entertaining.

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Dec 30, 2018 Amy Norris rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book has a great world and pretty interesting characters, but where the hell was the story? The premise is GREAT - a recovering alcoholic wakes up in a Wild West style world (that has dragons and vampires and other monsters) and meets a band of other ‘arrivals’ including a carni, a mobster from the prohibition period, a hippie, and an unhinged 50’s housewife. This could have been great but unfortunately it was SO short. This is a very short stand alone book. It either needed to be much much ...more

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May 06, 2013 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc-s, 110in2013, 2013

This review first appeared on www.medusaslibrary.com

The Arrivals is a fantasy western. Let's just take a moment and look at those words, shall we? A Fantasy... Western. Can you think of many other fantasy westerns? There's The Dark Tower and...
Ok, so there are some steampunk westerns out there. Railsea and Iron Council have fantastical elements in a Western-ish setting. Dead Reckoning has steampunk and zombies.
But I'm talking gun slingers, saloons, and magic. There isn't much of it out there, bu This review first appeared on www.medusaslibrary.com

The Arrivals is a fantasy western. Let's just take a moment and look at those words, shall we? A Fantasy... Western. Can you think of many other fantasy westerns? There's The Dark Tower and...
Ok, so there are some steampunk westerns out there. Railsea and Iron Council have fantastical elements in a Western-ish setting. Dead Reckoning has steampunk and zombies.
But I'm talking gun slingers, saloons, and magic. There isn't much of it out there, but Melissa Marr gives us just that.
The book is smanbatet in the Wasteland. It's a strange world full of various forms of not-quite-humans. There are miners who have evolved to work underground. There are the bloedzuigers, who are equivalent to vampires (think the really ugly man-bat form from Bram Stoker's Dracula). There are cyanthropes, aka werewolves. Then there are the Arrivals. Arrivals are from our world. They don't know how they got to the Wasteland. They don't know if there's a way to get home. They come from all different eras starting with siblings Jack and Kitty from the 1870's and going up to the newest Arrival, Chloe who came from 2010.
If an Arrival dies she might stay dead or she might wake up in six days. No one knows until it happens. The only other thing that the Arrivals have in common; they've all killed someone back in the "real" world. It might have been for a good reason, but they all have blood on their hands.
Jack and Kitty believe that they have to use their strange powers to improve the Wasteland. They're in direct opposition to the mysterious Ajani. He seems interested only in personal profit. The siblings are constantly fighting Ajani for the most precious resource in the Wasteland - new Arrivals.

I read this while I was on jury duty and it did a great job of keeping me from feeling like I was in a weird, perpetual waiting room. At the same time, that feeling of being trapped in a bureaucratic Purgatory probably added something to my experience with the book. We'd all done something to land ourselves in jury duty, right?

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. The characters were interesting and the world building was phenomenal. The only thing I can really complain about is that the book was too short. It's not that I felt shortchanged at the end, just that I wasn't ready to leave yet. The End came about 100 pages too soon for me. I have so many questions left! I really hope that Marr plans to turn this into a new series. I'm not saying that it's bad as a standalone, because it isn't. But there's still so much I want to know. ...more

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Jul 24, 2013 Creepypasta & Squirrels rated it it was amazing

So, this is my first Melissa Marr book, which, knowing my penchant for the young adult genre, is as surprising to me as to anyone that it'd be one of her two adult books I'd be reading first. Especially when those who know me and my reading habits would have assumed I'd already devoured her "Wicked Lovely" YA urban fantasy series for teens and young adults long ago, right? Well, even though I am aware of those books, and have them on my horribly long to-be-read list, I just haven't gotten around ...more

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Jan 24, 2015 Alyssa De jesus rated it really liked it

I've read a lot of negative reviews about this book. They said it's a complete waste of time...I disagree. Melissa Marr always takes me to a completely different world everytime and this book is no different. Okay, it's a little dry but I was still so interested about the character development and the relationships among them. But what's up with Hector though? Where has he gone to? Or what happened to him? I couldn't believe he got away with what he did! He shoudn't really. And two thumbs up on ...more

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Aug 07, 2013 Jennifer rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

The Good: The premise was awesome. What a perfectly unique idea. People, ripped from their own time periods, brought together in this unfamiliar land having no idea how or why. The execution of the characters themselves was spectacular. You'd think that the supernatural angles would be overkill on top of a solid science fiction base, but you'd be wrong in this case. They meshed well and caused a majority of the novel to go in directions you could never see coming.

The Bad: Westerns aren't my thin ...more

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Apr 11, 2017 robbie cowman rated it did not like it

I've been reading this book for more than 2 months, and I honestly wish I DNF'ed it at page 50. It was so short and I was more than halfway through so I couldn't justify it, but this was a real struggle. It had more cons than pros but the cover's nice. Never again. ...more

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Jan 06, 2014 Sarah ~Sehrenity~ rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2014

I was entertained, but this wasn't a very exciting read. Mostly, people just went along with whatever happened, and then end wasn't very dramatic. Just a calm, strange read. ...more

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Sep 17, 2017 Christopher rated it liked it

Shelves: library

Just OK for what it is. The writing is OK, the pacing is OK, the characters are OK.

...more

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May 27, 2017 Tiffany Marin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Chloe walks into a bar, blowing 5 years of sobriety and the next thing she knows she finds herself waking up in a completely unfamiliar world. Where she fell asleep in the year 2013, she finds herself in something that can be only compared to the old west of American history. Here she meets a group of people from all times and places who have arrived at different times. There's Kitty and Jack Reed, a brother & sister from the actual wild west; Edgar, a prohibition bootlegger; Francis, a one-time Chloe walks into a bar, blowing 5 years of sobriety and the next thing she knows she finds herself waking up in a completely unfamiliar world. Where she fell asleep in the year 2013, she finds herself in something that can be only compared to the old west of American history. Here she meets a group of people from all times and places who have arrived at different times. There's Kitty and Jack Reed, a brother & sister from the actual wild west; Edgar, a prohibition bootlegger; Francis, a one-time hippy; Melody, a mentally unstable housewife from the 1950's; and Hector, a former carnival artist. None of them know why or how they've arrived there other or how they'll make it home, if they ever do. But they've banned together to fight to survive against the creatures and the people that populate this strange new world filled with monsters, some of whom are the human kind.

The Arrivals once again showed the talent that Melissa Marr has in world creation. She managed to make you feel like you were actually there. She didn't just create a world but managed to populate it with a variety of creatures, of both the human and nonhuman variety. The citizens of the towns managed to show the instinctual mistrust that many of us have of anyone that's different and how much different can you be than someone that's appeared out of nowhere dressed in the various time periods? I love the characters, even the ones that are evil. I particularly loved Garuda and enjoyed the scenes between him and Kitty. I enjoyed that unlike so many fantasy genre novels, there was no one that was completely evil (okay, Ajani came pretty close. He was seriously slimy) or completely good. They all have flaws. I loved the relationships between all of the Arrivals and the way they had each other's backs, especially Kitty and Edgar, and of course Kitty and Jack, all while they gave each other crap. They were like a real family. I really loved watching the relationship between Chloe and Jack evolve. All in all, it was interesting seeing Melissa Marr's foray into writing an adult novel but I really enjoyed it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006... ...more

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Nov 14, 2020 Elizabeth Mellen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, fantasy, words-and-whimsy-book-club-recs

This was very weird., which isn't bad so much as not what I expected (or maybe wanted right now). I went in thinking it was going to be just portal fantasy, but the Wasteland that the Arrivals found themselves was a lot for me. I'd compare this to Down Among the Sticks and Bones + Wild West, but it just didn't work for me. ...more

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Sep 25, 2018 Jennifer Shusko rated it it was amazing

OMG this book is amazing!!!! I seriously could not get enough!!!! For the first time in a long time I lost sleep, I just couldn’t stop thinking about the story and the characters even when I tried to force myself to. I don’t want to spoil anything but this book is well written, and a truly addicting story. I enjoyed every page and can’t wait to read more by this author. So much love!!!!!!!

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Jan 24, 2020 Abby Lewis rated it it was amazing

Brilliant. Would love a second book to this!

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Aug 18, 2020 Sarah Elizabeth rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2020, lg, as, romance, vampires, adult, death, kindle, paranormal

2.5 stars
This was pretty boring. It dropped you in at the deep end, it was slow, and the whole thing just dragged, and dragged. Bored.

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Nov 18, 2020 Amber Smith rated it really liked it

This was so different than anything I have read by Melissa Marr. I really enjoyed it. I liked Jack and Chloe. I also loved the side characters. It was a weird awesome world. I would recommend it.

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May 07, 2013 Jessica (a GREAT read) rated it liked it · review of another edition

I received this ARC while at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. I was in no way compensated for this review.

I was most happy to receive and ARC of Melissa Marr's next adult release, The Arrivals, while at RT. Although the story seemed odd, I was willing to try it out. And it was definitely a bit odd. Even after finishing I am still left wondering the why of everything. I feel stupid for having missed why these people were brought to the Wasteland. It's not that the storytelling wasn't goo ...more

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Jan 02, 2018 Ainslee rated it it was ok

I really did not care for this book. I felt that the characters were stereotypical and two dimensional. Not impressed at all. However, if you enjoy westerns with a psychedelic twist this might just be for you.

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Dec 03, 2013 Shannon (Savhage Temptrest) rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks

The Arrivals by Melissa Marr has an interesting, quirky, and entertaining premise that almost sounds like a bad joke gone horrible awry:

Delivery: A twenty-something woman walks into a bar blowing five years of sobriety after catching her fiancé screwing her boss in her own bed...
Punch Line: Said woman wakes up in a distant and desolate and desert dystopian world called The Wastelands that is as harsh and merciless to its inhabitants and new arrivals as the name suggests.

And let’s not forget The Arrivals by Melissa Marr has an interesting, quirky, and entertaining premise that almost sounds like a bad joke gone horrible awry:

Delivery: A twenty-something woman walks into a bar blowing five years of sobriety after catching her fiancé screwing her boss in her own bed...
Punch Line: Said woman wakes up in a distant and desolate and desert dystopian world called The Wastelands that is as harsh and merciless to its inhabitants and new arrivals as the name suggests.

And let’s not forget the horse size canines with a distinct taste for all things flesh or the bloedzuigers who are the equivalent to what we refer to as vampires but much more primal and vicious than we could ever imagine or than the movies and TV could ever depict.

Of course, the 1800’s western gambler brother and saloon girl sister team, a 1920’s Prohibition gangster thug, a 1950’s housewife with mental issues, a 1970’s hippie that has enjoys his medicinal and recreational herbs a great dealt, and a 1980’s tattooed carnie with an affinity for knives were not exactly the nurturing companions to wake up to in this strange world either, but fate is funny when it comes to sins and atonement or so the leader of this group, Jack, believes. And we certainly cannot forget Jacks’ nemesis, the British megalomaniac with godhood on his brain, insanity in his eyes, and a wealth of power and influence to obtain all he desires in the Wastelands with the exception Katherine, Jack’s sister and the only magic worker in their group, and she has no intention of joining Ajani and his people no matter what he offers her.

With all these personalities and conflicts, new arrival Chloe will have to decide fast where her loyalties lie even if she has only been in the Wastelands for a couple of days: stay with the ragtag group of killers that include the sexy cowboy she can’t seem to stop thinking about or go with the power-hungry group of strangers that live comfortably even if it is at the expense of native Wastelanders and any other people who get in their way. More importantly, she will also have to consider the one thing both Jack and Ajani’s groups have in common with one another: all the Arrivals have killed someone in the world and time period they came from.

I have to say, I liked this story overall even though there were some confusing moments in the story and some questions that remained unanswered in the end. One of the most confusing aspects in this book was the alternating point of views of the main characters. I enjoyed Jack and Chloe’s point of views and I could tolerate Kitty’s even with her temperamental issues, but Ajani’s was odd and it also felt too underdeveloped. I felt like there was something missing and even though I understood the man was unstable and a bit on the insane side, I felt like I never really found out exactly what it was he was after besides power and I just could not connect with him even though his villainy made sense to the story. I did enjoy the humor, the action, the mystery, and the backdrop of the story though, and the characters were very well written and developed throughout the book. I particularly liked the addition of the bloedzuigers and how their motivations and personalities came into play. Garuda was quite interesting and I liked the dynamic of his “pack” and enjoyed the “etiquette” he practiced when dealing with Jack or Kitty. Ms. Marr did leave the ending open for possibly future books in this world, but she also made this book a standalone which I appreciated as no author seems to write just one novel.

All in all, The Arrivals was a fun, interesting, and unique book that I would recommend to fans of the author or fans of Paranormal/Urban Fantasy genres. I give this book a high 3 ½ stars in the end.
...more

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Jul 13, 2013 KWinks rated it really liked it

This has to be one of the most original stories I have read in years. If you are not drawn in by the cover, or by the fact that this is by Melissa Marr (I loved Graveminder), then I don't know how to sell it to you. Is is SciFi? I say yes. Is it fantasy? Also yes. Is it a Western? Meh, not really. I tore into this in a blaze and right away I made the guess that they were all characters in a video game. That made the most sense to me. Whether I was right or not, I'll never tell.
Here's what I wil This has to be one of the most original stories I have read in years. If you are not drawn in by the cover, or by the fact that this is by Melissa Marr (I loved Graveminder), then I don't know how to sell it to you. Is is SciFi? I say yes. Is it fantasy? Also yes. Is it a Western? Meh, not really. I tore into this in a blaze and right away I made the guess that they were all characters in a video game. That made the most sense to me. Whether I was right or not, I'll never tell.
Here's what I will say: this is completely original. It's fast paced. It has elements I've never come across before, and some that I thought I knew but that appear in a different form here. It's not a beach read, and it will not appeal to anyone who wants a story handed to them in a tight package with a tiny bow. And all of that is OKAY by me. I appreciated that the romance was not the driving force in the story.
What I had some trouble with was 1. the world building-it's not complete and what we are given isn't satisfying at all. We see one tiny sliver of the Wasteland, and it's the one created by the "arrivals" not the natives, so it's not even the real Wasteland. 2. Characterization- everyone is really only a single layer. Jack and Kitty are fleshed out a bit more than the others, but not by much. No one seems to evolve beyond the time period they came from. 3. The villain- he's nuts, but beyond that who is he and what does he want? Why does he want Kitty so badly when he can do what she does already? It feels a little incomplete. 4. Repetition- there is a ton of repetition. Page after page about how much Jack trusts Garuda, about about how he is the leader of the group. I could have used a lot less repetition about stuff we already know (I should have counted how many time the phrase "Garuda is on Jacks' short list of people he trusts" showed up) and more time on stuff we don't- like why we should even care about Chloe and where do the goods come from in the stores? How do people survive in the Wasteland, what kind of history did this world have?, and what other creatures roam the desert at night?

So, overall, a good read. I wonder if it will be a series and if more will be fleshed out later. I recommend it to people who are looking for something "different" to read. As I am still waiting for a sequel to Graveminder, we may have a bit of a wait, but I would read about the group again.

A cover note: I had it in my mind for the first 100 pages that Edgar was supposed to be a Charlie Chaplin type, because he does not look like a gangster on the cover- I would have given him a fedora and a tommy gun, not a Victorian dandy-ish cane. Also, Chloe never wears a dress, and Kitty's never described as wearing that full of a skirt. A bustle would have been more appropriate. I do LOVE the graphics! ...more

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Aug 09, 2013 Cheryl rated it liked it

Shelves: scifi, fantasy

For such an intriguing premised, the execution fell flat. I'll give it 3 generous stars just for the concept.

The story: A group of people, the Arrivals, each from a different point in history, now live on a barren world, fighting against one great evil and helping the rest of the wastelanders survive.

As far as characters, we have Jack and Kitty, brother and sister from the old West, Edgar from Chicago's mob, and Chloe, from today.

All gives us a Farscape-esque universe of strange aliens, evil to ...more

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About Melissa Marr

Melissa Marr

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Melissa Marr is a former university literature instructor who writes fiction for adults, teens, and children. She is best known for the Wicked Lovely series for teens, the Graveminder for adults, and her debut picturebook Bunny Roo, I Love You.

Her books have been translated into twenty-eight languages and been bestsellers internationally as well as domestically (NY Times, Los Angeles Times, USA T ...more

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Fire-breathing monsters, magical monks, and a scrappy band of human misfits live in a bleak landscape in this paranormal writer's new fantasy...

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“The woman held out a hand to Chloe. “Name’s Kitty.”

“This is a very vivid hallucination,” Chloe told her.

“And that’s Jack… short for jackass,” Kitty continued as if Chloe hadn’t spoken.” — 3 likes

“An armed fool could be more dangerous than an experienced shooter.” — 2 likes

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