Review: Down London Road by Samantha Young
Down London Road
(On Dublin Street, #2)
By: Samantha Young
Publisher: NAL
Published: May 7, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:
It has always been up to Johanna to care for her family, particularly her younger brother, Cole. With an absent father and a useless mother, she’s been making decisions based on what’s best for Cole for as long as she can remember. She even determines what men to date by how much they can provide for her brother and her, not on whatever sparks may—or may not—fly.
But with Cameron MacCabe, the attraction is undeniable. The sexy new bartender at work gives her butterflies every time she looks at him. And for once, Jo is tempted to put her needs first. Cam is just as obsessed with getting to know Jo, but her walls are too solid to let him get close enough to even try.
Then Cam moves into the flat below Jo’s, and their blistering connection becomes impossible to ignore. Especially since Cam is determined to uncover all of Jo’s secrets… even if it means taking apart her defenses piece by piece.
Jo has taken on the parental responsibilities of both her little brother and her unpredictable alcoholic mother. Joss has been making ends meet since the moment she was old enough to start working. She came to the realization that she can’t support her family on her own and has taken to accepting the advances and dating older, more established gentlemen. She doesn’t ask for money, but they like to spoil her with clothes and jewelry which she accepts. She knows that they will eventually get bored of her and move on, which is when she sells all the riches they bestowed upon her. Which helps pay the bills and puts money away for her little brother’s education. However, she finds herself reevaluating her life when she meets her new neighbor/co-worker, Cameron.
Jo was an interesting character. She’s not a gold digger like previously thought. She doesn’t ask for hand outs and she’s independent from the men she dates. No one knows about her life at home. No one knows about her mother or the fact that she is the sole provider for her little brother. So when Cam comes in the picture, inserting himself into her home life, her world is thrown off kilter.
Cam was one of those characters that you had to warm up to. He’s immediately judgmental towards Jo. He views her as nothing short of a paid whore and isn’t afraid to let his disgust show. However, he himself is dating an older woman. He’s actually dating Jo’s boyfriend’s ex. However, that fact is never really brought to the table. Even though he was extremely supportive of Jo, he did some questionable things. So it was nice that the characters weren’t flawless. They definitely had their “duh” moments.
This was a good story. I read On Dublin Street over a year ago and don’t really remember much from the story, let alone remember Jo. So this is definitely a story you can read as a stand alone. I enjoyed watching the layers of Jo peel page as the story progressed. She wasn’t necessarily complex but she was definitely someone who had a lot going on in her life. Her little brother was a character that popped up a lot in the book. He was kind of the silent brooding voice of reason that knew when to give Jo a push when she needed it. This story just came together really nicely and I’m really looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
“You know, the world will always try to make you into who it wants you to be. People, time, events, they’ll all try to carve away at you and make you think you don’t know who you are. But it doesn’t matter who they try to make you, or what name they try to give you. If you stay true, you can chip off all their machinations and you’re still you underneath it all.”
Review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Graceling
(Graceling Realm #1)
By: Kristin Cashore
Publisher: Harcourt
Published: Oct. 1, 2008
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating:
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight – she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.
When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.
She never expects to become Po’s friend.
She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace – or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away…
Katsa is a Graceling. She was born with a special gift that allows her to fight with extreme skill. She always wins when facing an opponent. She’s been her Uncle’s mercenary since she was young and she’s had enough. When another Graceling comes into the picture, she decides to leave her uncle and take off with the other Graceling on his quest. They come across some enemies along the way who have special gifts of their own.
The world that Kristin creates is amazing. This really didn’t read like a debut novel. She wrote such a great fantasy with strong characters. You won’t find any timid, self-conscious females here. Oh no, Katsa is as rough as they come. She’s not afraid of anything and she’s not looking to get married and have babies. Even Bitterblue (Po’s cousin) is a strong willed 10 year old girl who is wise beyond her years. She doesn’t take things at face value but she doesn’t voice her opinion, instead she seems to observe and take in everything. I really did enjoy all the characters in the story.
The author also does an amazing job with the plot and pacing. There wasn’t a lot of lag time where I was left skimming over pages. There was always something going on whether it was Katsa and her gift, Po and his gift, their journey to save Bitterblue or simply, what it’s like to live during those times. Everything flowed together nicely and I really did enjoy the story. I will definitely be reading Fire.
“If there’s anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I’ll hit him in the face.”
Review: At Grave’s End by Jeaniene Frost
At Grave’s End
(Night Huntress, #3)
By: Jeaniene Frost
Publisher: Avon
Published: Dec. 30, 2008
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating:
It should be the best time of half-vampire Cat Crawfield’s life. With her undead lover Bones at her side, she’s successfully protected mortals from the rogue undead. But though Cat’s worn disguise after disguise to keep her true identity a secret from the brazen bloodsuckers, her cover’s finally been blown, placing her in terrible danger.
As if that wasn’t enough, a woman from Bones’s past is determined to bury him once and for all. Caught in the crosshairs of a vengeful vamp, yet determined to help Bones stop a lethal magic from being unleashed, Cat’s about to learn the true meaning of bad blood. And the tricks she’s learned as a special agent won’t help her. She will need to fully embrace her vampire instincts in order to save herself—and Bones—from a fate worse than the grave.
This book has more action than the others. It seems like every time they turn around someone is trying to kill them. With all the action it left no time for romance between Bones and Cat but with everything going on, you hardly miss it. First Cat is attacked my her father, then there is a suicide bombing at a vampire ceremony where Bones aligns himself with a master vampire, Mencheres, who has special powers, Bones makes a couple more vampires and then there are even more attempts on their lives. I don’t want to go into too many details because the surprises in this book are rather shocking.
Even though there wasn’t a lot of Cat and Bones time, there was some. But I think my favorite part was with Tate and Cat. They get pretty close and steamy on a mission. They have to act like a couple and when the vamps don’t believe them, they are forced to get rather close and intimate. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t rooting for Tate. I don’t know why but for some reason in this book he really stepped up for me and plays a big part in Cat’s life.
The story moves at a fast pace and with all the battles that are taking place there is a lot going on. Cat’s mother is around a lot more in this book since she is staying with them after their location is compromised. She seems to lightening up some and isn’t as uptight as the last books. She has become more comfortable with Rodney the ghoul and even Bone’s as well.
Mencheres has a floor of his house where all of his feeder humans live. Some hope to become vamps, others have nowhere else to go and some are staying to pay their way through college. When Bones shows Cat the floor with all the humans on it, Juan pops out talking about how much he loves it there with all the beautiful women. Cat accuses Bones of turning him into an even bigger pig and Bones shrugs and says
“He’s just a bit overwhelmed with all the new senses. He’ll get used to them. Or get neutered if he forgets himself and even thinks of palming your arse, do you think I’m blind?”
He slapped at the hand wandering with feigned innocence near my hip.
“Control, amigo. Learn it.”
Previous reviews from Night Huntress
Halfway to the Grave
One Foot in the Grave
Review: Whatever Life Throws at You by Julie Cross
Whatever Life Throws at You
By: Julie Cross
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: Oct. 7, 2014
Genre: YA Romance
Rating:
Life loves a good curveball…
Seventeen-year-old Annie Lucas’s life is completely upended the moment her dad returns to the major leagues as the new pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals. Now she’s living in Missouri (too cold), attending an all-girls school (no boys), and navigating the strange world of professional sports. But Annie has dreams of her own—most of which involve placing first at every track meet…and one starring the Royals’ super-hot rookie pitcher.
But nineteen-year-old Jason Brody is completely, utterly, and totally off-limits. Besides, her dad would kill them both several times over. Not to mention Brody has something of a past, and his fan club is filled with C-cupped models, not smart-mouthed high school “brats” who can run the pants off every player on the team. Annie has enough on her plate without taking their friendship to the next level. The last thing she should be doing is falling in love.
But baseball isn’t just a game. It’s life. And sometimes, it can break your heart…
Annie’s father has just been hired to be an extra pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals (major league baseball). She’s excited to start a new life in KC… that is, until she realizes how flippin’ cold it gets. However, she makes the best of it and joins the track team at her all girls catholic school (she’s not even religious), and becomes friends with the first baseman’s daughter, Lenny (who also attends her school). What she isn’t expecting is to fall in love with the rookie pitcher, whom her father’s career is hanging on. You see, both men are on a trial run right now with the team, if the 19 year old rookie pitcher does bad, then her father does bad, and if the rookie doesn’t make the cut, Annie’s father gets the boot as well.
Julie Cross wrote an amazing story about young love that will give you butterflies. I thought this would be another cute young adult romance but I LOVED this. These characters don’t start off with the insta-love, or even the insta-lust. Nope, Julie did this romance the right way. You have a lot of awkward interactions between the two. Brody treats her like a little sister that he has to keep his eye on and Annie treats him like an obnoxious guy who she’s forced to deal with. They just sort of co-exist around each other for a while. Then slowly Annie develops feelings for Brody and finds herself battling the feelings because he has never once shown signs in viewing her as anything other than his coach’s daughter.
Not only was the romance perfect but the dialog was spot on. I was laughing out loud just about every other chapter. Annie is one witty chick and not an obnoxious witty like some characters. Nope, Annie was genuinely think-on-your-feet funny. She’s a chick that I’d love to be friends with. For instance in the beginning of the story when Annie gets to KC and checks out the stadium where he dad will be working, she walks in on Brody in the locker room wearing a towel. She plays it off as if she’s an intern reporter from Sports Illustrated there to do an interview with him and starts asking questions. Questions about his favorite color, if he adjusts how he throws his pitch when it’s windy, and if he could be any magical creature from Harry Potter, what would he be (at first he chooses a house elf and then changes it to an owl). Ha! That’s when he questions her about working for Sports Illustrated and she plays it cool and says that it’s for the KIDS EDITION! AND HE BELIEVES HER and continues answering. I laughed so hard at that. I must have read it 4 times. Then when I finished the book, I went back and read that part again. And that right there sets the stage for the rest of the book.
“Owls in real life are actually pretty stupid. But no big deal, I’ll just relay that message on to the children of America. Jason Brody, temporary Royals pitcher, wants to be an owl when he grows up because they know geography and shit like that.”
Julie Cross could not have written a more perfect love story for these two characters. She didn’t try to tie everything up giving it a feel good happily ever after. There are some things that never get resolved and are a little sad to think about but that’s life. At no point in this story did I think that the story was melodramatic. I loved every second of Whatever Life Throws at You.
I figured it was only fitting to have this part be highlighted since Derek Jeter is retiring this year.
“I bet even Derek Jeter had some friendly comradery with a batboy or something his rookie year. Someone who is far gone from his life now. That’s what I’ll be to Brody in twenty years – the forgotten batboy.”
Review: Chained By Night by Larissa Ione
Chained by Night
(Moonbound Clan Vampire, #2)
By: Larissa Ione
Published: Pocket Books
Published: Sept. 30, 2014
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Raiting:
THE FUTURE OF HIS TRIBE
Leader of the vampire clan MoonBound, Hunter will do what he must to save his people from extinction—or worse, a torturous eternity as vampire slaves and subjects of human experimentation.To keep his enemies at bay, he has agreed to mate a rival clan leader’s daughter in return for peace between the clans and an ally in the looming war with the humans.THE LOVER OF HIS SOUL
But survival comes at a price. First, Hunter must break an ancient curse by successfully negotiating three deadly tests. Then he must resist the searing passions of the gorgeous vampire warrior he despises but is bound to mate. Will Hunter stay true to his word? Or will he risk everything for the woman he really loves: the vampire seductress’s identical twin sister?
Guest Post: Every Ugly Word by Aimee L. Salter
Aimee L. Salter lives in Southern Oregon with her husband and son. She writes novels for teens and the occasional adult who, like herself, is still in touch with their inner-high schooler. She never stopped appreciating those moments in the dark when you say what you’re really thinking. And she’ll always ask you about the things you wish she wouldn’t.
Website | Twitter | Facebook
Do Authors Write Real People into their Books?
It’s a question I get asked a lot. After all, I wrote a book about a redhead (like me), who got bullied (like I did), in a high school that looks similar to my old school on the page.
It would be easy to think that I’d just taken my life and turned it into a story (except, maybe, the part about the main character being able to talk to her future self through the mirror). But the reality is, more often than not real life doesn’t actually translate well to fiction. Not to mention that if you’re trying to turn your real life or people you know into a book, there’s limited material available.
Instead what tends to happen is that authors become collectors and observers, constantly gathering emotions, events, and interactions from their real lives, and twisting them into something that serves a fictional story.
For example, in my book the main character, Ashley, is severely bullied at school. While none of the scenes in the book which show Ashley being bullied are reconstructions of moments like that in my life,
I did draw on my experiences – the emotions I felt; the expressions, body language, and motivations I gathered from those who’d targeted me. The type of responses from people who saw it happen.
Rather than taking my experiences and turning them into a story, I took the tones of people’s voices, the feelings I had when walking down the hall, the reasoning offered during arguments I had with teachers or coaches about the issue, and so much more.
My real life experiences inspired and fuelled my story. But in the end, the story had to be told in a way that would make it most satisfying for readers. That wasn’t a re-telling of my story. That is in using real life emotions to drive fictional characters.
There’s a famous quote from the Irish writer, John Connelly: “Writers are magpies by nature, always collecting shiny things, storing them away and looking for connections of things.”
I think he says it well. So, if you know an author of fiction, don’t worry. Chances are, if anything you’ve said or done is being magpied into a story, it won’t be recognizable to anyone else . . . except maybe the author!
Every Ugly Word
By: Aimee Salter
Publisher: Alloy Entertainment
Published: July 29, 2014
Genre: YA Contemporary
Goodreads | AmazonWhen seventeen-year-old Ashley Watson walks through the halls of her high school bullies taunt and shove her. She can’t go a day without fighting with her mother. And no matter how hard she tries, she can’t make her best friend, Matt, fall in love with her. But Ashley also has something no one else does: a literal glimpse into the future. When Ashley looks into the mirror, she can see her twenty-three-year-old self.
Her older self has been through it all already—she endured the bullying, survived the heartbreak, and heard every ugly word her classmates threw at her. But her older self is also keeping a dark secret: Something terrible is about to happen to Ashley. Something that will change her life forever. Something even her older self is powerless to stop.
Guest Post: Fierce by LG Kelso
L.G. Kelso is a fantasy and contemporary novelist. Having grown up watching Xena and Hercules with her grandmother, she inherited her passion for all things magic, paranormal and mythological. She also has a probably unhealthy obsession with martial arts, and as a boxer she strives to give readers an authentic view of MMA in her contemporary sports novel.
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Review: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Sharp Object
By: Gillian Flynn
Publisher: Broadway Book
Published: Jan 1, 20016
Genre: Mystery
Rating:
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.
Camille grew up in a very unhealthy home. Her sister was always sick and eventually passed away. Camille’s mother never cared for her and was very open in her dislike in Camille. So Camille acted out and would do a lot of things a young teenager shouldn’t do, let alone know about. So when she’s sent back to her hometown to cover a murder case, her past comes rushing up to meet her.
I don’t generally read these types of books. I am usually a romance reader. However, my book club chose this book for the month, so I grabbed a copy and sat down to read. I had no idea how much I would enjoy it. Gillian definitely knows how to tell one screwed up story. I didn’t know who to feel bad for, who to suspect for the murders or what was going to happen in the end. All I knew was that I was in for one heck of a ride.
Camille was an interesting character. She definitely has some mental issues from her childhood. She drinks non-stop, always thinks about cutting herself, and feels no shame or even acknowledges the questionable things she does or did when she was younger. However, she’s so screwed up that you can’t fault her for taking ecstasy with her 13 year old sister or sleeping with one guy and then jumping in bed with someone else who is like a year or two older than her sister. I mean, this woman has issues.
Her half sister who is half her age is a mystery. She’s either a sick hopeless child who gets doted on by her mother, the meanest provocative little 13 year old you’ll ever know, or an actual decent human being. However, she’s always in the picture somehow. Whether it’s at a party, out and about, or at someones house, her sister is always there with her gang of nasty little minions.
When you get to the end of the story everything falls into place. I mean, I’m not saying that I understand and that it was acceptable for that person to kill two little girls but I understand the why behind it. Hell, if you don’t understand why they did it, then you weren’t reading the book at all. I tell you, this book was a mind game. It was like playing the game Clue. This was a highly enjoyable read. I only wish I had picked up her other books when I was purchasing this one.
“I don’t mind the idea of spilling Wind Gap’s stories to Richard. I felt no particular allegiance to the town. This was the place my sister died, the place I started cutting myself. A town so suffocating and small, you tripped over people you hated every day. People who knew things about you. It’s the kind of place that leaves a mark.”
