Review

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake   5+ Stars

If you think the cover is beautiful (which it is), then you wait until you read the story!!

'Girls, on the other hand, have always come easy. I don't know why that is, exactly. Maybe it's the outsider vibe and a well-placed brooding look. Maybe it's something I think I see sometimes in the mirror, something that reminds me of my father. Or maybe I'm just damn easy on the eyes.'

Love Cas, his personality and inner monologue is fantastic!!.. Theseus Cassio Lowood, a Ghost Hunter NOT a Ghost Buster!! Instead of breaking hearts he's vanquishing spirits, sending the evil spirits away. He saving people and they don't even know it! And seriously, with an outstanding name like that could you expect anything less than total awesomeness!!!!
Anna, Anna Korlov AKA Anna Dressed In Blood - utterly grotesque, wicked, scary, confusing, vulnerable, strong, beautiful and terrible!!

This new Teen Horror from Kendare really stands out, not just because it's horror but it's really GOOD and because it's delving into a tried and test genre that is successful with teens and YA demographic!! Buffy, Charmed, Supernatural, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf .. the list goes on. If it works, go with it people!!

I really enjoyed the 1st Person POV because it made me feel like I was literally watching/reading a movie, there wasn't any crap that is page filler, it was all go, go, go. I immediately felt like I was watching an episode of Supernatural, with Dean or Sam, driving along looking gorgeous and kicking ass. But his confidence is tested (beaten to a pulp) when Cas and his mother move to Thunder Bay to hunt Anna Korlov - Anna Dressed In Blood and end her killing spree. But will Cas' strength and skill beat enough to overcome whats in hiding in that house!!
Oh, it was great how Kendare managed to slip romance in between the pages of murder and dismemberment given that the story really and truly is 'Boy meets girl. Girl kills People story'.. I'm still smiling!

Definitely read it, I think Kendare has only just started (what a start) and will very quickly become a very popular YA author, with us readers scrambling over eachother for her next story!!

That cover.. I just love it!!

Review

My Darling Caroline by Adele Ashworth  5 stars

Well Brent is a hero you lust after, then you love him, then you hate him, then you want to kick him in the nut sack, repeatedly, then you love him and want to do anything for him.... "Oh, Brent, please take me now!!!"

Caroline is a Botanist, she is some what of a Genius at breeding flowers, and mathematics. But alas, she is a woman and it's not acceptable to have breasts and brains back then. Caroline is one of five blonde delicate daughters, and she's the only brunette and the only un-married one, who dreams of leaving to New York to study further in her field. But Dad has different plans, and more or less sells her to Brent, so they get married, and the sexual tensions starts to build.
Brent is very intense, with his shocking honesty and blatant desires pushing Caroline to rise up and verbally spar with him, proves she is certainly not push over. This intensity only makes it juicier and only adds to the tension between them as she is not just going to lie down and take it. (pardon the pun)

I didn't connect as much with Brent and Caroline as I have with previous couples, but that doesn't mean they weren't great. The chemistry was great and the sex was hot, but I think Brent repeated telling Caroline that he will never love her, kind of made me raise my armour around him, and so I never quite warmed..

I will say that when Brent discovers what Caroline had planned to do, which was leave him, the serve he gives her, is without a doubt the most heart wrenching, hurtful and cold I have read, it was fantastic!! Oh he is such a bastard to her, stomping all over her heart with his big muddy boots. When she is realistically 90% innocent and only 10% guilty, but he won't even let her get a word in.
I think this made it difficult for me to actually forgive Brent, to be honest I was actually reading it thinking "I would tell him to go and f*#@ himself!!"...  I guess I was a little more hurt by Brent, than Caroline was.

Anyway, personal feelings aside, Caroline remains a strong heroine despite being married off to a complete stranger, her life plans and ambitions thrown away and then inevitably falling in love with him.

The ending was great though, and Brent definitely earns his points back, but I can't help but feel that Caroline should have kicked Brent in the nut sack, at least once..!! he deserved it, trust me!

Review

Fade by Lisa McMann  5 Stars

Well.. This book took me through the ringer..

It was happy, nice, tense, uncomfortable, scary, uncomfortable, creepy, sad, really sad, and at the end of it I mostly felt sad and creeped out.. Really creeped out!

I guess it was the subject matter that it dealt with. Janie is asked to use her Dream Catching ability to discover what Teacher at her high school is a sexual predator on the students. So you think, okay maybe it might get a little uncomfortable to read in certain areas.

Allot uncomfortable! I was creeped out. Its very good and very well done, but I shuddered for at least a few hours afterwards.

Again this dealt with subject matter that is not cookie cutter, 'I like the cute guy in school and he won't look at me.' It dealt with abuse, sex, rape, date rape drugs, under age drinking, sex with minors, pills, inappropriate behaviour, oh it's all really juicy stuff.

But it also dealt with love and relationships and how people deal with emotional and physical abuse, how we 'get over' things that are done to us. Can we?

I guess the reason I felt so sad and creeped out is because this stuff does actually happen in our schools and really it's every girls, kids, parents nightmare.

Very good and I am waiting for my copy of 'Gone.'

I just got the cover of the book! dah!