Ignite

Ignite is the first in a series of 4 YA paranormal romances

THE BLURB:  

Kira Dawson has the power to burn vampires to a crisp. The problem is, she doesn't know it yet. The even bigger problem is, she's dating one.

When Kira Dawson moves to South Carolina, she meets Luke, a blond goofball who quickly becomes her best friend, and Tristan, a mysterious bad boy who sends shivers down her spine. Kira knows they're keeping secrets, but when she discovers Tristan's lust for blood and her own dormant mystical powers, Kira is forced to fight for her life and make the heartbreaking decision between the familiar comfort of friendship and the fiery passion of love.

MY THOUGHTS:

This book wasn't all terrible, but there is little here to praise. It reads like a first draft that needs a LOT of work.

Firstly, this book dearly needs an editor. The first few pages had so many errors (grammar, etc) that I had to make a point to ignore them if I was going to give he story a fair shot. The mistakes continued throughout.

Then, other than the original idea of conduits, the rest of the book was very derivative. Everything else here has been written before, many times over. The beginnng felt just like a poor man's Twilight. New girl in a new school, her new friends point out the table of "unusual" kids in the cafeteria, the vampire boy is torn between his desire to love the human girl and to drain her blood.

Several things were not explained to the readers' satisfaction. Did NO ONE question it when they found the school auditorium reduced to rubble? Also, inconsistencies and questionable explanations abound. A baby is said to be 3 months old when certain events occur, but when those events are described later the child acts in a manner fitting a much older infant. In fact, we are later told the baby was a year old at the time, instead of the 3 months mentioned before.

Can you really drive away from the "eye of an eclipse"? If 3 glasses are filled with your blood, after a vamp has already taken some blood from you directly, are you really going to get up to attempt to flee? And what is with, "He's not dead yet, but his heart stopped, and I'm not sure for how long"?

A couple of the characters had promise, but they are not developed enough. Two people become BFFs after only a couple of scenes where nothing much special happens. As far as the romance, the attraction is clear, but the parts that would solidify actually falling in love are glossed over instead of being actual realized scenes.

Ms. Davis' writing may very well have matured since putting out this book (and she may have hired editing services for later books), and not everything here was bad. As a novel overall, however, Ignite just does not work. I will not be reading any other installments in the series.

MY RATING:

2 booksies

 

Author Website: http://www.kaitlyndavisbooks.com/p/about-me.html

Thorn

Thorn is a standalone novel by indie author Intisar Khanani. She has plans for a companion trilogy, which would be set in the same world as Thorn, but with a different heroine.


THE BLURB:

For Princess Alyrra, choice is a luxury she's never had ... until she's betrayed.

Princess Alyrra has never enjoyed the security or power of her rank. Between her family's cruelty and the court's contempt, she has spent her life in the shadows. Forced to marry a powerful foreign prince, Alyrra embarks on a journey to meet her betrothed with little hope for a better future.

But powerful men have powerful enemies--and now, so does Alyrra. Betrayed during a magical attack, her identity is switched with another woman's, giving Alyrra the first choice she's ever had: to start a new life for herself or fight for a prince she's never met. But Alyrra soon finds that Prince Kestrin is not at all what she expected. While walking away will cost Kestrin his life, returning to the court may cost Alyrra her own. As Alyrra is coming to realize, sometime the hardest choice means learning to trust herself.

Thorn has received a Badge of Approval from Awesome Indies.

MY THOUGHTS:

This retelling of the Brothers Grimm fairytale The Goose Girl was great fun.

Thorn is a heroine many readers can stand behind, a strong and principled character who strives to understand true justice, how it should be meted out, and by whom.

This is somewhat at odds with how we first see her - a princess cowed by her ruthless mother and beaten by a cruel brother, but still known across the kingdoms for her honesty. But when she and a greedy servant girl have their identities switched by a sorceress, she finds herself no longer bound by the conventions of royalty and court intrigue, and she begins to blossom.

With her new perspective, Thorn is able to learn more about how the world really works than she had ever learned as a princess. This, combined with her inherent sense of honor, only serves to mold her into a more fitting potential ruler. But it is her duty to the kingdom that battles with her desire to be free to make her own way in life which becomes the struggle that shapes the story told in this book.

The book wasn't 100% perfect for me - I was left with some questions, things that weren't totally explained to my satisfaction. Thorn arrives at conclusions now and again that surprised me and I couldn't figure out how she got from A to B. I didn't really understand her mother and brother, who seemed too black and white, pure scoundrels with no redeeming qualities and no sufficient explanations as to why they came to treat the princess the way they did. And lastly is one issue that is not a problem with the book, really, but just one thing that didn't quite match my personal tastes - although there is a possibility of romance here, we don't get to see it develop. There is no way it could in the part of the tale told in this book, so the author certainly didn't do anything wrong here, but I just prefer to have a bit more romance in my stories, to feel my own heart rate pick up when the would-be lovers find themselves navigating around one another.

Overall, though, I really really enjoyed this book. It sucked me in, and I stayed up way too late to keep reading! I found many of the characters very likable. I especially found Red Hawk to be an intriguing figure. I see that the author plans a companion trilogy, set in the same world as Thorn, but with a different heroine. Can I request, Ms. Khanani, that Red Hawk figure into the new story? Pretty please? Perhaps, but not necessarily, even as a romantic interest? I would SO read that!

MY RATING:

4.5 booksies! 

Author website: http://booksbyintisar.com/

Find it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00869SADQ/ref=pdp_new_dp_review

Eternal Night

This book is not self-published, but it's not exactly a product of traditional publishing either. It's more of a collaboration between the author and the "story architects" of Paper Lantern Lit. I had never heard of PLL before, but the website can be found here, and I'm kind of intrigued with the whole concept. I haven't decided yet exactly how I feel about it, other than...intrigued. The idea is that anyone can submit a sample of their writing, and if the "major plot geeks" (who all have experience in the world of writing, editing, or publishing) think you're a match, they will give you the outlined plot of a novel for you to flesh out. I may be oversimplifying things, I'm not sure. It seems like the PLL peeps basically lead the writer through the novel-building process.

THE BLURB:

There are gods among us...

Six young gods are hiding in plain sight among mortals, living secretly in cities across the world. From lavish penthouse soirees to pulsing underground clubs, for them, the party literally never ends. Until now.

On a hot June morning, the body of a beautiful girl is found floating in the rooftop pool of the Jefferson Hotel, her white-ink tattoos revealing the story of a life much longer than seems possible. Only the immortals know the truth: Nadia was the goddess of hope. Now she’s gone, and the world as they know it is ending. The Hudson River has turned blood red. Storms rage overhead. Mania is rapidly spreading across the globe.

It is up to the remaining gods—Lola, Dean, Weston, Mark, Nike and Peitha—to put aside centuries of betrayal and heartbreak, and stop the mysterious source of darkness that is taking over… before the sun sets forever.

Carina Adly MacKenzie, writer for The CW's hit series "The Originals," has penned a steamy, romantic, and ultimately redemptive story of forgotten gods, the persistence of hope, and the power of love to save us.

MY THOUGHTS:

This was a pretty fun read.

The gods mentioned in the blurb are descendants of the Ancients such as Odin and Dionysus. Their power began to diminish as mortals ceased believing in them. As such, they are now forced to live among their one-time worshipers, trying to blend in as mortals themselves.   

The chapters in this book switch POV, and we get to go along on a wild ride with the gods and goddesses of victory, love, war and hope, to name a few, when the world is threatened by an ancient evil. Each of these characters is well-defined and interesting, and a lot of fun in their own way. In addition to their struggle against the looming disaster, they are dealing with centuries of history with one another, not all of it kittens and rainbows. This adds another engaging dimension to the story.

There is a lot of neat god and goddess lore presented here, woven in with the unfurling story. I suppose I might have preferred to see the main characters here portrayed a bit differently - more epic, and less like the modern day youth they posed as, with modern day youth problems. I guess as their powers dwindled and they had to live as young human men and women, they became, for all intents and purposes, just like the mortals they portrayed. But I think it would have been fun for them to be a bit more badass, shaped by their pasts as divinities who were once the objects of worship. This is a nitpicky point, though, and certainly nothing that spoiled the book for me. Such a change would probably alter the intended audience, too, so all in all, you should probably forget I even said anything. After all, not every story can involve a vampire/werewolf hybrid trying to come to terms with his troubling past and occasionally lashing out violently during the quest to recover the last remnants of his humanity... ;)

The only real issues I noted in this book are fairly minor and did not detract from my overall ability to enjoy it. It could use some more editing (there are instances of typos, wrong words, repetition of words, etc), but these were minimal. The author relies a bit too much on adverbs rather than strong verbs, something that is discouraged in the writing world. But her strength lies in her storytelling ability, which outshines any of these other things. I would definitely consider reading any future books by Ms. Mackenzie.

MY RATING:

4 booksies

Author's website: http://carinamackenzie.com/

Find Eternal Night on Amazon

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

This is not a self-published book of an indie author

After reading Euphoria by Lily King, I was in the mood to read more books along anthropological lines. King's book is a poignant novel loosely based on the life of real-life anthropologist Margaret Mead. This book, on the other hand, is completely nonfiction. In these pages, Anne Fadiman writes about her investigation into a story she had heard tell of regarding the clash between a Hmong family in California and their daughter's American doctors.

THE BLURB:

Lia Lee was born in 1981 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, overmedication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty--and their nobility."

MY THOUGHTS:

This book is sad and upsetting in a way, but it highlights such an important topic. It gives perspective on the difficult task of providing medical care to people with differing belief systems. What culturally sensitive healthcare boils down to is this: the ideology of biomedicine and whatever personal ideology the patient holds true must come together to find a solution that both parties consider acceptable. What you assume the ideal outcome should be is not necessarily what the patient came to you seeking, and it is of utmost importance to understand just what it is the patient is asking your help for. The healthcare provider may not consider the end result a total success, but it's small successes that both parties can live with that matter most in these situations.

However, the case of Lia Lee had another complicating factor. Lia was a child when she was being treated for epilepsy; with minors, there is the possibility that well-intentioned parents can be overridden if U.S. authorities believe that their beliefs are not in line with the child's best interest. 

Here is where the subject is so heartrendingly difficult. Lia's parents loved their daughter and wanted what was best for her. Lia's doctors wanted what was best for her. But their ideas of what exactly that entailed were not the same, and after a slew of miscommunication as well as a failure to compromise, tragedy ensued for Lia Lee. No one was happy with the end result. 

Apparently this book has been required reading for some medical schools and such. I think that's a great idea, and it would be wonderful for everyone in the healthcare field to read this book. It will at least help remind practitioners why it is so important to consider cultural factors when dealing with patients, in the interest of trying to avoid unhappy outcomes like the ones seen for the people in this book.

MY RATING:

5 booksies

A Question of Will

Book One of the Aliomenti Saga

THE BLURB:

They murdered his wife and son. They burned down his house. They beat him within an inch of his life.

And then they realized they had the wrong man.

They should have killed him when they had the chance.

Will Stark is a thirty-five-year-old self-made billionaire. He's happily married and father to a young son he adores. He's well-loved in his community for his philanthropic efforts. He lives in a beautiful home inside a private, secure community designed to provide safety for his family from those who would do them harm.

His idyllic world is shattered when, despite his best efforts, men storm his community, murder his family in their home, and burn his house down. In his efforts to rush to the aid of those he loves, Will is seized, beaten, and nearly killed.

And as it's happening, the men who've attacked him realize they've mistaken him for someone else.

Will's rescue from certain death brings him into the midst of a battle between two factions of a secret society, one in which members learn the secrets of developing superhuman abilities. And it's a battle in which a man named Will Stark has been the focal point. Will seizes the opportunity to learn these secrets, and battle those who destroyed his family. His own rapid development, however, means he may become a target for attack of his own accord.

As he builds his new life, however, Will is faced with a critical decision. Will he use his new abilities to seek out vengeance? Or will he risk everything he has to save those he holds most dear?

MY THOUGHTS:

The story in this book is a sort of thriller with heavy science fiction and fantasy elements. There is a nefarious organization of people with special powers, plus a rebel group that broke away from the others and works in the best interests of the plain old humans. A man and his family get unsuspectingly tangled up in all that business. A dash of time travel spices things up.

The author has some good ideas and a degree of talent with the written word (although he is rather fond of some cliche phrases), but has yet to learn how to string it all together into a cohesive novel in a way that works.

The book would tell the same piece of information over and over again as we read from different character points of view. I understand that one person is just learning of it, but since the reader already knows, you have to find a better way than just repeating the same things to us. And then again. And again. This was especially tiresome when the entire first scene was repeated from different perspectives at least 4 times. 15% through the book and we were still reading about the same sequence of events, again and again. I struggled to keep reading at that point.

(Only now do I realize the author's long-winded blurb for the book does the EXACT same thing - Will is attacked, his family killed, his house burned, but he's not even the man his attackers were after. Insert some descriptions of Will, and then tell us AGAIN that he was attacked, his family killed, his house burned, but - gasp! - he's the wrong man! Still...Again. Oy.)

I developed no connection to any of the characters, and found some of the characterization laughable.

As I said, though, the author has some good ideas, he just needs some more experience on how to piece the story together in a more compelling way. 

MY RATING:

2 booksies

Author's website: http://www.alexalbrinck.com/

There are currently six books in the Aliomenti Saga, and this first installment is available to download as an ebook for free at most major retailers.

Find it for free on Amazon

Euphoria

This is not a self-published book by an indie author.

"Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is a captivating story of desire, possession and discovery from one of our finest contemporary novelists."

THE BLURB:

National best-selling and award-winning author Lily King’s new novel is the story of three young, gifted anthropologists in the 1930s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives.

English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying a tribe on the Sepik River in the Territory of New Guinea with little success. Increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when he encounters the famous and controversial Nell Stone and her wry, mercurial Australian husband Fen. Bankson is enthralled by the magnetic couple whose eager attentions pull him back from the brink of despair.

Nell and Fen have their own reasons for befriending Bankson. Emotionally and physically raw from studying the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo tribe, the couple is hungry for a new discovery. But when Bankson leads them to the artistic, female-dominated Tam, he ignites an intellectual and emotional firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone’s control. Ultimately, their groundbreaking work will make history, but not without sacrifice.

MY THOUGHTS:

Beautiful and heartbreaking.

This book stirred up a huge wave of nostalgia in me, bringing back memories of my time as an anthropology student a decade ago. In addition to all of the fascinating cultural tidbits here, the novel showcases what makes us as individuals different, and what makes us the same; how we can change in the context of the people around us.

I am left a tiny bit unsatisfied with one thing though: 

*SPOLIER ALERT*

So Fen "vanished" after being implicated in his wife's death. But we're never told if he ever sold the flute to a museum. He must have, since that's what he went through all the trouble for. But if he had, wouldn't it show up in the museum collection of the Sepik tribes at the very end of the book?

*END SPOILER*

A very good book, although it's going to take me a little while to shake off the sadness it leaves you with. It totally left me with a thirst for more novels with an anthropological flavor.

MY RATING:

5 booksies!

 Author website: http://www.lilykingbooks.com/