Category: Romance
The Fire by John Heldt
(Cover picture courtesy of John Heldt.)
When Kevin Johnson, 22, goes to Wallace, Idaho, days after his college graduation, he expects to find rest and relaxation as his family prepares his deceased grandfather’s house for sale. Then he discovers a hidden diary and a time portal that can take him to 1910, the year of Halley’s comet and the largest wildfire in U.S. history. Within hours, Kevin finds himself in the era of horse-drawn wagons, straw hats, and ankle-length dresses. Returning to the same time and place, he decides to travel again and again and make the portal his gateway to summer fun. The adventure takes a more serious turn, however, when the luckless-in-love science major falls for pretty English teacher Sarah Thompson and integrates himself in a community headed for tragedy. Filled with humor, romance, and heartbreak, THE FIRE, the sequel to THE JOURNEY, follows a conflicted soul through a life-changing journey as he makes his mark on a world he was never meant to see.
[Full disclosure: John Heldt gave me an ARC of his latest novel in exchange for an honest review.]
John Heldt is probably the only man that can make me consistently cry. And that’s a good thing!
Kevin Johnston is the son of Shelly Preston, our protagonist from The Journey. As you may recall, an older Michelle had time travelled back to see her younger self and her story did not end well. So you could say time travelling is in the family and that Kevin can’t get away from it, especially when you learn a certain character from The Mine is his university professor.
Once again I thought I had Kevin’s journey pretty well predicted. Yet he surprised me at every turn. He knew it was a bad idea to go back to 1910 and that it was a bad idea to get so involved in people’s lives in Wallace and yet I understand his motives for wanting to go back there. Yet whatever mysteriously causes time travel is not going to forgive Kevin for messing with history and the conclusion of the novel is absolutely heart-breaking and at the same time, joy-inducing. The Fire is such an emotional roller coaster that I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts down to write this review.
I was so connected to the characters, perhaps more so than I have been in John Heldt’s previous three novels. Kevin really did speak to me. He was a good person if a little flawed because of that chip on his shoulder when it came to women. Still, he got over that eventually and at the end of the novel you can really tell he’s a better person. His relationship with Sarah, his confused feelings for Sadie and his friendship with Andy all made him more realistic and much easier to sympathize with. Yet these characters weren’t put there for the sole purpose of providing opportunities to show what a nice guy Kevin is! No, they’re excellent, well-developed characters in their own right.
I liked how the pacing was generally consistent throughout The Fire and that although it definitely sped up at the end, it wasn’t as rushed as the ending of The Show. John Heldt definitely took more time to build up the historical town of Wallace in order to build up the tension for the coming fire that would level most of the town. His descriptions were much more vivid in this installment of the Northwest Passage series and I think The Fire was a better book for it.
John Heldt’s writing just keeps getting better and better with each book. Although the theme of time travel features in all four, he has created very different characters to tell the story of America and each achieves happiness in their own, unique way. Even if you haven’t read the first three books of the series, The Fire can certainly stand on its own, which is why I recommend you pick it up right this instant. Yes, it’s that good.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Vanish by Sophie Jordan
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
An impossible romance.
Bitter rivalries.
Deadly choices.To save the life of the boy she loves, Jacinda did the unthinkable: She betrayed the most closely-guarded secret of her kind. Now she must return to the protection of her pride knowing she might never see Will again—and worse, that because his mind has been shaded, Will’s memories of that fateful night and why she had to flee are gone.
Back home, Jacinda is greeted with hostility and must work to prove her loyalty for both her sake and her family’s. Among the few who will even talk to her are Cassian, the pride’s heir apparent who has always wanted her, and her sister, Tamra, who has been forever changed by a twist of fate. Jacinda knows that she should forget Will and move on—that if he managed to remember and keep his promise to find her, it would only endanger them both. Yet she clings to the hope that someday they will be together again. When the chance arrives to follow her heart, will she risk everything for love?
Unfortunately, Vanish by Sophie Jordan suffers from Book 2 Syndrome: it does nothing but set up the third book. Seriously despite my love of Firelight all that happens in this book could have essentially been told over 100 pages, not nearly three hundred. Of course there’s a lot of pressure on YA writers to write trilogies these days, but in all honesty Sophie Jordan probably could have just cut down on the fluff and made a longer sequel that concludes Jacinda’s story.
You can’t in all honesty call the plot of Vanish fast paced, but I suppose you could call it consistent. Consistently boring, that is. There is a little character development to make up for the complete lack of action, but the disastrous attempts at a bizarre sort of love triangle as well as Jacinda’s general moping around make it a painful 294 pages. All that happens in this is that Miram gets kidnapped and Will shows up again to learn that something mildly terrible has happened to Jacinda because of Cassian. Did I mention that there’s a lot of moping about Will? It’s like one big pity part here: all Jacinda does is pine after Will, give Cassian horrible mixed signals and get jealous about her sister’s new powers.
We do learn a lot more about the draki and their primitive attitudes and tribal structure, but that’s about it. Sure, Jacinda’s life in the pride does genuinely suck at some points (the ostracism, Tamra’s new celebrity, etc.) but the angst does get tiring after a while. Even though Sophie Jordan is awesome at writing highly emotional prose, there can only be so much angst in one book before I feel like throwing it at the wall. At least by the end Jacinda is starting to almost accept her life back in the pride and sees Cassian is maybe not all that bad, Tamra deserves a bit of celebrity and maybe she should stop moping. Of course with such a cliffhanger at the end of the novel I’ll still read Hidden, the last book in the trilogy. I’m just hoping that Sophie Jordan pulls it together for the concluding book.
I give this book 2/5 stars.
Shadows by J. Dorothy
(Cover picture courtesy of Authors to Watch.)
An intimate, gripping Fantasy Romance you will want to savor even as you race through the pages to find out what is really going on.
Jo is about to marry James.
He is standing outside, waiting for her to come down for the ceremony to begin. She can see him through the window. Jo’s brother, Spencer, is there too, talking and joking with James to calm his nerves.
Then Jo’s sorceress aunt, Rowellyn, appears and informs Jo she will never marry James. She must go back in time and undo everything that has happened between them.
Whatever Jo does, her life will be unbearable, but if she does exactly as Rowellyn asks, the lives of her friends and family will be spared. If, however, she refuses to go back, or tells anyone what is happening, James will die.
Jo has no choice. She takes one last longing look at James through the window. She will now have to arrange for James to fall in love with someone else – the vengeful Rowellyn demands it.
But, as Jo will soon discover, in the land of illusion, nothing is certain.
If you enjoy ‘Shadows’, you might also enjoy the prequel, ‘Reflections’, the story of how Jo and James fell in love and of Jo’s first encounters with Rowellyn’s dark magic.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook from J. Dorothy in exchange for an honest review.]
Sorcery? Time travel? A realistic romance? Shadows had pretty much everything going for it in terms of what I like to see in fantasy, but it fell flat in some respects.
That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it overall. I loved how even though Jo was broken-hearted at being sent back to the past to break up her relationship with James, the man she was going to marry, she stayed pretty strong. Jo was a great character in that despite her best efforts, she could not let go of the man she loved. That’s loyalty right there! And her desperate attempts to defeat Rowellyn definitely made me cheer for her every single step of the way. Along with other three dimensional characters like James, Spencer and Beth, Jo really gave it her all and it was such an enjoyable story for that reason alone.
I liked the whole time travel aspect, but I felt it wasn’t adequately explained at all. How did Rowellyn come by these powers? What on Earth does the curse do to make someone a sorceress and why does it always isolate the other sister? What’s the history behind making sorceresses? Is there some sort of reason the other sister has to suffer as well? These were all touched on, but definitely were not explained to my satisfaction. I felt that there was so much more potential for world-building and giving Rowellyn depth here that J. Dorothy missed out on. At the same time, the things that were explained like sorceress’ time travel powers were fascinating and felt like a glimpse of the potential of the novel.
For the most part, the pacing was awesome. We still got to see Jo suffer and develop as a character but the plot did move on fairly constantly. There was enough action to keep me interested, but not so much that the character development suffered. However, when it came to the climax J. Dorothy seemed to be rushed to finish the book because after the reasonable pace of the rest of the book the frantic pace of the end was a let-down. Of course the climax should be faster, but I still don’t fully understand the ending. I would have loved for a little more explanation of well, everything.
Overall, Shadows was good but maybe it would have been a good idea for me to read Reflections (the prequel) first or for J. Dorothy to explain a little more.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
*Only available as a Kindle ebook
Mortality by Kellie Sheridan
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
After surviving a deadly plague outbreak, sixteen-year-old Savannah thought she had lived through the very worst of human history. There was no way to know that the miracle vaccine would put everyone at risk for a fate worse than un-death.
Now, two very different kinds of infected walk the Earth, intent on nothing but feeding and destroying what little remains of civilization. When the inoculated are bitten, infection means watching on in silent horror as self-control disappears and the idea of feasting on loved ones becomes increasingly hard to ignore.
Starving and forced to live inside of the abandoned high school, all Savannah wants is the chance to fight back. When a strange boy arrives with a plan to set everything right, she gets her chance. Meeting Cole changes everything. Mere survival will never be enough.
[Full disclosure: I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
At first I thought this was going to be a mushy, lovey-dovey romance just set against the background of a zombie apocalypse. While there’s romance, that’s certainly not the case because the blurb is a bit misleading.
First off, Savannah is an awesome character. She can kick butt and kill zombies like it’s nothing, but at the same time she’s trained for a long time to be able to do so. She’s definitely not one of these heroines that just magically gains killing powers out of nowhere. Secondly, Zarah, the other girl whose point of view we see is an interesting contrast to Savannah. She can’t kick butt and she has to use her wits to survive the first and second outbreaks with her new boyfriend Liam. So how do these two stories converge? Well, it’s definitely not how you would expect them to, thank goodness. I’m just hoping that Kellie Sheridan does not go with one of my hated clichés in the next book, although from the ending it almost looks like that. (Cringe.)
The plot was fast-paced and despite the point of view changes, Mortality never really got to a point where it lagged. The zombies, or Zs as they’re mostly called here, are an omnipresent threat throughout the novel. Although in contrast to many zombie apocalypse novels they’re not necessarily the main focus 100% of the time. They’re prominent to be sure, but the romance between Savannah and the mysterious Cole does steal the attention away sometimes. Although I really hated Cole as a love interest (what a selfish, brainless jerk!) I guess I can forgive Kellie Sheridan for that. Cole is just really not my type of guy.
What I liked about Mortality is that when there are clichés, Kellie Sheridan did her best to put her own spin on them. Cole is out searching for his uncle who was part of the cure and possibly the initial outbreak, but there’s quite a twist on that old trope. I can’t say much on how she negates old tropes without giving the major plot points away, but trust me on this: there are very few clichés throughout the novel. And while it’s not in the same category of awesome as Feed or The Return Man, I really can’t complain too much about Mortality. It was pretty good and I’m looking forward to reading the next book, Duality.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Starlet’s Light by Carla J. Hanna
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Young Hollywood actress, Liana Marie Michael, gives up the fight until she sees the light.
Isolated on set in the United Kingdom, Lia struggles through the 5 Stages of Grief while shooting her last feature film. Cancer survivor, Oscar winner, and victim of several crimes, Lia sinks into despair as her heart fails. With supportive childhood friend Manuel Biro, and the help from Swiss billionaire-heir Pierre Lambert, Lia is ‘so done’ with acting and learns that she needs more than just a man’s love to prevail.
STARLET’S LIGHT is a touching story of Lia’s struggle with trust and commitment as she shapes the role she plays in her own life.
[Full disclosure: I received a free print copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
Remember how yesterday I said Starlet’s Run was better than the first book, Starlet’s Web? Well Starlet’s Light is better than both! The overall quality of writing is better, the characters are better as they mature and Carla Hanna’s message comes through loud and clear but not in an obnoxious manner.
Finally Lia sets off on her own away from Manuel for a change and she also meets Pierre. I hope I’m not spoiling too much when I say that a love triangle happens. Yes, I was inwardly cringing when I thought I knew what Carla Hanna was doing to Lia’s love life, but she had such an amazing twist on the love triangle that all was forgiven. In fact, more authors should do love triangles that way. It would certainly make for more interesting books and less one dimensional characters.
But while there is quite a bit of romance going on, Lia emerges as a character that isn’t completely dependent on the men in her life. She has her own interests, both loves and hates her career as an actress and struggles to control her life despite her failing health. Lia grew quite a bit in the first and second books in the series, but it’s really Starlet’s Light where she becomes a memorable character. She doesn’t have it easy and you can really feel her suffering, but with the help of her friends and her spirituality she makes it through to a sort of acceptance of her condition. Her realization at the end of the novel only makes you connect with her more. Lia’s far from perfect and she realizes that, making her my favourite character in the series.
As I said about the first two books, this is not a book you read for the plot. No, this is a book you read for the message as well as the characters. And believe me, the message is terrifying as we get to see even more about how horrible Hollywood is behind the scenes. I had my own terrifying realization as well while reading this: I’m fat. My dear little sister, who is described as a stick by pretty much everyone who sees her is fat. Why? Because we’re not that Hollywood size 0. Now, this didn’t make my self esteem plunge so much as make me realize how cookie-cutter the Hollywood ideal is. Seriously, Lia’s skewed view of beauty in the beginning is terrifying once it’s pointed out to you as a reader and it sends the message home better than any PSA or Dove Self-Esteem Project video.
If you haven’t started the series yet, I’d highly recommend it. Even for those of us who don’t like romance in general, the Starlet series is still a worthwhile read. If you like great main characters who actually grow throughout the series, you’ll love it. And, of course, if you’ve already read the first two books you’ll love the third installment of the series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.