Tagged: masq1
Lost in Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
(Cover picture courtesy of Nomi’s Paranormal Palace.)
A relaxing vacation to Scotland turns deadly when a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger leads to murder. Shocked when she witnesses a man commit murder before disappearing in front of her eyes, Emily learns she possesses an extraordinary ability allowing her to interact with ghosts.
Unwittingly drawn into shadow when she intervenes to help Colin, igniting the ancient warrior’s long-buried desires, she unleashes a terrible curse. Now with only a week to break the curse, time is running out as they are locked in a deadly fight with forces that will stop at nothing to destroy them before they succeed. Intensely romantic and thrilling, Lost in Shadow portrays the struggle between redemption, retribution and the desire to find a love that transcends time.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
The whole unavenged ghost thing was really starting to wear on me before I read Lost in Shadow. Not because I had read many books about it, but because it seemed in pop culture there were no really new, unique takes on it. Pretty much every story sounded the same. That was until I read Lost in Shadow, of course.
Colin is now one of my new favourite love interests, not only because of that Scottish accent I seem so attracted to, but because he actually has a believable backstory for becoming a Shadow Walker. Despite his terrible past he’s also never that typical bad boy who needs to be shown the fun side of life by the heroine. It’s actually quite a refreshing change, especially when you consider how easily Cynthia Luhrs could have fallen into the cliché trap with the whole Scottish warrior/modern American girl dynamic.
At first Emily seems like a typical romance heroine in that she’s gone to Scotland to recover from a failed relationship and stumbles onto a great guy with a mysterious past. But what I loved about Lost in Shadow is that Emily is allowed to grow out of this two dimensional role and becomes a strong heroine in her own right. She doesn’t always just stand by waiting to be saved but at the same time she’s not one of these instant action girls that kicks butt constantly. Her past combined with Colin’s makes for an interesting relationship dynamic to be sure, but that added layer of the Shadow Walker curse makes it even more interesting.
I love how Cynthia Luhrs could have written a typical romance novel with very little world-building but didn’t. The Shadow Walker and Day Walker conflict is fascinating and we even get to see how the two types of ‘ghosts’ came into being. Throw in a mysterious way for Shadow Walkers to break their curse/gift and you’ve got the makings of a great fantasy novel as well. The romance between Colin and Emily is obviously still the main focus but despite my general distaste for romance novels, it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, the romance in this novel actually contributed to both the plot and the character development. It was a refreshing change.
I saw the ending coming a mile away, but I guess every once in a while you have to have endings like the one in Lost in Shadow, right?
I give this book 5/5 stars.
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Prophecy of Solstice’s End by Diantha Jones
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Summer Solstice is here. Let the games begin.
Nothing but lies (some of them her own) and deceit have brought Chloe to Olympus for the Solstice Olympic Games. As the Oracle and the special guest of the King of Myth, Chloe becomes immersed in a life of unfathomable luxury, taunting history, and overwhelming excitement. Though scheming and untrustworthy, the gods remain on their best behavior as the tension and anticipation builds around the outcome of the Quest of the Twelve Labors, the deadliest competition of the Games. All seems well on the celestial front…until athletes start turning up dead and a philosopher missing for months returns with a most terrifying story…
But that’s not all.
As Strafford confronts his troubled past and more is learned about the Great Unknown Prophecy, Chloe grows close to another, setting off a chain of events that will bring her face-to-face with a truth that will rock both of her worlds to their core.
And it’ll all happen before Solstice’s end…
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy from Diantha Jones as part of her blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
With the first two books in the Oracle of Delphi series achieving high levels on the ‘awesome book’ scale I thought it would be hard for Prophecy of Solstice’s End to measure up. Yet Diantha Jones keeps surprising me over and over again. Once again, this book is better than the last one! And considering how much I loved Prophecy of the Setting Sunrise, that’s even more of an accomplishment.
I love how Chloe and Strafford’s relationship intensity is cranked up to 11 throughout the book. They’ve sort of settled into the whole being in a relationship idea and what results is whole new levels of commitment on both their parts as well as more drama later on. I can’t go into much more detail without giving anything away, but let’s just say that with the passion comes doubt and misunderstandings when Chloe joins Strafford in Myth.
One of my many favourite parts of Diantha Jones’ whole series is how she portrays the gods and goddesses from the Greek myths. Apollo is manipulative even with his own children, Hera hangs on every display of affection from her husband, Zeus is a scheming letch, etc. They’re portrayed as essentially the same people they were in the myths only now they’re in the modern day and are a huge threat to Chloe as the new Pythia. I also like how the children of the gods reflect their parents’ personalities, especially in the case of Aphrodite’s daughters. What was more interesting than how the gods were portrayed was the dynamic between them and their children. Some of the demigods fully accept their roles as heroes while others like Strafford are obviously questioning them. It certainly makes for lots more tension in Myth.
As with her last two books, Diantha Jones kept throwing twist after twist into the plot that blindsided me completely. The Regalis Stella problem from the last book? That’s not resolved yet either and in fact the problem is cranked up to 11 in Prophecy of Solstice’s End. In addition to that, Apollo’s war with Zeus is looming and it’s not as simplistic as it would seem. To be fair, nothing is simplistic in Prophecy of Solstice’s End and that’s one of the strengths of the Oracle of Delphi series: it keeps you guessing as to what’s going to happen next. And with that massive cliffhanger at the end of the book in the epilogue I’ll be left guessing about what will happen in Prophecy of the Betrayed Heir, the next book.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Color of Rain by Cori McCarthy
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
If there is one thing that seventeen-year-old Rain knows and knows well, it is survival. Caring for her little brother, Walker, who is “Touched,” and losing the rest of her family to the same disease, Rain has long had to fend for herself on the bleak, dangerous streets of Earth City. When she looks to the stars, Rain sees escape and the only possible cure for Walker. And when a darkly handsome and mysterious captain named Johnny offers her passage to the Edge, Rain immediately boards his spaceship. Her only price: her “willingness.”
The Void cloaks many secrets, and Rain quickly discovers that Johnny’s ship serves as host for an underground slave trade for the Touched . . . and a prostitution ring for Johnny’s girls. With hair as red as the bracelet that indicates her status on the ship, the feeling of being a marked target is not helpful in Rain’s quest to escape. Even worse, Rain is unsure if she will be able to pay the costs of love, family, hope, and self-preservation.
With intergalactic twists and turns, Cori McCarthy’s debut space thriller exists in an orbit of its own.
I found The Color of Rain on one of the blogs I read regularly, Books Without Any Pictures. Grace’s description along with the cover interested me so much that I went out and bought the book. Would it live up to my expectations?
Yes! In fact, Cori McCarthy’s novel actually surpassed my expectations. For a YA novel (albeit strongly recommended for older young adults) it tackles some pretty heavy issues including rape, abuse, prostitution and trauma. Many authors have found their banes in these issues, but Cori McCarthy tackled them head on without really preaching to her audience. No, she presents these issues within the story and allows readers to infer a lot of the effects on poor Rain through her thoughts and actions.
Rain is an interesting character to say the least. She will do anything, literally anything, to save the life of her brother, who is “Touched” and likely to die without treatment. This anything includes prostitution aboard the ship of Johnny Vale, who has taken a personal interest in Rain because she is a natural redhead. Every girl on the ship has a bracelet and their colour denotes their position (yellow for all crew members, green for higher ups, etc.), but Rain is given a red bracelet as part of her being Johnny’s favourite, a dubious honour.
Johnny is quite the villain, doing everything from playing mind games to literally torturing Rain and those she loves. He’s callous and ambitious, a dangerous combination for those around him, especially Rain and his assistant, Ben the Mec (a human with mechanical enhancements). It’s a testament to Cori McCarthy’s writing talent that the decisions Johnny forces Rain to make don’t make readers hate her but rather send home the message about abuse.
I wouldn’t call The Color of Rain fast-paced in terms of action, but there was a lot of character development and inner conflict that I had to keep going to find out what happened. And just when I thought I knew what the ending was going to be, Cori McCarthy threw in a huge, horrifying twist. Obviously she’s not one of these writers that babies her characters, which made me love her debut novel even more.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The End of the World Playlist by Dan O’Brien
(Cover picture courtesy of The Dan O’Brien Project.)
The world as we knew it had ended. Deep in the mountains of the west coast, six men survived. In the town of River’s Bend, these six friends continued on with their lives as zombies inherited the Earth. As they navigated the world that had been left behind, the soundtrack of life played on.
[Full disclosure: I received a free book copy from Dan O’Brien in exchange for an honest review as part of his blog tour.]
I’ll just say right off the bat that there is a lot of cursing in this short story. This is seriously recommended for mature audiences only. Let’s just say there are a lot of cluster f-bombs and generally mature content leave it at that, shall we?
Well, I don’t really know what to say besides that there is some really interesting and scarily believable psychological themes at play here. From the fact that the survivors have chained zombies into their stores and call them all variations of Bob (Bob the Blind Zombie, Bob the Sports Authority Zombie, Bob the Gun Store Zombie, etc.) to their general disregard for social taboos it’s clear that five years after the apocalypse the survivors aren’t doing so well. There was an especially disturbing scene involving a Ms. Pacman arcade game, but I’m not going to go into anymore detail in regards to that incident.
Dan O’Brien certainly intended for this to be disturbing and believe me it was. It really makes you wonder about those people that wish for a zombie apocalypse when the reality would actually suck. So thank goodness this is just a novella because it’s incredibly depressing and sadly realistic. I’m not going to say much more on that topic because then I’d be getting into spoiler territory. Sometimes it goes a little overboard with the whole Crapsack World trope, but that could be just a matter of personal taste.
I can’t use the world ‘enjoyable’ to describe such a depressing novella, but it was well-written and interesting. It’s not science fiction because Dan O’Brien never cares to go into detail about the apocalypse, but that’s not the point. The point is that zombies are essentially ruling the world while the last semi-insane vestiges of humanity survive. If you’re interested in psychology you’ll like The End of the World Playlist, but other than that it’s definitely a specialized sort of novella.
I give this novella 4/5 stars.
The Scourge by A. G. Henley
(Cover picture courtesy of A. G. Henley’s site.)
Seventeen-year-old Groundling, Fennel, is Sightless. She’s never been able to see her lush forest home, but she knows its secrets.
She knows how the shadows shift when she passes under a canopy of trees. She knows how to hide in the cool, damp caves when the Scourge comes. She knows how devious and arrogant the Groundlings’ tree-dwelling neighbors, the Lofties, can be. And she’s always known this day would come—the day she faces the Scourge alone.
A tale of star-crossed lovers, strange creatures, and secretive, feuding factions, THE SCOURGE introduces readers to a rich and exciting new world where nothing is as it seems.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I thought I’d seen it all when it comes to zombie books. Zombies are religious retribution, a virus, a parasite, etc. But nothing prepared me for A. G. Henley’s zombies.
You see, what was different about these zombies is that Fennel, who is blind, can walk among them while no one else can. She’s part of the Groundlings, people who hide in caves when the Scourge comes around because the Scourge doesn’t like the dark. The Groundlings are kind of in an uneasy alliance with the Lofties, people who stay up in the safety of the trees to avoid the Scourge. But the problem with the Groundlings and the Lofties is that they need water to survive, especially in their hot, humid climate. So the Sightless like Fennel and her adoptive mother must walk among the Scourge with the protection of a Lofty called a Keeper, who uses his bow to protect her while she gets water. Although the Scourge often avoids the Sightless, they can be dangerous and Keepers like Peree (Fennel’s Keeper) are tasked with keeping Fennel safe.
So why will the zombies not approach someone who’s blind but will devour anyone else? Why do they fear the dark? I don’t want to give away the big twist, but I’ll say this: it’s horrifying. It’s terrifying in that it could really happen but also because of the implications of it that completely change how you view Fennel’s world in the first half of the book. Really, when I learned the secret of the Scourge it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. But I’ll let you discover that feeling for yourself when you read it.
Having a blind protagonist is definitely new to me and I feared it would severely limit A. G. Henley’s descriptions of Fennel’s world. I was wrong to worry because instead of using sight, Henley used impressions of colour (blue is like cold, red is like heat), sounds and even taste to give us a vivid picture of a terrifying and beautiful world. In the wrong hands a blind protagonist could result in absolutely no description at all, but I like how in The Scourge it probably resulted in more description.
Since being Sightless is a huge part of Fennel’s life I feared other aspects of her characterization would be affected. Again, I was wrong to doubt. Fennel is reasonably content with her world until the Scourge and her Keeper Peree turn it upside down. Following a punishment for being a good person, she begins to doubt whether the Groundlings are necessarily better than the Lofties, challenging a belief she’s held on to for years. I expected the romance between Fennel and Peree from the first chapter, but how it developed was gradual and satisfying. They go through so much together it would be hard for them not to fall in love so it doesn’t seem like A. G. Henley threw in the romance for extra tension.
I loved everything about The Scourge: its characters, the zombies, the plot and A. G. Henley’s writing style. I even loved the cliffhanger at the end. Seriously, if you love traditional zombie books try out The Scourge and I guarantee you’ll never look at zombies the same way again. I can’t wait for the next book!
I give this book 5/5 stars.