The synopsis for 'Shadowed,' first in a new series by author Michelle Areaux, boasts that "fans of Twilight, The Guardian Series, and the Marked Saga will instantly fall in love with this new paranormal series." What it doesn't tell you, is that in spots it's practically just the same story with a few tweaks to details. Henley, our main character is the same 'quiet, awkward outcast,' we saw in Bella. Her gorgeous new neighbor/school mate, the same wickedly attractive, yet emotionally conflicted recluse. He has a matching brother-sister combo rather than a full set of four, but the personalities are represented. There's the darkly dangerous one of their own kind and the entire family hiding a secret.. which by the way, is called something else, but may as well be the same. They even still have some sparkle, you'll see what I mean. Honestly, before I decided the lines were too close not to practically be considered a rewrite, a moment that occurs outside the school which shot my brows upward. It had me thinking it's quite literally.. nearly the same scene as one between Edward and Bella. Now, since I'd half-read that Twilight novel, I had to look it up to see if I was mis-remembering.. but no. It's there. There's a constant swing happening between present and past tense verbiage, even within the same sentences. Sometimes it'll occur three times back to back. As the copy I received was an unedited ARC, it's entirely possible that such things will be cleaned up, but in my experience those are not the kinds of issues that change. Here's hoping. "I stood there frozen in place; my breathing slows as I anxiously waited.." Her dialogue is stiff, like she's trying to craft every sentence with perfect grammar.. and has no idea how actual conversations might sound. Likewise, these kids talk like they're out of the 80's.. accusing others of treating them like 'scum.' I can't recall the last time I heard a teen use that word. And please, for the love of all that is good in the world.. stop repeating the same things back to back, just to fill space. "It was cool," I rambled on. "That's cool," Cohen said coolly. Really? "..I decided to go for a run. Sometimes when I needed to clear my head or just think, I would lace up my sneakers and go for a long run." Yep. We know. You said that. And that kind of thing happens all throughout the book. It's not the worst thing I've ever read. And that's the best thing I can say about it.
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Shadowed
-- EXCERPT: As much as I liked to pretend, I wasn’t completely and totally intrigued by the thought of new people moving here; I couldn’t control myself. I tried to convince myself it was all because of my mom; but as I stood there, whispering the words, I knew there was no fooling myself. “Henley, don’t you know it’s not polite to stare?” she asked, but her own hypocritical words hung heavy in the air as she raced to join me in the living room again. Standing next to me, we watched intently as the driver’s side door opened. With large eyes, we strained to get a glimpse of who would be our new neighbor. To our surprise, the rest of the car doors opened and the family emerged. A tall man with dark hair closed the driver’s side door as a woman emerged from the passenger’s side. The back two doors opened and three teens, roughly around my age, tumbled out. A girl with short, dark hair and legs-for-days gave the house a disgusted look. A boy who seemed to be uninterested in it all, stared down into his phone, which he held tightly in his grip. Finally, a tall boy with the same dark hair stood behind the rest of his family. With his hands tucked deep into his jeans pockets, he seemed reluctant to move any closer to the house. “Well, they look like a nice family,” my mom said. I turned to look at her and I could see the eagerness twinkling in her baby blues to get to her phone and be the first one to spill the news that the new neighbors had arrived. It was almost like they had landed in a spaceship and were from outer space! “Maybe,” I grumbled, still unsure about these people. Suddenly, the boy, standing alone behind his family, turned and caught me snooping on them. Our eyes connected for a brief moment before he gave me an angry snarl that had me stumbling backward. What was that? “I need to go call Susan,” my mom stated, as she rushed to the kitchen to retrieve her phone. I dared to look back out the window again; and when I did, the entire family was gone. Just disappeared, like they had never been standing there in the first place. I blinked, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. When I looked again, the SUV was still parked along the curb, but the family was gone. Lights glowed from inside the house. “That’s weird,” I said aloud to myself. How did they have time to get inside and turn on the lights? I literally just turned around for a second. I shook my head, unsure of what to think. Peeking out of the window again, something in the far, second-floor window caught my attention. As my gaze moved up, I felt my cheeks burn and nervous energy flow through me. As my gaze finally landed on the window, I caught a pair of red eyes staring back at me. It was the same boy who had given me the nasty stare just moments before. I closed the curtains and took a step back. My heart was racing so fast, I feared it might jump right out of my chest. With labored breathing, I slowly walked into the kitchen where my mom was blabbing the news to anyone who would listen.
GIVEAWAY! 'Leviathan's Rise' is the second book in the Keepers of Haven series by Bokerah Brumley. I hadn't read the first, and though this one seemed like it might be a good story, I was worried about one thing. I just didn't think I could wrap my mind around the idea of a whale shifter. I mean, I'm used to the others-- the wolves, the big cats, even the dragons, but whales? *blinks* I genuinely believed this would detract from the story so much, especially as I tried to picture the logistics of that transformation. Well, I was wrong. I mean, the transformation was awkward for me. Not only the physical descriptions of how it felt, also the psychological shift that took place, leading to the change in actions was jarring. However, Brumley is a good writer with sharp instincts. She got it over with quickly the first time and that enabled me to brush it off and just focus on the rest of the book. By the time it happened again, well it still felt a little weird, but it was easier to roll with it. Mostly this novel is just really well done. The cast of characters is diverse, she's taken time to build deep backstories for them, and they're complex. There are loves and hates, prejudices and fears, complicated friendships and mournful decisions that are made. Her idea of the world in their immediate vicinity, feels like it's right outside this one. Geographically, of course.. but also conceptually. As you get through the story, that world does get bigger and more fantastical, though again.. by the time you're there.. you just accept it with wide-eyed wonder. You want nothing more in one moment, for someone to be taught a lesson, but in the next.. it's very possible you'll find yourself feeling guilty about those feelings. There are deceptions stacked atop betrayals hidden under loyalties, and until the end, you don't quite know what you're getting. My only complaint, and it's a small one, is that the ends being wrapped up as this story comes to a close, are almost a quick, easy clean-up. All except of course for the cliffhanger. Now normally I hate those, but it really didn't hurt this story, as the issue hadn't been dealt with at all throughout the book. This one's fun, definitely push aside those biases (if you have them) and give it a read. 'Fateless,' the most recent release by Meli Raine, was my first exposure to her Stateless series. It's the third book in the series, and I feel like I might have enjoyed it more if I'd already been familiar with them, but it's still a page turner and if you don't mind first person narratives, this is a good quick downtime read. From a writing standpoint, the story is solid. After all, Raine is a USA Today best selling author, according to the bio on her site. She's the author of several series, which lends her plenty of experience and she really does have some interesting ideas. I'm just not a fan of the writing style. The story flip flops back and forth between the POV of two characters, Kina and Callum. Literally, every chapter it switches up. That feels a little too formulaic for me and everything is conveyed through the book pseudo-directly from those POV characters. It's not just passing through their minds as they observe this or that, it reads as if they're deliberately explaining it. In fact, it feels more like a tag team narration, than a story to experience. There are some really intriguing plot points that could be great scenes, but they're a bit thin and seem to dissipate as they near their peaks. Kina and Callum are very likeable though and I found myself rooting for them quickly, which considering their backstory, is kind of amazing. Though I feel the pacing is a bit off, I still burned through it in about a day. I think in an attempt to convey the action sequences, it often came across as hurried explanations and too frequent use of a couple important terms, but it's entirely possible that Raine intends for us to feel rushed due to the urgency of what's happening around her characters. Unfortunately, after reading the premise, I'm afraid I went into the novel expecting something wholly different. The pitch just came across as more of a delusion based situation. "The future isn't real. The past isn't real, either," isn't literal. It's the psychological state these people exist in. One big information dump does occur about two-thirds of the way through the novel, which I would have preferred to get in snatches as I read.. but at least it was handled well enough. Utilizing the militaristic themes, Raine was able to get away with one big meeting, but even I occasionally lost track of who was whom and how they were connected. I was pleased with where the story went, for the most part. The things I hoped would happen, did, even if they didn't happen in the way I would have wanted. Ultimately, though it's a quick, average read, that's not a bad thing. There are some lovely scenes as well. Fateless
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: “Traitor?” Foster says the word with laughter. “That’s what someone who gives information to the enemy is called, right? You don’t have a different word for it in mass society, do you?” A head shake is all she gets from him until he frowns deeply, standing quickly as someone emerges from the trees behind me. “Lindsay?” he says disbelievingly. I turn to see his wife, the president’s daughter, standing in the shadows, flanked by two guys in black. “Hi.” Her hand moves in a curt wave, mouth smiling without showing teeth. She looks like she’s ready for a fight, eyes on her husband, who approaches her with quick steps and what appears to be a flashpoint temper. “What the hell are you doing here?” he hisses as he pulls her away from us, the security guys moving away to give them privacy, but scanning the area closely. “Emma’s with Jane,” she says, heading him off before the obvious interrogation. “But I realized something.” She looks at Kina openly. “What?” he snaps. “Her. She’s the key to it all.” One finger aims straight at Kina, who turns. “Me?” “Yes. You. I have an idea for how you can bring it all down.”
GIVEAWAY! 'An Angel Fallen' is basically a story about a psychopathic animal killing teenager, his best friend, and the kinds of things that remaining silent lead to. Honestly, I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book. It could have had wide reaching good vs. evil themes.. or intense inner conflict on the part of the friend. It really had neither. It is a fast food serving of the synopsis. There seemed to be pages filled with words that didn't need to be there. I get that the repetition was taking place in someone's mind, but you can't even really argue it was a battle for redemption. Entire scenes would abruptly end, only to start fresh ones as characters woke up the next day, confused. Again. I understand what the author was attempting to do. It just failed on a colossal scale. Those sudden endings and quick new beginnings just came across as incoherent, leaving me feeling like the author simply had no idea how to transition between scenes. There's literally no one to root for. There's one character with intrinsic value and like all the others in the book, the details you get about her are just given to you in a dump. Everyone else is an absolute waste of space. And that's really how the entire novel proceeds. Information dump, characters going somewhere, potentially interesting scene, abrupt ending, eyes opening, new scene, begin again. There's actually probably enough potential plot material throughout the book to make a compelling story, but this author can't do it. If you took all the paragraphs containing that material that actually made it onto the pages, I'm convinced you could fit them all into the first chapter. Just, don't waste your time. |
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