Review: Fairest Beauty by Melanie Dickerson

Title: Fairest Beauty

Author: Melanie Dickerson

Series: N/A

Genre: YA Fantasy

Received for review from NetGalley

Summary (from Goodreads)

Sophie desperately wants to get away from her stepmother’s jealousy, and believes escape is her only chance to be happy. Then a young man named Gabe arrives from Hagenheim Castle, claiming she is betrothed to his older brother, and everything twists upside down. This could be Sophie’s one chance at freedom—but can she trust another person to keep her safe?

Gabe defied his parents Rose and Wilhelm by going to find Sophie, and now he believes they had a right to worry: the girl’s inner and outer beauty has enchanted him. Though romance is impossible—she is his brother’s future wife, and Gabe himself is betrothed to someone else—he promises himself he will see the mission through, no matter what.

When the pair flee to the Cottage of the Seven, they find help—but also find their feelings for each other have grown. Now both must not only protect each other from the dangers around them—they must also protect their hearts.

Review

I love a good fairytale and I’m a sucker for a good romance, so in most respects this was right up my street. I very much enjoyed the ‘realistic’ twist on the classic Snow White fairytale, and though re-imaginings always have the downside of you knowing where the story is going, I always find it kind of fun to guess what connection each of the characters has and exactly how events are going to unfold. Fairest Beauty certainly wasn’t a disappointment here – from twisted step-mother Ermengard to the seven (not dwarfs, with one exception, but outcasts with physical or other difficulties that render them different – a clever reflection of the time) the mythology was woven in a clever and satisfying way.

And as characters Gabe and Sophie were likeable. Roguish charmers are my particular favourite and Gabe with his grinning and flirting but ultimately heroic heart was a perfect romantic interest in my book. And though Sophie was inevitably a little helpless – not in an irritating way, but as an accurate reflection of what her life would have been like at the time  - she had enough gumption about her to make her sympathetic rather than simpering.

That said, there was a little too much of Sophie worrying about her feelings for Gabe and whether it was the right thing - it just started to get a little on the tiresome side after a while, but not so much as to be a detriment to the story in a big way. It was just a bit padded out, like a few more chapters were needed to make the book publishable so they were filled with Sophie and Gabe’s indecision. I do like the whole ‘will-they-won’t-they’ thing, especially when it’s clear they ultimately will, but it’s a fine line between making it tantalising and page-turning, or becoming annoying.

But, the thing that bugged me most were the references to Jesus and the Bible. It’s not my cup of tea – I just find it a bit preachy. I didn’t realise when I picked it up that it would have Christian themes, and if you like that sort of thing, I’m sure it’s done very well, but it’s just not for me.

So, a nice little romance that’s a bit drawn out and perhaps not best suited for me, but overall I enjoyed it and did find myself dipping into it as often as possible in the hope that on the next page there would be some romantic scene between the two leads, so on that front it was very successful!

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman

Title: Between Two Thorns

Author: Emma Newman

Series: The Split Worlds #1

Genre: Fantasy

Received for review from NetGalley

Summary (from Goodreads)

Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath’s secret mirror city.

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer.

There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs.

But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?

Review

I struggled to get into this one, and it took me some time to realise why. On the surface, it has everything I like in a novel – fantasy worlds, fairies and even a splash of the social intrigue that I enjoy in historical novels about court life. And it’s set in Bath. As an ex-resident of the city, I carry a certain, biased fondness for anything set within its streets.

But despite all this, I just couldn’t get going with it. I picked it up, read a little, put it down, read other books, and was generally unmotivated just to get it finished. I hate not finishing books, especially ones that I receive for review, so I plodded on with it and towards the end it did start to get a bit better. But not enough to payoff the slow start.

I think Between Two Thorns suffers for its multiple POV structure. There are several major players – some introduced early then promptly forgotten about, others not introduced ’til halfway through then given an inordinate amount of attention. It just felt a bit disjointed, and I couldn’t decide who was important.

It’s always the risk with multiple POV books that readers will like one character more than the others and consequently skip sections to get back to them, and I did feel a desire to do that in the early stages, before the disparate threads of narrative started heading towards a point of convergence.

When the climactic point of the narrative came together, it was quite a good payoff, and I enjoyed watching it all unravel. However, I was immediately then annoyed by the quite abrupt ‘Now you have to buy the next book’ ending. I don’t mind a bit of a cliffhanger, but there has to be some resolution. As I got to the final few percent on my Kindle, I just kept thinking ‘there is not enough space to wrap this up satisfactorily.’ And it didn’t.

The characters were pretty good – varied and each with their own motivations and interests. The Fae-touched were the most interesting, as was Arbiter Max and his dislocated soul companion.

I quite liked Cathy, though her sections were peppered with pop culture references – something I find incredibly irritating in books. Unless it’s a fashion reference in a book about fashion, or a nerdy reference in a book about a bunch of nerds, I personally think all pop culture references should be scrubbed out of books. Cathy’s frequent references to geek culture – Portal, Battlestar Galactica, Brazil – were supposed to highlight her geeky character, but the story wasn’t about her being a geek: it was about her wanting to live in the human world. That could have been got across without the references. But then, it’s a personal bugbear, and not necessarily something that will irritate other people as much as it did me.

Overall, just a bit of a mixed bag. I wonder if this is one of those books where the second one in the series is loads better because the set up stuff is all out of the way. I enjoyed it enough to consider finding that out, but unless it leaps off a shelf at me when it comes out, I feel I’ll probably have forgotten all about it by then…

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Slated by Teri Terry

Title: Slated

Author: Teri Terry

Series: Slated #1

Genre: YA Dystopia

Summary (from Goodreads)

Kyla’s memory has been erased,
her personality wiped blank,
her memories lost for ever.

She’s been Slated.

The government claims she was a terrorist, and that they are giving her a second chance – as long as she plays by their rules. But echoes of the past whisper in Kyla’s mind. Someone is lying to her, and nothing is as it seems. Who can she trust in her search for the truth?

Review

I’m a big fan of things set in England. Like much of popular culture – there’s an overwhelming majority of American based stuff out there. Which is fine, I don’t mind that, but it’s nice to read something a little closer to home once in a while. To know what ‘Year 11′ means, and not have to worry about trying to figure out the relative ages of the characters and translate other minor differences. We might share a language, but British and American culture can sometimes be miles apart.

So, Slated is not only British, but a Dystopian (yay) and features an interesting premise about a memory erasing procedure that didn’t quite work properly on the main character. It should have been my favourite read of the month, but somehow it just didn’t sit quite right.

I really enjoyed the first half – Kyla getting used to her new home, slowly coming to realise that something is not right about her and how she can resist the monitoring effects of the Slating procedure. It should stop her ever getting angry or violent, it should make her placid and agreeable, but it doesn’t. And her uncertainty about why, her difficulty hiding it is interesting. The world was well imagined, the set up quite frightening at times, with the random disappearances and very public removals of rebels against the system – no matter how small the rebellion. You never knew quite who to trust out of the background characters, which added nicely to the overall sense of peril.

But then the second half went downhill for me.

The problem, I felt, was love interest Ben. Also Slated, but unlike Kyla, he’s not magically resistant to the effects of the treatment. As characters and love interests go, he’s entirely bland. The entire basis of the relationship seems to be that Kyla thinks he’s pretty. There’s vague allusion to ‘feeling like she knew him’, suggesting that there’s some history there, pre-Slating, but it’s not really explored in enough depth to make me buy the attraction.

So when the whole drive of the plot becomes Kyla trying to do things for Ben, to protect Ben, because Ben asked her to – it all just stopped making sense to me. I didn’t understand why she felt so strongly about him, because there was just nothing much to feel strongly about.

So the climax of the novel was mostly an anticlimax, and set ups for the next book felt a bit shoehorned in, which is a shame because they were the interesting parts. I would have much preferred the revelation about a figure from Kyla’s past to be the main thrust of the ending, the Ben stuff taking a back seat, but I guess the overwhelming selling power of teen romance sways everyone in the publishing process. It is a business after all.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Through Dead Eyes by Chris Priestly

Title: Through Dead Eyes

Author: Chris Priestly

Series: N/A

Genre: YA Horror

Received for review from NetGalley

Summary (from Goodreads)

Alex joins his father on a business trip to Amsterdam. During the day he hangs out with the daughter of a family friend. They visit the usual sights but also coffee shops and flea markets off the beaten track. At one of these markets Alex spots an ancient-looking mask. Before he knows what he’s doing he buys it. Later, in his hotel room, he feels compelled to put the mask on. Alex is sucked into a parallel Amsterdam, one from centuries before which begins to reveal the dark past of both the building he is staying in and the little girl who once lived there . . . edging stealthily towards the terrible twist.

Review

There was a lot to like about this creepy little yarn, but it never quite hit enough right notes to elevate it from a light read to something really engrossing.

The good, then.

It was creepy. Priestly does fear well, which he should do by now, having penned many very successful books within the YA horror genre. This is the first I’ve read, but I’ve heard many good things about his Tales of Terror series. And if this is anything to go by, I can see why he’s so popular. I was reading it in bed at night, with the Boyfriend sat next to me, and yet I still felt myself getting freaked out. (I am a total wuss.)

The characters were well drawn – and viewing them through Alex’s eyes allowed for lots of the audience seeing more of the characters than the protagonist is able to, which I love. I just think it’s so very clever when done successfully, which Priestly does.

On the not so good, there were lots of bits where I felt like the story wasn’t really going anywhere. There was lots of wandering around Amsterdam, which was all very nice, but didn’t really keep the pace up. And as the book was only very short, a lot of the time it felt like padding. It felt like it should have been a short story in a collection, rather than a short novel. I think it could have been very intense and scary as a short story, but fleshed out it just sagged a little between the frightening moments. Which does give wimps like me a chance to recover somewhat, but doesn’t do the overall tension many favours.

I’d definitely pick up another book by Chris Priestly if I saw one, but I won’t be rushing out to hunt one down. Through Dead Eyes was lots of promise that didn’t quite deliver, but overall was enjoyable.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: The Marsh People by Valentine Williams

Title: The Marsh People

Author: Valentine Williams

Series: N/A

Genre: Dystopia

Summary (from Goodreads)

In a post-industrial age, the last ‘free’ humans cower in hiding from the mysterious Masters and struggle for life in merciless marshlands. The Masters – human or alien – are never seen but rule the crumbling cities they dominate with fiendishly trained, dogs. The ferocious mastiffs are also the near-feral police force that raids pitiful villages and herds their occupants like sheep into inhuman city slavery and mindlessness. But city slave Scummo finds his latent humanity stirred when an orphaned child comes into his care … and they go on the run into the boggy wastelands, living rough, starving but skirting scattered tiny villages in constant fear of ‘the herdings’ by packs of pitiless hunting dogs, electronically programmed by the Masters to enslave or cull village-dwellers. Scummo and his young charge, Kelpin, re-learn long-forgotten survival skills from Bethyl, the fiercely independent female leader of one Marsh People group. But in the bloody struggle to survive against desperately competing wandering human bands, can Scummo and Kelpin avoid a return to primitive brutality, dehumanizing ignorance and even cannibalism or hope to replace the building blocks of civilization before it’s too late? And are the mysterious Masters secretly monitoring their every move, ready and able to destroy the last ragged vestiges of human liberty by unleashing the dogs of final war? In Scummo and Kelpin’s hair-raising odyssey of life as outcasts in a terrifying marshland, alive with both human and unworldly predators, Valentine Williams prompts us to ponder just how thin the veneer of civilization and humanity might be. Would mankind band together against a common enemy or would it turn on its own … just as the dogs so quickly became man’s worst enemy rather than his best friend.

Review

This is an odd one. There was an awful lot I really liked about it but at the same time, there were a few quirks that I didn’t like.

The story is reminiscent of many dystopia/survival genre things. There are a central group of characters to whom many bad, and good, things happen. There are deaths, relationships are formed, food is usually short, and wild animals are prone to attack. Which is good, because I like all of that sort of stuff. It’s why I watched Survivor for the short run that had on the BBC and why The Stand by Stephen King is still one of my favourite books.

There was a lot of great imagination on show – Scummo and Kelpin’s world was horribly realised, and the psychology behind the apathy of the city dwellers to do anything to change their lot all too believable. I loved the vicious eel creatures that dwelled in the water, ready to pick off any unsuspecting swimmers, and all the time there were little details that suggest the author knows a lot more about the world than she felt the need to let on. Another thing I really like in a dystopian novel.

At times I felt the plot was a little episodic, with no overall arc – besides the mysterious Masters, who I’ll come to in a moment – but in a lot of ways, this worked, because the story was less about a cataclysmic battle of good vs. evil, more about the small evils that humans are capable of committing, the constant struggle to resist giving in to those base urges and the question of why some people are more successful at that than others. Occasionally I felt the niggling need for the plot to have a bit of build up, but the more I read, the more I felt the senselessness of a lot of it was deliberate – a reflection of what life would really be like. Deaths are undramatic, and not played for tears, a bottle of water spilled in the opening sequence – the only bottle the characters have – is a reflection of random chaos, not a plot driver.

The characters were at times confusing – so many introduced so quickly meant I had a bit of a hard time getting a handle on people’s ages and personalities – but after a while became rounded and relatable, from fierce Kelpin, to quiet but determined Bethyl.

The narrative jumped around a bit between these characters, which is where this book started to jar with me a little. At one point, the narrative, previously 3rd person, switches to Kelpin’s 1st person perspective, and occasionally conversations are written out like script dialogue. I can sort of see – with so many characters involved in a discussion – why this has been done, but it felt a bit out of place, throwing me from the narrative.

Every so often, the narrative switched to the Masters, orchestrators of the situations our characters find themselves in, who appear to be doing some science experiment. This was my most major grumble with the book. I loved the idea of some people conducting a giant experiment on the population, watching them with cameras and manipulating them with food packages, but felt by the end that I either needed to know much more about them, or much less. As a mysterious threat, hanging over the heads of the survivors, who were never really sure what they were doing, or when they would strike, they could have been really scary. Seeing more of them could have tied the different threads of the story together in a much more typical way, providing an overall enemy, and the good vs evil battle. As it was, they were neither here nor there – present, but mostly as observers who occasionally discussed events at the end of chapters.

So, to summarise, a lot that I liked – survival, savage animal attacks, people being mean to each other and fighting for scraps in a dystopian marshland while our group of protagonists try valiantly to be the sort of survivors we all imagine we’d be: honourable and fair. However, a few quirks of narrative perspective and a threat that never really built to what I was anticipating left me feeling a little dissatisfied, but not so far as to say that I didn’t enjoy it.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Scary Mary by S.A. Hunter

Title: Scary Mary

Author: S.A. Hunter

Series: Scary Mary #1

Genre: YA Paranormal

Self Published

Summary (from Goodreads)

Mary just wants to be left alone, but the cheerleaders, jocks, guidance counselors, and ghosts won’t stop harrassing her. When a new boy starts school, he surprises Mary by befriending her. That’s a rare thing for the school freak, but her unusual abilities put a rift in their budding friendship when Mary has to tell Cy that his home is haunted and not by Casper, the friendly ghost.

Review

So two of my younger siblings have been telling me that this book is a must read. In Taylor’s words, ‘It’s like Carrie 2 bad. Bad in a really good way.’

I have to say, I agree.

Scary Mary reads like every Scary Movie film made. Predictable, yes; entertaining, yes; going to stay in you mind for more than ten minutes afterwards, no. The characters were all  comfortable cliches – Mary the outcast, Rachel her wacky friend, Vicky the evil cheerleader, there was nothing groundbreaking or original. But I think sometimes that’s nice. It’s like watching a film where you know all the lines before the actors speak them, but you enjoy it any way.

The plot was reasonable, though the signposting was so obvious I had the ending figured out about three chapters before, and some of the friendship drama was a bit random – Cy ran a bit hot and cold at times, and Rachel’s decision to randomly stomp off seemed a bit contrived to make Mary have to go somewhere alone. Again, it comes back to the cliche thing. Scary Mary has all of them, but if you go in knowing that (‘Carrie 2 bad. Bad in a really good way’) it’s still an entertaining read.

It didn’t take me long at all to read – I finished off most of it while in the bath, before the water even got cold – and while that’s partly because it’s quite short, it’s also because the writing style is fairly engaging and easy going. There were some clumsy passages – a few bits of unintentional repetition and some phrasing that didn’t read right, which comes from being copy-edited not properly edited – but overall the writing was pretty clean and straight forwards. The formatting and copy-editing were good too – I didn’t spot any mistakes, and I’ve read published books that weren’t as neatly formatted for Kindle.

And this one’s free, so definitely worth checking out. If you hate it, it won’t have cost you anything but the time it took you to realise. And like my sister, Charlie (who has bought the sequel), you might just find it’s your new favourite book.

Rating: 3.5/5

S.A. Hunter’s Website: http://www.sahunter.net/

Review: Holding Out for a Hero, A Superhero Anthology

Title: Holding Out for a Hero

Author: Christine Bell, Ella Dane, Tamara Morgan, Nicco Rosso, Adrien-Luc Sanders

Series: N/A

Genre: Scifi/Fantasy/Romance

Received for review from NetGalley

Summary (from Goodreads)

Scarlett Fever, by Christine Bell and Ella Dane

After five years in training, it’s finally time for Scarlett Fever and her fellow superheroes to leave the United Superhero Academy and test their powers out in the real world. There’s only one problem. She’s been assigned to partner with arrogant, by the book, and irritatingly hot, Blade of Justice.

Blade’s whole life has gone according to plan, and he’s more than ready to move on to the big time, protecting a metropolis of his own. But his perfectly ordered life is derailed when he’s teamed up with the fiery maverick, Scarlett Fever.

Sparks fly the moment they arrive in Plunketville, Oklahoma, as they each set out to force the other to request a transfer. They soon discover there’s more going on in this single stop-sign town than blowing up mailboxes and cow tipping. If Scarlett can get Blade to listen to his gut, and he can teach her to use her head, they just might have a fighting chance.

Ironheart, by Nico Rosso

Vince might be hard as steel, but he’s not invincible. Not when iron touches him, especially in the hands of an evil minion. Not when Kara ran away after a whirlwind affair, just when he thought he might be falling in love. And definitely not when she returns, looking for his help.

The archvillain TechHead is coming for Kara and her superhero teammates, and he’s determined to use their combined power to create the ultimate weapon. But Kara can’t fight him alone. She needs Vince’s brutal skill, though being with him means she risks losing her beloved secret identity, leaving her nowhere else to hide.

When TechHead makes a play to capture Kara, Vince has more to lose than just his heart. But he will do anything for the woman he loves, even if it means putting his heart on the line again.

Playing With Fire, by Tamara Morgan

Fiona Nelson has always been one hot ticket—even before she took the conversion serum that gave her superhuman abilities. Fiona’s powers come at a price: lack of human contact, or she won’t be the only thing burning. When she loses control of her emotions, her fire powers run rampant… and she’s hurt enough people already. Including herself.

But when the man behind her conversion returns to blackmail her into helping him gain power, the only person she can turn to is Ian Jones, the man who broke her teenage heart. The man determined to expose the criminal known as Fireball, whose explosive escapades are just a little too close to Fiona’s M.O.

Ian is convinced Fiona’s dangerous, convinced she’s Fireball, and convinced he’ll damn himself if he doesn’t resist a heat that’s always drawn him to Fiona like a moth to a flame—but Ian has his own secrets.

And he’ll learn far too soon what happens when you play with fire.

From the Ashes, by Adrien-Luc Sanders

Sociopath. Killer. Deviant. Monster, devoid of morals, incapable of human emotion. The villain known as Spark has been called that and more, and as a super-powered aberrant has masterminded countless crimes to build his father’s inhuman empire.

Yet to professor Sean Archer, this fearsome creature is only Tobias Rutherford–antisocial graduate researcher, quiet underachiever, and a fascinating puzzle Sean is determined to solve.

One kiss leads to an entanglement that challenges everything Tobias knows about himself, aberrants, and his own capacity to love. But when his father orders him to assassinate a senator, one misstep unravels a knot of political intrigue that places the fate of humans and aberrants alike in Tobias’s hands. As danger mounts and bodies pile deeper, will Tobias succumb to his dark nature and sacrifice Sean–or will he defy his father and rise from the ashes to become a hero in a world of villains?

Review

While this was an enjoyable read, it was really a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality. Every story was enjoyable but, for me, the last was far and away the best of the bunch. The rating reflects an average, and I’ve given each story a separate rating.

I love a bit of ‘opposites attract’ and Scarlett Fever totally delivered on that front, and though it was fairly obvious who the enemy was, I could forgive that for the steamy chemistry between the major characters and the gradual realisation that they are exactly what each other need to be the best the can be. 3.5/5

Playing with Fire wasn’t a bad story, though as I said, not my favourite. The world set up here, I loved – the idea that people took a drug to give them superpowers, but mostly they turned out to be lame (killing fish etc) was great and love interest Ian was an interesting character. I just felt some of the scenes involving Fiona’s past were a bit cringy, and certain characters I couldn’t see getting along. 3/5

Ironheart was my least favourite of the bunch. It had a lot more explicit sex than the others, though that wasn’t my objection. My biggest problem with it was, unstoppable superhero Vince’s powers were negated by the presence of Iron… which would surely mean he never had superpowers, the amount of iron there is about? He gets shot at, attacked with saws etc and doesn’t notice, but one fire poker and he’s reduced to a regular human. Maybe I’m being overly picky here, but it just grated with me the whole way through. 2.5/5

From the Ashes was by far my favourite, despite my reservations with it being Gay romance. It’s not something I normally read – I read romance to swoon over the main bloke, and I like my main blokes straight. However, this didn’t feature the same levels of rampant, gratuitous sex as some of the other stories – instead portraying a much more tender and emotional love story (interesting, given one of the characters claims to have no emotions) where two men ultimately save each other and the world at the same time. It was a horrible vision of the future, with x-men style ‘superpowered weirdos as the dangerous “other”‘ style mythology, and plenty of interesting stuff going on in the background. But, at its heart it was a truly romantic romance and very enjoyable. 5/5

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Lament by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Lament

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Series: Books of Faerie #1

Genre: YA Fantasy

Publisher: Scholastic

Summary (from Goodreads): 

Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Monaghan is a painfully shy but prodigiously gifted musician. She’s about to find out she’s also a cloverhand—one who can see faeries. Deirdre finds herself infatuated with a mysterious boy who enters her ordinary suburban life, seemingly out of thin air. Trouble is, the enigmatic and gorgeous Luke turns out to be a gallowglass—a soulless faerie assassin. An equally hunky—and equally dangerous—dark faerie soldier named Aodhan is also stalking Deirdre. Sworn enemies, Luke and Aodhan each have a deadly assignment from the Faerie Queen. Namely, kill Deirdre before her music captures the attention of the Fae and threatens the Queen’s sovereignty. Caught in the crossfire with Deirdre is James, her wisecracking but loyal best friend. Deirdre had been wishing her life weren’t so dull, but getting trapped in the middle of a centuries-old faerie war isn’t exactly what she had in mind . . .

What’s Good About It

I’m easily won over by faeries. Particularly faeries of the ruthless, cunning, child snatching variety, and there is plenty of that going on in Lament. The faery mythology draws heavily from Gaelic and other European traditions, and the faeries are terrifying for it. They plot and scheme and murder and hide in the shadows just out of eyesight – spine tingling!

James is the best character, though I must confess, I read book two, Ballad, first, and that features him as the main character, so perhaps I was just naturally drawn to him, and naturally put off Dee, who spends the vast majority of Ballad being a total trainwreck. I wasn’t overly enamoured with Luke, and found the background characters surprisingly pantomime. I guess I’ve just been spoiled for Maggie Stiefvater by how much I loved the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, because Lament is certainly not a bad book at all, but I still felt there was something lacking.

Of course, reading Ballad first meant a lot of the punchlines in Lament were ruined, but I can see how they would have been shocking and how the final climatic moments of the story would have been tense. Even though I knew how it would play out, I read through the final part of the story in a matter of hours, after dragging the first 100 or so pages out over several weeks. And I guess that leads me nicely into the biggest problem I had with the book…

What’s Not So Good

It was just a bit slow to get going… I didn’t particularly care about Dee’s romance with Luke, and I felt some conclusions were drawn a little rapidly, others brushed over completely, which left me feeling a little lost.

Unless my copy of the book has some pages missing (and I did get it from a library, so it’s a possibility) there were at least two moments in the plot where I was left thinking ‘When did that happen?’ So for all it’s slow build up, the end scene felt a bit rushed and at times as if it came out of nowhere. I wasn’t disoriented enough to make me want to put the book down, but it did pull me out of the narrative on occasion.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Title: Incarceron

Author: Catherine Fisher

Series: Incarceron #1

Genre: YA Future Dystopia

Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books

Summary (from Goodreads)

Incarceron — a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology — a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber — chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison — a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device — a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn’s escape is born …

What’s Good About It

There are a lot of good ideas in Incarceron. I loved the idea of people being forced to live in a historic era, with contraband technologies hidden behind closed doors as an impeccably period front is presented for the benefit of visitors and passers by. The prison itself – a sprawling labyrinth of tunnels, each lined with blinking red eyes, always watching – is another great idea, truly menacing in its execution.

Claudia is a great character. Manipulative and driven, she’s not the typical YA main character and that was so refreshing. So was the brutality of some of the elements of Incaceron, which will keep fans of The Hunger Games’ brand of violence satiated.

But far and away my favourite thing was the idea of material recycling in Incarceron, and how gradually the prison was running out of biological materials, forcing it to make sheep (and sometimes people) out of a hybrid of biological stuff and metal. Cyborg sheep! Awesome. How a closed system, totally self sustained is losing material, I don’t know. The part of me that took A Level Chemistry rebels against the idea, but the image of cyborg sheep totally wins over the geek in me.

What’s Not So Good

Some of it was a bit twee. I mean, talking keys? And the science was a good idea, but a bit dubious. It sort of fell into the space between fantasy and science fiction, with some elements paraded as science that felt a little too fantastical for me.

Some of the foreshadowing was a little obvious too. I’d worked out what was going on with Keiro after about three chapters, which annoyed me. I like working things out before the characters as much as I like a really satisfying surprise twist, but working it out before the book’s even underway is just irritating. It becomes less about when the characters will figure out, and more ‘why haven’t they yet??’

But, minor issues aside, this was still an enjoyable book. I wouldn’t hunt down the sequel, but if I see it, I will pick it up.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine

Title: Midnight Alley

Author: Rachel Caine

Series: Morganville Vampires #3

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Publisher: Allison & Busby

Summary (from Goodreads)

Claire Danvers’s college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead made things relatively safe. For a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking her, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring. To what end, Claire will find out. And it’s giving night school a whole new meaning.

What’s Good About It

Much of the same as the last two really.  There’s a step up to the mythology, and a bit of explanation about why Morganville, which makes the whole series start to make a bit more sense.

The politics deepen and the ‘who’s on which side’ intrigue continues to develop nicely. It’s a shame the series feels a bit like the ideas are coming as the books are written, rather than planned out before hand. The addition of Captain Obvious in particular was a bit clumsy. He could have (read should have) been introduced before. It would have made the world of Morganville a lot richer.

But, these are just quick reads, and as a quick read it was fine – entertaining, fast paced, with some good suspenseful moments and enough intrigue and plot to justify the continuing series without becoming samey. Just not enough to make it something stand out.

What’s Not So Good

Do any of these characters grow? I liked them in the first book, but I’m rather bored of Shane doing the dumb hero thing, Claire risking her life for knowledge and everybody making out with each other. There was a good bit at the end where Claire showed a darker side to her personality, but it was brushed over in a way that suggests to me that it won’t be developed or explored. Which is a shame, because it would have made her a hell of a lot more interesting.

The whole Michael/Shane fall out got a bit boring after about page five too. It just seemed shallow and pointless. I don’t mind main characters butting heads, but while I get why Shane was mad at Michael, I wanted to see more conflict. He would have been torn up about hating his best friend and still having to live with him and face it every day. There should have been more guilt tormenting Shane. I just don’t buy that he could hate Michael so totally.

Rating: 3.5/5