When Gary was 14, he shot his father to protect himself and his mother. His mother died and he was sent to a correctional facility for boys. Now a foster family has decided to take him in and given him a new chance at a normal life. But, as Gary discovers, the past isn't that easy to break away from. As the secrets of those around him become unraveled and the typical pressures of teenagerhood build, Gary struggles with what he knows he must do and the anger that bubbles just under the surface. When he finds himself in a situation that's close to what happened when he was 14, Gary struggles to make the right choices despite the pain they will bring to him and the people he cares about.
Impression:Off Track is an intense novel that highlights the damage left behind by abuse. The author submitted this to LP as a young adult novel, but, despite the age of the protagonist, it's not a book I would let my teenagers read--much of it is too graphic and violent. That notwithstanding, is an excellent story. The reader is pulled in and pulled along--you come to care for Gary, want the best for him, and want it all to work out for him. You cheer for him, cry for him, fear for him. And, above all, you want to know what happens next. It's not a book I would have picked up if I had found it at B&N--it's just not something I would normally read, but it is an incredible journey that will not leave you unchanged. If the content matter won't bother you (violence, abuse in a variety of forms), then I recommend giving it a look when it's finally released in August.
Dr. Cherijo Torin has been taken captive by the Hsktskt, the lizard slavers who had raided the planet she was on at the invitation of her husband. Angry, hated by both captives and captors alike, with enemieis who would do anything to see her dead in both groups, Cherijo must survive to aide her fellow slaves with all the medical training she has. Even her nursing crew stands against her. As she struggles to aide those she can and come to terms with her traitorous husband, she becomes involved in a plot to free as many as possible without becoming a permanent part of the Hsktskt experiments on the races they enslave.
Impression: This is my first Stardoc novel, and usually diving into a series in the middle can leave a reader feeling like they are missing something. Not so with Endurance. Viehl makes sure to quickly catch any new readers up on what has gone before without boring them with huge chunks of exposition that have no bearing on the current story. She works the past in right when the reader needs to know it as quickly as possible. It slows the pace of the story itself a little, but not badly enough to bore the reader or even make the reader start skimming. The plot itself is pretty straightforward, but the ending has a nice little twist that works despite the being a little puzzling. The book itself isn’t all that deep, but the characters are and the setting and cultures are quite believable. There's no fat in this book--it's well written. I'm not much of a science fiction reader, and I prefer soft SF to hard, but this is one of those books that makes you think you just might be able to change that. Highly recommended.
Women are dying in Chicago. They are ruled as suicides, but Murphy suspects differently and brings in Dresden to have a look. When he finds a Bible verse written in such a way that only a wizard can find it, there's no doubt that the "suicides" are actually murders. As Harry digs deeper, his discoveries don't make the job any easier. An old enemy rears its head, the war between the White Council and the vampires hangs in the balance, and his half-brother becomes a suspect. He must unravel the mystery to protect those he cares about without tipping off an unknown informant in the Council or getting himself killed while also still keeping the fallen angel Lasciel at bay. It's just another day for Dresden....
Impression: I love the Dresden Files series and look forward to picking up the next book when it comes out, but White Night was a bit disappointing for me. It was still a fun read, I still enjoyed it and devoured it like the other books in the series, but it falls among my least favorite among the Dresden books. The writing felt off--less concise and polished than in previous books, and there were issues in the way the story was written that didn't sit well with me.
The plot was pretty simple, which has worked in previous books, but didn’t work so well in this one because I was able to figure out the bad guys before the main character did. Since I'm not the brightest with figuring these kinds of things out, the transparency bothered me; the fact that I had it figured out before Dresden bothered me even more. And there were, not so much holes in the plotting, but little bumps that puzzled me. For example, there's a point in the book where Dresden opens a doorway into the Nevernever and he herds a group of people through but never makes it through himself. It's never really clearly explained how these people got out of the Nevernever. As a reader of the series, I can pretty much figured out who helped out, but a new reader doesn't have that benefit of experience. Considering the amount of words that were extraneous in the novel, some of those words could have been cut to allow for a clear explanation of how people got out. (However, I will admit that it could have been slipped in and I missed it since I was reading quite late.)
On the upside, Dresden is as wonderful as ever and, even with the bloated feeling of the writing, the story does still pull you along. There's always a concern this far into a series (especially after the Anita Blake books) that the character changes will make the character unrecognizable, or the plotting will fall apart, and neither of those happen here. Dresden is recognizably Dresden, and the plot works despite the bumps. And I do love the interaction between Dresden and Lasciel--I was worried when she first showed up in his life, but now I'm sad to see her go (assuming she's really gone). And it's going to be interesting to see how the end events affect the Dresden world. So I'm not totally turned off by the book, just not nearly as impressed as I have been with previous books. I can still recommend it, just not for a first time Dresden Files reader--there's too much that requires someone who is familiar with the world setting.
Thosha-Tol was born with the powers that are the province of the female Keepers of his people and, by the decree of the goddesses, should be destroyed. Instead the Keeper who midwifed his birth smuggled him away and raised him to use those powers as a Keeper until it's time to release him to those who would teach him to fight.
Then the monsters of legend begin to appear, not only on Thosha's world, but on all the worlds of the Aknivarian Cycle. And thus begins Thosa's journey to find those responsible for bringing these creatures back from the dead and destroying them by any means possible. Along the way he discovers new cultures, makes new allies, and learns a new magic that will forever separate him from his people and cost him everything.
Impression: This version of Thosha-Tol was an unedited, unrevised rough draft, and I still enjoyed it immensely. The story carried me along despite the problems associated with a first draft. The characters are intriguing, and I came to care for them despite the need for a little more depth (which is expected in the early draft stages). The setting was the weakest part of the story and even it was interesting. And there were places where the emotion just bowls you over. The ending is both astounding and logical, the deception revealed both expected and heartbreaking. Once the kinks are worked out, the novel will be a powerful statement on the cost of faith and doing what's right just because it needs to be done.
I look forward to this one hitting the shelves one day, and I plan on picking up at least 2 copies when it does--one to get signed and one to read. Thosha-Tol is one of the best novels I've read, which is amazing since it was a rough draft and I tend to be one of the pickiest readers I know. I expect it will only get better from here.
Corwin awakens in a hospital with no idea who he is or why he's there. He has some vague memory of an accident, but nothing more than that. What he does know for sure is that someone is keeping him doped up and in a hospital long after he needs to be, and he's determined to find out why. As it turns out, escaping the hospital is the easy part. Surviving his family while trying to discover who he is and why they're in contention with one another is by far the more difficult task. The alliances he makes are shaky at best, but he slowly regains his memory and returns to the place where it all began: Amber.
Impression:Nine Princes in Amber was a nice, fast read. It's a short book, but that doesn't make it simple. The settings are rich with detail, the characters well defined, the plot less straight forward than it would appear as the princes each try to outsmart one another. Corwin turns out to be no less ambitious, though one of the more likable characters. And there is so much that happens in so few pages that a reread is definitely going to be necessary to catch all the nuances of the story. There were a few lulls that I did have to kind of plow through, but the book is otherwise a very good read. Not one of my favorites, but definitely recommended.
Amanda is an accountant whose life gets turn upside down when she is kidnapped and awakens to find herself chained to one of the most gorgeous men she has ever seen. Hot and sexy, Kyrian turns out to be a Dark Hunter--an immortal similar to a vampire but who chooses not to drink human blood. Instead, he hunts down the vampires who do, and it's one nasty vamp, Desiderius, that has chained the two of them together and set them loose so he can hunt the Hunter and Amanda. Amanda finds herself attracted to Kyrian in a way she's never been attracted to a man before. Charged with protecting humanity from Desiderius's kind, Kyrian keeps her with him, only to get tangled in an attraction he doesn’t want as he tries finish of Desiderius once and for all--which can only be done if he can regain his soul from Artemus. Determined to defeat Desiderius, Kyrian must face his past, conquer his fears, and trust the woman he loves after centuries of not trusting anyone, and somehow get his soul back from a goddess who is not known for relinquishing what's hers easily.
Impression: As mentioned in my previous review, I'm not big on romance novels. And my biggest problem with the majority of them is how they suppress any common sense in a plot to forward the romance. So even if there's an interesting plot, it gets squashed in the favor of romance/sex even when the romance/sex makes no sense. I was kind of hoping the paranormal stuff would be a little different. If this book is any indication, the only difference is that one or more characters is paranormal--vampire, werewolf, whatever, and that's it. The rest is pretty standard: romance/sex at any cost. You just cannot convince me that a person "running for his/her life" who is getting all hot, hard, and horny for the person running with them is truly afraid that his/her life is truly in danger.
And that happens A LOT in this book. I can get being attracted, and getting hot, hard, and horny when the danger has passed, but while you're fleeing a blood sucking killer? Um, no. I read this book because several people said her writing is wonderful, but the most interesting plot--the cat and mouse between Desiderus and Kyrian--doesn't get the attention it deserves until the later 1/4th or 1/3rd of the book. Before that, it is all backdrop for the relationship developing between Amanda and Kyrian even when the it doesn't make sense. The writing itself was generally okay, except for the constant (and usually unnecessary and annoying) pov switches, but nothing all that "wonderful". All the characters are inhumanly beautiful--tall and elegant, sculpted gods and goddesses. I could probably overlook this if the rest of the book wasn't so flawed, but, in this case, it only made a bad book worse.
I suppose readers of standard, fluff, who-cares-if-the-characters-make-sense romance will love it as long as they also like the paranormal. As for me, it's most definitely NOT on my recommended list. I like fluff as much as the next person (though, admittedly, I do like a little depth to my reading), but my fluff has to make sense.
Hannah is a talented young artist who has lost her dearest friend and mentor, her grandmother. In grief and at the insistence of her mother, she sets asides her dreams of being an artist to work in a stable job, but she's miserable. When she catches her boyfriend cheating on her, meets two very sexy men, her job goes belly up, and her best friend goes after her own dreams, Hannah must reevaluate her choices and decide whether or not to take a chance on her dreams and in love.
Impression: I generally do not like romance--there have been a few I've liked, but most have another plot that drives the story and don't let the romance take over. The "romance" books I like are the ones where the romance makes sense rather than ending up the end all be all of the book. The sexual tension comes in at appropriate times rather than being forced into the situation, no matter what that situation is. In my experience, most romance books are not like this. Every now and then, I pick up and try another one (usually by some well recommended author), only to get the same old stuff (and, yes, I do understand that the romantic/sexual element is the main part of the genre; honestly, that's not my beef--it's that the element too often overrides common sense--well, that and the language often used that is really silly when you think about it). I'll keep trying, but I pretty much expect the same old same old.
So it's always a surprise when I run into a romance novel that I enjoy, and I really enjoyed The Still Life of Hannah Morgan. The romance elements do not overwhelm the rest of the story, the main character is someone I could relate to as a reader, and the plot very solid. I literally could not stop reading it. Still Life is funny, romantic, and very real. It's a book that I'm enjoying editing, and a book I would buy if if I found it on the shelves at B&N. And, for someone who doesn't like romance, that's saying something.
Aaron has been having a nightmare of a civilization destroyed, but it is not until he turns 18 that he sees what destroys it: angels. Over the next few days, he begins to discover he has new gifts, some of them beyond the ability of any normal human being. At first he thinks he's going crazy, but then he meets two men who show him a different possibility. At first he refuses to believe, but eventually he must come to terms with what he is: Nephilim--both angel and human. If he doesn't, all that he loves could be destroyed as the Powers seek him out to kill him.
Impression: This book was on the other end of the book vs. TV/movie spectrum as Stardust--it made a better TV series than book. Oh, the basic story line was okay, but the writing itself was overly simplistic, even for young adult fiction, and generally poor. The TV miniseries even managed to give the characters more depth. As usually happens when a book is translated to movie, the miniseries made some minor changes in the story as well, and, in this case, those changes worked.
Really, y.a. writing doesn't have to be like this. Even older children's books don't have to be so poorly put together. Look at Harry Potter or A Wrinkle In Time. Okay, some would say that the former is poorly written, but I thoroughly enjoyed the HP books. I kept reading them--the author wrote them in a way that I wanted to keep reading them. And the movies have worked for me so far as well. Books and the movies made from them can work well together, this just isn't the case for The Fallen.
Because of my disappointment in the first book in this series, I won't be picking up the rest. The story is unfinished, and I don't care. The other books could get better, but I'm not interested in spending my money on them and finding out they don't. I want to own the miniseries, but couldn't care less about the books.
