Lost in Stories: Romance

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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Review: Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles #2) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

11:32 PM | Posted by Romy @ Lost.in.Stories | Edit Post

Release Date: October 12, 2010

Publisher: Penguin

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 516

Source: Penguin Australia

Blurb (from Penguin Australia)

One night in the rain, Ethan Wate opened his eyes and fell in love with Lena Duchannes. His life would never be the same.

Lena is a Caster and her family is locked in a supernatural civil war: full of darkness and demons. On her sixteenth birthday Lena made a terrifying choice, which now haunts her day and night.

And as her seventeenth birthday approaches Lena and Ethan face even greater danger. A Caster and a Mortal can never truly be together.

Every kiss is a curse.
Ethan's next heartbeat could be his last.
It is their curse now . . .

The Quickie Review

Lena, Ethan, Link (my personal favourite) and Ridley are all back and getting themselves into trouble once again. With even more intrigue and mystery as we learn more secrets about both Lena’s and Ethan’s families as well as the magical world Lena is apart of, Beautiful Darkness will not disappoint fans of Beautiful Creatures, the first book in the Caster Chronicle series.

The Full Blown Review

*Slight spoilers are mentioned in my review so if you haven’t read the first book in the series, Beautiful Creatures, I wouldn’t suggest reading on, well unless your desperate to read this review that is*

Poor old Ethan, Lena his Caster girlfriend is blaming her uncle’s death on herself and is pulling away from everyone apart from her Siren cousin, Ridley. She’s also hanging around a strange guy who’s not what he seems. Suddenly Ethan finds himself having to imagine a future without the love of his life unless he can get through to her which is hard when the darkness is pulling Lena in, what’s a boy to do?

First off I’m going to strongly recommend to all of those who cannot remember what happened in Beautiful Creatures all that well, which was me, to re-read it (or even skim it) as it will be very helpful when reading Beautiful Darkness because I found the start to be a tad confusing due to my inability to recall what happened at the end of Beautiful Creatures.

Once again I am amazed how both Garcia and Stohl can write with such fluidity, you simply cannot tell that two people wrote the book as it all blends so well. It shows to me that these two really understand each others writing and they are on the same page regarding what they want to convey to the reader which isn’t as easy as it sounds I’m sure. Without this deep understanding I don’t think the book would read as well as it does, nothing is worse (for me anyway) than reading a book written by two authors where the reader can tell which author wrote what.

At first I was a tad worried about where this book was going, I was finding it pretty slow going and because of that I took my sweet time reading it which definitely disappointed me because I was chafing at the bit to read this as I loved Beautiful Creatures. However fear not my readers because I continued to read on and then out of the blue the action picked up and didn’t stop until the end, suddenly I couldn’t read the book fast enough. Once the action picked up we were also given information galore on the supernatural world that lives below Gatlin plus more info on both Lena and Ethan’s families’ (one particular bit of info really had me going holy cow I wasn’t expecting that all all!). So I guess what I’m trying to say not very eloquently is that if your finding it a bit slow going keep reading because it will pick up and then all of a sudden you’ll find yourself at the end which will leave you wanting to read the next book in the series and soon as whilst it did answer some questions it left so many more unanswered questions which need answers especially what’s going to happen to my favourite wannabe musician Link?

What I loved about the first book was the very gothic southern setting and how Garcia and Stohl described the small town politics, gossiping and thinly veiled politeness (this is the South after all) Ethan and Lena had to endure. Both Garcia and Stohl captured the setting so well I could envision myself sitting on Ethan’s porch or lying down in the Greenbrier garden. Thankfully, once again in Beautiful Darkness we are reintroduced to the beautiful American South setting via Garcia and Stohl’s beautiful descriptive writing.

I feel that whilst the first book had a dark tone to it, Beautiful Darkness has an even darker tone to it (duh Romy it is called Beautiful Darkness after all!). Lena’s in a bad place, her Uncle who she loved so dearly has died and she blames herself consequently throughout most of the book Lena’s emotional state is all over the place and she appears to be in a dark state of mind. Lena cuts herself off from her own family and even Ethan, the only people she can talk to are Ridley, her cousin, and John Breed, a very interesting new character we are introduced to. Meanwhile, poor Ethan doesn’t understand why Lena is doing this to herself, he knows it’s not her fault for Macon’s death but what can he do? Throughout most of the book Ethan is examining his relationship with Lena particularly why she pulled away from him. During Lena’s absence from his life Ethan befriends Liv, a feisty new character who works at the local library with Marian. Whilst Ethan spends more time with Liv and it’s clear to both the readers and Ethan that being with Liv definitely would be easier, Ethan never gives up on Lena, it will always be Lena for Ethan, she is the love of his life, which is very sweet.

Whilst Beautiful Darkness is a solid sequel that kept me intrigued, I found that I preferred the first book in the series more simply due to the fact that I found the start of Beautiful Darkness to be very slow and frankly a bit boring, that said however once the pace picked up and the revelations started coming I was hooked!

Rating

4 out of 5

There’s Another Book?!?

Yes there are at least two more books (according to the Caster Chronicles Website). The third book in the series will be released during the Fall of 2011, the fourth book will follow releasing in the Fall of 2012.

Goodies

Official Beautiful Darkness Site

Caster Chronicles Website

Caster Chronicles Fan Site

Caster Chronicles on Facebook

Margaret Stohl on TypePad

Kami Garcia on TypePad

Margaret on Twitter

Kami on Twitter

Labels: Fantasy, Review, Romance | Comments

Friday, November 12, 2010

Review: Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

6:44 PM | Posted by Romy @ Lost.in.Stories | Edit Post

Release Date: October 14, 2010

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Genre: Angels, Romance

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 288

Source: Hachette Australia

Blurb (from goodreads.com)

I slowly opened my eyes. The sun speared its first bright rays of golden orange into the sky and I leapt from the cliff, with the sorrowful knowledge that no matter what the outcome, at least part of me would die that day...

Violet Eden is dreading her seventeenth birthday dinner. After all, it’s hard to get too excited about the day that marks the anniversary of your mother’s death. The one bright spot is that Lincoln will be there. Sexy, mature and aloof, he is Violet’s idea of perfection. But why does he seem so reluctant to be anything more than a friend?

After he gives her the world’s most incredible kiss – and then abandons her on her front doorstep – Violet is determined to get some answers. But nothing could have prepared her for Lincoln’s explanation: he is Grigori – part angel and part human – and Violet is his eternal partner.

Without warning, Violet’s world is turned upside down. She never believed in God, let alone angels. But there’s no denying the strange changes in her body ... and her feelings for Lincoln. Suddenly, she can’t stand to be around him. Luckily, Phoenix, an exiled angel, has come into her life. He’s intense and enigmatic, but at least he never lied to her.

As Violet gets caught up in an ancient battle between dark and light, she must choose her path. The wrong choice could cost not only her life, but her eternity...

The Quickie Review

Whilst Embrace is a well written debut novel (from Australian author Jessica Shirvington) which has all the elements that make up a story I should love - hot boys, a love triangle and a dash of fantasy – I found there was something lacking due to my inability to sympathize or connect with the two main male leads who were quite frankly pretty dodgy.

The Full Blown Review

I’m doing a little bit of a change in my reviewing style for this review as surprisingly the blurb pretty much sums up most of the events in the book, I don’t want to give the rest away, so I’m going to skip the whole blurby goodness I usually do and go straight to my bookish thoughts.

Okay so first off I thoroughly enjoy a good love triangle and this book is basically Violet swinging between Lincoln and Phoenix, two hot males (so if you don’t love a good ol’ love triangle this book probably isn’t for you at all), however for the whole love triangle to work I have to actually like the characters and I didn’t really which was a shame because I really wanted to, I tried oh how I tried, but in the end both male leads were not very endearing, they both were shall I say douchey even their hotness could not make me like them very much. Take Lincoln he kept this huge life changing secret from Violet then when she found out this secret he wanted to give her ‘space’ to think about it even though he knew Phoenix, an exiled angel (which are apparently really bad as they want to kill Grigori), was itching to get him some Violet, I mean can you say weiner that boy really needed to grow some and protect his woman! Then we have Phoenix who was dark and broodingly handsome but just as bad as Lincoln because the nut was manipulating Violet’s feelings influencing how she felt towards himself and Lincoln which in my view was pretty bad, especially when he popped her cherry, in the bush no less! So basically as you can tell I didn’t really like both Lincoln or Phoenix that much but if I had to choose one it would probably be Phoenix as even though he didn’t handle the whole situation well he did kind of redeem himself in the end after what he did, I mean he should have done it anyway but he didn’t have to, plus he was so much hotter than Lincoln, in my opinion anyway.

Then we have Violet, ahh Violet, Violet, Violet, where to begin. Well her ridiculous stance towards Lincoln’s lying and then trusting Phoenix even though he lied to her too, it made no sense to me, can someone say double standards and believe me I cannot stand people who have double standards, it makes me so frustrated, arghh! I was also surprised she let Phoenix pop her cherry (don’t you love that expression? It’s my new favourite expression!) I mean the girl was pining over Lincoln for ages plus she also had some trouble with a male teacher when she was younger, so I still don’t know why she did it, it just didn’t make sense to me especially from what we knew of her character, perhaps it was because of Phoenix influencing her but still I don’t know.

Apart from Violet, Lincoln and Phoenix we were introduced to a few secondary characters however they weren’t involved too much in the story at all. We had Violet’s father who basically left Violet up to her own devices most of the time (bad parenting anyone? For once I would love a decent parent who actually cared about what their kids were doing), Violet’s boy crazy shhhh I’m real smart friend Steph who to tell you the truth I cant remember too much about apart from the fact that she found out about Violet being a Grigori in a busy shopping centre food court of all places and Griffin, who looks after and guides the Grigori under his care in the city. There was also some really bitchy Grigori, her name escapes me at this moment, who was a wee bit jealous of Violet as she wasn’t impressed with Lincoln’s lovey dovey feelings towards Violet even though it was painfully obvious Lincoln was like totally in love with Violet, he’s a one woman man alright!

Now you may be reading this and think ohhh you must not have enjoyed this book at all, well not true, I did, I really did, I mean the main characters were a bit dodgy but overall it wasn’t a bad read. The whole premise behind the Grigori and exiled angles was quite interesting, that said I did get a tad confused at times about the whole angel hierarchy so it was good a hierarchical map was included so whenever I needed an angel hierarchy refresher I simply turned to the hierarchical map and voila! There was also some interesting discussion as to the whole ‘good’ and ‘bad’ labels we give people, we tend to lump things into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ however it’s usually not so clear cut, good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. I also found the book to be well written especially considering this is Jessica Shirvington’s first novel, she can sure write some good ol’ romance scenes for sure!

So basically whilst Embrace is not a deep novel (but you already probably knew that, its fantasy which is meant to whisk you away and yes it did that for me) and I didn’t really connect with any of the main characters, it was well written and definitely shows some promise. I’ll probably read the next book in the series, what can I say I’m a glutton for these kind of books, I want to find out if Lincoln and Violet can ever actually be together!

Rating

3.5 out of 5

There’s Another Book?!?

Jessica has signed a three book deal with Hachette Australia so there are at least two more books in the series, however with that said in an interview with Tina over at Book Couture Jessica said there will be 4 books in the series so I’m not sure!

The second book in the series Enticed will be released in 2011, here’s a little bit on what we can expect -

Violet continues to discover and do battle with her angelic nature within – will this nature ensure that any choices she makes stay true to the path of her pre-determined destiny?