Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: June 5^th, 2012

Format: purchased paperback

Pages: 418

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself.

Review: The Gathering by Kelly Armstrong

Title: The Gathering

Author: Kelly Armstrong

Series: Darkness Rising #1

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: April 12^th 2011

Format: library e-book

Pages: 373

Maya lives in a small medical-research town on Vancouver Island. How small? You can't find it on the map. It has less than two-hundred people, and her school has only sixty-eight students — for every grade from kindergarten to twelve. Now, strange things are happening in this claustrophobic town, and Maya's determined to get to the bottom of them. First, the captain of the swim team drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. A year later, mountain lions start appearing around Maya's home, and they won't go away. Her best friend, Daniel, starts getting negative vibes from certain people and things. It doesn't help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret — and he's interested in one special part of Maya's anatomy: Her paw-print birthmark.

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

 

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Series: Shatter Me #1

Publisher: Harper

Publication date: November 11, 2011

Format: Hardcover purchased

Pages: 338

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior

Review Anathema by K.A. Tucker

Title: Anathema

Series: Casual Enchantment #1

Author: K.A. Tucker

Publisher: Smashwords

Publication date: May 25^th 2011

Pages: 661

Format: e-book (nook)

Evangeline has spent her teenage years in obscurity. Her foster parents have the emotional aptitude of robots and her classmates barely acknowledge her existence. About to turn eighteen and feeling like a social pariah, she is desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.
When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash. 
With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities... like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined. 

First Review EVER ... here we go!

This is the second book in the Veronica Rossi’s Under the Ever Night series. If you are not familiar with these books go to your nearest library and put them both on hold NOW. I would say just check them out but I bet there will be a waiting list.

The Jist: In Through the Ever Night Aria and Perry are reunited and it feels so good (in singing voice)! … For about ten minutes. As the new Blood Lord, Perry wants Aria to stay with the Tides but they are not nearly as found of the outsider as their new leader. And what’s worse, the Anther storms are getting stronger and more deadly by the day. Perry and Aria are faced with some difficult decisions in an effort to save the ones they love.