Rival - By Lacy Yager

Rival is a book suitable for the Young Adult market of age 13 and above. One reason I tend to dislike novellas is because they tend to be rather short – but this isn’t the case with this book – I found that it was just about right with the length and what was covered in it.

Once you look past the idea of “Trashy Romance” that screams out at you from the cover of the book, the book, in itself is not that bad since it has a fair dose of action included in it, too, with the lead character being a martial artist who’s very much interested in vampire hunting. In general, the book is a good read and I’m glad that I got the chance to read and review it.

I also like the way that juvenile arthritis is portrayed in this book since it is pretty accurate with what happens in real life. With that said though, I’m not so sure that martial arts would be suggested as a plan of treatment – usually, it tends to be gentler sports such as swimming.

What I didn’t like so much was the fact that there are many holes left in the plot – so little was said after Erick was caught by the police, which was a point I’d have liked to have had closure on. It also seems a bit daft to spend ages following a martial arts competition from the start to pick up on it in the past tense at the crucial moment that the readers were looking forward to seeing what happens.

Unusual Awakening - By S. M. Knowles

Unusual Awakening is Book 1 of the Rylee Everley series. It is suitable for Young Adults aged 13 and over.

Rylee’s father is off to serve his country once again – so he must leave his wife and three daughters. He leaves Rylee as his second-in-command while he’s gone. Can she rise to the challenge or will the responsibility be more than she can bear?

When this book first landed on my desk for review, I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into it – I mean, just look at that cover! Sadly for me, my joy was to be short lived. Although there are many breathtaking scenes described in the book and it’s well enough written, I just wasn’t able to muster up an abundance of enthusiasm in the book.

I have to confess that I felt sorry for Rylee having to grow up fast and shoulder much of the responsibility for her younger siblings as well as her mother. As an author myself, I get the sense that this is largely a fact based book given a fictional twist.

If I had the option to go back and start this book again, I wouldn’t bother to use the Text-to-speech option on my Kindle because Rylee’s name never seems to be pronounced right in my opinion.

I also didn’t like the ending of the book one bit. I get the idea of leaving books open-ended so that you can go back and pick up where you left off at a later date, but this book just feels like the author ran out of steam at the end and published a half finished book because there is no real sense of closure for any of the characters.

Then, the cherry on the top of the cake came in the form of the “About the Author” section at the back of the book. This tends to be where authors climb down to connect with their readers and although it contained personal details, it was done in a cold, detatched way, complete with no hint to the author’s name.

Hooked: A True Faerie Tale - By Michealbrent Collings

Having read a few books from this genre, I’m usually quite able to give an appropriate age ranking without hesitation – but this book, I’m going to have to age it at 13 with parental guidance. The reason for this is because there are a few swear words and some scenes might not be suitable for children with vivid imaginations.

As someone who loves reading about fae, I was looking forward to reading this… even though Michael (the author) had told me not to expect a winged creature in sight – of course, that just piqued my interest even more, now I had to know what he was trying to tell me.

Upon opening the book, I was almost instantly flung into the thick of the action which made a refreshing change from the typical Young Adult book where the first couple of chapters are spent endearing you to the lead character. It was nice to have a fight where it doesn’t become clear who is the good guy and who is the bad guy until much later in the book.

Generally speaking, I loved the book and the way that two books were combined into one with an interesting twist to the plot that doesn’t come to light until later on in the book. I’d always wondered what would happen if it was possible to combine 2 books into one.

In the early chapters, the only issue I had was that the story became a little confusing, almost as if Michael was trying to tell two different stories in one book – but that soon straightens itself out and the plot flows smoothly. However, I would like to suggest that he takes the time to give the book another proof read from the 50% mark because there are still a few typing errors that could do with a final polish.

Valkyrie - By Pet Torres

Valkyrie is a book that is somewhat difficult to classify. I have read that it's suitable for children between the ages of 9 - 18... but I suspect that some children on the younger end of that age spectrum may struggle to understand some of the words (I know I did and I'm considerably older than 9).

As the cover suggests, Valkyrie is a vampire princess... though she doesn't know it yet. She was raised by her overprotective mother and made it through her entire life to date never knowing who her father is, though she has always been tormented by strange dreams.

There's something off about the new boy in school, too. For some reason, Valkyrie has an instant dislike of him... Is there really something sinister about him, or can the two of them look past initial impressions to become friends?

As far as books go, I found this one to be a little on the short side for a book in the young adult genre... however, once I saw that the author was targeting the book at children as young as 9, I sort of understood why it was a shorter book.

I enjoyed the plot and found that it flowed quite smoothly and at a good pace, however, I do have to admit that it does need the love of an editor desperately! There are a few typing errors and spacing errors in the first half of the book, but, if you can push past them, it does get better once Pet has finished her first cup of coffee of the day. Considering that the author isn't from an English speaking country, the typing errors are very few and can be overlooked... however, I find the spacing errors to be much harder to disregard - especially as I read along as my Kindle reads aloud to me.

I didn't really like the length of the book considering the fact that it is marketed at young adults, and, if I could change anything about the book for myself, I would bring books 1 and 2 together and sell them that way... however, considering that the version that I read is free on Kindle Unlimited, I don't feel that I can complain as much as I would if I'd bought a paperback version of the same book. As far as recommendations go, I'd recommend giving the book a read if you are able to get a free version, but I wouldn't be falling over myself to buy a paperback version if what I have just read is anything to go by.

Prince Of Wolves - By Quinn Loftis

Prince Of Wolves is book one of The Grey Wolves Series. It was intended to be a six part series, but, after some mutiny from her fans, Quinn decided to keep churning them out until such a time that the series died on it's own. There are currently 10 books in the series, with book 11 being released on 19/12/2018. 

What first drew me to Prince of Wolves was the cover art. No, I don’t have a thing for books that happen to feature pretty girls on the cover – in truth, I found the picture of Jacqueline rather freaky simply because she looked rather unnatural, it was the pattern on the cover that attracted me to this book and the icing on the cake was the fact that it was free. Of course, Quinn has had the book re covered since the version that I read.

What I really liked about the book is the way that Quinn (the author) has chosen three girls, who (judging by the amount of sarcasm and sexual references) are endearing and popular but would always be in trouble at school.

Prince of Wolves gives you a chance to get to know Jacqueline, Jen and Sally while focusing on a whirlwind romance between Jacqueline and Fane. I initially started this story as a bedtime read – but I soon had to stop reading it in bed because I was laughing that much that I was keeping my husband awake, which was a good thing in a way because I really wanted to have my wits about me to try to remember some of the comments for future reference.

One good thing about this series is that the focus shifts to a different set of characters every other book, but the end story still keeps track of all 6 main characters and a few extra ones besides.

This is one of the few books I’ll keep to read again and again – and it’s not very often that I read books more than once. Reviewer’s rating: 5 stars

The Mind Readers - By Lori Brighton

The Mind Readers is suitable for young adults aged 13 and over.

The story follows Cameron a girl who has the undesired gift of reading the thoughts of others. One is lead to believe that this gift is something that she cannot switch off and that she doesn’t want the ability anymore. When Lewis shows up in school and offers to teach her how to control her ability, is everything as it seems or is something more sinister at work here?

This was a book that I really enjoyed. Not only were the typing errors kept down to a minimum (I counted just one) but the plot itself ran smoothly and had just the right number of twists and turns to ensure that I didn’t get too relaxed and chilled out with the book. There are lots of elements to enjoy starting with the way that the author describes the memories Cameron receives from others – although this starts out pretty mundane, it was well worth sticking with for what came later. However, as I read the story, I couldn’t help but feel that the author had somewhat given away her ending pretty early on with the book by making the lead character too suspicious for her own good. That’s a point I would like to see cut back on drastically if ever there is  a re-print of this book.

I’d also like more of an explanation into why Cameron starts off seeing Aaron as an uncle figure, then her friendship rapidly deteriorates from there – this matter seems to get swept under the rug in the scope of the bigger picture, yet I feel that it could be an important factor in my overall enjoyment of the book.

Midnight Marriage - By Lucinda Brant

Midnight Marriage is a New Adult book – which means that it’s best suited to young adults aged 18 and over due to sexual scenes. 

It is the second book in The Roxton Family Saga. Although it is book two, I found that it worked very well as a stand alone book as well because it’s the only book in the series that I've read and I was easily able to read and enjoy it.

The story in itself is set in Georgian England though it ventures into France, too. It starts out with an arranged marriage and a number of years spent living abroad for the young groom. He returns home fighting for his very life (In more than one sense of the words). Who is the woman who found him bleeding to death in the forest – and why can’t he get her out of his mind?

As far as books go, the book is well written, although I found the character’s to be rather predictable in the sense that pretty much every romance book has a dark handsome, moody guy and a stubborn, independent girl – so that was no real surprise for me,,, however, I still found myself riding on the old emotional roller coaster numerous times as I waited to see if they would or wouldn’t.

In future editions, I would like to see a glossary included though because it uses some of the old English terms – and the dictionary on my Kindle is useless, which meant that I had to run words I wanted translating through Google or not bother with a translation at all.