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.

The Fairy Tale Bride - By Kelly McClymer

The Fairy Tale Bride is suitable for more mature young adults because it contains some sexual scenes that aren’t suitable for younger teenagers. At the time of posting this review, the Kindle version of this book was free - so it's worth a few seconds of your time to simply download your copy!

As you can probably guess from the cover, the book is a period romance and follows the story of a hard up wealthy family who are struggling to make ends meet after the deaths of their parents in a carriage accident. The Duke has 6 sisters to marry off – many of who require a Season in London. Is it possible that they can keep the wolves from the door or are they doomed to fail?

Though the story in itself is pretty well written, I did find my enjoyment dulled by poor editing (lines of text were missing in places) and a rather confusing story line. The reason Simon and Amelia were married was because he’d compromised her out of wedlock… yet later on in the story, she was once again a virgin – this needs some clarity. My final gripe would have to be the predictability of the story. I had it more or less figured out from an early point of the book.

I did like some of the descriptions though – especially where the Duchess was taken on a tour by the Dowager Duchess and the descriptions she gave of the rooms. I could almost see the portraits of the former Dukes glaring down at me with their eyes. The characters were also pretty likable with divides on who to love and who to hate being set pretty early on in the book.

Every Last Kiss - By Courtney Cole

Every Last Kiss is a book suitable for young adults aged 18 and over. There are some references to love making scattered throughout the book, so a little parental guidance might be a good idea for younger young adults.

The story starts out simple enough in the modern day where Macy is trying to come to terms with the end of her 2 year relationship after her boyfriend was found cheating on her. Before long, it emerges that that’s the least of her problems though when she finds a gift of a Bloodstone necklace.

It turns out that the necklace is the key to her true identity and she is catapulted back into a previous lifetime in Ancient Egypt. The question is can she get back to her modern life without unraveling ancient history and changing the world that we know today or is she doomed to failure?

The book, in itself, is well written in a way that is half believable – there’s just one area that causes me concern… and that would be the way that Macy responds to the Bloodstone. As a spiritualist myself, I’m well aware that many spiritual young adults go through an awakening during their teenage years – which is scary enough if they haven’t been warned or prepared for it, without the extreme reaction Macy had causing confusion or scaring them outright.

I liked the way that the plot flowed smoothly… even though there is some time travel involved in several places through the story.

With that said though, I did enjoy the book – and I’ll be reading the other 2 books in the series at some point in the future.

The Lost Diadem, A Rogue's Tale Part One - By Saoirse O'Mara

The Lost Diadem is a novella suitable for Young Adults aged 13 and over.

As far as stories go, it’s the typical “whodunnit” mystery with the diadem being stolen and a race against time to find out who the thief is.

You can expect plenty of twists and turns throughout the book with people you think are the good guys turning out to be bad and the bad guys turning out to be good. Although the book does give a sense of closure, there are still a lot of open ends left to the story because this is book one of a (currently) three part series.

As seems to be usual for me lately, the book seems to start off in a totally unrealistic way. I know that Young Adults can be a tad unpredictable at times, but it’s asking too much for me to believe that a young man would throw away a career that he’s wanted his whole life simply on a hunch – however, I stuck with the story and it got better… although I wasn’t pleased to see that the “open endings” started in the middle of the book.

I liked the way that the action scenes were written in a way that seemed to suck you into the book and leave you feeling like you were right there alongside the characters, though. I actually felt sorry for the poor girl who was caught by the law enforcement… and it usually takes a lot for me to feel sorry for any character.

You Can Run, But You Can't Hide - By Duane "Dog" Chapman

This book is suitable for young adults aged 18 and over. As far as warnings go, Dog does talk about the Andrew Luster rape case in this book, but not in graphic detail. He also speaks about his own murder conviction in graphic detail. It's for this reason that I have rated this book at 18+

This was another book that had been on my bucket list for quite a while before I managed to get my hands on a copy, which my niece bought for me because she knows that I used to enjoy watching Dog on TV. As a fan of the TV show "Dog The Bounty Hunter", the book seemed like the next logical step for me to take... and I wasn't disappointed.

I enjoyed that the book gave additional notes on some of the cases seen in the show and clearly sheds light on bounty hunting from an entirely different angle to the one taken by the show. It's only in the book that I feel that you can appreciate that hunting a fugitive can take weeks or even months as opposed to just a few days.

I thought that it was good that Dog included some of the roughest parts of his life in the book and talked so openly about them because it helps people to see that, no matter how bad things might seem, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Personally speaking, I've never much cared for Beth. She was one of those people that I could tolerate in small doses - the smaller the dose, the better. Since reading the book, though, I have gained a better understanding of her and a greater appreciation of her, too. It really helped me to see that there's often more to someone than might initially meet the eye.

I didn't really like some of Dog's stories about God, though. Yes, I know that he's a Christian and that he talks openly about his faith - and that, I don't mind... I just found some of his visions to be a little too confusing for me to follow. It also would have been nice to have gotten more of Dog's thoughts about the awards that he has received for doing his work because this is obviously not something that he could have ever imagined as he sat thinking about how he was going to turn his life around.

A Few Words About The Direction of This Blog

After a lot of careful consideration, I have decided to extend this blog to cover age ranges 13 - 35... while I know that this is a large age range to cover and not all the books that I review will be suitable for my younger audience, some research in my down time indicated to me that "young adult" is typically 18 to 35 anyway, but, at the same time, I didn't want to stop reviewing for the younger group because of the fact that thirteen tends to be around the age when reading becomes "uncool" for these children.

It probably doesn't help that there weren't that many free reading lessons back when I was at high school... and, even then, the rules were so liberal that you could have gotten away with spending an entire lesson reading a comic book if you could have found one in the school library. I know that I spent a lot of time in the school library when I was at school, but, even I can't honestly say that I ever saw the entire contents of the library in the 5 years that I studied there.

Anyone who has ever read a few of my reviews will know by now that I usually specify a minimum age range and mention roughly if there is any content within the book to be wary of in order to help guide younger readers away from less appropriate books and to give older readers a chance to decide for themselves if they really want to read this book or not. I will be sticking with this warning system going forward from here.

Given that I usually read such a diverse range of books from across the whole age range and beyond, taking this step means that I'll get to share a whole lot more of what I have read and am reading with you all, which means that you'll get to see more content from me as well - and hopefully, some of it will be more in depth than you are used to seeing from me.

The Flirting Games - By Stella Wilkinson

Having been bought up on the St. Claire’s series by Enid Blyton, I always felt that no other boarding school series would ever measure up to those standards for me – but I was wrong! This book is suitable for young adults aged 13 and over.

The Flirting Games follows the story of Elle Parkhurst as she tries to protect her friend from the interests of school rogue Nate Naverly. If rumors are anything to go by, this guy has broken hearts all over the school and Elle has no desire to see her friend’s name added to the list. The question is, will Nate fall for her charms?

Anyone who reads this book can expect to be kept on the edge of their seats the whole way through – I know I was. The book, in itself, is well written with no obvious typing errors and the plot flows smoothly which made it more enjoyable to read.

I like the way that Jack started out as a reference in the story… but we actually got to “meet” him later on in the story. That added a little extra depth to the story for me.

I didn’t really rate the way that the boys were portrayed as the “Love ‘em and leave ‘em” types though. By all means make one or two like this but a group of four was a little too much for my liking and makes the plot a little tricky to follow at times.

The Tube Riders - By Chris Ward

One thing that any good book reviewer will tell you is that you never review any book without reading it in its entirety first - however, this was one book that I had to say something about before I even finished reading about it because it made me feel so angry. Needless to say, I did complete the book and have since edited my review to better reflect this.

If I had to place this book in a category, without any hesitation, it would have to be New Adult. Although it starts out simply enough to fit into the Young Adult sector, later on in the book, mature themes come into to and this is a book to avoid if you don’t like to read about murder and rape. Both play a large part in this story.

Personally speaking, I tend to steer clear of futuristic story lines after having read one too many attempts to write one where the author has gone badly wrong – but this one is well worth the time it takes to read it.

I didn’t really like the way that the book centers around an idiotic thing like jumping across train platforms in front of incoming trains and hanging onto the outside of trains because we already do too many daft things around the train tracks as it is without being encouraged to do more – that’s why Network Rail are always running adverts.

I found it to be a nice touch to see that death was included as a result of the activity undertaken by the young adults for no other reason than the fact that it was clear that death was a very real possibility.

One thing I did like is the way that the author really endears his characters to you – though it does make it that little bit harder when they get written out or killed off.

I also liked the idea of England of the future being divided into separate industrial zones and the way that this has opened up the option for the author to be able to pick up on this from a different zone if he wishes to at any point because I'd be interested to see how this would and wouldn't work.

The book is also well-paced and the plot is smooth – which has served to enhance my enjoyment of the book further still.

Bloom - By A. P Kensey

Bloom is book one of a three part series – it is suitable for readers aged 13 and over.

Bloom starts out innocently enough by following the story of a seemingly normal girl – however, it soon comes to light that she is anything but normal. After sneaking out to go to a party one night, she finds that her home is on fire – will she be able to make it home in time to save her parents and little brother? It doesn't take long for her to find out that she is anything but normal when she experiences a strange manifestation of her powers in the school cafeteria one lunchtime.

As if that wasn't bad enough, her little brother is missing, presumed  dead in the fire that destroyed the family home – could he really be dead or is there something that the law enforcement are missing?

As far as books go, this one is pretty good. There weren't any obvious typing errors, however, where I am, it seems that I always find something negative and in this book, it would have to be that it’s a little slow to warm up – but once you get there, it moves at a pretty fluid pace that does the author justice. I would have also have liked to have seen an “About the Author” section tucked in at the back rather than two tables of contents – if I didn't choose to go back to an earlier point of the book when I read the first table of contents, then it’s not likely I’ll change my mind if I read the contents again.

Wild-born - By Adrian Howell

Wild-born is a young adult book suitable for young adults aged 13 and over. It is the first book in a five part series... and the Kindle edition is currently free to read. UK readers can obtain their copy of the book here.

As far as books go, I found the beginning to be rather confusing because of the fact that the main character shares his name with the author... and the author has tried to convince readers that the story is, in fact, a true story.

Having read the book in its entirety, I must admit that I found the "true story" idea impossible to swallow simply because of the way that he sketched over some elements of the plot that were pretty pivotal to the overall plot of the story... and, ultimately, the ending of the story would have been impossible to keep out of the media if it were to be true.

The book is pretty slow to warm up, with not a lot of any interest happening prior to the accident, but it does get more interesting if you can hold on beyond that point.

As far as characters go, there is only one within this book that annoyed me - and, fortunately, she is ultimately written out by the midpoint of the book... though there are references made to her throughout the story.

The only thing that I didn't particularly like about the book was the ending because I picked up on the sense that the author was getting a little close to his word count for this particular book and as a result, the ending turned out to be a little choppier than I would have liked it to have been and left far too many loose ends that will be picked up on in book two.

Personally speaking, I am sitting on the fence about book two in this series after the book that I've just read. While I enjoyed the book as a whole, I don't think that I would be so keen to read the sequel if it takes as long to reach pace as the book that I've just finished did.