Review: The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT (The Girl at Midnight, #1)  by Melissa Grey
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publication date: 4/28/2015
Pages: 368
Age range: 14 - 17 Years
Source: Publisher

For readers of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones and Leigh Bardugo'sShadow and Bone, The Girl at Midnight is the story of a modern girl caught in an ancient war.

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she's ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it's time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, but if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it's how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take it.

But some jobs aren't as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.

First off, let me just start with the first sentence in the overview of The Girl at Midnight:: For readers of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones and Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone – that’s some bait!  I didn’t just take it, I gobbled it up! In my opinion it was spot on. This book reminded me why I fell in love with the aforementioned books as I tore through the pages of this magical tale.

The characters are unique in their own right and that’s what I loved most about The Girl at Midnight. Here you have two ancient species at war and a human caught smack-dab in the middle. And she’s not some timid mortal, Echo is kick-ass - just the way I love my heroines. This book is full of witty dialogue and glorious male specimens. The world building is spectacular and full of intrigue. I couldn’t get enough of it!

Every doorway led to a new adventure for Echo and I was right there alongside her as she maneuvered her way into the unknown. This book is a great start to an exciting new series and I believe fans of Sara J. Maas’s Throne of Glass and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone will enjoy this book too!

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

EVERNEATH by Brodi Ashton
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 1/24/2012
Pages: 384
Age range: 14 years
Source: Netgalley

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

Everneath is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton.

EVERNEATH is a refreshingly unique tale that will leave you hungering for more. With references to Hades/Persephone and Orpheus/Eurydice, this book definitely kept me glued to the pages to find out how Nikki’s story would unfold. This book had plenty of original elements even though loosely based off the mythology characters mentioned above. I was not disappointed!

What was especially attention grabbing about this book to me was how Nikki’s story started. Six months later after enduring endless time in the Underworld, Nikki reemerges to give a proper farewell to the ones she left behind. She quickly finds out that things aren’t as easy as she thought it would be. She has to make a lot of adjustments to try to fit back into her old life. But that’s not her only worry, she has only Six months to say goodbye while trying to figure out the Everneath and what it all means to her and ultimately how it will affect her relationship with Jack, the one she left behind.

I enjoyed how I got to get glimpses of Nikki’s past and how it leads her to the Everneath. This installment was pretty good and I can’t wait to see what happens next! Talk about sacrificing for the ones you love, this book really puts love to the test. I was pleasantly surprised!


Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

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Review: Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

HALF-BLOOD by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Pub. Date: October 2011
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Format: Paperback , 304pp
Age Range: Young Adult
Series: Covenant
Source: Publisher(ARC)

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi-pure-bloods-have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals-well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden.Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem—staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

HALF-BLOOD, reminiscent of one of my all time favorite YA series, THE VAMPIRE ACADEMY, lured me into its world filled with compelling characters. I’d like to say that this book would have blown me away, except that I kept having so many flash backs of characters, scenes, and plots from THE VAMPIRE ACADEMY SERIES. I can’t say that this book was original because there were too many things that were similar to VAMPIRE ACADEMY. I did like the half-blood & pure aspect of this species which included gods instead of vampires. I guess when it comes down to it, if you are a fan of the VAMPIRE ACADEMY SERIES, then you will most likely enjoy this book.

I highly enjoyed the cast in this book. Alex is so like Rose in some ways, she’s strong, she has a bit of a temper or let’s say her actions and mouth tend to get her into trouble. She’s special in ways that the other half-bloods are not. I loved the whole concept behind the Greek mythology and how it was tied into this world. Aiden, a pure blood, who’s also reminiscent of Dimitri, is one sexy and fierce fighter. Then there’s Seth, the unknown. He’s powerful and he’s about to make life miserable for Alex. I really enjoyed his laid back character. He’s cocky, yet he cares about what happens to Alex. I know I can’t wait to see where this goes. The whole prophecy/oracle aspect of what will happen with Alex and her future did provide a bit of mystery as to what would happen next. So, I’m glad that where some differences in HALF-BLOOD’s world that kept me entertained throughout.

Overall, I wasn’t too impressed with the originality of this book, but Armentrout’s writing and characters kept me entertained and thrilled about the world that she has created. A lot of things have changed in Alex’s world and the consequences will have a life or death impact on her kind. This book is sexy, kick-ass, and entertaining. I enjoyed it!

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Review: Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

SWEET VENOM by Tera Lynn Childs

Pub. Date: September 2011
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Format: Hardcover , 352pp
Age Range: 12 and up
Source: Publisher (ARC)

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.
Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they’re triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful Gorgon maligned in myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.

SWEET VENOM is filled with mythical allure and a kick-ass cast of heroines. Told in alternating vantage points between the three descendants of Medusa, I got a first hand encounter of the different backgrounds the girls came from and how their personalities varied. Gretchen, super strong and a loner, is my favorite of the three. She's had it rough and she came from the worst home out of the three. And because of her adversity, I instantly gravitated towards her and how she overcame her past to fight for the good of human kind. I love how the three compliment each other. Grace is all geeky and happy dory while Greer is the rich and poplar ice queen. I enjoyed getting to know the sisters.

The sisters, being guardians of this realm have a destiny to fulfill and everything's not cut and dry as it seems. There are a lot of things that the girls are still learning about themselves and their legacy as they try to get over the shock that they are triplets and the continuous showdowns with the creatures that keep popping up all of a sudden. I really enjoyed the spin on Medusa and her descendants.

With a bang of an ending, I'm looking forward to the next installment. There are so many things that the girls must figure out about their legacy and how it all ties into the now. Plus, I can't wait to find out more about the guys in their lives. I know there's a mystery behind that and I can't wait to get some light shed on it. Overall, this book is an absolutely entertaining start to a new series.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Review: StarCrossed by Josephine Angelini

STARCROSSED by Josephine Angelini

Pub. Date: May 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Hardcover , 496pp

Age Range: 12 and up
Source: Author (ARC) 

How do you defy destiny?

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.

Angelini brings an electrifying spin on Greek mythology where action, romance, and suspense fill the pages with delectable entertainment. I have a weakness for books involving star-crossed lovers. Well, this tantalizing read put a whole other spin on defying destiny when it comes to Helen's and Lucas's love.

When Helen's eyes locked with Lucas, I just knew it was going to be love at first sight. Wrong. I could have never guessed the turn of events that would lead these two to avoid each other with deadly passion. The tensions between these two were so delicious; I could only wonder how any fight could be so sexy.

STARCROSSED is wrapped up in heart-pounding action, loads of drama, and an unforgettable cast of characters. I loved the Greek elements in this book and how Angelini crafted it into a captivating modern day tale.

I know I'll be highly anticipating the next release in this series. As with some of my favorite series, STARCROSSED left me wanting more. I'm ready to jump back into Angelini's world. Just Delicious!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

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