Waiting on Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine. It’s a fun way to share with other book lovers an upcoming release that you can’t wait to get your hands on.

Intrinsical by Lani Woodland
Release date: August 20th

Sixteen-year-old Yara Silva has always known that ghosts walk alongside the living. Her grandma, like the other females in her family, is a Waker, someone who can see and communicate with ghosts. Yara grew up watching her grandmother taunted and scorned for this unusual ability and doesn’t want that to be her future. She has been dreading the day when she too would see ghosts, and is relieved that the usually dominant Waker gene seems to have skipped her, letting her live a normal teenage life. However, all that changes for Yara on her first day at her elite boarding school when she discovers the gene was only lying dormant. She witnesses a dark mist attack Brent, a handsome fellow student, and rushes to his rescue. Her act of heroism draws the mist’s attention, and the dark spirit begins stalking her. Yara finds herself entrenched in a sixty-year-old curse that haunts the school, threatening not only her life, but the lives of her closest friends as well. Yara soon realizes that the past she was trying to put behind her isn’t going to go quietly.

From Lani Woodland’s website.

I discovered Lani through Twitter. Doesn’t her book sound delish? Ghost, boarding school ,family legacy….. definitely going to be good!

Review: The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong

Random House, 2010

Only two weeks ago, life was all too predictable. But that was before I saw my first ghost. Now along with my supernatural friends Tori, Derek, and Simon, I’m on the run from the Edison Group, which genetically altered us as part of their sinister experiment. We’re hiding in a safe house that might not be as safe as it seems. We’ll be gone soon anyway, back to rescue those we’d left behind and take out the Edison Group . . . or so we hope.

From Random House Canada website

 

Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite authors, plain and simple. I’ve read everything she has published and never once have I been disappointed. That goes for the final installment of her YA trilogy, The Reckoning, as well.  I loved it.

This was another one day read for me, as all of Kelley’s books tend to be. Once I got into it, I simply didn’t want to put it down.  The plot, the writing, the characters – it was all perfect.

I love Chloe as a main character and I was sad that the trilogy had ended. But at the same time that’s the great thing about Kelley and her approach to her series:  she writes what the series needs, not necessarily what her audience wants. She’s taken flack for this in the past, but I think it’s great. And also one of the reasons her writing and her series never get stale.

Okay, the book. What can I say? There’s a lot of personal growth for the characters in The Reckoning and it was nice to see the four come together and work as a group. Chloe also learns more about her powers and how to use them.  Dereck, who was my least favorite character in the first two books, emerged as my favorite character.  We get a better understanding for him and some of the actions he takes.

There’s a bit of romance, but just a smidgen, which is perfect for my tastes.  The romantic stuff is very secondary to the plot, so it never felt like this was a romance disguised as a paranormal book. 

Kelley’s writing style is descriptive, yet quick and the action flows at a break neck speed.  And the scenes where Chloe does some of her necromancer stuff? Goosebumpy fun! I also loved the nods to her Women of the Otherworld series. Every time a Cabal was mentioned, or the werewolf pack, I giggled just a bit.

Browse inside The Reckoning.

Thanks muchly to Random House Canada for the review copy.

Haunted by Barbara Haworth-Attard

Published by HarperTrophyCanada, 2009
Reviewed by Colleen McKie

In Haunted Dee, like her grandmother, has “the Sight”. She can see spirits which would be hard enough to handle on its own, but Dee also experiences their deaths. When the bones of a missing girl are discovered on the mountain near her house, Dee feels that’s something isn’t right. She soon discovered that other girls have gone missing from the community in the past few years and her search for the truth behind the disappearances leads her towards evil and into danger.

Even though there were some elements in the plot that were predictable and easy to figure out, Haunted was a good read and I really enjoyed it. YA has recently been flooded with supernatural novels, from vampires to ghosts, making urban fantasy the “it” genre. With Haunted being set in the early 1900s, it is more of an historical urban fantasy, something we don’t see a whole lot of.

The innocence of Dee and her friends combined with the darker themes of death and evil was a surprisingly cohesive partnering, giving Haunted some depth and layering.  As Dee struggles with her own past and trying to figure out who she is, she is also dealing with a community that looks at her and her grandmother (who is also a midwife) suspiciously. But at the same time she still has to do chores and decide whether or not she wants to continue with school.  Because of the time period the book is set in, the author had a chance to deal with some things that wouldn’t be relative if it took place today.

The best way to describe Haunted is Anne of Green Gables meets the Sixth Sense, which is a good thing. I would definitely recommend it.

Check out Haunted.