Book Review- Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Title: Tantalize

 Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith

Series:  Tantalize #1

Published:  13^th February 2007

Length: 336 pages

Warnings: kissing, gore, vampires, violence

Source: library

Other info: Book 2, Eternal, and book 3, Blessed, are both out.

Summary : CLASSIFIED ADS: RESTAURANTS SANGUINI'S: A VERY RARE RESTAURANT IS HIRING A CHEF DE CUISINE. DINNERS ONLY. APPLY IN PERSON BETWEEN 2:00 AND 4:00 PM.

Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her parents are dead, and her hybrid-werewolf first love is threatening to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. Then, as she and her uncle are about to unveil their hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef. Can Quincie transform their new hire into a culinary Dark Lord before opening night? Can he wow the crowd in his fake fangs, cheap cape, and red contact lenses — or is there more to this earnest face than meets the eye? As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms, and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who’s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything?

Review: Quincie Morris and her uncle remodel their restaurant with a new vampire theme. Then their much beloved chef is killed horribly-ripped apart by what looks like a savage beast. They hire a new chef, Henry, and they need to style him into the vampire chef of Sanguini’s. And Quincie falls a little bit in love with him. On top of this, Quincie’s boyfriend Kieren is a werewolf.

The plot was original. I love the idea of a vampire themed restaurant. If it were real, I’d want to go there. I like the way it all fits together was interesting, and  and the pacing was great-action starting in the first twenty pages. And then action carried on throughout, staying interesting till the last page.

Quincie is a very strong heroine, with a strong personality, she tackles the millions of things that life throws at her in a mature and determined way, even if it is somewhat unrealistic.  I didn’t really like Henry. His personality slowly grew on me, but he wasn’t extremely interesting. Kieren the werewolf was your typical over-protective boyfriend, but I liked him anyway. However, I don’t understand the prologue or how it was relevant. Prologue aside, I quite liked him.

I had problems with the revalation about ¾ of the way through-that almost every character we had met was ((insert spoiler. You’ll know if you’ve read this)). It was just a little “really? You too?” and was a bit annoying.

The characters were all fleshed out very well, including the minor characters. We got even got a good idea of the chef, even if he does die within the first 20 pages.

It was well written from Quincey’s point of view. We got a good view into her thoughts, her personality and history, all of which were very interesting.

Overall:  strength 4 tea to a very good vampire novel with just a few little annoying things.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

Book Review- Ouran High School Host Club vol 1 by Bisco Hatori

Title: Ouran High School Host Club vol 1

 Author: Bisco Hatori

Series:  Ouran High School Host Club #1

Published:  5 July 2005

Length: 184 pages

Warnings: sexual situations (Viz rating)

Source: Library

Other info: Bisco Hatori has also written Millenium Snow, also published by Viz. OHSHC has been made into an anime and, recently, a live-action television series. The manga is    and spans    volumes.

Summary : One day, Haruhi, a scholarship student at exclusive Ouran High School, breaks an $80,000 vase that belongs to the 'Host Club', a mysterious campus group consisting of six super-rich (and gorgeous) guys. To pay back the damages, she is forced to work for the club, and it's there that she discovers just how wealthy the boys are and how different they are from everybody else.

Review: Haruhi Fujioka is a scholarship student at Ouran High School, a school where money and linage determines how  school life is. One day, she searches for a quiet room to study in. Instead she finds the host club, six boys with nothing to do other than entertain the girls(who pay them). She then accidentally breaks a vase that cost $80,000. She has no way of paying the debt with money, so she ends up working for them as one of the boys-if she gets 100 customers, her debt is paid. She learns exactly how different life is for these rich guys, and the girls that they cater to, and possibly falls slightly in love along the way.

The concept isn’t that amazing, but it’s good enough to get a fairly large fanbase. The plot is interesting somewhat. In the first chapter, we get introductions to the Host Club, who all play up to some romantic stereotype: Tamaki, the leader of the host club, Kyoya, the smartish guy, Hikaru and Kaoru, the twins with an implied, played up, side relationship, Mori, the guy who’s almost silent all the time, and Hunny, the cute one who looks to be five but is one of the oldest of the group. We also get one of the customers, Ayanokoji, who doesn’t really like Haruhi and the fact that he/she is “common”. She tries to sabotage Haruhi’s school life, by doing things like dropping her books into the pond. She is eventually caught and thrown out, and Haruhi’s customer requirement is raised to 1000. Which will take her forever. In the other two chapters, we meet other characters, and things revolve around the events surrounding the host club.

It’s a very easy story to get into-light, not too much going on, nice characters, very funny in times. Tamaki’s character in particular. All of the host club have their own distinct personalities that make them sellable in the book and easy to distinguish for us. The comedy is the strong point here. It does die down at parts for more serious things, but the series is meant to be a comedy one, and it lives up well to this. However, some parts are played up to the point where it’s annoying.

The art is detailed and flowy in typical shojo style with quite a lot of flowers and typical girly motifs. The characters are easy to distinguish, apart from the twins(which, as they are identical, is probably the point). 

Sorry this has more been a detailed summary than a review. Not that much happens, but it’s good in the way that comedies are, in a completely different way to novels.

Overall:  Strength 4 tea to a manga series that is very easy to see why it’s taken off, and is recommended to anyone who wants a quick fluffy school-set romance.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | 

Introducing Kimberly Sabatini - Class of 2k12 #1

The Class of 2k12 is a group of authors whose debut young adult and middle grade fiction will be released in 2012. There should be a set of interviews coming over the next couple of months, to get them heard so you know what great releases will be coming.

Our first class member is Kimberly Sabatini!

Book Review- Quest of the Demon by M L Sawyer

Title: Quest of the Demon

 Author: M L Sawyer

Series:  Quest of the Demon #1

Published:   March 2011 by Equilibrium Books. Also found on Smashwords

Length: 277 pages

Warnings: Profanity-mild. Kissing-middle. Sea battle violence and semi graphic gore, attempted rape,

Source:  Author. Thank you very much.

Other info: This is the first in a series. Book 2, Tallen, should be out in December. 

Summary : Darci is a popular sixteen-year-old girl who plays basketball and lives in an ordinary country town. But her life is changed forever when she is accidentally transported to the land of Nahaba by a young apprentice wizard called Taslessian. 
Within hours of her unexpected arrival, both teens are thrust into a dangerous journey to the cave of Grisham the Great in the hope that he would be able to send her home.
Upon reaching the cave, however, Darci quickly discovers that there is no such thing as accidents, and that their journey is only just beginning.

Review: This gets off to a very quick start. Darci is accidentally zapped into a fantasy world within the first few pages. This is done by apprentice wizard Taslessian. However, being only a apprentice means that he doesn’t know how to send her back. And neither can his master. The only thing they can suggest is that they go find a greater wizard, such as a dragon. Said dragon says that there is nothing they can do about it as she has a greater purpose somewhere. Said purpose is to quest in order to find a way to defeat a demon, Demolish, who has come into the world and upset the magical balance. She can only get home if they succeed. And so with Taslessian,  and some others, Darci gets to fight to save the world as they know it.

As I said, a quick start. Then the action keeps coming and coming, hardly slowing down. It kept you interested and you had to be paying attention. At times the descriptions drag on a little too much, when you just want to find out what’s happening without going into too much detail. However, when the action was slightly slowed, the description was interesting. It’s interesting seeing it in third person, when it could easily have been written in first, a format we see more often in young adult, particularly non-realistic books.

Our protagonists are all very likeable. Lief and Taslessian were both incredibly nice, and the love triangle with Darci was somewhat stereotypical but nevertheless nice to see develop. We also got some good backstory, which we had to wait a long while for, thus answering questions we had about the characters. My favourite character is Defyance, the female warrior-especially the way she verbally spars with a dragon. And I loved the dragons too!

Something I didn’t quite get was the sense of time passing. I guess with all the action I didn’t realise the time passing. I only really noticed when it said that Darci’s hair had grown three inches and I was all like “three inches...that’s a lot....but hair grows slowly....THEY’VE REALLY BEEN THERE THAT LONG??”. It’s hard to believe that she was there for a long time.

The story progressed quickly, through all the stages of the typical fantasy book (normality, disturbance, find info, get going, progress, big fight, back to normal/cliffhanger). There was a good mix of action and fantasy, with the romance being only a side extra. The ending was absolutely amazing-a lot of action and a good showdown involving our five heroes, demon Demolish, and evil wizard Domati.

Overall: A great adventure fantasy series I really want to see more of, ie book 2 Tallen. Strength 4.  

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website + Trailer| 




And just for you, a discount code!!
If you want to go read this, for a limited time only, you can get 75% off the price! So from $4, it becomes $1. However much that is in English, I don't know. But I'm guessing it's cheap. Why not, considering it's a great book?

To get your discount, go to the smashwords site (click here)and at the checkout, enter discount code VU75D. As I said, this is for a limited time only, as it expires on 30th September 2011. So go and get your copies now!!

Waiting on Wednesday #23 Undeadly by Michele Vail

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where we show off books that we want to read but have not been published yet. 

Title:  Undeadly
Author: Michele Vail
Release Date: February 28 2012
Link to / Summary from Goodreads: ((there isn’t one))
Why I want it: Because here Michele Vail mentions a sixteen year old reaper. The promise of a sixteen year old reaper does it for me without a proper summary.

What are YOU waiting on this week?

Book Review: The Resistance by Gemma Malley

Title: The Resistance

 Author: Gemma Malley

Series:  The Declaration #2

Published:  2^nd September 2008

Length: 323 pages

Warnings: violence, one quick reference to sex

Source: Library

Other info: The first book is The Declaration, which I reviewed here, and the third is The Legacy. Malley has also written The Returners, and her next book is The Killables.

Summary : The year is 2140. Having escaped the horrors of Grange Hall, Peter and Anna are living freely on the Outside, trying hard to lead normal lives, but unable to leave the terror of the Declaration—and their experiences as surpluses—completely behind them. Peter is determined to infiltrate Pharma Corporation, which claims to have a new drug in the works; "Longevity+" will not just stop the ravages of old age, it is rumoured to reverse the aging process. But what Peter and Anna discover behind the walls of Pharma is so nightmarish it makes the prison of their childhood seem like a sanctuary: for in order to supply Pharma with the building blocks for Longevity+, scientists will need to harvest it from the young. Shocking, controversial, and frighteningly topical, this sequel to Gemma Malley’s stellar debut novel, The Declaration, will take the conversation about ethics and science to the next level.

Review: We pick up a little after we left off at The Declaration, my review here . Anna has been made Legal, and is currently living happily with Peter and Ben. Then Peter joins his family business-which is Pincent Pharma, manufacturers of Longevity, the source of all the problems in Book 1. Meanwhile, Anna becomes involved in something that may be a bit more dangerous than she thought, and we meet Jude, Peter's half brother who's the reason for his being a surplus until one of his parents died. A good basis for a sequel to a very good book.

It was done very well too. We see a lot of different things happen which all cleverly intersect at various points in the novel, completely different to in book one but still exciting and relevant to Peter and Anna's world. It takes a lot of twists and turns in the plot; some of which you see coming, some of which you don't.

If you say that The Declaration was Anna's book and The Resistance is Peter's book, then Peter shows up a lot more in Anna's than Anna does in Peter's, which is a shame as I quite liked Anna. I hope that we see a bit more of Anna in book 3, The Legacy. I'd also like to see a bit more of Ben, the baby brother, because although he's not that important right now, somehow I feel as though he should be.

The writing again is in third person, with just the one diary entry from Anna this time. Which is a shame because, even though I shouldn't have expected any when Anna said her final entry in The Declaration,  I really enjoyed reading the diary entries.

It's interesting watching the characters develop a bit more, especially Jude, who starts off being very unlikeable but by the end was one of my favourite characters. I also really liked Dr Edwards, who I also didn't like very much, but has had a huge personality change by the time we're done with him.

Overall:  Strength 4 tea to a very good sequel that still keeps me wanting to read the final book in the trilogy.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

Cover to Cover- The Fairy Edition

This is somewhat late.....the new blogger thinks it's so smart, or I'm so stupid, that it needs to repair my already perfect HTML. Which totally messes it up. Took me ages to get it to work. And then it didn't save....what happened to the autosave? Another twenty minutes re-writing it. Almost wanted to give up.

 But Cover to Cover is back. And like last time, it's books from a specific genre and compared. And it's fairies, a semi--common feature in YA. And because I've read absolutely none of these books, I can simply give my opinions on the covers and not be influenced by the book. And so, on to the feature...
((Picture heavy))

Book Review: Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Title: Life as We Knew It

 Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer

Series:  Last Survivors #1

Published:  1^st October 2006

Length: 337 pages

Warnings: kissing, suicide

Source: Library

Other info: The other two in the trilogy are The Dead and the Gone and The World We Live In.  Pfeffer has also written Portraits of Little Women and, more recently, Blood Wounds.

Summary : It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes, come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda's voice is by turns petulant, angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if life as she knew it is over.

Review: Scientists say that an asteroid will hit the moon on Wednesday. Never mind though! Nothing will happen! Of course. Volcanoes and other natural disasters are set off when the moon is knocked off course. It's a fight for survival for Miranda and her family of two brothers, mum and long time family friend Mrs Nesbitt. Slowly, normality falls apart as electricity and school become things you can't depend on, you have no idea how your relatives are unless their names are read out on a list  of the dead, and the weather is even more unpredictable than usual. The entire book is a realistic(ish. No paranormal elements here. I say the ish because we don't know what would really happen in this situation. Yet.)survival story with a tiny bit of romance.

The setup is very good. We get a couple of days before the asteroid hits and  how everyone's hyped up(they think it'll be harmless), and then their increasing panic when they realise it's not, and so on.

Maybe our little family of survivors handled this a little too maturely. There's not much extreme panic on their part, and the fact they were thinking so clearly, all of them, was just slightly unrealistic. 

The rest of it was brilliant. It was told from Miranda's POV with diary entries, dated as they happen. I like the irregularity of the entries, which I think is a good way of showing that life could sometimes be really hectic or there were more important things to do. There's a lot of description in all parts, both of what is happening and of Miranda's feelings.

I like the way characters come and go for differen reasons, which is realistic. Does it make me a horrible person that I didn't particularly mind when the romance with Dan didn't work out? I saw it as just another going in Miranda's life, and also think that a lot of romance would    simply distract from the story.

The few characters we see through the majority of the book, I feel as though we get to know them all really well. The fact there was only a few of them worked well, and seeing the way they all reacted to one-another is a good way of getting closer to them.

Overall:  Strength 5 tea to a great survivor story that I really want to read more of

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |