The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater | Book Review

Title: The Dream Thieves
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publisher/Year: Scholastic Press/2013
Series: Yes, The Raven Cycle, Book 2
Source: Purchased 

Goodreads / Author's Website

Summary
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same.
Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. 

Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...


Thoughts and Reactions

In writing my review for this novel I realized that I never actually posted, or wrote, my review for The Raven Boys, the first novel of the series. Suffice to say, I loved it. I loved it so much that upon finishing it I pretty much immediately purchased it's sequel. However, that was a year ago and I just finished The Dream Thieves. That has nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my head space at the time. 

I picked up The Dream Thieves time and time again with the intention of reading it, but for whatever reason I could not get passed the first few chapters. I put it down and came back to it about a week ago. I was hooked. It picks up right near where The Raven Boys left off. Adam has recently woken the ley line and nobody's sure how to act around him. Noah is becoming increasingly dim as the line is surging and causing power outages across Henrietta. Everybody now knows that Ronan can take objects from dreams and that's really the focus of this book. 

Ronan is an interesting and complex character; although he wasn’t my favourite going it, he grew on me as I felt like this novel really introduces us to him. He comes across as brash, but only because he cares so much. He has this ability that he doesn’t understand; one that may or may not have had something to do with his father’s death is and he’s still trying to figure himself out. The Dream Thieves really paints him in a more sympathetic light since you really get to see his perspective.

The title essentially sums up the book. Unlike The Raven Boys where the boys and Blue are trying to find a mystical ley line, but it is mostly rooted in reality, The Dream Thieves expands upon this mystical world. Friends are dead but in the land of the living and Ronan can take things from dreams. It’s crazy and thrilling. It didn’t feel like a departure so much as a ramping up of the action and the world’s magical nature.

I’m not sure what else to say about this book as I don’t want to ruin it for anybody who has not already read it, but it thoroughly gripped me. Henrietta is more dangerous now that the line has been woken and more people are out to find it. The characters are dealing with things that they don’t fully understand and it is so exciting for the reader. I love the characterizations and how fully each character is being developed. The relationships forming between them feel real and fractured and I can’t think of a single character who I don’t like. Even the characters who I don’t like, villains like Kapuscinki, have more than one dimension and are compelling.

I am now thoroughly invested in the Raven Cycle and cannot wait to read Blue Lily, Lily Blue. I don’t often read series because I find myself getting bored halfway through, but this is one that I’m more than happy to continue. 

Crystal Cove by Lisa Kleypas | Book Review

TITLE: Crystal Cove
AUTHOR: Lisa Kleypas
PUBLISHER/YEAR: St. Martin's Griffin / February 5, 2013
SERIES: Yes, the Friday Harbor Series
SOURCE: Purchased

Goodreads / Author's Website

You guys, every once in awhile I need a break from YA and just want to delve into some adult romance. It's like a reading palate cleanser. Whenever I'm in one of those moods I turn to Lisa Kleypas. She writes these wonderful romance novels that aren't insipid and have female characters with some backbone. She's basically  my number one go to for adult romance novels. When I found myself in transit without a book a little while ago I stopped in at the gift shop and immediately picked up Crystal Cove, the fourth and final book in Kleypas' Friday Harbor series. I had read one of the earlier books, Rainshadow Road, and had enjoyed it, so I figured I would probably like this one too. While it's by no means my favourite of Kleypas' novels, it was fun and an enjoyable way to spend a ferry ride.

The thing about the Friday Harbor series that throws a lot of people off is that it's Kleypas' attempt at magical realism. Friday Harbor is a place that's a pretty down to earth small town, but some people  happen to have some sort of power. In Rainshadow Road, the main character could turn glass into butterflies. In Crystal Cove Kleypas takes it one step further and our protagonist, Justine, is a full fledged witch. She spent most of her life travelling around with her mother, never putting down roots so in adulthood she relishes the chance to run her own small town inn. She's happy with her life, but she's never been able to find love, something that she's always wanted. Her mother cast a spell on her when she was born to prevent her from ever experiencing heartbreak, which meant never finding true love in the first place. Justine is determined to break the curse no matter what the consequences. It's at this point we meet Jason, a rich businessman looking to invest on the island. Sparks inevitably fly as we see how far these two will go for love.

First things first, I don't mind magical realism. I tend to like the interplay between reality and this sort of other world power. That having been said, the magic needs to be well integrated into the story line or I find that it feels like two genres butting up against each other. With Rainshadow Road I felt like the magic was a bit of an afterthought. I didn't really get why it was included. However, two books later and I really feel like the magical realism has come a long way. Justine is a pretty typical woman who happens to be able to perform magic and it affects her day to day life. I was into reading about the romance and her struggle to come to terms with her powers. While it may not be for everybody, it really worked for me.

The romance itself was fun, although not my favourite. Jason is this majorly reclusive businessman who's made millions in the tech industry. He's controlling and more than a little manipulative. Alpha males in books can be fun, but I didn't love where it took him in this case. I get that Justine wanted love more than anything else, but I don't totally understand why she initially went out with him. Yes, he's rich and attractive, but he also represented a few things that she wasn't a major fan of as shown by her initial resistance. There's this sort of instant love/chemical attraction deal between the two of them that I just couldn't get behind so I never really bought into their romance. Plus, I remember Justine being this fun, spunky woman filled with backbone in the previous novel, but now she's just bending over to the will of some man. I don't get it.

There were some steamy scenes, but some also left me flat. Bondage isn't Kleypas' strength as far as I can tell. There were moments that reminded me of my favourite parts of other Kleypas novels, but overall it seemed like a  bit of a departure.

I was also hoping for a few more characters from the previous Friday Harbor novels to make an appearance, but they didn't. Justine's cousin is in it a bit, but I really missed the dynamic the characters shared in the past. There wasn't a ton of secondary character interaction in this one which is a shame because Kleypas has created an entire universe in Friday Harbor filled with some really fantastic characters.

I didn't hate Crystal Cove, but I certainly didn't love it. Kleypas remains one of my favourite romance novelists, but this one just fell a little flat. I will definitely go back to read the two books in this series I've missed, but if you're just looking to read the quintessential romance stick to her earlier Travis series.

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley | Book Review

TITLE: The Firebird
AUTHOR: Susanna Kearsley
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Allison & Busby / 2013
SERIES: No (The Winter Sea contains some of the same characters)
SOURCE: Purchased with my own  money

Goodreads / Author's Website

I haven't been having the best luck with Susanna Kearsley novels recently. She was my hands down all time favourite author for years and then I picked up a few books that just didn't hit me in the same way. Maybe the love was gone? Luckily, that's not the case The Firebird brought everything I love about Kearsley's novels back into focus. History, mystery and romance are woven together to create a compelling story that had me absolutely riveted until the end.

Nicola Marter is a psychic, she can touch an object and see into its past, but she does everything she can to ignore her gift and live a normal life. However, a woman brings a small wooden bird to the art gallery where Nicola works, trying to sell it. She claims that it belonged to Russia's Empress Catherine, but has no proof. Nicola can sense that the woman is telling the truth, but needs help proving it. She teams up with Rob McMorran, a former love interest, whose psychic abilities exceed her own. As they travel through Europe into Russia, they see into the past, and find the history of this bird, following a young girl named Anna as she navigates the years following the Jacobites attempted revolution.

I am such a sucker for the dual timeline set up in books. I love it; I can't get enough of it. Normally I end up disappointed because one story line is more interesting than the other, but in the case I was engaged by both the modern and historical lines.

Nicola is this super driven women who's basically trying to repress a part of herself to fit in. Is it frustrating at times? Of course it is, but that didn't stop me from empathizing with her. She was trying to do the right thing and she grows over the course of the novel. I have to say, the best part of the modern story line was the love interest. Rob is one of those perfect men you can only ever find in a novel. He's a small, coastal town police officer. He's confident with who he is. He cares deeply for Nicola despite their history and her embarrassment over their psychic abilities. He drops everything to help her and he just sounds really handsome on top of it all. He's kind and patient and helps when he can. It's things like that that make me jealous of fictional characters sometimes.

The historical story line was kind of heartbreaking. Anna was a small child during the Jacobite revolution. Her father disappeared and her mother sent her to live with the neighbours for her own safety. She was raised as one of the neighbour's own children that is until she has to leave the only family she's known, again for her own safety. She travels through France and Belgium, trying to escape those that would capture her to get to her family due to their involvement in the revolution. Anna's story is at times heartbreaking, but she never gives up hope. She's such an inspirational female character. I have no idea how realistic it is; this time period was not my area of focus in school, but I was so engaged with Anna's story that I didn't care. Of course, she has a love interest too, but I was less interested in that than I was in Anna. With or without a male character supporting her she was a completely engaging character. Can I just say I love seeing that in a novel.

As with all of Kearsley's novels, you need to be able to suspend your disbelief. There's always a touch of paranormal which I love, but I know some people have a hard time with it. I don't think it overwhelms the story as the characters are so well drawn that it never becomes a distraction. Kearsly is so talented at making history come to life. After putting down The Firebird I found myself wanting to know more about this period in time which has to be one of the best things any type of historical fiction can do. I have nothing but praise for The Firebird and would encourage anybody interested in historical fiction or the paranormal to read it.

Plague in the Mirror by Deborah Noyes | Book Review

TITLE: Plague in the Mirror
AUTHOR: Deborah Noyes
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Candlewick / June 2013
SERIES: No
SOURCE: For Review from Publisher via NetGalley

Goodreads / Author's Website

I love historical fiction. It's basically my go to genre no matter what my mood is. However, I'm pretty unforgiving of it. Historical inaccuracies are pretty a big deal for me. I'm also a fan of time travel books, so I was pretty excited going into Plague in the Mirror. It combines fourteenth century Florence with some mysticism and time travel; the description pretty much encapsulated everything I love in a book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my (admittedly high) expectations and I found myself almost giving up on it a few times.

May is spending the summer in Florence with her good friend Liam and his travel-writing/historian mother. May's parents are going through a divorce and helping with historical research half a world away seems like the perfect distraction. However, May wakes up in the middle of the night and see Cristofana, a ghost who wants to swap lives as they look identical. The research is all but forgotten. May follows Cristofana into plague ravaged, fourteenth century Florence only to fall in love with Marco, a painter who may or may not survive the plague. May has to struggle between the past and the present, between her current life and the one that could potentially await her in the past.

There were just so many times this book had me scratching my head. I could not understand May or her problems. I have no issue with paranormal romances, but contemplating giving up a modern life for one during the plague pushed my willing suspension of disbelief just a little too far. Yes, lust in first sight is a thing, but who in their right mind would contemplate giving up their own life for some guy you can't even communicate with? He speaks a different language entirely! I literally mean her life; the chances of surviving the plague seem pretty slim when you think about the number of people who died. I can't get behind a character who so willfully ignores all logic and self preservation. She continuously visits the past; it makes absolutely no sense.

The other major issue I had with this book was the writing style. It's written entirely in the third person present tense. I have no issues with the third person, in fact it took me awhile to get used to the first person. However, third person present? No. I'm guessing it's meant to evoke the eeriness of the situation, but I found it so off putting. I couldn't deal and it was one of the main reasons I wanted to put down this book.

I honestly can't think of any redeeming points for this novel off the top of my head. I would like to say there was a reason I persevered and finished it, but nothing comes to mind. The romance was unbelievable and May made some of the worst decisions I have ever seen. I may love historical fiction and the paranormal, but Plague in the Mirror just did not do it for me.

Bloodspell by Amalie Howard

TITLE: Bloodspell
AUTHOR: Amalie Howard
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Langdon Street Press/2011
SERIES: The second book is due out next year
SOURCE: For review via Netgalley

Goodreads / Author's Website

You guys, this is a really hard review for me to write. See, the problem is that I want to like this book, I really really do, also I kind of don't like writing negative reviews, but I just don't. I think the premise is great. There are vampires and witches and other dark and scary creatures running around in our world as they have for centuries, but there's one witch prophesied to be greater than the rest. Her blood is cursed, driving her to kill and she has to fight against it. It takes the familiar vampire, witch premise and add something new. But for me, this one just didn't live up to its promise.

Victoria Warrick was always a bit of an outcast at school, but it's not until her seventeenth birthday that she discovers she's a witch. Not only a witch, she's an incredibly powerful witch with cursed blood that if she can't control will drive her to kill mercilessly. Christian Deveraux is a vampire, respected in his community, but is basically trying to live as a human. They're both dangerous, they both have people after them and of course they fall in love.

The story seems fairly typical, but I was excited  to read this one. Victoria's cursed blood seemed like an interesting twist on a familiar story. And I can always get behind a smart supernatural romance with a strong female lead. However, Bloodspell fell short of my expectations. But I'll start with what I liked. Victoria was a pretty strong individual. She knows herself pretty well so when she gets this giant surprise your blood is trying to kill thing thrown at her on her birthday she handles it pretty well. She's confident in WHO she is so she can spend more time trying to figure out how that works with WHAT she is. Not only that, but she knows her power and while isn't okay with using it, will if it means saving herself. She doesn't always have to be rescued, how great is that.

Some of the supporting characters are also really interesting. Leto, Victoria's familiar, is great and walks that fine line between being super strict and caring. I liked the connection between the characters. However, a lot of the other characters were broadly drawn, so much so that it didn't seem realistic and took me out of the story. Charla, the new best friend, but actual mean girl didn't seem to have any emotional depth and I really wanted to learn more about Holly, Victoria's aunt and guardian. She could have been SO much more to the story and she could have provided some much needed depth and history but no. She's barely in it.

My major problem with Bloodspell was the way Howard skipped over so many important details. In one chapter Victoria's figuring out what she is and learning with Leto but then they just move on. She's got it, she understands things, the reader doesn't necessarily follow. I was left with so many questions like what exactly did she have to do to harness her power and why does she think it's a good idea to test it out at this particular moment and how exactly does this telepathy thing work? There were just so many details that could have made it into the book and just didn't.

Moving on to the romance, I really love a supernatural romance. It's a guilty pleasure. But it needs to be well done. Christian as a love interest, not bad, but I never felt super connected to him. I could ignore that though. Here's what I can't ignore, so many parts of their relationship just being skipped over. They're fighting, then they make up, but in the next chapter they're breaking up again. It just felt choppy, like I was missing key details and conversations. Also, can we just ban phrases about people forgetting to breathe and an overuse of exclamation points? Please.

The ending was a twist that left me wanting a little more and this is the first book in a series (the second book comes out next year at some point). I might give it a second chance, because well.... I apparently have some compulsion to read every book with a vampire out there (I'm just going to blame Buffy for that one). I still think this premise has promise and I just hope that the series improves with time.

Sorceress by Celia Rees

TITLE: Sorceress
AUTHOR: Celia Rees
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Candlewick/2002
SERIES: Sequel to Witch Child
SOURCE: Purchased

Goodreads / Author's Website

You guys, I have so many feelings about this book I don't even know where to begin. I'm super conflicted. Sorceress is the sequel to Witch Child and it takes a totally different approach to continuing Mary Newbury's story. Be forewarned, there might be spoilers for the first book in this review. But seriously, the book's like a decade old. Okay, so I loved the story, but some of the characterizations fell flat for me and I just. I don't even know! 

So when we left Mary at the end of the first book she was alone, having been chased out of her puritan town because she was suspected of being a witch. Sorceress picks up at that moment, but while Witch Child was written as a diary, Sorceress uses a more traditional form of storytelling. Mary's story continues, but her spirit has inhabited Agnes Herne, an aboriginal, university student who first came across the story after reading "Mary's diary." Mary has left Beulah and chooses to live with the Penacook nation, living among them not as an outsider, but a powwaw and spiritual healer. 

This is the part of the book that makes me sit on the fence. At first I could not stand this novel. On the one hand I was so excited to see aboriginal characters play a prominent role, that's pretty rare in the books I've come across. On the other hand, all main aboriginal people were either super mystical orrrr running casinos. I get that it fit into the story that Rees was telling, a story that was in large part about magic and it all fit, but I still kind of got this icky feeling. As an aboriginal person I rarely see myself represented in novels and it just struck me as such a stereotype. The characters (especially the modern ones like Agnes) spoke according to expectations; they spoke in what amounted, in my mind, to stereotypical sound clips. I could be getting too worked up about a little thing though; this is a topic that's pretty close to my heart after all. 

Other than that, I really enjoyed this novel. I think I liked it better than Witch Child as far as storytelling goes. I could engage more with Mary and I loved how her personality developed as she stopped trying to hide who she was. I also loved the inner conflict she felt, love for her family, but knowing that at one time she lived with the English. 

I loved watching her grow, but I have to tell you this book absolutely broke my heart. I read a few reviews that said it was difficult to connect with Mary, but I completely disagree. She was caught up in King Phillip's war, her people were about to be wiped off the map; this was a horrible period in history and I assumed she would suffer. But my god. It's painful to read about when it hits. 

It may be because of personal bias but I really loved portions of this book and I would love to find more books with strong aboriginal characters. However, it did lose a little something in the beginning for me. I liked the continuation of Mary's story even though it was in a completely different style. I'm not sure if the modern world portions were totally necessary, but I suppose they provided some needed structure and closure. 

Sorceress is worth a look. It features some strong female characters in addition to minorities and most importantly it's a compelling story. It's majorly flawed and I'm not totally in love, but I think if you like Witch Child you have to read the follow up. 

Witch Child by Celia Rees

TITLE: Witch Child
AUTHOR: Celia Rees
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Candlewick/2002
SERIES: One Sequel (Sorceress)
SOURCE: Purchased

Goodreads / Author's Website

I bought this book years ago when it was first released, but didn't read it until the other day. It had a gorgeous cover. It sounded like a book I would like, but every time I picked it up I was bored to death. I couldn't get into the story at all and I would put it down again. I have to admit that even now I nearly didn't finish it. I pushed through only because it was the book that was in my purse for some long transit trips, but you know what, I'm glad I persevered.

This is a fictional story, but it's based in history and told as if it really is a young girl's journal. Mary Newbury is a witch. Or so she thinks. She was raised in England in the mid 1600s by her grandmother, but her world changes when her grandmother is tried and hanged for witchcraft. Knowing that she's unsafe staying at home, Mary is swept off to New England, across the ocean. Afraid that her grandmother actually had powers and that those powers were passed down to her, Mary tries to keep her head down, but in the puritanical town she arrives at, she is no more safe there than back in England. 

Okay, so historical young-adult fiction with a little bit of the supernatural thrown in? Perfect right? Unfortunately this book has a very slow start. It took me ages to get into the story. It reads so much like a journal without much exciting happening that I wasn't fully engaged. It also bothered me that while it was difficult to engage with the characters it was also difficult to not predict what was coming. We've all heard of the Salem Witch Trials so I definitely went in with some assumptions about how the story would end. 

That having been said, the book became much more engaging once Mary arrived in Beulah, the fictional town near Salem. Mary is a very isolated character because of her circumstances, but once she began to build relationships I could care more about her. Her relationship with Martha, the older woman who took her in when she first arrived at the docks was touching as was the friendship between Mary and Rebekkah, a young woman about the same age as Mary. She formed a family of outsiders and they became a group of people I could fall in love with.

There wasn't a lot of references to actual  magic in the book, sticking mainly to a sort of historical realism. However, there was enough present to have me questioning whether or not there was something to Mary's claims that she was a witch. The brief mentions of visions and a few other incidents were intriguing if not conclusive. It was a part of the novel that I really enjoyed.

Witch Child, in hindsight, is an interesting look at intolerance in the seventeenth century. It examines not only the puritanical views and laws as well as the societal prejudices that lead to witch hunts. Yes, it took a long time to get into the story, but I'm so glad I finished it. It's not the best historical fiction I've read, but it was unique. I'm going to read the sequel as by the end I was actually caring about what happened to Mary and all those outsiders with whom she surrounded herself. 

Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook

TITLE: Unraveling Isobel
AUTHOR: Eileen Cook
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Simon Pulse/2012
GENRE: YA, Paranormal, Romance
SERIES: No
SOURCE: Local Library


Goodreads / Author's Website


You guys, I am on a roll with library books right now. I put one down and pick another one up and just by luck, happen to like it. I'm saying this streak of book luck cancels out the bad from the other month. I picked up Unraveling Isobel a few days ago and loved it. 


Okay, it's not a great literature. It's not the kind of story I was talking about when I reviewed A Novel Bookstore but I didn't expect or want it to be. Unraveling Isobel is a great YA read. It's not meant to change the way you look at books. It provides much needed entertainment. The story hooked me from the get go and that is all I wanted from this particular book. 


Isobel is a pretty typical teenage girl. She's not a great athlete; she's not an amazing scholar. She's not popular, nor is she a complete outcast. She fits in, she blends. Of  course that all changes when she's forced to move from Seattle to the small island of Nairne for her senior year because her mom's remarried. The new step-dad is creepy, but the step-brother is cute and of course there's the whole ghost and haunted mansion she's living in. Isobel just needs to figure out if she's going crazy or if there's something seriously off about this house and new family. 


I really liked Isobel as a character. She struck me as somebody I would have liked to know as a teenager which helped make this book such an appealing read. I liked that she wasn't perfect; she got in with the popular crowd because she knew it would make her life easier. Of course, she also had strong morals which she would choose over her new, popular friends. I also like that the choices that her and her mom face aren't always cut and dry. A major issue I have with a lot of YA books that I read is that the parents are just so awful. I thought that this book was going to be one of those, but I was surprised. The relationship was better than I thought despite the early frustrations of the stereotypical Mother choosing the new husband over the daughter trope. 


A major plot point in the book is Isobel possibly crushing on her new step-brother. Okay, yes it has some creepy, kissing cousin connotations, but it didn't bother me that much. I was strangely okay with it though. First off, I religiously followed the O.C as a teen which had some far creepier relative relationship twists. Secondly, they met when they were seventeen and only once before the wedding. It's not like they were raised together. 


I have to admit i was predisposed to like this book because I love paranormal romances. Ghosts and intrigue always hook me. Always. I'm pretty sure it will become a common theme on this blog. Anyways, I really liked the ghost aspect although I'm glad it didn't overshadow Isobel's journey because she really was a compelling, realistic character. Something that is none to common. 


One last point, mental illness is dealt with throughout the course of the story line and to me at least it was handled with sensitivity and understanding. It wasn't mocked. It was used as a teaching tool although I never once felt like I was being preached to. I appreciated this approach, especially in a book that's aimed a young-ish audience. Cook definitely won some points from me for that one. 


If you're into a sort of paranormal mystery with some romance on the side, definitely check out Unraveling Isobel. It will be worth your time.