Life Blood : Ebook Review

2.5/5 Stars

Life Blood
By Thomas Hoover
Kensington Publishing (December 1, 2000)

Genre: Thriller

I spotted this is the free section of kobo and I thought, what they hey this looks interesting enough. Something else to read that's different from all the YA books I've been stockpiling.

Synopsis:

New York film maker Morgan James inadvertently stumbles upon a dark conspiracy when interviewing a new mom for her film 'Baby Love'.  Thinking her film needs a little extra kick she interviews a woman to tell her story of how she is now the mother of a newly adopted caucasain boy and instead of years he was hers in months! With her own self-motives - a deep seeded need to have a child of her own and fearing adoption is her only option - Morgan pushes for more information about this miracle adoption agency 'The Children of Light.' The more information she gets about the Children of Light and its founder Alex Goddard the more dangerous her life becomes. Wanting a baby, answers, and possibly a great documentary, Morgan is determined to find out all she can about where these miracle babies are coming from, which leads her deep into the Mayan jungle of all places.

My Thoughts:

The writing was done well in this book, the characters are pretty real, the story is an interesting concept, and there was some beautiful descriptive language; that being said, I wasn't really a fan of this book.  There were definitely some great aspects about this book, but my main two problems were: I didn't feel connected with the main character and I found the book to be overly predictable.  Most of the books I read I can connect to the protagonist in some aspect, unfortunately I wasn't able to in this book, I'm not sure what it was, but part of the problem might have been her baby craze - I'm 25, I'm not even thinking about babies. On a separate note this is what also bothered me about Breaking Dawn, Bella willing to throw everything with Edward away for a baby.  But back on track, I wasn't the biggest fan of Morgan's character.  The other main problem was I had the ending of the book and the path it would follow almost figured out to a T by the first hundred pages, I continued reading the rest of the book - 400 pages I think - to confirm that 90% of my suspicions were correct.  It was pretty interesting to see it get to the end, and that pacing was pretty good. A couple times near the end I did the 'just one more chapter' but it usually wouldn't be much more than that and I had no urge to try and sneak a peak in the morning. The fact that I seemed to be seeing all the cards and I was just waiting for them to be played out was a little boring for me.

Would I recommend this book? Probably not, unless someone I knew had a particular interest in Mayans or I would think they would relate to the book better than I would.  Would I read another book by the author?  Perhaps, but I'd want to read lots of reviews about the story and characters before making a decision.

Everneath : Ebook Review

4/5 Stars

Everneath
First in Series
By Brodi Ashton
Balzer & Bray (January 24, 2012)

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Crickey! Falling behind on my blogging, what a busy week! Well I'm just going to have to make up the lost posts, :).

The tale of Persephone and Hades with a twist. The tale takes place in the Everneath, but this is not the Underworld. The Everneath is where the Everlings dwell a race of Immortals that survive by draining the emotions out of mortals, most of which forfeit their lives for this undertaking.

Synopsis:

After an one-hundred year nap Nikki wakes up in the arms of an Everling named Cole. Drained of all emotion, she feels hollow when Cole releases her from his grasp, but an image plays through her mind, one that she can't shake, the image of a boy's face. But Nikki has done what few other's have, she's survived.  Cole wants to make her his Queen of the Everneath, but Nik refuses proclaiming she has to return to the surface and say goodbye to the love one's she left behind, and see the boy who's face she has kept in mind for the last 100 years, Jack. There's a catch, fleeing the surface is not that simple, in six months time the Tunnels are coming for her and she can't stop that horrific future, unless she agrees to go with Cole, or something even more unlikely figures out how to escape them. Though 100 years have passed in the Everneath, only 6 months have on the surface. Nik has only 6 months to salvage the broken relationships she left behind, and say her true good-byes to the people she loves.

What I thought:

I really liked Everneath, I just flew through the book, and I had a hard time putting it down.  It was fast paced and I liked the characters: Nik the broken girl trying to make peace with her life she destroyed due to a stupid decision, Jack is the ever dedicated boyfriend/friend, and Cole is the mysterious bad boy.  I've always been big into mythology so that was a plus for this book, and I liked the interesting twists Ashton added into the novel. There were a few things I didn't like. I'm sure I'm not the only person that feels this way, maybe I am, but I actually felt bad for Cole. Nikki hurled herself at him, begging him to take her pain away - he has the power - and although she didn't realize at the time the consequences of her actions, it was her not him that initiated it.  Unfortunately their 100 year cuddle fest had an unexpected side-effect, he developed real emotions for her.  Do I think Cole is up to no good persisting that Nik becomes Queen? Absolutely. Do I think he actually cares about her and just isn't out for himself? Yup, sure do. But this doesn't stop Nik from being mean and mad at him.  The other thing I didn't like was the ending, darn you cliff hangers! If there wasn't another book in the works - January 2013 BLAH - I would say this book was not finished, but since it's part of (a trilogy I think) that makes up for it a tad.  Having to wait months and months for the second book doesn't offer much consolation.

I would recommend this, I really liked it, but I would tell that person WAIT, don't read it till like next year, or December because it'll just make you mad not knowing!

If you'd like more insight check out this fellow bloggers blog: http://smallreview.blogspot.ca/2012/02/book-review-everneath-by-brodi-ashton.html