Book Review (116) Two Weeks' Notice - Rachel Caine

Two Weeks' Notice (Revivalist #2)

by Rachel Caine

Publication: 25th July 2012

Publisher: Penguin Australia

Pages: 324

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Age Appropriate: 16+

**Warning Contains Spoilers From The Previous Book In The Series**

After dying and being revived with the experimental drug Returne, Bryn Davis is theoretically free to live her unlife - with regular doses to keep her going. But Bryn knows that the government has every intention of keeping a tight lid on Pharmadene's life-altering discovery, no matter the cost. Thankfully, some things have changed for the better; her job at the rechristened Davis Funeral Home is keeping her busy and her fragile romance with Patrick McCallister is blossoming - thanks in part to their combined efforts in forming a support group for Returne addicts. But when some of the group members suddenly disappear, Bryn wonders if the government is methodically removing a threat to their security, or if some unknown enemy has decided to run the zombies into the ground…

My Thoughts.

I've come to the conclusion that Rachel Caine can do no wrong when it comes to her writing and me!

So while I haven't read all of the series she has released, what I have read is absolutely fantastic, I'm a huge fan of her Morganville Vampires series and in no way thought that this series could ever be as good, but I was so wrong, and I'm certainly glad for that.

I love how easily Caine can go from Paranormal to Urban Fantasy and excel at both, a sign of a great writer.

It was a perfect day for a funeral.

Months have passed since the end of the last book and Bryn and Joe are still working at what is now known as Davis Funeral Home, she has started a support group for fellow Returne addicts and has moved in with Patrick.

After avoiding an attack by two men outside the funeral home one night Bryn is called in by the FBI to help on a case, but it's a trap and a bomb has been set to go off but not before she finds seven dead bodies and an encrypted thumb drive which contains videos of three Returne addicts being shot and burned alive, after investigating she also finds that there are a few missing as well and seeks out the answers to why this is all happening.

He'd love to recruit the two of you to his army of the walking dead, with all your ninja combat skills." "I'm not a ninja," Pat said. "Speak for yourself man." That earned Joe a poisonously angry glance from Pat.

Bryn is also still trying to find her sister Annie who was taken by Mercer in the previous book, and still trying to stay on the good side of Riley who is under pressure trying to keep the Returne addicts and the Pharmadene situation under wraps from the public.

"You're not going to forget it, are you, Joe?" "Which part? The two of you naked in bed? Bryn going hand-to hand naked? Because it's fairly memorable, my friend.

I love Joe he is so funny and the comments he comes out with always have me chuckling to myself, plus he's a great friend to both Patrick and Bryn.

"The good news is, probably no big deal for me to run a wire up your bra anymore, now that I've seen you naked."

"They said you'd been ambushed by two guys. Opinion was they were your garden-variety abducting serial killer types with a thing for hot blond funeral directors." "Excuse me?" "Which part of that did you object to? I hope not the 'hot blond.'"

I love that Bryn and Patrick are officially a couple but I never would have guessed at the twist with these two and I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped out of sheer "WHAT THE????"

And that ending, WHY????, I don't have the patience for the next book, you can't leave us with a revelation like that, which will definitely change the storyline, and can I say now EWWW!

A great book, great series now if only this series could be released as fast as the Morganville Vampires books seems to be and I'd be one extremely happy girl.

I give this 5/5.

A Big Thanks To Penguin Australia.

In My Mailbox (38).

In My Mailbox Is A Weekly Meme Hosted By Kristi The Story Siren.

Review.

Kiss Of Midnight (Midnight Breed #1) - Lara Adrian (Murdoch Books Australia)
Just For Fins (Fins #3) - Tera Lynn Childs (Harper Collins Australia)

Brought.

Spark (Sky Chasers #2) - Amy Kathleen Ryan
Forever Claimed (Claiming #3) - Rachel Lee
A Warrior's Desire (The Esri #3) - Pamela Palmer
Wolf Whisperer - Karen Whiddon
The Devil Wears Tartan - Karen Ranney
Sapphire Dream (Jewels Of Time #1) - Pamela Montgomerie

Upcoming Books That Don't Yet Have Covers.

Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X #1)

by Richelle Mead 

"NYT bestselling author Richelle Mead's GAMEBOARD OF THE GODS, the first novel in her new adult paranormal series, Age of X, featuring an unlikely pair charged with investigating mystical phenomena in a futuristic world that was nearly destroyed by religious extremists..."

Expected publication: December 2013 by Dutton (first published 2013)

Rearview Mirror

by Rachel Harris 

Aubrie Guidry is living a lie. After the death of her best friend Krista in a devastating car accident—one where Aubrie was a passenger in the car—she’s given up her goth girl/performing arts persona and taken on, well, Krista’s. 

She’s a cheerleader. She’s spunky. She’s blond.

The only time she’s able to admit to the pain she still suffers from is when she’s alone in her room, looking in the rearview mirror from her friend’s totaled car, and writing her true feelings in invisible ink on her bedroom walls. That is, until Ben, Krista’s brother, comes back to New Orleans from NYU. Ben sees right through Aubrie’s façade, and is desperate to save her. 

But when Krista’s voice starts speaking to both of them, can they uncover what really happened that fateful winter’s night?

Expected publication: December 2013 by Entangled Teen

Anne Boleyn and the Zombie Apocalypse (Anne Boleyn Trilogy #1)

by Bianca Ison

It all started with a simple bite.

Anne Boleyn woke on the eve of her 16th birthday expecting a small gathering with her father Thomas and her sister Mary and archery hunting in the woods behind their home.

What she got was a country ravaged by fire and death.
Her mother eaten in half on the kitchen floor.
Her sister and father infected and hunting her down with the rest of the walkers.
And a group of teens hellbent on survival - the Swordsman Marquess of Pembroke, Prince Henry VIII of England, Axe wielder Jane Seymour, and Dagger wielder Catherine of Aragon.

In a world now in turmoil and ruin, Anne must learn to survive the Zombie Apocalypse... or become one of them herself.

Expected publication: December 2013

The Bone Season

by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season begins in 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. She works as an envoy between secret cells: she drops in an out of people's minds. For Paige is a lucid dreamer, a clairvoyant, and in her world, the world of Scion, she commits high treason simply by breathing. It is raining the day her life changes forever. Attacked, kidnapped and transported to Oxford, a city that has been kept secret for two hundred years, she meets Warden, a Rephaite with dark honey skin and heavy-lidded yellow eyes. He is the single most beautiful and frightening thing she has every laid eyes on – and he will become her "keeper".

Expected publication: September 12th 2013 by Bloomsbury

Vicious

by Victoria Schwab

About two best friends whose college experiments to create supernatural abilities wind up turning them against each other.

Expected publication: September 2013 by Tor

Prophesy Of Oz (Prophecy of Oz Trilogy #1)

by Megan Shan

Helena's Aunt Dorothy has told her stories of Oz from a young age. When she finds a trunk with some Ruby Red slippers she finds herself in an adventure that will give her life long friends and will break every thing that she has ever believed.

Expected publication: August 5th 2013

Feature And Follow Friday (36).

Q: Summer Reading. What was your favorite book that you were REQUIRED to read when you were in school?

Sadly enough I honestly can't remember any books I was required to read at school, so the only thing I'm taking away from that is, obviously I didn't like any and they left no impression whatsoever!

Book Review (115). Working Stiff - Rachel Caine

Working Stiff (Revivalist #1)

by Rachel Caine

Publication: 2nd April 2011
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Pages: 306
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Age Appropriate: 16+
Bryn Davis knows working at Fairview Mortuary isn't the most glamorous career choice, but at least it offers stable employment--until she discovers her bosses using a drug that resurrects the clientele as part of an extortion racket. Now, Bryn faces being terminated--literally, and with extreme prejudice.

Wit the help of corporate double-agent Patrick McCallister, Bryn has a chance to take down the bigger problem--pharmaceutical company Pharmadene, which treats death as the ultimate corporate loyalty program. She'd better do it fast, before she becomes a zombie slave--a real working stiff. She'd be better off dead...

My Thoughts.

I am a huge fan of Caine's Morganville Vampire series, I was extremely excited to start this series being very interested in the concept of  the dead being brought back to life, but not being Zombies as such but acting like normal, everyday people, and as long as they keep taking the drug Returne daily it will stop them from decomposing.
Bryn's first embalming instructor had told her, straight up, that two kinds of people entered the death business: freaks and true believers.
Bryn starts her first day at Fairview Mortuary learning the ropes from her boss, everything seems to be going smoothly until she overhears a conversation about her boss charging money to bring people back from the dead and then proceeding to charge for the injection of Returne each day to keep a person alive, of course Bryn gets caught and is subsequently killed, and then wakes up after being given the drug by a couple of guys Patrick and Joe, who brought her back so she can help them find the person responsible for illegally obtaining the drug from it's manufacturer Pharmadene and selling it.
Bryn of course doesn't really know anything so she is told that for her to continually recieve the drug she is to continue her work at the mortuary in hopes that the person selling the drugs gets in contact with her.
Joe becomes her bodyguard and also comes to work with her at the mortuary while Patrick who is head of security at Pharmadene helps her while also running hot and cold with his feelings for Bryn.
"Bryn, my job is to make sure that you don't do anything stupid. So yeah. I followed you. When you leave your house in the middle-class version of ninja clothes, I pay attention.
I loved the interaction between Bryn and Patrick and I had my fingers crossed that something would happen between these two with his dry sense of humour.
Joe was another character that I adored, inside he's just a big softie, none more so than with his wife and kids.
You spend a lot of time while reading this book trying to guess who's really the good and bad guys and trying to figure out what the next plot twist will be
I loved Caine's foray into Urban Fantasy and I can't wait to see what's next for Bryn and the gang in the next book.
I give this 4/5.

Cover Reveal: Override - Heather Anastasiu

Override (Glitch #2)

by Heather Anastasiu

Expected publication: February 19th 2013 by St. Martin's Griffin

Waiting On Wednesday.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine where you can spotlight an upcoming release that you're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on....

Spellbinding

by Maya Gold

Salem is the bewitching backdrop to this lush, fast-paced tale of one girl discovering the source of her powers.

It is during a routine school project that Abby Silva--sixteen and nearly friendless--makes a startling discovery: She is descended from women who were accused of witchcraft back in 1600s Salem. And when Abby visits nearby Salem, strange, inexplicable events start to unfold. Objects move when she wills them to. Candles burst into sudden flame. And an ancient spellbook somehow winds up in her possession.

Trying to harness her newfound power, Abby concocts a love potion to win over her longtime crush--and exact revenge upon his cruel, bullying girlfriend. But old magic is not to be trifled with. Soon, Abby is thrust headlong into a world of hexes, secrets, and danger. And then there's Rem Anders, the beautiful, mysterious Salem boy who seems to know more about Abby than he first lets on. 

A reckoning is coming, and Abby will have to make sense of her history--and her heart--before she can face the powerful truth.

Expected publication: April 2013 by Scholastic Point

Wasteland

by Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan

Welcome to the Wasteland. Where all the adults are long gone, and now no one lives past the age of nineteen. Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan’s post-apocalyptic debut is the first of a trilogy in which everyone is forced to live under the looming threat of rampant disesase and brutal attacks by the Variants—hermaphroditic outcasts that live on the outskirts of Prin. 

Esther thinks there’s more to life than toiling at harvesting, gleaning, and excavating, day after day under the relentless sun, just hoping to make it to the next day. But then Caleb, a mysterious stranger, arrives in town, and Esther begins to question who she can trust.

As shady pasts unravel into the present and new romances develop, Caleb and Esther realize that they must team together to fight for their lives and for the freedom of Prin.

Expected publication: March 26th 2013 by HarperTeen

Hidden (Hidden #1)

by Marianne Curley

When baby Ebony is snatched from the midwife, she is rent not only from her parents but also her betrothed. In her world, a special bond is formed with one other being - for eternity. But Ebony is no longer in her world; she has been hidden in ours. An angel on earth. Earth was the best place to conceal Ebony, to keep her from her kin who desperately seek her, and to keep Ebony from discovering for herself who she really is. But Ebony is coming of age, and then no one will be able to hide her true origins. She will be 'visible', and the one who stole her away will come back to claim her. But who will reach her first?

Expected publication: March 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

The Art of Wishing

by Lindsay Ribar

Margo McKenna has a plan of attack for everything, from landing the part she wants in her high school musical to dealing with her increasingly absent parents. But when she finds herself in possession of a genie’s ring and the opportunity to make three wishes, she doesn’t know what to do. Especially since Oliver – not blue-skinned, not bottle-dwelling, but a genie nonetheless – can see more than what she’s willing to show him. With one peek into her mind, he can see the wishes that even Margo herself doesn’t know she wants.

But Oliver comes with more than just mind-reading abilities, a flair for magic, and the prettiest eyes Margo’s ever seen. Someone from his past is hunting him – someone bent on killing him, along with all the other genies in the world, for the sake of honor. And as Margo soon discovers, it will take more than three wishes to save him.

A whole lot more.

Expected publication: March 21st 2013 by Dial Books For Young Readers

The Disappeared

by C.J. Harper

In a future where children are segregated into institutions that range from comfortable "Learning Communities" to prison-like "Local Academies", seventeen-year-old Jackson is an academic high flyer, living in a top Learning Community and destined for a position in the Leadership. But when he is sent with his best friend Wilson to deliver a package to a factory block, the two boys are attacked leaving Jackson badly beaten and Wilson dead. Confused and upset, Jackson returns to his Learning Community only to be dismissed by his teachers who claim not to know him. Sent to an Academy, an institute set up to train factory workers, Jackson finds himself immersed in a world that couldn't be further removed than the comfortable life he's used to; a harsh, violent, semi-articulate society where the students have created their own hierarchy based on fighting ability. Using his wits to survive, Jackson starts to realise that his whole life has been based on half-truths. And in order to survive he needs to expose the lies that surround the Academy and find out the truth about who he really is. As he builds alliances and begins to educate those closest to him, a plan for rebellion and escape gradually comes into shape...

Fast-paced, page-turning, moving, yet with a streak of dark humour, The Disappeared is a very British dystopia, with shades of Orwell and Huxley. 

Expected publication: February 1st 2013 by Simon & Schuster Childrens Books