Book Review (49).

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side(Jessica #1)

by Beth Fantaskey

Publication: 1st February 2009

Publisher: Harcourt

Pages: 351

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

The undead can really screw up your senior year ...

Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction.

My Thoughts.

I've been wanting to read this book for quite a while now and since I was sent the second book in the series to review I was quite excited to start it, and I was not disappointed.

Jessica is your normal everyday teenager or so she believes, one morning while waiting for the bus to school she notices a guy standing across the road staring at her, feeling a bit weirded out she's very grateful when the bus arrives, but in English class later that day there's a new foreign exchange student in class Lucius, none other than the strange boy from that morning.

It's while her mum is driving her home after school that she sees Lucius by the side of the road and Jessica points him out to her mum after telling her the story, then unbelievably her mum gets out of the car and invites him to dinner.

It's while eating dinner that Jessica is told that her real name is Antanasia and she's a vampire princess, not only that but she's told that Lucien (who is a vampire prince) and her were promised to each other at birth and they are to be married when Jessica is eighteen.

Of course Jessica thinks that they are all crazy and there's no such thing as vampire's let alone her being one, it takes quite a while for her to accept it as truth and by then Lucien appears to have moved on to the popular girl at school while Jessica has been dating a boy from school.

It's after Lucien starts dating someone else that she realises she loves Lucien and needs to talk him back into the pact (getting married to stop a war between their feuding families) before it's too late.

I loved how at the start Lucien was so formal but then started to relax and dress and act like all the rest of the American kids he was so fond of making fun of.

We also hear about the way Lucien was brought up by his Uncles (they used to beat him) after both his and Jessica's parents were killed by the same mob many years before.

I also lovd the originality of the vampire story, males are born vampires but the females aren't fully vampires until they are bitten.

Great storyline and characters, now I'm off to start the second book.

I give 4/5.

 

Feature And Follow Friday (14).

Follow Friday Is A Weekly Meme Hosted By Parajunkee And Alison Can Read.

Q: Which book genre do you avoid at all costs and why?

Ok well I definately avoid poetry, I just don't understand it and I'd rather read something that has more of a storyline to it.

Sorry to all the people that like it but each to their own.

Book Review (48).

Spoiled

by Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan

Publication: February 2012

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia

Pages: 372

Genre: Contemporary

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Arc Review.

16-year-old Molly Dix loves her ordinary life in suburban Indiana, so when her single mother passes away, she is shocked to discover that her biological father is Brick Berlin, world famous movie star and red carpet regular.

Equally intrigued and terrified by her Hollywood lineage, Molly moves to Southern California and plunges head-first into the deep end of Beverly Hills celebrity life. Just as Molly thinks her new life and family couldn't get any stranger, she meets Brooke Berlin, her gorgeous and spoiled half-sister whom welcomes Molly to la-la land with a healthy dose of passive-aggressive "sisterly love."

Set against the backdrop of a sparkling and fashion-filled Los Angeles, this deliciously dysfunctional family soap opera will satisfy every reader looking for their next lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous beach read.

My Thoughts.

Molly has just lost her mum to cancer and it was while her mum was on her death bed the she admitted to Molly that her father is the world famous actor Brick Berlin, so she moves from Indiana to Los Angeles to go and live with her father and half-sister Brooke.

Brick is an absentee father, if he's not shooting a film he's on the phone not realising that all his two daughters want is his attention and some of his time.

When Molly first meets Brooke she's nice as pie and it isn't until Brick isn't around that she lets her true colors show and is vindictive in spreading rumours around school, Molly gets attention from the press which Brooke has always longed for but has never gotten.

Molly is befriended by Brooke's arch-nemesis Shelby who's father owns the Hey! a very popular gossip magazine and Shelby aims to follow in his footsteps and will do anything to get back at Brooke, even use Molly to get what she wants.

Molly also has to deal with her long- distance relationship with her boyfriend Danny and her growing feelings for Teddy a boy at her new school,

For all those people who ever wondered what the world of celebrity would be like, this is the tale of an ordinary girl who didn't know what she was getting herself into.

I give this 4/5.

A Big Thanks To Allen & Unwin.

Australian Vs. U.S.A. Book Covers.

A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2)

by Beth Revis 

Australian.

American.

Book Review (47).

Fracture (Fracture)

by Megan Miranda

Publication: 27th January 2012

Publisher: Bloomsbury Australia

Pages: 261

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine

—despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.

My Thoughts.

What I loved so much about this book was the originality of a subject we don't read a lot about.

Delaney is out with her friend Decker going to meet a bunch of their other friends when while walking across an ice covered lake she falls and cracks the ice and before she knows it she falls in and is trapped under the ice.

We then flash forward to 6 days later and Delaney miraculously awakens from her coma, everybody including her doctor expected her to stay in a vegetative state and never wake up, it's then she's told she was dead for 11 minutes, pulled out of the lake and given cpr by Decker.

It's while she's in hospital that she feels her first pull towards the dying but at the time she doesn;t realise what it is but because of her brain damge she knows when someone is going to die the stronger the pull the closer they are to death.

After getting out of hospital she feels different and herv parents her Mum in particular treat her like she can't be trusted with anything not even to touch the oven and it's while out studying at the library one day with a friend that she meets Troy a boy she finds out who was also in a coma and has the same ability that she now does, the only difference being he speeds up their deaths belieiving it's better to put them out of their misery.

Also through all this Delaney realises that she has feelings for Decker and it's her jealousy of his relationship with Tara a semi friend of their's that drives a wedge between them, Delaney feels she's losing everyone around her, her Mum turns into a shallow shell not eating, compulsively cleaning and being extremely overprotective, her and Decker aren't talking and through time she comes to fear Troy, while also trying to prolong the lives of the people she knows are going to die.

Even though everyone was so happy she survived Delaney feels alienated from everyone and wonders whether it would have been better for everyone if she never woke up.

I loved this story,it flowed really well and I just wanted to keep reading to know what was going to happen next.

I give this 4/5.

A big thanks to Sonia @ Bloomsbury Australia.

Australian Vs. U.S.A. Book Covers.

Lothaire (Immortals After Dark #12)

by Kresley Cole 

Australian.

American.

Book Review (46).

Lothaire (Immortals After Dark #12)

by Kresley Cole 

Publication: 19th January 2012

Publisher: Simon And Schuster Australia

Pages: 464

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Age Appropriate: Adult

Price: $19.99

**Warning This Review May Contain Spoilers From Previous Books In The Series**

From the humblest of beginnings a millennia ago, Lothaire the Enemy of Old rose to power, becoming the most feared and evil vampire in the immortal world. Driven by his past, he will not rest until he captures the vampire Horde’s crown for himself. The discovery of his Bride, the female meant only for him, threatens to derail his plot.

Elizabeth Peirce is a mere mortal, a glaring vulnerability for a male with so many blood foes bent on annihilating anything he desires. Yet soon he discovers his Bride’s secret. A magnificent power dwells inside the fragile human, one that will aid his quest. But to possess that power, he will have to destroy her. Will Lothaire succumb to the torments of his past, or seize a future with her?

My Thoughts.

This series is definately one of my favourites and this new book in the series didn't disappoint.

I always wondered how Lothaire would be turned into a leading man and whether he could redeem himself to be a likable character.

We've known from the previous book that Lothaire had been blooded and had found his Bride (vampires are dead inside and their hearts only start beating once they come into contact with their  mates), what we didn't know was that his BrideElizabeth is a  human who's body is possessed by Soraya the Goddess of death who takes over her body at intervals and kills people.

After killing one night the police arrive at her families trailer (she lives in the mountains of Appalachia) and Elizabeth figures if she confronts the police while holding a gun they'll kill her and she'll be rid of Soraya forever, but as she's about to appear to the police Lothaire comes by and stops her because he believes that Soraya is his Bride not Elizabeth as he believes humans are below him, so she is sent to death row and after five years she is about to be executed but it's stopped by Lothaire who is enraged that Elizabeth would once again be trying to kill herself to get rid of Soraya.

The rest of the book has Lothaire trying to locate the ring he stole from La Dorada so he can remove Elizabeth's soul and Soraya can permanantly take over, but Soraya prefers Elizabeth stays in charge of her own body until the ring is found.

I loved the interactions between Lothaire and Elizabeth, her hillbilly talk is hilarious and the way she matches wits with Lothaire makes it one of my favourite books in the series.

We get some scenes with the valkyries at Val Hall, Thad and one of my favourite characters Nix who I'm hoping is going to be the lead in the next book.

A definite must read about the series bad boy.

I give this 5/5.

A big thanks to Caroline @ Simon And Schuster Australia.