Title: Death Sentence (Escape From Furnace #3)
Author: Alexander Gordon Smith
Published: August, 2011 by Farrar Straus Giroux
Pages: 256
Rating:  
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Alex’s second attempt to break out of Furnace Penetentiary has failed. This time his punishment will be much worse than before. Because in the hidden, bloodstained laboratories beneath the prison, he will be made into a monster. As the warden pumps something evil into his veins–a sinisterly dark nectar–Alex becomes what he most fears . . . a superhuman minion of Furnace. How can he escape when the darkness is inside him? How can he lead the way to freedom if he is lost to himself?

Final Thoughts:
It took me a while to get into the first book, but with each one that followed, I just can’t get enough. This series actually feels like one in the sense that the plot in each book flows into the next as part of a much larger arc. Sure, something new happens in each, the stakes growing ever higher, but it really keeps you guessing as to what may lie ahead. Not shying away from harming and killing off characters, with this instalment, not even Alex is safe. I really like it for that. When the main character’s own mental stability is in question that’s when you know a book is going to be fun.

Title: Solitary (Escape From Furnace #2)
Author: Alexander Gordon Smith
Published: July, 2009 by Farrar Straus Giroux
Pages: 256
Rating:  
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Alex tried to escape.
He had a perfect plan.
He was almost free. Even felt the cool, clean air on his face.
Then the dogs came.
Now he’s locked in a place so gruesome—so hellish—that escape doesn’t even matter.
He just wants to survive.

Final Thoughts:
With the amped up cliff-hanger ending of Lockdown, this one had its work cut out for it. You could probably gather the direction the series is headed just by looking at the titles, so it’s hard to root for the characters when you know their most likely going to fail, but nonetheless, I’m finding myself thoroughly enjoying these books so far. Solitary is fast-paced, gritty and emotional. The plotting is smart and so are the characters. I like their ingenuity in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. I’m just waiting for the day when Alex finally sticks it to the powers that be.

Title: Eternal (Tantalize #2)
Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Published: December, 2009 by Walker Books
Pages: 306
Rating:  
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At last, Miranda is the life of the party: all she had to do was die. Elevated and adopted by none other than the reigning King of the Mantle of Dracul, Miranda goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous royal fiend overnight. Meanwhile, her reckless and adoring guardian angel, Zachary, demoted to human guise as the princess’s personal assistant, has his work cut out for him trying to save his girl’s soul and plan the Master’s fast-approaching Death Day gala. In alternating points of view, Miranda and Zachary navigate a cut-throat eternal aristocracy as they play out a dangerous and darkly hilarious love story for the ages.

Final Thoughts:
Apparently this book is set before Tantalize, and so, the entire restaurant-operating ensemble is nowhere to be seen. It reads more like a companion, set in the same world, but in a different city. Unlike the previous book, which focussed on the workings of a restaurant, Eternal delves right into the paranormal. A vampire kingdom full of aristocracy, human servants and dungeons gave this book an entirely different feel. While this one still suffered from some of the same problems as the last one, I found the alternating perspectives gave a better insight into the characters. Plus mixing vampires and angels, how could I resist.

Title: Tantalize (Tantalize #1)
Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Published: February, 2007 by Walker Books
Pages: 311
Rating:  
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This is a terrific teenage gothic novel – vampires and werewolves abound! Orphaned and in her uncle’s care, fiercely independent Quincie may be the most over-achieving high-school student around, but even she has her hands full with a hybrid-werewolf boyfriend and the opening of Sanguini’s, her hip vampire-themed restaurant, which turns out to have way more bite than she’d intended.

Final Thoughts:
Things started out okay, but went downhill the further I progressed. While I found it to be a quick read, the main character, Quincie, continually frustrated me with her poor decision making and general lack of observation skills. Also, the sudden renaming of a person just felt weird. Using a stage name in front of the customers is somewhat understandable, but in everyday reference to the guy, I just couldn’t wrap my head around that one. Kieren, the half werewolf, was about the only sensible, almost likeable character out of the lot—yet he was hardly around!

Title: Red Fox (Experiment in Terror #2)
Author: Karina Halle
Published: June, 2011 by Metal Blonde Books
Thanks: Karina Halle
Pages: 287
Rating:  
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With Book Two of the Experiment in Terror Series, Perry Palomino and Dex Foray trade in the stormy Oregon coast for the unforgiving deserts of New Mexico.

In the for­got­ten town of Red Fox, a Navajo cou­ple is tor­tured by things unseen and by motives unknown. Wild ani­mals slink through their house in the dark, a bar­rage of stones pound their roof nightly, and muti­lated sheep car­casses are turn­ing up on their prop­erty. Armed with a cam­era and just enough to go on, Perry and Dex travel to the des­o­late locale, hop­ing to film the super­nat­ural occur­rences and add cred­i­bil­ity to their flail­ing web­cast. Only their show has a lot more work­ing against them than just grow­ing pains. Tested by dubi­ous ranch hands, a ghost from Dex’s past, and shapeshift­ing decep­tion, the ama­teur ghost hunters must learn to trust each other in order to fight the most ancient of myths…or die trying.

Final Thoughts:
Seriously loving these books. The series format allows for many new settings, new characters and new stories. Perry and Dex hold things together, being at the center of it all. Their relationship, or rather non-relationship, has progressed slightly from its beginnings in Darkhouse. I was both frustrated and happy with the pacing at which things moved in that regard. I know I said in my last review that books didn’t have the same scare factor that movies did, but this one pushed things closer. The paranormal has been amped up and so has the danger. Red Fox is one creepy book!

Title: Darkhouse (Experiment In Terror #1)
Author: Karina Halle
Published: May, 2011 by Metal Blonde Books
Thanks: Karina Halle
Pages: 309
Rating:  
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There’s always been something a bit off about Perry Palomino. Though she’s been dealing with a quarter-life crisis and post-college syndrome like any other twenty-something, she’s still not what you would call “ordinary.” For one thing, there’s her past which she likes to pretend never happened, and then there’s the fact that she sees ghosts. Luckily for her, that all comes in handy when she stumbles across Dex Foray, an eccentric producer for an upcoming webcast on ghost hunters. Even though the show’s budget is non-existent and Dex himself is a maddening enigma, Perry is instantly drawn into a world that both threatens her life and seduces her with a sense of importance. Her uncle’s haunted lighthouse provides the perfect catalyst and backdrop for a mystery that unravels the threads of Perry’s fragile sanity and causes her to fall for a man, who, like the most dangerous of ghosts, may not be all that he seems.

Final Thoughts:
After reading a book that dragged on, I was happy to find myself speeding through this one easily. I was surprised by how much I loved reading it. The similarities between my life and that of the main character, Perry, were freakishly uncanny. I enjoyed slipping into her world and going along with her sometimes wacky, but often understandable trains of thought. The mystery of the lighthouse had its creepy moments, but what I loved came more through the banter between Perry and Dex. The romantic undercurrents were paced realistically, and fun to watch unfurl.

Title: Legacy
Author: Molly Cochran
Published: December, 2011 by Simon & Schuster
Thanks: Simon & Schuster GalleyGrab
Pages: 432
Rating:  
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When her widowed father dumps 16-year-old Katy Jessevar in a boarding school in Whitfield, Massachusetts, she has no idea that fate has just opened the door to both her future and her past. Nearly everyone in Whitfield is a witch, as is Katy herself, although she has struggled all her life to hide her unusual talents. Stuck at a boarding school where her fellow studens seem to despise her, Katy soon discovers that Whitfield is the place where her mother commited suicide under mysterious circumstances when Katy was just a small child. With dark forces converging on Whitfield, it’s up to Katy to unravel her family’s many secrets to save the boy she loves and the town itself from destruction.

Final Thoughts:
Going into this, I was expecting another boarding school story. I’ve read a fair few of them this year and they all had a lot of things in common, so what actually came out of this one surprised me. Beyond the first few chapters, there are hardly any mentions of the school, instead, focussing on the fog-ridden town full of magic and darkness. I enjoyed the premise, but felt like the book dragged on for far too long. Spanning almost nine months in only the first half, things moved quickly, but it still lagged somehow. Thinking back, I enjoyed everything that happened throughout the book, I just felt depleted reading it.