Title: Lament (Books Of Faerie #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: October, 2008 by Scholastic
Pages: 356
Rating:  
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Sixteen-year-old Dee is a cloverhand—someone who can see faeries. When she finds herself irresistibly drawn to beautiful, mysterious Luke, Dee senses that he wants something more dangerous than a summer romance.

But Dee doesn’t realise that Luke is an assassin from the faerie world.

And she is his next target.

Final Thoughts:
I haven’t read a lot of faerie based books yet, so I I’m not as well versed in the faerie lore. That being said, I did find the world of Lament easy enough to follow. It’s not a book centering on the fae politics, rather it takes to the characters on the fringe of that world, exploring the undeniable chemistry between a pair of, and I hate to phrase it like this but, ‘star-crossed’ individuals. A little cliché? Yes I suppose. Anyway, ignoring that fact, the romance here is addictive, and the characters tortured. Sounds like another bout of Maggie Stiefvater fun to me.

Title: The Vampire Shrink (Kismet Knight #1)
Author: Lynda Hilburn
Published: September, 2011 by Jo Fletcher Books
Thanks: Pan Macmillan, AU
Pages: 400
Rating:  
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Kismet Knight, PhD, doesn’t believe in the paranormal. She especially doesn’t believe in vampires, but she begins to wise up when she is introduced to a handsome man named Devereux who claims to be 800 years old. Kismet doesn’t buy his vampire story, but she also can’t explain why she has such odd reactions and feelings when he is near. Then a client almost completely drained of blood staggers into her waiting room and two angry men force their way into her office, causing her to consider the possibility that she has run afoul of a vampire underworld. Enter FBI profiler Alan Stevens, who warns her that vampires are very real, and one is a murderer—a murderer who is after her.

Final Thoughts:
This was all over the place for me, but in a good way. What started out as a day in the life of a fairly closed off, thirty year old woman, stuck in a monotonous routine of her clients’ therapy sessions, ended up being something completely out of left field. With elements of fantasy, crime procedurals and erotic love triangles, I was flipping desperately through, even resorting to reading by candlelight for more of Kismet’s adventures when my power went out during a thunderstorm.

Title: Forever (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #3)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: July, 2011 by Scholastic
Pages: 496
Rating:  
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The thrilling conclusion to #1 bestselling Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy from Maggie Stiefvater.

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. In Linger, they fought to be together. Now, in Forever, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in.

Final Thoughts:
I feel like I need to go snack on a block of chocolate after this one. My emotions are on shaky ground, like someone’s stomped on them, sewn them back together and then backed a car over them. I separated my reading into three sessions. The first quarter on Thursday night, the middle Saturday night and then finished off the last quarter Sunday morning. I think that was the right way to do it, this book is a giant ride where you need to pause and enjoy the scenery as so much happens that it could feel like a blur if you were to rush through. You also need to choose your resting points wisely or you could find yourself losing sleep worrying about what Sam and Grace were getting themselves into.

Title: Linger (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #2)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: July, 2010 by Scholastic
Pages: 420
Rating:  
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Grace and Sam found each other, and now, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love — the light and the dark, the warm and the cold — in a way you will never forget.

Final Thoughts:
Having just read Shiver two days ago, I feel like this one let me down slightly. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the book, it’s just that this time around Grace and her parents started to annoy me a little. I raced through Linger a lot quicker than I did with the first book. The on-edge style plot had me getting very little sleep as I kept on telling myself one more chapter, until 3am reared up on me and I just had to force myself into shutting the book.

Title: Shiver (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: January, 2009 by Scholastic
Pages: 434
Rating:  
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Grace and Sam share a kinship so close they could be lovers or siblings. But they also share a problem. When the temperature slips towards freezing, Sam reverts to his wolf identity and must retreat into the woods to protect his pack. He worries that eventually his human side will fade away and he will left howling alone at the lonely moon. A stirring supernatural teen romance.

Final Thoughts:
Wow. If you’re like me and you love the I-can’t-breathe-without-you type romances, you need to read this. That’s if you haven’t already, I’m a bit behind on starting this series. But I do have the added advantage though. I have all three books here, so I don’t have to endure the torturous wait in between each of them. Shiver is a werewolf book, although it’s handled differently than any of the others I’ve come across, and I like it. It’s fun, it’s emotional, but most of all, it’s addictive. Why I chose to pick this up right before bed time is beyond me. You need to clear out your schedule because it will pain you to put this book down when sleep creeps up on you.

Title: All These Things I’ve Done (Birthright #1)
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Published: August, 2011 by Pan Macmillan
Thanks: Pan Macmillan, AU
Pages: 354
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

It’s 2083. There’s a chocolate prohibition, and New York City is a very changed place. Art museums are now dance clubs, books are musty relics of the past, water is strictly rationed, and the mafia ruled black market consists of chocolate and caffeine.

And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city’s most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.’s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she’s to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight – at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.

Final Thoughts:
I loved this book. But you could probably already glean that from my five star rating. I don’t hand those out often, so you should know that this one was worth it. Sure, it’s probably going to be known as the ‘chocolate dystopian’, but that’s not what makes this book so good. It’s the wonderfully written range of characters that bring this story to life. All the rest is just a… well, not-so-pretty background to the life that is Anya Balanchine.

Title: Misfit
Author: Jon Skovron
Published: August, 2011 by Amulet Books
Thanks: Abrams via NetGalley
Pages: 384
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Jael has always felt like a freak. She’s never kissed a boy, she never knew her mom, and her dad’s always been superstrict—but that’s probably because her mom was a demon, which makes Jael half demon and most definitely not a normal sophomore girl. On her sixteenth birthday, a mysterious present unlocks her family’s dangerous history and Jael’s untapped potential.

What was merely an embarrassing secret before becomes a terrifying reality. Jael must learn to master her demon side in order to take on a vindictive Duke of Hell while also dealing with a twisted priest, best-friend drama, and a spacey blond skater boy who may have hidden depths.

Final Thoughts:
From the minute I found out this was a young adult book about demons, I knew I had to read it. Usually they’re portrayed in a negative light as the big evil that often needs to be destroyed. I don’t have a problem with those kinds either, in fact I love Sam and Dean’s demon hunting antics on Supernatural. But here we’re met with Jael, the daughter of a demonic succubus and a mortal priest-in-training. Great combination, right? I thought so. Religion plays a part throughout this story, but it’s not done in a way as to shove it down your throat.