Title: Unwelcome (Archangel Academy #2)
Author: Michael Griffo
Published: September, 2011 by K Teen (Kensington)
Thanks: Kensington
Pages: 392
Rating:  
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Archangel Academy is more than a school to Michael Howard. Within its majestic buildings and serene English grounds, he’s found friends, new love, and a place that feels more like home than Nebraska ever did. But the most important gift of Archangel Academy is immortality. . .

Life as a just-made vampire is challenging for Michael, even with Ronan, an experienced vamp, to guide him. Michael’s abilities are still raw and unpredictable. To add to the turmoil, the ancient feud between rival vampire species is sending ripples of discord through the school. And beneath the new headmaster’s charismatic front lies a powerful and very personal agenda.

Yet the mysteries lurking around the Academy pale in comparison to the secrets emerging from Michael’s past. And choosing the wrong person to trust—or to love—could lead to an eternity of regret. . .

Final Thoughts:
Unwelcome is a wild ride of romance, lust, family politics and a hell of a lot of sexy vampires. With so many plots winding their way around our boys, Archangel Academy has never been more hectically intriguing. It’s hard to know if there’s a betrayal lurking around the corner that you just can’t stop reading.

Title: Ballad (Books Of Faerie #2)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: October, 2009 by Scholastic
Pages: 386
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

When his best friend, Dee, fell in love with a faerie, James realized she’d never feel the same way about him.

Trying to escape into music, James joins a private conservatory for musicians. James’ musical talent attracts Nuala, a soul-snatching faerie muse who fosters and feeds on the creative energies of exceptional humans until they die. Before he knows it, James is trapped in a dangerous game. One where the only way to win is to betray the one you love…

Final Thoughts:
Ballad feels more like a companion novel rather than a sequel. Sure it follows on from the aftermath of Lament, although it does so in a way that reinvents the world in which we’ve grown accustomed to. Dee is no longer in control as her best friend, James, takes the lead. In fact, Dee is barely visible now and when she is, she’s utterly frustrating. With James’s POV, we get to experience a witty character from the inside. Someone who was once an endless supply of one-liners is now full of struggles and emotion. Rest assured though that there is still enough romance going on, only in a different way.

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:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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: Linger (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #2)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: July, 2010 by Scholastic
Pages: 420
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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: 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.

Title: My Soul To Steal (Soul Screamers #4)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: January, 2011 by Harlequin Teen
Pages: 343
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Trying to work things out with Nash—her maybe boyfriend—is hard enough for Kaylee Cavanaugh. She can’t just pretend nothing happened. But “complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe their relationship when his ex-girlfriend transfers to their school, determined to take Nash back.

See, Sabine isn’t just an ordinary girl. She’s a mara, the living personification of a nightmare. She can read people’s fears—and craft them into nightmares while her victims sleep. Feeding from human fear is how she survives.

And Sabine isn’t above scaring Kaylee and the entire school to death to get whatever—and whoever—she wants.

Final Thoughts:
There was so much angst in this book, like Crescendo level angst. I admit, it drove me insane for a while. Usually I hate angst in epic proportions, but once I got caught up in the ride, I started to enjoy myself. If you’ve read my earlier reviews for this series, you’d remember I mentioned how different each book is. This one sticks to that tradition of change, giving us a few new characters and lots of cattiness.