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:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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: Forever (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #3)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: July, 2011 by Scholastic
Pages: 496
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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:  
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.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current read and share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

I’m almost finished this one. I’ve been racing through the series at moment so I should be moving on to Forever tomorrow. I’m in love with these characters and this temperature-sensitive world of werewolves.

I crept into the bed, the sheets cool under my hands as I edged towards the side of the mattress that met the wall. The hall went dark and I heard Sam sigh – a weighty, shaky sigh – before I heard the floorboards creak with his steps. The room was just light enough for me to see the edge of his shoulders as he climbed into the bed with me.

– Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, page 352.
Published in July, 2010 by Scholastic.

Title: Shiver (Wolves Of Mercy Falls #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: January, 2009 by Scholastic
Pages: 434
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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.

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, which allows bloggers to share what books they’ve received in the past week. They can be from stores, contests, tours or publishers!

• Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers (borrowed from Brittany)
• Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres (purchased)
• Bloodspell by Amalie Howard (purchased)
• Lament by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Forever by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Wildefire by Karsten Knight (purchased)
• Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton (purchased)
• Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll (purchased) – My review
• The Watchtower by Lee Carroll (purchased)

Finally my UK copies of Shiver and Forever arrived. I also went and picked Lament and Ballad. I’m going to try and get through as many of Maggie’s books before her workshop at Brisbane Writer’s Festival in September. I can’t wait to go to that. I borrowed Personal Demons off a friend and I’ll be getting to that in September. I’ve heard some not so great things about it, so my expectations aren’t very high, but we’ll see. Bloodspell, Wildefire and Angelfire are ones I ordered from Book Depository and they arrived in only 5 days. I’ve been meaning to order them for a while so it’s good to have them on my shelf. Hopefully I get time to read them soon. I read Black Swan Rising last month when I stumbled across it at my local library. It was one I really enjoyed, so now I finally have myself a copy, plus the recently released sequel The Watchtower. Hopefully it’s just as good. There’s just too many books I want to read that I can’t pick from. If you’ve read any that you think I should put at the top of my list, let me know.

Here are my reviews from the past week:
Skovron, Jon, Misfit
Zevin, Gabrielle Birthright #1, All These Things I’ve Done

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!