Title: If I Die (Soul Screamers #5)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: September, 2011 by Harlequin Teen
Pages: 342
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

The entire school’s talking about the gorgeous new math teacher, Mr. Beck. Everyone except Kaylee Cavanaugh. After all, Kaylee’s no ordinary high-school junior. She’s a banshee—she screams when someone dies.

But the next scream might be for Kaylee.

Yeah—it’s a shock to her, too. So to distract herself, Kaylee’s going to save every girl in school. Because that hot new teacher is really an incubus who feeds on the desire of unsuspecting students. The only girls immune to his lure are Kaylee and Sabine, her boyfriend’s needy ex-girlfriend. Now the unlikely allies have to get rid of Mr. Beck…before he discovers they aren’t quite human, either.

But Kaylee’s borrowed lifeline is nearing its end. And those who care about her will do anything to save her life.

Anything.

Final Thoughts:
This is the book the series has needed. Soooo much romance. While I’ve really enjoyed the Soul Screamers so far, If I Die took it to a whole new level. It was possibly everything you could want and not want thrown together in a storm of emotions. It pained me to put it down once I realised 3am had caught up with me. I kept searching for a chapter to end things on comfortably for the night, but unfortunately Rachel has written a book that just won’t let go of you. But once I found page 204, I forced myself to seal the book and grinned myself to sleep.

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!

• Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick (thanks to Publishers)
• After Obsession by Carrie Jones & Steven E. Wedel (thanks to Publishers)
• If I Die by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Being Human by Patricia Lynne (thanks to Author)
• Nightshade by Andrea Cremer (purchased)
• Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer (purchased)
• Angel Fire by L.A. Weatherly (purchased)
• Shift by Jeri Smith-Ready (purchased)

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for Silence, I’m about to start that one today. I’m hoping to get into it tonight after Terra Nova and Ringer. A lot of my internet purchases arrived this week. Angel Fire is huge, I didn’t realise it was over 700 pages. It’s offputting, so I’ll be saving that one for when I’ve got plenty of time to spend a day on it. I’m not too fond of the UK Shift cover but I won a UK copy of Shade so I thought I’d stick to them so they’d match. I added Being Human on goodreads a while ago and Patricia emailed me to let me know I’d won her TBR giveaway, so that was a nice suprise. And finally, I’m super excited for If I Die, can’t wait to start this one.

Here’s my latest review if you want to check it out:
Duff, Hilary Elixir #2, Devoted

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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!

• Spellbound by Cara Lynn Shultz (won – thanks She Known As Jess)
• All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin (purchased)
• Perchance To Dream by Lisa Mantchev (purchased)
• Stray by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Rogue by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Prey by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Shift by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Awakened by Ednah Walters (purchased)
• The Marked Son by Shea Berkley (purchased)
• The Fallen: Vol 1 by Thomas E. Sniegoski (purchased)
• The Fallen: Vol 2 by Thomas E. Sniegoski (purchased)

I’ve been trying to find the Shifters series for a while now. I read them all a few months ago and was suprised by how much I came to love them. They’re almost impossible to find in store, and I’ve been looking. Finally, I found them insanely cheap second hand though, so now my collection is complete! I read the bound manuscript of All These Things I’ve Done two weeks ago and really got into it, so when I saw it in store, I decided to get myself a finished copy too. I love the covers for the Lisa Mantchev books, I still haven’t started them though. The bottom row are the guy covers. There’s a bit of an angel thing going on there. The guy on the front of Awakened looks disproportioned somehow, I really wish they would have changed the cover. I read the first chapter though and liked what I found. I wasn’t really planning on getting the Fallen books, but they were omnibuses and relatively cheap, plus Paul Wesley starred in the miniseries based on them so I thought why not.

Here are my reviews from the past two weeks:
Hilburn, Lynda Kismet Knight #1, The Vampire Shrink
Stiefvater, Maggie Books Of Faerie #1, Lament
Stiefvater, Maggie Wolves Of Mercy Falls #1, Shiver
Stiefvater, Maggie Wolves Of Mercy Falls #2, Linger
Stiefvater, Maggie Wolves Of Mercy Falls #3, Forever

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

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!

• Supernaturally by Kiersten White (purchased)
• Elixir by Hilary Duff (purchased)
• Stargazer by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Hourglass by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Afterlife by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Need by Carrie Jones (purchased)
• Captivate by Carrie Jones (purchased)
• Dark Heart Forever by Lee Monroe (purchased)
• Dark Heart Rising by Lee Monroe (purchased)
• Trial By Fire by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (purchased)
• Claire De Lune by Christine Johnson (purchased)
• Heist Society by Ally Carter (purchased)
• Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (purchased)
• Outside In by Maria V. Snyder (purchased)
• Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck (purchased)
• Tiger’s Quest by Colleen Houck (purchased)
• Linger by Maggie Stiefvater (purchased)
• Passion by Lauren Kate (purchased)
• Pride by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Alpha by Rachel Vincent (purchased)
• Days Like This by Alison Stewart (purchased)
• The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff (purchased)

My favourite purchase this week is my Charmed Book Of Shadows, plus the lectern, I had to get that as well, otherwise the book would just sit in my cupboard. The Book was released back in ’07, but was discontinued before I got around to buying one, so when it randomly popped up in the Big W catalogue after so many years, and for half the original RRP, I had to get one. It has some of the original artwork from the book used in the tv show, plus the dvds from all eight seasons, stuck to holders on the pages. Now onto the fiction books. Looking at them all spread out like this, it makes me realise how bad my spending got this week. Some were cheap though. Heist Society was only $1.20, so I couldn’t pass it up. I’ve already read five of these books, but that still leaves heaps to read. I’ve been trying to track down Rachel Vincent’s Shifters series. While I was in Brisbane for the Lauren Kate signing on Saturday, I tried thirteen stores and only managed to come across a lone copy of Pride in one of them. Alpha, only just released here in Australia, was a lot easier to find. I’ll keep my eye out for the rest of them. I can’t wait to start Trial By Fire, I really loved the first book. I want to start Maggie Stiefvater books soon too, but Amazon shipped Linger to me before Shiver. There’s so many there, that I’m not going discuss the rest. If there’s one there you think I should get to sooner rather than later, let me know.

Here are my reviews from the past two weeks:
Davies, Jocelyn A Beautiful Dark #1, A Beautiful Dark
Kate, Lauren Fallen #1, Fallen
Kate, Lauren Fallen #2, Torment
Vincent, Rachel Soul Screamers #3, My Soul To Keep
Vincent, Rachel Soul Screamers #4, My Soul To Steal

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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.

Title: My Soul To Keep (Soul Screamers #3)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: June, 2010 by Harlequin Teen
Pages: 296
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Kaylee has one addiction: her very hot, very popular boyfriend, Nash. A banshee like Kaylee, Nash understands her like no one else. Nothing can come between them.

Until something does.

Demon breath. No, not the toothpaste-challenged kind. The Netherworld kind. The kind that really can kill you. Somehow the super-addictive substance has made its way to the human world. But how? Kaylee and Nash have to cut off the source and protect their friends—one of whom is already hooked.

Final Thoughts:
I don’t know why, but I seem to keep going into these books with low expectations. You know how when you pick up a book and feel like you’re going to have to trudge through it? I have no idea where these feelings come from, but it’s definitely better than going into a book with over-hype. When I get down to it, I actually really enjoy reading the Soul Screamers series and this one was no different. Well, now that I think about it, it was. It was better. That’s always good. You wouldn’t want the series moving in the other direction. I love how each story manages to one up the previous book.

Title: My Soul To Save (Soul Screamers #2)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: December, 2009 by Harlequin Teen
Pages: 279
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies.

So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn’t wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can’t cry for someone who has no soul.

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad’s ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend’s loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can’t possibly understand.

Kaylee can’t let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk…

Final Thoughts:
A great second novel, building on the bean sidhe (banshee)/reaper dynamics built in My Soul To Take. Rather than being swept up in her own budding romance, Kaylee is actually quite selfless, a little too much I think. This one brings a lot of fun and ample tension as the little group takes on an evil corporation stealing their teen stars’ souls.