When by Victoria Laurie (ARC)

When
Victoria Laurie
Exp. Pub.: January 13, 2015 (TOMORROW!!!)

Maddie Fynn is a shy high school junior, cursed with an eerie intuitive ability: she sees a series of unique digits hovering above the foreheads of each person she encounters. Her earliest memories are marked by these numbers, but it takes her father’s premature death for Maddie and her family to realize that these mysterious digits are actually death dates, and just like birthdays, everyone has one.

Forced by her alcoholic mother to use her ability to make extra money, Maddie identifies the quickly approaching death date of one client's young son, but because her ability only allows her to see the when and not the how, she’s unable to offer any more insight. When the boy goes missing on that exact date, law enforcement turns to Maddie.

Soon, Maddie is entangled in a homicide investigation, and more young people disappear and are later found murdered. A suspect for the investigation, a target for the murderer, and attracting the attentions of a mysterious young admirer who may be connected to it all, Maddie's whole existence is about to be turned upside down. Can she right things before it's too late?

 

Maddie's never been a true fan of seeing the random numbers on everyone's foreheads. Especially once her father died on the exact same day that matched the sequence on his forehead. Now riddled with guilt, she moves forward always wondering if she could have some how stopped his death had she only understood what she was seeing. These days, she's a teenager who accepts money to tell people their death dates. When a client comes in asking about her daughter, Maddie realizes it's her son she needs to worry about, with a death date just a week away. Unfortunately, the mother takes her remark as a scam and leaves in a huff, calling Maddie a fraud. Even more unfortunate, when her son goes missing and dies by means of torture, she's quick to poke the finger at Maddie, who now becomes the number one suspect in his murder, despite a bunch of evidence pointing elsewhere.

 

Her lawyer uncle runs interference, but Maddie is unable to keep her death dates to herself like he asked. When she spots that her best friend's crush is going to die soon too, he becomes obsessed with finding a way to save her, which only drags him into the suspect pool as well. With her alcoholic mother falling apart even more than usual, the teachers and students turning on her at school and the FBI breathing down her neck, Maddie finds it exhausting to keep her head above water, especially once the serial killer begins taking an interest in her.

 

I'm not really sure if I'd go around telling strangers their death dates if I had that special ability. Would you? Neither would Maddie, but thanks to her alcoholic mother, they needed the extra money to make up for all the vodka bottles. Bad luck really, because it's responsible for spotlighting her gift to naysayers and doubters and attracting attention where she could've gone without. Gotta feel for the girl, especially when she continually tries to get her mother to beat her addiction just so she won't have to continue doing the readings.

 

As for the serial killer, I guess I found it a bit unrealistic that the FBI would focus so hard on as Maddie as a suspect when it was clear that the evidence was screaming someone else did it. Not to mention she was just a female teenager with good grades and not a strike of red on her permanent record. I guess I could've found their interest in her more plausible if at least some of the evidence had a legitimate chance of being left by her before testing results came in... I don't know. It seemed discrimination drove their investigation instead of the hard facts, which I don't see the FBI doing against a teenage girl. This lack of realism is the main reason I've docked it a little in the star department. Otherwise, it was a pretty good read that kept my attention, and I think most people will find it an enjoyable quick read with just enough mystery to keep you guessing.

ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion for honest review.

Anomaly by Tonya Kuper (ARC)

Anomaly (Schrodinger's Consortium #1)
Tonya Kuper
Pub.: Nov 25, 2014

Reality is only an illusion.
Except for those who can control it…

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

My first boyfriend dumped me – happy birthday, Josie!- my dad is who knows where, I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl, and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening…

Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.

When hot badass Reid Wentworth shows up on a motorcycle, everything changes. Like, everything. Who I am. My family. What really happened to my brother. Existence. I am Oculi, and I have the ability to change reality with my thoughts. Now Reid, in all his hotness, is charged with guiding and protecting me as I begin learning how to bend reality. And he’s the only thing standing between me and the secret organization that wants me dead… 

Hmm. Anomaly was just okay for me; didn't love it, didn't hate it. I will say that I enjoyed the geekiness of Josie and the way she could refer to stories like Star Wars and Thor and compare them to the new version of her everyday life. I also liked that her superpower involved pushing and retracting objects in and out of existence. Definitely a cool ability to have. But the storyline of girl with new abilities training and falling for her hot new trainer has become a bit of a bore for me - I've read it too many times already, so it made the story really drag on until the last fifteen percent. She just spent way too much of this novel learning how to push things into reality. I prefer to read about spontaneous conflict, not the manufactured kind to teach a new skill.

 

Give it a go if you like, and so long as you don't go in expecting to be blown away, you'll probably be content enough with Anomaly.  2.5 Dreamcatchers.

ARC provided by Entangled Publishing for honest review.

Vengeance by Megan Miranda (ARC)

Vengeance (Fractured, #2)
Megan Miranda
Pub: February 13, 2004

Falcon Lake wants vengeance. And so, it seems, does someone else... An intense, heart-rending psychological thriller to accompany the chilling and seductive Fracture

When Decker drags his best friend Delaney’s lifeless body out of the frozen lake, he makes a deal: Anyone but her. Everyone but her. The lake releases her. It takes another...

All their friends blame Delaney for Carson’s death. But Decker knows the truth: Delaney is drawn to those who are dying, and she would have tried to help Carson.

Or so Decker believes until a body lies in front of him in a pool of water on his kitchen floor. Until he sees in Delaney’s eyes that she knew this would happen too – and she said nothing. Until he realizes it isn’t the lake that is looking for revenge – Delaney is part of someone else’s plan.

See my review of Fracture (#1) here.

 

This picks up a few months after when Fractured left off and this time, we get Decker's point of view throughout. This small group of friends has had its fair share of death, and they find themselves dealing with one more - Decker's dad. Bad part is, Decker feels betrayed, because there's no way Megan didn't see it coming, nor did she warn him. Her admission solidifies their breakup and Decker's left to mourn and suffer alone. But he soon finds his house vandalized and uninhabitable, and he and his mom move in with Megan's family next door while the renovations are going on.

 

Though they may be broken up, their friends won't allow anyone to be shunned. Their group actually kind of reminds me of Friends, and how no matter who dates who and breaks up with another, as a group, they won't allow anyone to be left behind. Though it's difficult, Decker and Megan try to move forward with as little interaction as possible, but soon Megan's house is vandalized too, leaving them to suspect that what happened at Falcon Lake had to be the connection. Forced to work together to figure out what the hell is going on, they fear they're cursed for saving Megan from the lake the day it tried to take her life, and now it's threatening to collect another in her place.

 

Vengeance can be a little weird for some, because most people aren't going to be able to believe that a lake is cursed and finding ways to torment those who saved Megan. Decker's house gets massively flooded, the smashed windows through Megan's house resembles shards of ice, Kevin's engine gets flooded with water and Justin's lungs get flooded with lake water when forced in by a stupid alumni prank. But when Tara falls and knocks herself unconscious and is pulled all the way to the lake to let it claim her, it's clear that maybe an actual person is helping the lake to reclaim what was unrightfully taken away. Problem is, no one outside their group knows their secrets, nor their true fears of the lake, so the only possible suspects come from their very own limited pool. Is it really one of their own, or has someone infiltrated their group just to take them down for some unknown reason?



ARC provided by Bloomsbury Children's for honest review.

Imposters by Susanne Winnacker (ARC)

Imposters (Variants #1)
Susanne Winnacker
Pub.: January 2, 2014 (UK)

Tessa is a Variant with extraordinary abilities. She could be a hero, but all she wants to do is fall in love ...

Tessa is a Variant, able to absorb the DNA of anyone she touches and mimic their appearance. Shunned by her family, she's spent the last two years with the Forces with Extraordinary Abilities, a secret branch of the FBI. There she trains with other Variants, such as long-term crush Alec, who each have their own extraordinary ability.

When a serial killer rocks a small town in Oregon, Tessa is given a mission: she must impersonate Madison, a local teen, to find the killer before he strikes again. Tessa hates everything about being an impostor - the stress, the danger, the deceit - but loves playing the role of a normal girl. As Madison, she finds friends, romance, and the kind of loving family she'd do anything to keep.

Amid action, suspense, and a ticking clock, this super-human comes to a very human conclusion: even a girl who can look like anyone struggles the most with being herself.

Tessa has the uncanny ability of being able to transform into anyone she touches - so long as they're alive - sorry Elvis lovers. It's something she doesn't mind too much, until the organization that employs and trains her tells her she needs to go to the hospital and touch a dying girl named Madison.

 

Fracture Soul by Rachel McClellan (ARC), Blog Tour Stop & Giveaway! (INT)

I'm a huge fan of the Fractured Light series, so I'm excited to be a part of this blog tour. And I've got quite a bit for my stop: a review, an interview with Rachel McClellan for my Writers' Block segment, and a giveaway for either an eBook or a Hardback of Fractured Soul! So read on, peeps, read on...

Fractured Soul (Fractured Light #2)
Rachel McClellan
Exp. Pub: February12, 2013 Next Week Peeps!

Llona will do whatever it takes to protect her new found friends and home, but the dark plot that is threatening Lucent Academy, a school that’s supposed to be a safe place for Auras, may be too powerful for even Llona to defeat. This fast-paced tale of love, loyalty, and overcoming the darkness will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page!

Ember by Jessica Sorrensen

Ember (Death Collectors #1)
Jessica Sorrensen
Pub.: August 29, 2012

What if you knew when someone was going to die?

For seventeen-year-old Ember, life is death. With a simple touch, she knows when someone will die. It’s her curse and the reason she secludes herself from the world. The only person who knows her secret is her best friend Raven.

Then she meets Asher Morgan. He’s gorgeous, mysterious, and is the only person Ember can't sense death from. So when he pushes into her life, she doesn’t mind.

But when unexplained deaths start to haunt her town, Ember starts questioning why she can’t sense Asher's death and what he may be hiding.

Haunted by death with just the slightest touch, it's no wonder poor Ember's become quite the recluse.

Mystic City by Theo Lawrence (ARC)

Mystic City
Theo Lawrence
Exp. Pub: October 9, 2012 TODAY!!!

Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud—and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths. But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place. Only when Aria meets Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic from the Depths, does she start to have glimmers of recollection—and to understand that he holds the key to unlocking her past. The choices she makes can save or doom the city—including herself.

Wowsers. It's been a few months since I read a book this awesome.

Aria wakes up to learn she OD'd on Stic, a drug made from Mystic power that, depending on the provider's essence, can be strong enough to kill you. Along with the memory of actually taking the drug, goes all her memories of a trysted love affair with Thomas, the son of her family's sworn enemy. Her family says she loved him enough to defy all their beliefs, but now the two families are willing to reconciliate, with their marriage bringing a divided city together. There's a third party, the Mystics, on the rise threatening to bump them off their high horses, and they're desperate enough to allow this union to occur, if it'll mean keeping their lavish lifestyles. The Mystics are humans with magical essences that can allow them to do some pretty amazing things, like pass through solid walls, shapeshift, manipulate molecular structures, etc, and the normal humans fear their power. Law requires the Mystics to be drained of their power twice a year, which is then used to fuel their city and create an illegal drug called Stic. But a lot of Mystics remain unregistered and hidden beneath the city, but should they all come together to vote for their candidate, their population could easily outnumber the nonmystical folks. And the two families know this.

 

The Roses and Fosters are your typical mob families, controlling illegal substances and influencing laws, and show no hesitation in putting a bullet in the head of a Mystic for absolutely nothing. They like to play God, but Aria is nothing like them. She tries desperately to remember her past and figure out how Thomas could possibly be the man that wrote the love letters she found tucked away, and soon finds herself navigating the back streets where Mystics dwell. Aria is on the hitlist of a lot of rebel Mystics, and soon finds herself at their mercy, only to be rescued by a dark and gorgeous Mystic named Hunter, who always seems to be in the shadows watching over her. There's an instant attraction she can't explain, with his presence always makes her feel safe and comfortable. It's not until she learns Hunter's true identity that she realizes Thomas isn't the only guy from an opposing family that she could've had a secret, forbidden relationship with. But in a world where her every move is watched and double agents are everywhere, Aria's lost in the mix, trying to decipher who's telling the truth and who's spinning nothing but lies.

 

Gotta say Mystic City had me wrapped up from beginning to end, and I was forced to lose half a night's sleep cause I just couldn't put it down. Mystic City has it all: forbidden love, lies and deception, family betrayal up the wazoo, and magic and danger around every corner. Lawrence's world is easy to picture and I still keep seeing neon green lights when I close my eyes. If this isn't on your list of must-haves this year, you're seriously missing out. Buy the hardback peeps, cause it deserves a permanent place on the bookshelf.

 

 

ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley for honest review.