Wednesday, March 25, 2015

@CuriosityQuills #Review of Catch Me When I Fall (Dreamcatcher #1) by Vicki Leigh

In 1814, at the age of seventeen, Daniel Graham sacrificed himself to save another. Recruited at his death to be a Protector of the Night, he has spent 200 years as a Dreamcatcher, guarding humans from Nightmares—clawed, red-eyed creatures that feed off people’s fears while they sleep. He’s become one of the best, but he wants nothing more than to stop. 

Then he’s given an assignment to watch over sixteen-year-old Kayla Bartlett, a clinically depressed patient in a psychiatric ward. Nightmares love a human with a tortured past. Yet, when they take a deep interest in her, appearing in unprecedented numbers, the job becomes more dangerous than any Daniel’s ever experienced—because someone with the power to control the monsters seems to want her dead.

Driven by his growing feelings for her, he whisks her away to Rome where others like him can keep her safe. Under their roof, the Protectors discover what Kayla is and why someone who can manipulate Nightmares has her in his sights. But before they can make a move, the Protectors are betrayed and Kayla is kidnapped. Daniel will stop at nothing to save her. Even if it means giving up his immortality.

He thought she was just another girl to protect. He was wrong.

@CuriosityQuills #Review of Sin by Sharron Riddle

My name is Sin. I killed a man in self-defense when I was sixteen. Not something a girl wants to brag about. My dad wanted to lock me up in the nut house, but Mom sent me packing to my great aunts in St. Charles, IL. They’re ancient druid priestesses, and they make me look like a pacifist. I’d barely unpacked before the aunts sent me to find the stolen hellhounds. Without the hounds to herd them to the underworld, the souls of the dead are flocking to the cities in murders of crows. If they’re still hanging around after three days, they’ll turn into flesh eating, brain feasting zombies. Van, an annoying but uber-hot Fey Prince, joins us in the hunt to find the hounds before the zombies overrun St. Charles and turn the cities into cemeteries. 

@CuriosityQuills #Review of 18 Thoughts (My So Called Afterlife #3) by Jamie Ayres

Olga Gay Worontzoff left the Underworld for her final year of high school anxious for things to return to normal, but fate has other plans.

The new hottie at school reads her thoughts but nobody else’s. Her best friend wakes up from his coma acting like a completely different person. Caught in a world that’s a mix of familiar and supernatural, she must confront what she will—or won’t—do to bring him back and stare down her own perceived inadequacies to face a couple of tenacious demons, figurative and literal.

Everything she thought she knew about reality will change as she walks the line between past and present, fear and faith, love and loyalty.

And by the end of a heartbreaking year, she might be forced to realize “normal” in the conventional sense of the word is the one thing she may never achieve.
 

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

@CuriosityQuills #Review of God's Play by H.D. Lynn

Sixteen-year old Toby was trained by a family of hunters to kill shape-shifters — but he has a unique weapon in his arsenal. With a touch of his hand, Toby can lift the magical protection shape-shifters use to disguise themselves as human. It’s an unusual skill for a hunter, and he prefers to kill monsters the old-fashioned way: with a blade.

Because of his special skill, Toby suspects he may be a monster himself. His suspicions deepen when William, a jackal-headed shape-shifter, saves him from an ambush where Toby’s the only survivor. And Toby doubts William helped him for purely altruistic reasons. With his list of allies running thin, Toby must reconcile his hatred of shifters and the damning truth that one saved his life. It’ll take both of them to track down the monster who ordered the ambush.

And Toby needs his unlikely alley because he has a vicious enemy — the infamous Circe, who has a vendetta to settle against the hunters. Toby has to unravel the mystery of his dual nature. And he has to do it on the run — before Circe finds him and twists him to her own ends.
 

@CuriosityQuills #Review of The Curse Merchant (The Dark Choir #1) by J.P. Sloan

Dorian Lake spent years cornering the Baltimore hex-crafting market, using his skills at the hermetic arts to exact karmic justice for those whom the system has failed. He keeps his magic clean and free of soul-corrupting Netherwork, thus avoiding both the karmic blow-back of his practice and the notice of the Presidium, a powerful cabal of practitioners that polices the esoteric arts in America. However, when an unscrupulous Netherworker interferes with both his business and his personal life, Dorian's disarming charisma and hermetic savvy may not be enough to keep his soul out of jeopardy.

His rival, a soul monger named Neil Osterhaus, wouldn't be such a problem were it not for Carmen, Dorian's captivating ex-lover. After two years' absence Carmen arrives at Dorian’s doorstep with a problem: she sold her soul to Osterhaus, and has only two weeks to buy it back. Hoping to win back Carmen's affections, Dorian must find a replacement soul without tainting his own. As Dorian descends into the shadows of Baltimore’s underworld, he must decide how low he is willing to stoop in order to save Carmen from eternal damnation... with the Presidium watching, waiting for him to cross the line.

@CuriosityQuills #Review of The Actuator 1.5: Borderlands Anthology by James Wymore

When the Actuator breaks the earth into a patchwork of altered realities, the remaining Machine Monks begin looking for the Keys to put it back. In the meantime, everyone in the world has been transformed without knowing why. This collection tells about some of the people struggling to deal with the change.

@CuriosityQuills #Review of 18 Truths (My So Called Afterlife #2) by Jamie Ayres

Lying is unbearable, betrayal is inevitable, and choosing which path to take is impossible.

Olga Gay Worontzoff ended her senior year as an eighteen-year-old girl totally in love with Nate, enjoying their new romance and about to attend the university of her dreams. Now she’s spending her summer in the weird subculture of the Underworld, with charmingly witty and powerful angels, and problematic demons, trying to rescue Connor, the best friend and secret crush she was unable to save during a freak accident.

But Nate has other things on his mind, mainly Grace. She’s their first assignment as joint spirit guides, and Olga’s feeling hurt and jealous. His mysterious behavior has Olga questioning everything she believed about him and now she must decide whether to stick to their plan, or follow her heart. Unfortunately, a series of mistakes threatens everyone around her and plants Olga in the center of cosmic events much larger than she ever imagined.

Only one thing is certain: the chilling truths uncovered during her journey will leave no one untouched.