Book Review - Killer Instinct

The Naturals
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Series: The Naturals #2
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 6th November 2014
Publishers: Quercus
No. Pages: 352
Source: Gifted
Rating:

Seventeen-year-old Cassie Hobbes has a gift for profiling people. Her talent has landed her a spot in an elite FBI program for teens with innate crime-solving abilities, and into some harrowing situations. After barely escaping a confrontation with an unbalanced killer obsessed with her mother’s murder, Cassie hopes she and the rest of the team can stick to solving cold cases from a distance.

But when victims of a brutal new serial killer start turning up, the Naturals are pulled into an active case that strikes too close to home: the killer is a perfect copycat of Dean’s incarcerated father - a man he'd do anything to forget. Forced deeper into a murderer's psyche than ever before, will the Naturals be able to outsmart the enigmatic killer’s brutal mind games before this copycat twists them into his web for good?

The following review may contain spoilers concerning earlier books in the series.
If you have not read the previous installments, please proceed with caution.

You know what makes reading books that don't quite hit the spot bearable? What makes those unimpressive, slightly uninteresting, or pleasant books worth reading through? There's a feeling that comes with anything you realise is perfect for you; the perfect clothes, the perfect shoes, the perfect bed, the perfect film, the perfect day out, there's something about the entire scenario that just feels complete, that just feels, beautiful and calming, like a trustworthy friend, like a blanket that's so comfortable, so snuggly, so warm and wonderful, there's nothing more made for you. That feeling, that is the feeling I have towards The Naturals, and each of it's instalments, Killer Instinct included.

Book Review - Crown of Midnight

Crown of Midnight
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass #2
Genres: Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 15th August 2013
Publishers: Bloomsbury
No. Pages: 418
Source: Gifted
Rating: 

Crowned by Evil. Bound by Duty. Divided by Love.

Celaena Sardothien, royal assassin, is the King of Adarlan's deadliest weapon. She must win her freedom through his enemies' blood - but she cannot bear to kill for the crown. And every death Celaena fakes, every lie she tells, put those she loves at risk.

Torn between her two protectors - a captain and a prince - and battling a dark force far greater than the king, Celaena must decide what she will fight for: her liberty, her heart or the fate of a kingdom...

The following review may contain spoilers concerning earlier books in the series.
If you have not read the previous installments, please proceed with caution.

For some, Crown of Midnight was Throne of Glass' less mysterious and more romanced little brother that sort of started to let the series down. To others, it was the sequel everybody wanted the first installment to be, with some spectacular action scenes, brilliant charcater development and depth and some serious politics and fantast involved. it was definitely a defining moment in the series, the make or break for some, the book most people were nervous about reading; I even waited three months after actually gaining a copy to read it, and when you're up against the pressure's of two close friends begging you to read it, that can seem like a loooooooong time, but I did, eventually, read it. Crown of Midnight was like a chocolate brownie ice cream sundae; the deeper you dug and the more you had, the richer and taster and darker it got, the better it was, the more exciting and thrilling it was the consume, and when the ending came around, I was definitely riding high on hot gooiness and falling hard due to deprival of wanting more.

Book Review - The Naturals

The Naturals
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Series: The Naturals #1
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 7th November 2013
Publishers: Quercus
No. Pages: 315
Source: Gifted
Rating:

Cassie Hobbes is not like most teenagers. Most teenagers don't lose their mother in a bloody, unsolved kidnapping. Most teenagers can't tell who you are, where you're from and how you’re likely to behave within moments of meeting you. And most teenagers don't get chosen to join The Naturals.

Identified by the FBI as uniquely gifted, Cassie is recruited to an elite school where a small number of teens are trained to hone their exceptional abilities.

For Cassie, trying to make friends with the girls, and to figure out the two very different, very hot boys, is challenging enough. But when a serial killer begins recreating the details of her mother’s horrific crime scene, she realises just how dangerous life in The Naturals could be..

Book Review - Winner's Curse

The Winner's Curse
Author: Marie Rutkoski
Series: The Winner's Trilogy #1
Genres: Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 4th March 2014
Publishers: Bloomsbury
No. Pages: 368
Source: Gifted
Rating: 

Winning what you want may cost you everything you love..

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions.

One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him - with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin.

But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Book Review - Starters

Starters
Author: Lissa Price
Series: Starters #1
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian | Young Adult
Release Date: 13th March 2012
Publishers: Delacorte
No. Pages: 384
Source: Gifted
Rating: 

You can’t get them out of your head.

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie.

Callie’s only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man. He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders - seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie’s head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter.

Callie soon discovers that her renter intends to do more than party - and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than she could ever have imagined

Book Review - The Future of Us

The Future of Us
Author: Jay Asher, Carolyn Mackler
Standalone
Genres: Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 16th October 2012
Publishers: Razorbill
No. Pages: 365
Source: Gifted
Rating:

It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything.

Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail, his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present.

Book Review - Angelfall

Angelfall
Author: Susan Ee
Series: Penryn & the End of Days #1
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Dystopian | Young Adult
Release Date: 23rd May 2013
Publishers: Hodder and Stroughton
No. Pages: 326
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

Series Review - White Rabbit Chronicles

  

The following is a full series review of White Rabbit Chronicles by Gena Showwalter.
Each installment is reviewed individually and given a rating reflecting my thoughts on only that installment.
The collection may later contain spoilers concerning events in previous installments. Proceed with caution.

Book Review - My True Love Gave To Me

My True Love Gave To Me
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Standalone
Genres: Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 9th October 2014
Publishers: Macmillin
No. Pages: 355
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with My True Love Gave To Me by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or Kwanzaa, there’s something here for everyone.
So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy.
You have twelve reasons to stay indoors and fall in love.

Book Review - Twelve Days of Christmas

Twelve Days of Christmas
Author: Trisha Ashley
Standalone
Genres: Contemporary | Adult
Release Date: 28th October 2010
Publishers: HarperCollins
No. Pages: 416
Source: Gifted
Rating:
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Christmas has always been a sad time for young widow Holly Brown, so when she's asked to look after a remote house on the Lancashire moors, the opportunity to hide herself away is irresistible – the perfect excuse to forget about the festivities.

Sculptor, Jude Martland, is determined that this year there will be no Christmas after his brother runs off with his fiancée and he is keen to avoid the family home. However, he will have to return by the twelfth night of the festivities, when the hamlet of Little Mumming hold their historic festivities and all of his family are required to attend.

Meanwhile, Holly is finding that if she wants to avoid Christmas, she has come to the wrong place. When Jude unexpectedly returns on Christmas Eve he is far from delighted to discover that Holly seems to be holding the very family party he had hoped to avoid. Suddenly, the blizzards come out of nowhere and the whole village is snowed in. With no escape, Holly and Jude get much more than they bargained for – it looks like the twelve days of Christmas are going to be very interesting indeed..

Book Review - Everneath

Everneath
Author: Brodi Ashton
Series: Everneath #1
Genres: Mythology, Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 24th January 2012
Publishers: Balzhar + Bray
Pages: 370
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned - to her old life, her family, her boyfriend - before she’s banished back to the underworld.. this time, forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance - and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

Book Review - The Immortal Rules

The Immortal Rules
Author: Julie Kagawa
Series: Blood of Eden #1
Genres: Paranormal | Young Adult
Release Date: 24th April 2012
Publishers: Harlequin Teen
No. Pages: 443
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them - the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters.

Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend - a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for.. again.

Book Review - Billy and Me

Billy and Me
Author: Giovanna Fletcher
Standalone
Genres: Contemporary | Adult
Release Date: 23rd May 2013
Publishers: Penguin
No. Pages: 402
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Sophie May has a secret. One that she’s successfully kept for years.

It's meant that she’s had to give up her dreams of going to university and travelling the world to stay in her little village, living with her mum and working in the local tea-shop. But then she meets the gorgeous Billy – an actor with ambitions to make it to the top. And when they fall in love, Sophie is whisked away from the comfort of her life into Billy’s glamorous, but ruthless, world.

Their relationship throws Sophie right into the spotlight after years of shying away from attention. Can she handle the constant scrutiny that comes with being with Billy? And most of all, is she ready for her secret heartbreak to be discovered and shared with the nation?

Book Review - My Life Next Door

My Life Next Door
Author: Huntley Fitzpatrick
Series: My Life Next Door #1
Genres: Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 14th June 2012
Publishers: Speak
No. Pages: 394
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

"One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time."

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, messy, affectionate. And every day from her rooftop perch, Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them.. until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs up next to her and changes everything.

As the two fall fiercely for each other, stumbling through the awkwardness and awesomeness of first love, Jase's family embraces Samantha - even as she keeps him a secret from her own. Then something unthinkable happens, and the bottom drops out of Samantha's world. She's suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

Book Review - Catching Fire

Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Series: The Hunger Games #2
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian | Young Adult
Release Date: 1st September 2009
Publishers: Scholistic
Pages: 439
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

Book Review - Across the Universe

 Across the Universe

Author: Beth Revis

Series: Across the Universe #1

Genres: Dystopian, Space | Young Adult

Release Date: January 11th 2011

Publishers: Razorbill

No. Pages: 398

Source: Gifted

Rating: 

Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone - one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship - tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming

Book Review - The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Series: The Hunger Games #1
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian | Young Adult
Release Date: 1st December 2011
Publishers: Scholistic
No. Pages: 454
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Winning will make you famous.
Losing means certain death.

In a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called the Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

Book Review - The Winner's Curse

 The Winner's Curse

Author: Marie Rutkoski 

Series: The Winner's Trilogy #1 

Genres: Historical Fiction | Young Adult

Release Date: 4th March 2014
Publishers: Farrar Straus Giroux

No. Pages: 355

Source: Gifted

Rating: 

Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Winning what you want may cost you everything you love

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions.

One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin.

But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.

Book Review - The Goddess Test

The Goddess Test
Author: Aimee Carter
Series: Goddess Test #1
Genres: Mythology, Urban Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 19th April 2011
Publishers: Harlequin Teen
No. Pages: 293
Source: Gifted
Rating:
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones 

Every girl who had taken the test has died. Now it's Kate's turn.

It's always been just Kate and her mom - and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall.

Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. Mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld - and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.

Kate is sure he's crazy - until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride and a goddess.

If she fails..

Book Review - The Iron King

The Iron King
Author: Julie Kagawa
Series: The Iron Fey #1
Genres: Fantasy | Young Adult
Release Date: 1st Febuary 2010
Publishers: Harlequin Teen
No. Pages: 363
Source: Gifted
Rating: 
Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school or at home. When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change. But she could never have guessed the truth - that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil, no faery creature dare face; and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.