Review: Bleeding Violet

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book. THIS BOOK. Amazeballs. I loved how it completely smashed through all the cliched YA writing out there. There was a touch of Maggie Stiefvater magic in this book. Although sometimes it can annoy me, I actually loved how things weren't explained. Why was the town full of monsters? How did they get there? I don't care! I'll read the next one, maybe that will tell me! Our heroine has troubles of her own, but she fades to normal in a town full of the freakish. LOVE.



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Review: Unholy Magic

Unholy Magic by Stacia Kane

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



These books are so good, so gritty, dirty, violent and vivid that they affect my dreams. A "heroine" with a sordid past of many foster homes and abuse, who is a drug addict and go to girl for the local drug lord as well as a necromancer for the government. A government that is a Church - but there is no faith, only truth... and no gods. And there are the restless and malevolent spirits of the dead in this post-apocalyptic America, which the Church guarantees to keep away from you, or you will be enormously compensated.



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Review: Tender Morsels

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A fleshed-out version of Snow White and Rose Red. Definitely at the adult end of YA, this is a story set in a fictional town of the Middle Ages, of a girl who suffers terrible abuses, and magically escapes with the product of these abuses - her two daughters - to her own "personal heaven", to raise them. Graphic, visceral, magical.



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Review: The Book of Human Skin

The Book of Human Skin by Michelle Lovric

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book pretty much encapsulates everything I love about reading. I love it when a book can throw you right back to a particular time or place, and keep you there thoroughly engrossed until, all too soon, one must return to cold, harsh reality... but with a desire to google for more juicy details. No need to re-hash plot details here, as everyone else seems to have done that, suffice to say, very cleverly researched and written from varying points of view (and fonts), fascinating reading.



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Review: The Scorpio Races

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



An incredibly stylish re-imagining of the kelpie myth. Fast paced, edgy, yet beautifully descriptive of an island haunted by water horses from the sea. A remote island that time has seemingly forgotten, except for the month of November each year when these kelpies are perilously captured by humans and raced against each other, often to the death, for a small fortune. Water horses who glide the ocean deeps like mermaids, and seek to eat human flesh and blood and leave the sea at night to prey in the dark, like vampires. I have read many a story in which kelpies played a small part, and it was an absolute delight to read a whole book devoted to just them and no other fae creature, even though the author took many liberties with the kelpie mythology, it just didn't matter because it was so damn brilliant.



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Review: The Replacement

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Atmospheric. Eerie. Nice twist on the whole changeling mythology.



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Review: Spy Glass

Spy Glass by Maria V. Snyder

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Very readable, but extremely predictable and followed the same series pattern over and over. Opal gets into a scrape, gets captured, gets free. Opal gets into a scrape, gets captured, gets free. At least in this book she finally took some fighting and surviving lessons from master spy Valek. Oh, and, Stockholm syndrome alert! Ending up with the same bloke who tortured her beyond endurance earlier in the series! Glad I took the plunge and finally committed to finishing this after leaving it alone for so long.



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