Frostfire by Amanda Hocking

Review -

As I have said many times before, Amanda Hocking is one of my favourite authors, with the trylle trilogy being the first books I read of hers.  So when I heard that this was coming out earlier on in the year, I was more than excited to return to a familiar world.  But for some unknown reason, despite Frostfire being first released in January, it has taken me until now to so much as pick it up and read an author who I know will keep me hooked.

One of the key reasons why I was drawn into this book had to be how fast paced it was.  Particularly through the beginning of the book, there was a large amount happening, with alot of action taking place in those first few chapters, which ended up causing me to turn page after page without putting it down.  It was quick to introduce the key plot points and didn't waste time in useless or pointless information.  

Another aspect that I really enjoyed was the mystery aspect that provided the main storyline for the book.  I liked how vague the reasons for the kidnapping were and enjoyed trying to figure out for myself why certain things happened.  This also lead me, strangely, to like the character of Konstantin as I always felt as though there was a reason for his actions and that he wasn't as bad as he first looked.  

Speaking of characters, I did like many of the characters in this book, especially Tilda and Ember.  I loved how Tilda stood up for herself and how Ember stood up for her friends - overall I just loved the trios friendship, even if it wasn't shown a huge deal.  However, saying that, one character I was not hugely keen on was Ridley.  I found him slightly arrogant and really got on my nerves particularly towards the end of the book, so much so that I was almost entirely against any romance (or hope of it) between him and Bryn;  I just couldn't like him!

Keeping with characters, I couldn't write a review without mentioning the small involvement of old characters in this book.  I loved how Hocking gave Ember a role in this novel, something which also allowed her brother (Finn) to make an appearance, even if it took me a little too long to realize the relation... Saying this, I did also like how the book wasn't overridden with old characters and how any who were mentioned or involved actually had a good reason to be there and weren't just there for the sake of it.   

Finally, I have to say that I have extremely mixed feelings on the ending of this one.  Personally, the last 20 pages or so felt really rushed, as alot of fairly major incidents happened in such a short space of time, with the book just seemingly to want to end instead of wanting to provide a good ending.  I also found it kind of anti-climatic, possibly due to the speed of it, and I kinda wish that the book was longer just to make the ending more satisfying.  

But all in all, I did really enjoy this book, with all its twist and turns and sub-plots adding even more to it.  It's safe that I will be picking up the second book really soon! 

Favourite :

Scene - Tove and Bryn confronting and capturing Konstantin and Bent

Quote - no notable ones - sorry! 

Character - Tilda

Relate a: 

Song - Tiptoe by Imagine Dragons 

Other Book - Switched (because if you liked Frostfire, then this one is a must-read)

Girl of Nightmares by Kendrae Blake

Review:

(Contains spoilers for both books)

After reading Anna Dressed in Blood near the end of last year (review here), I have been anticipating picking this up ever since.  I really enjoyed the first one, and so couldn't wait to read this, the sequel, and finally find out how everything worked out after the cliffhanger ending the story was left on.  And, despite enjoying it (particularly towards the end), I did find myself a little less interested and with a few more problems this time.

Firstly, I did find the beginning of the book very jumpy, and felt that it often covered alot of scenes in a very short amount of time.  It didn't seem to stay on some scenes long enough, only really giving us the information we needed and nothing more.  This made it all incredibly fast paced to start off with, causing alot to happen within these first few chapters.  That said, I did begin to enjoy the story alot more as it progressed and slowed down, with the plot beginning to grip me when they first reached London.

Linking to this, I also enjoyed the evolution in the story behind the athame and his fathers past as well, as this made the story more than just Cas trying to reach Anna.  I also liked the end of the story and just in general the whole story of the Obeahman and the athame, as it followed on from the first book and created an ending which really did pull at my heart strings.  I thought the whole idea of it worked well and made sure that things were not easily worked out.

However, as I have said, I did have a few problems, mainly with the characters, which possibly stopped me from enjoying the story as much as I would have liked, the main of these concerning Carmel.  I didn't have a problem with her changing her mind about certain things (although I do feel that she could have gone about it in a better way), but I felt that she then should have stuck to her decision and not gone back on with no explanation.  I have to admit that I did prefer the group with her involved, but just felt that there was no need for her to be indecisive or even to change her mind if she was just going to change it back again later.

Another aspect that irritated me was the romance between Carmel and Thomas, something which I found came very out of the blue.  It was clear that there was something between them from the first book, but I still found that the jump in their relationship was very sudden and unexpected after her return.  Again, I had no problem with it, but I just found it all a little out of the blue, with few signs of it majorly beforehand.

Finally, I would have liked to have seen more of Jestines past, as I felt as though it was not revealed in great depth.  I felt that we were given the basic idea of who she was, but were not told anything more than the basics.

Overall, I did enjoy this one, but found it all a bit all over the place at times with some things well thought through and others a bit sudden and rushed over.

Favourite:

Scene - Suicide Forest

Quote - "She crossed over death to call me.  I crossed through hell to find her." 

Character - Thomas 

Relate a: 

Song - While the world let go - A Rocket to the Moon

Other book - Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

Top Ten Tuesday Thirteen

Top ten most anticipated releases for the rest of 2015

Top ten tuesday is a weekly feature/ meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.  I have to admit, this weeks topic was not one I was hugely excited for - I was actually debating doing it at all.  But after a quick scroll through goodreads, I surprisingly found myself getting a fair list of books which I was excited about.  So here are my top ten most anticipated releases for the rest of 2015: 

1) Carry On by Rainbow Rowell - When I first saw that Rainbow Rowell had another book coming out, it's safe to say that I wasn't expecting something full of ghosts, mystery and fantasy, even if it was all mixed in with some romance.  But nonetheless, I am still very excited to read this one, maybe even slightly more now I know it won't just be a romance. 

2) The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness - Unlike the book above, I have surprisingly never read a novel by Patrick Ness, so I'm not only interested to finally read something he has written, but purely the concept of this is intriguing to me, with the ordinary boy finding his own remarkable and all!

3) The Night We Said Yes by Lauren Gibaldi -  This one just sounds like such a summery, contemporary read, with the alternating chapters just putting a slight twist on this romance read, and honestly I can't wait to get my hands on this one.  

4) The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy - Despite not having read too many of them, I am definitely a fan of horror/ mystery books, so it's not surprising that this one drew me in straight away, with the time jump from the original incident, the memory loss and even purely the idea of happening over summer all intriguing me even more.  

5) Because You'll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas - This one just sounds both heart-wrenching and heart-warming (if that makes any sense!), with their friendship already drawing me and the idea of them never being able to meet just making this sound like such a more interesting read.  

6) Dreamland by Robert L. Anderson - Despite knowing that there being other books out there with this concept, I have yet to read one, and so this one just interested me straight away, due to this and due to the idea of the lines between reality and dreams slowly blurring - I'm just quite intrigued to see how it will all play out if I'm honest! 

7) The Next Together by Lauren James - This just sounds like my perfect book, with cool historic settings, time jumps and romance all mixed into one, with the added documents, diary entries and other features all just helping to get me even more excited for this one.

8) This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee -  I have to admit, historic, monster stories and retellings are generally not my type of thing, but somehow the synopsis of this one just drew me in, and I can't help but be intrigued to read this one and see how it is.  

Forgotten Friday Four

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan: 

As has been the trend of a lot of my Forgotten Friday posts, this is another which I read and reviewed last summer, but never got round to posting.  And, seeing as I am still only halfway through my current read (Girl of Nightmare by Kendrae Blake), but still wanting to post, I figured that it was time for this one to finally go up.  So here is my review of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters:

Review -

After reading the first of the series (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) earlier this year, I wasn’t amazingly keen to read this one.  I so badly wanted to like the first one, after hearing so many good things about the series, but unfortunately it failed to really draw me in and I found myself not too attached to the characters or the story; although I do blame myself for not reading them earlier, as my view may just be because they are aimed at 9 and 10 year olds!

Despite this though, I found myself picking up the 2^nd one recently, deciding to give the series another go – and I'm glad I did!  I found that I enjoyed this one alot more than the first, with the 

characters growing more on me and the overall story being one I was eager to read about.  Due to this, instead of finding that I was having to force myself through chapters (as was sometimes the case with the Lightning Thief), I was actually wanting to continue on and read further and further into the story, resulting in me finished the book in a mere two days.  I think it may have been the absence of unrelated events, something I found a lot of in the lightning thief, which hooked me this time, as I was able to see reasons for most of their actions.  

As for the characters, I was happy to see an addition to the usual trio (Percy, Annabeth and Grover) in Tyson and actually found myself really warming to him -  I think he might even be my favourite character so far!  I just loved his childish nature and the irony of his character, as well as the humorous love/ hate relationship which existed between him and Percy.  As well as this, I also  liked seeing more of Clarise and, dare I say, less of Grover.  I don’t have a problem with Grover at all, I just preferred the trio in this book.  Sorry!

Finally, I think that, as usual, my favourite part of this book was the ending.  Without spoiling anything, it left me shocked and wanting to quickly grab the next one.  I never expected the turn of events and I honestly loved it!  It gives the story somewhere to go, and has me really excited to read the Titan's Curse! 

Top Ten Tuesday Twelve

Top ten books I'd love to see as movies/TV shows

Top ten tuesday is a weekly feature/meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.  I was very excited for this when I saw that it was this weeks topic, not due to the amount of books I'd like to see as films/TV shows, but because the ones I would like to see I can just picture so vividly and so really wanted to share them.  So here are the six books which I would really like to see as either movies or TV shows: 

1) The Gone series by Michael Grant - I remember hearing about the possibility of this one being made into a TV show (sorry if I'm wrong) and honestly I don't understand why someone hasn't already, as this was first thought when I read this weeks topic.  I can just imagine this being the perfect series to make into a TV show.

2) Numbers by Rachel Ward - I can just imagine this one working as a fast-paced kind of action film, as I think it would work so well with the plot and would just make the most of this book.

3) The My Blood Approves series - This is another which I can just imagine being turned into a great TV show, with each season being based on each book in turn.

4) We Were Liars by E. Lockhart - I know this may be unusual choice, but I'd just love to see this one play out on screen, with all the twists, turns and time shifts which I think would make a very interesting and possibly even unusual film to watch.

5) Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman - I read this years ago now, and I still can't believe that it is yet to be made into a movie.  This was one of my first thoughts when I heard about this topic, as I can just imagine this being turned into an amazing film. 

6) Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn - I can just so badly see this one being such a cute christmasy romantic comedy type film, with the constant switches between the pair and the red notebook - just like the book, it would make the perfect christmas movie!