Red Queen (red queen #1) by Victoria Aveyard

Book Blurb (from Goodreads) 
The poverty stricken Reds are commoners, living under the rule of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers.

To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from The Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change.

Mare finds herself working in the Silver Palace, at the centre of
those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control.

But power is a dangerous game. And in this world divided by blood, who will win? 




My Review
There was a lot of hype surrounding this book making me nervous to pick it up but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I read it in about two day, and it as some of the best world building and complicated characters that I have ever seen. 
The plot in this book was... exciting.... confusing.... deceiving... and full out awesome. There I have summoned it up for you. I will admit that this is a very character driven book. Not only do the choices that Mare makes drive the book along but the choices of the sub characters had major impacts with consequences as well. It was kind of slow at the beginning and then it sped up and then there is something that you just don't expect and you come squeaking to a halt, re-read the pages a couple times to make sure that you understood what the hell just happened correctly and then the book just seems to be glued to your hands and you just can't put it down. 
Mare was a strong character in so many ways physically and emotionally. She could hold a lot of responsibly without breaking but if it became to much for her she wasn't afraid to seek help, making her more realistic. Her choices were sane, most of the time, although sometimes she could also be a bit naive. For the other characters I can't really talk about, just because I really don't know how. What I would give to go into just one of their heads for one chapter. Each sub-character had their own agenda. They each wanted something and had a consequence if they didn't get it or did get it, although some were more severe then others. I really do not trust anyone anymore apart from Mare. 
Overall I give this book 5 out of 5 stars and I cannot wait for it's sequel

  

Die Verschwörung (Feuer & Glas #2) by Brigitte Riebe

Book Blurb (from Goodreads):
In der uralten Lagunenstadt Venedig sind sie sich das erste Mal begegnet: die sechzehnjährige Milla, die von den Feuerleuten abstammt, und Luca aus dem Geschlecht der Wasserleute. Ihre Liebe zueinander ist seitdem nicht erloschen.

Als Milla nach Konstantinopel aufbricht, um ihren Vater Leandro zu suchen, begleitet Luca sie. Über Leandros Leben und Verschwinden liegt ein dunkles Geheimnis, das Milla nun endlich ergründen will. Die so lange herbeigesehnte Begegnung mit ihrem Vater verläuft jedoch anders als erwartet: Leandro scheint sich an nichts aus seiner Vergangenheit zu erinnern, auch nicht an Milla. Während das Feuermädchen verzweifelt herauszufinden versucht, was ihrem Vater das Gedächtnis geraubt hat, wird die Stadt von einem gewaltigen Erdbeben erschüttert. Fast zu spät wird Milla und Luca klar, dass nur der Bund aus Feuer und Wasser die Stadt am Bosporus retten kann. Ausgerechnet in der Stunde der höchsten Not wird ihre Liebe auf eine harte Probe gestellt, denn der gut aussehende Baumeister des Sultans scheint alles daranzusetzen, Millas Herz zu gewinnen ..

My Review
I don't think that this book is very different from the first one.
Basically, the plot of this book revolves around Milla, of the Firepeople, searching for her long-lost father and Luca, from the Waterpeople, is helping her because they love each other. They both realize that there is a great mystery surrounding her father's disappearance. They found a giant clue about his whereabouts in the end of of the last book, so they set off to Konstantinopel. This is where this story is taking place, still in the year 1509. But there are a lot of hidden dangers in Konstantinopel...
I don't think that I will have a lot to say about this book because I pretty much said everything about the characters and the writing style in the previous review of the first book. I will just quickly recap everything for this review. Milla is still the same as always: she is getting in trouble all the time and needs someone to rescue her. That someone is normally Luca. The question is why Milla always gets in trouble. The answer is that she gets angry really easily and has no patience whatsoever. Luca is the complete opposite though. He is the calm guy, he always thinks things through and doesn't let his anger show.
The writing style did not change at all. Everything was still written very dramatically and the sense of the writing style sounded kind of poetic. Brigitte Riebe used pretty long and unusual words to describe a simple situation. I think that I got used to reading this writing style because after a while the story started to outweigh the writing style.
I think that the ending could have been developed more because there was so much more that could have happened. There could have been a next book. I have a feeling that the ending was way too rushed and not everything was resolved.
These books were alright, but I don't think that I will read them again. If you enjoy historical-fiction and read German books I think that this book is worth a shot. I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.

Camp NaNoWriMo anyone?

Hi guys! Jessie here!
So with April so close now I thought that it might be time to ask if anyone else is doing camp NaNoWriMo or does the normal NaNoWriMo in November. This is my first year doing both and I have so far been unsuccessful in finding people that I know where I live that do it as well so I am extending my searches to the internet  to see if there is anyone I 'know' doing it here. So anyone?

The Reckoning (Darkest Powers #3) by Kelley Armstrong

Book Blurb (From Goodreads) 
Chloe Saunders is fifteen and would love to be normal. Unfortunately, Chloe happens to be a genetically engineered necromancer who can raise the dead without even trying. She and her equally gifted (or should that be 'cursed'?) friends are now running for their lives from the evil corporation that created them.

As if that's not enough, Chloe is struggling with her feelings for Simon, a sweet-tempered sorcerer, and his brother Derek, a not so sweet-tempered werewolf. And she has a horrible feeling she's leaning towards the werewolf...

Definitely not normal. 





My Review: 
Like the second book I had this one up and waiting for me on my bedside again for when I finished the second one. Out of the three I would say that this one is the best just because of the plot and all of the new characters. 
The plot in this book was once again fast paced and full of all of these little twists and turns and some big surprises. Surprises that will make you gasp. One thing that is evident in this book is that romance finally gets to play a role in it. This had me worried when I read the blurb and it had my thinking if the romance takes center stage at any part of this book I swear to god I will through a fit. Luckily it did not come to that, the romance was nicely done and sweet and thankfully took a nice comfy seat at the back. 
Chloe who had come to full terms with her powers in the last book was completely awesome in this book accidentally raising cemeteries because someone (I'm not going to say who) was being a complete b!*@& and A$$^#*@. Derek continued to soften up around Chloe and Tori which is a big step for him since at the beginning there was not a word to describe how frustrating and annoying he was (making him my favourite character). 
All in all I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Blog Tour - Standing (Book 1, The Waterblaze Trilogy) by China Dennington

Standing (Book One of The Waterblaze Trilogy)

     In fourteen-year-old China Dennington’s first novel, two future tyrants hold the world in an iron grip.

    

     Humanity is about to meet its doom. An empathic girl from the past is called to action by a group of technologically advanced mermaids.

     An apocalypse is coming.

     Along with fellow time traveler, Force, she is sent to the future as the last hope for humanity. The stakes are high, the odds against her. Can she overcome her fears and step into her destiny? Can she lead a people to victory who lost hope long ago?

            Goodreads                  Amazon                      Kindle

Review:

***I received the eBook free as a review copy from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review***

I enjoyed reading this book. 

This book is written by a fourteen-year old author, which I found amazing because for someone of a young age to write a book is just awesome and amazing.
This book is basically about a girl, who has the perfect sequence of DNA and can therefore breathe water and therefore go to the underwater world called Dellinia, the home to mermaids. There she meets Force, another human with the same DNA sequence. The girl then finds out from the mermaids, that they can all time-travel, in a cycle called the Continuance. The mermaids can travel 20 years into the future, while the humans can travel 200 years into the future. The present mermaids got a message from the future, that the end of humanity and Dellinia occurred. So, Force and the girl have to travel to the future to prevent it from happening. 

I found, that the plot of the book was well developed because everything happened in a logical pattern. The characters were interesting and easily likable.

I think that the beginning of the book could have been developed more because almost all the information about the girl was told within the first page, which might be a bit too much to remember. I liked though, that the name of the girl wasn't told until the end of the chapter, the reason why I am withholding her name now. Also, there was a special type of connection that was missing at the beginning. The reader wasn't pulled immediately into the story because instead of stating the obvious, there is also the possibility that you can describe the scene and the facial expressions of the character. Besides that, I just thought that during the beginning of the adventure, there were too few conflicts which were solved too easily. 
I liked the idea of the story, it is original. Later on in the book, the writing style developed and it was very interesting to read. I really liked the ending of the book and the plot definitely made up for the beginning. I give this book 3 out of 5 stars!

                                    About The Author

China Dennington is fourteen and loving it. With her first book out and several more on the way, she is very excited to share her work with the world. She loves Star Wars, Pride And Prejudice, and her little brother. She is passionate about God and upholding women's rights. To keep up with her newest releases follow her at www.ChinaDennington.com

The Awakening (Darkest Powers #2) Kelley Armstrong

Book Blurb (From Goodreads) 
Chloe Saunders is on the run
and raising hell. Literally. 

Chloe Saunders is not your average supernatural teenager. Genetically altered at birth by a sinister team of scientists, she can barely control her terrifying powers. Now the team that created her has decided it's time to end the experiment. Permanently.

Now Chloe is running for her life along with a charming sorcerer, a troubled werewolf and a temperamental young witch. Together they have a chance for freedom - but can Chloe trust her new friends?

My review: 

After reading the first book of this series and I could not wait to pick this one up so it was lucky that I had I propped up next to me ready to go as I was finishing the first one and I have to say that it did not disappoint and lived up to all of my expectations. 

The plot in this book was set at a much faster pace which was what it desperately needed because so much happens to them. When we last see Chloe she has been taken captive by the Edison group and is trying to escape. It would not be a spoiler for me to say that she succeeds in doing so and seeing Chloe and her friends on the run was interesting. Kelley Armstrong didn't sugar coat life on the road and it felt and 'looked' like how you would imagine it to be, hard and un-glamorous. 

We continued to see strong character development in Chloe. At the beginning of the first book she was kind of a bit too kind (if there is such a thing) and was not really ready to stand up for herself but as the book progresses she starts fighting back and in this book when she has come to full acceptance of herself and the world that she is apart of and starts to take larger risks and really puts her neck on the line for the people that she loves. Derek continues to be one of my favourite characters and we got to see a lot more of his back story in this book again which gave his character more depth.

All together I think that I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

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Hi, I just wanted to announce that I have created a bloglovin account and added this blog on it. This means that from now on people can follow the blog via gmail and bloglovin as well! You can easily follow your favourite blogs and it makes it easy for you to view posts. I recommend you to get an account if you don't already have one!

The Summoning (Darkest Powers #1) Kelley Armstrong

Book Blurb (From Goodreads) 
My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost - and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? it's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House...before its skeletons come back to haunt me.



My Review: 
This is one of the best paranormal books that I have read in a while. I found it by chance in a book fair for $2 and bought the whole series and thank god that I did because I don't think that I could of waited to buy the next book.
The plot in this book was fast paced and complicated and refreshing in many ways. Each page pushed the plot along and there was hardly ever a dull moment. It showed Chloe's struggle well and how she is dealing with it and the complications that come with finding out that you can see ghosts as suddenly as she did. The action scenes were rare but well written. There was not much hand to hand combat but more of combat with ghosts when Chloe accidentally summoned them. Those scenes where scary, I don't think that I could of handled those as well as she did if I was in that situation and she handled them pretty poorly. The refreshing thing about this book was that there was no romance, which some people may find bad or annoying but almost every YA book today had romance in it and to see a book without it but still has lots of drama in like a gold nugget in my eyes. The mystery in this book was strong and created some pretty good plot twists which you (hopefully) will not see coming. 
Chloe was fairly easy to relate too purely because she is very close to my age. It's not often (or at least for me) where you read a YA book about a 14-15 year old because main characters are usually 16-18 or around those ages. It was interesting to see how her age affected her priorities. for instance she wasn't as interested in the boys in this book as an older character would be, she was more interested in forging friendships and maintaining them. Derrek was an complete ass in this book, which more or less made him my favourite. He was moody the whole time and complicated to understand but when he was with Chloe he slowly started to relax and we found out some of his background. Simon was interesting but not my favourite. His character seemed to be there purely to invoke drama between the girls of the book. 
Over all I give this book 5 out of 5 stars and I highly recommend it if you want a really well written paranormal book.

Incarnate (Newsole #1) by Jodi Meadows

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

My Review: 

Now I don't know if you have seen, noticed or even care, but Angelina and I have gotten into this habit of recommending 3 books to each other and then the other has to read one no exceptions. So this time I picked Incarnate by Jodi Meadows, like you haven't guessed yet.... It took me waaaaay to long to get to this book (like almost 2 months too long) it was mostly due to fear of not liking it like the other one which I had to read (Across the Universe). Unlike that book I found this one an enjoyable read. 

The plot was a bit slow at the beginning and that kind of put me off for the first chapter but as I turned each page the book got better and better and the plot started to complicate (in a good way) and unfortunate events started happening, I wouldn't be spoiling you by saying: unfortunate things like dragons attacking. That scene was pretty awesome and was set up very nicely. 

Ana was annoying at first, she was a little whiny and insecure and also had kind of a trust issue (is it bad that I like it when characters have trust issues?) she was so scared of her Mum, Li, the whole time that she forgot to wake up and smell the roses. However, as the book progressed she started to get stronger and really stand up for herself, it's not like she wasn't defensive before or anything but she just learned to take her feelings and add on actions to them. Sam was in one word guarded in another hesitant and to sum it all up so frustrating! If you are going to kiss her just do it! He started to stop over thinking things at the end of the book but he still did it... and I love how every time that he does something stupid or hesitates Ana does not hesitate to point it out (see what I did there? Probably not....) Li was my favourite character over all and it sucks that we didn't see more of her. In my opinion she just had so much more depth than any of the other characters and I just want to learn more about her. 

Over all I give this book three out of five stars: 

 This picture sums up me  about Ana and Sam's relationship perfectly: 

Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Book Blurb (from Goodreads):
In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass--and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.





My Review
Jessie and I decided to recommend books to each other again because we wanted to have more books in common and read books that the other has read and enjoyed already. In case you don't know how we recommend books, basically each of us recommend three books to each other and then we have to pick one of them which we must read. So, I chose Throne of Glass, because Jessie was always rambling on about how awesome this book was and I always wanted to read it.
The basic plot of the book, is that we are in a fantasy world. The continent is called Erilea and there are several countries like Terrasen, Adarlan, Eyllwe and others. The king of Adarlan conquered the other countries though and is currently at war with Wendlyn. In the Salt Mines of Endovier, the assassin Celaena Sardothien is called to him to take part in the Royal Competition to become the King's Champian because he wants an assassin to get rid of any opposition. 
So anyway, while I was reading it, Jessie asked me if I came to the bit yet, where Celaena is giving Chaol a piece of her mind and then I answered "When isn't she giving someone a piece of her mind?" That brings us to the characters. Celaena is the best. Why? Well, first of all, she has so much sass and every time she argues with Chaol or Dorian, it is always so very hilarious. She has awesome skills, amazing comebacks, and she loves books and chocolate! It can't get better than that. And I just like her personality, she is strong and does what she thinks is right, even though Chaol always gets mad at her. But then I always find it hilarious when Chaol gets furious.
Now, next topic: this book has an obvious love triangle between Celaena Sardothien, Chaol Westfall and Dorian Havilliard. The question is whose Team I am on. Until about three quarters through the book, I wasn't on any Team and that was because someone else was my current favourite character. It was Nox Owen, the master thief of Perranth. Nox Owen and Celaena, anyone? No? Just me? I liked him because he was just an awesome character, and very likable and I guess I just like thieves. But then there were sad moments with Dorian and Chaol and I decided to finally be on Team Chaol. I thought that Dorian was nice and funny, but Chaol can be sweet and kind and he can joke sometimes but is mostly very serious. Team Chaol!
I can't describe the feeling when I read this book. It is like a sense of anticipation that is bubbling up every so often, making you feel giddy. Especially when there are moments when you think:"How could this possibly end well?" It has been a long while since I have felt so strongly about a book, that I just couldn't put it down. There were moments when the suspense was so strong, that you were literally tearing through the pages.
Sarah J. Maas has created an amazing book, that I recommend everyone to read, it doesn't matter if you don't like the genre. Read it! I definitely give it 5 out of 5 stars!