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Review: The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Long

Review: The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Long

August 30, 2012 by · 8 Comments

The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Long

Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Frances Long

 

A darkly compelling mix of romance, fairy tale, and suspense from a new voice in teen fiction

The trees swallowed her brother whole, and Jenny was there to see it. Now seventeen, she revisits the woods where Tom was taken, resolving to say good-bye at last. Instead, she’s lured into the trees, where she finds strange and dangerous creatures who seem to consider her the threat. Among them is Jack, mercurial and magnetic, with secrets of his own. Determined to find her brother, with or without Jack’s help, Jenny struggles to navigate a faerie world where stunning beauty masks some of the most treacherous evils, and she’s faced with a choice between salvation or sacrifice–and not just her own.

 

 

 A fairy tale, vividly told and painfully sweet.

The Treachery of Beautiful Things took a few chapters to suck me in but one it did I was hooked. I attribute this to the very descriptive writing style. While it paints the scene so well, I personally have a bad habit of getting inpatient sand weaning to skim ahead to juicer parts. So depending on the readers tastes that definitely could work for or against the story.

Jenny is a young girl about to start college, but she returns to a forested area in her home town where she witnessed her brother get abducted by the trees and a Greenman seven years earlier. After years of ridicule from claiming the trees kidnapped her brother and lots of therapy she has come back to say goodbye and let go of her brother Tom.

Tom had been a young musical prodigy. The night he was taken he was playing his flute for her as they walked home through the woods. She hears this same melody being played today in the woods and dashes off into the trees swearing to herself it must be him.

So her adventure begins when she finds herself in the Realm of the fae and meets Jack o’ the Forest and Puck!
Honestly, I didn’t expect the story that I got. I was pleasantly surprised when the points of view went back and forth from Jenny and Jack. I love reading from different view points. I felt Jack was brought to life wonderfully, fighting an impossible internal battle, he was a perfect tragic character, that I couldn’t help loving. Now, Jenny could have used a bit more fleshing out in the character development and progression department but ultimately both characters captured my concern and interest.

My favorite part about The Treachery of Beautiful Things was that it ended up being a love story but completely without being a romance! I adore how the author was able to pull that off. I can’t stand overly sappy YA romance, with instant love, and oodles of teenage hormonal angst. This had none of that for me. The relationship was built and slowly strengthened the entire book, until it was something you could really believe meant something to both of them.

It was action, adventure, heartache, discovery, mystery, dark fairytale, and love story all rolled into one nice quick read!

Tabitha the Pabkins

Find The Treachery of Beautiful Things: Amazon | BD | Goodreads

Follow Ruth Frances Long: Site | Facebook 

*Review Copy provided by Publisher for an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own. Please note there are affiliate links in this post, we thank you for your support. :)

Filed Under: 4 stars, book review, netgalley, Pabkin's Reviews, young adult Tagged With: , ,
Review: Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble by H.P. Mallory

Review: Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble by H.P. Mallory

July 16, 2012 by · 8 Comments

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble (Jolie Wilkins #1) by H.P Mallory

Life isn’t bad for psychic Jolie Wilkins. True, she doesn’t have a love life to speak of, but she has a cute house in the suburbs of Los Angeles, a cat and a quirky best friend.

Enter Rand Balfour, a sinfully attractive warlock who insists she’s a witch and who just might turn her life upside down. Rand hires her to help him solve a mystery regarding the death of his client who also happens to be a ghost. Jolie not only uncovers the cause of the ghost’s demise but, in the process, she brings him back to life!

Word of Jolie’s incredible ability to bring back the dead spreads like wildfire, putting her at the top of the underworld’s most wanted list. Consequently, she finds herself at the center of a custody battle between a villainous witch, a dangerous but oh-so-sexy vampire, and her warlock boss, Rand.

 

Unfortunately, I had quite a few gripes about this book.

To begin – the characters – Jolie and Rand were well enough developed but I just couldn’t find anything about them that made me latch onto them and really care. Now, Christa (the best friend) had pretty much no character development at all. I saw her as just the token friend character thrown in there so that Jolie could have someone to fall back on now and then and be made to feel more secure or insecure in situations where that was needed. The fact that she followed her around the country, then out of the country was way too convenient.

Jolie herself – yeah she bugged me with her whole lusting after several men and acting as if she wants to do more with Rand in one scene but then fighting off her urges in another? A bit of a ploy to build more sexual tension in my opinion – wasn’t working for me.

Now as for bad guy development – so not there. Why should we be afraid of this Bella lady, how did she get all these other races to join her side in the first place? Lots left open, which in a series book is normal but still a little bit more info should be there.

Too many supernatural races too quickly. I don’t know why it bugged me so much, maybe it was that she put a bunch in there but they all essentially felt so shallow in the species dept. Like each wasn’t built up very well. Just put in the mix to be there.

It left me with an annoyed feeling and I didn’t like it at all. Heck, going back to my convenient comment at the beginning maybe that’s what ticked me off so much about this read – so much of it was just ‘way too convenient.’ The plots, the characters, the additional races, the convenient use of powers and easy wins.

*especially irritating convenient powers, changing to an animal shape when you’re a witch, instant clothes, changing your appearance, no spells, oh and just miraculously being able to bring people back from the dead without having any real concept of ever having any power beyond visions before that?* …erg

I hate to write negative reviews – but because I stuck it out and read through the entire thing – I’m going to put my opinion out there.  Now of course you don’t have to take my word for it because I looked at the average rating for this book and it seems normal.  So it likely just wasn’t my cup of tea.

 

                                                          Pabkins


Find Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble by H.P. Mallory: AMAZON | BD | GOODREADS

 

*ecopy provided by Author for an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Filed Under: 1 star, book review, Pabkin's Reviews, series Tagged With: , , , ,
Review: The Vampire Stalker by Allison Van Diepen

Review: The Vampire Stalker by Allison Van Diepen

June 21, 2012 by · 5 Comments

The Vampire Stalker
by Allison Van Diepen

 

What if the characters in a vampire novel left their world–and came into yours?

Amy is in love with someone who doesn’t exist: Alexander Banks, the dashing hero in a popular series of vampire novels. Then one night, Amy meets a boy who bears an eerie resemblance to Alexander. In fact, he IS Alexander, who has escaped from the pages of the book and is in hot pursuit of a wicked vampire named Vigo. Together, Amy and Alexander set out to track Vigo and learn how and why Alexander crossed over. But when she and Alexander begin to fall for each other, Amy wonders if she even wants him to ever return to the realm of fiction.

 


From page two I was already wandering if this book was going to be for me.  As it progressed past page 50 I was in serious doubt.  Oddly enough even though I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it.

I do feel the  description on the back of the book could use some improving so the reader would know before they purchase it just what kind of ‘young adult’ book they could be in for.  How that could be done – I have no idea.  I read a lot of young adult books and most I consider to be enjoyable for adults as well as teens.  However, this one I think would be better for people under the age of 19.

Admittedly, I did expect she was going to be a teenager enamored of a fictional character – but the behavior reminded me of when my kid sister was one of those obsessed teenage girls swooning over Edward or Jacob from Twilight.  A few times it made my stomach turn because it was rather cheesy.  Its teenage infatuation hell meets vampire cosplay.

The characters, good as well as bad just aren’t fleshed out well enough.  You do feel the connection with Amy but the remaining characters never became real enough to me.   How the school Librarian assists Amy and Alexander, and offers explanations just came off to easy and convenient to me.  Answers are rarely ever that easy.  So that was a bit dissatisfying, along with how willing the police were to accept help and explanations of things from a teenager. Also the whole initiating a Chicago/city-wide curfew.  That was VERY unrealistic.  Of all the serial killers that are out there in the U.S. – have any of you ever heard of a city actually issuing a curfew? It just wouldn’t happen folks.

I probably would have stopped right around page 50 normally but I try to always finish the books that I request for review.  However, with all of that I still zipped through the entire thing in a few hours.  It was a super quick read and I will definitely be passing it along to my kid sister for her enjoyment (as I know she loved Twilight).

 

                                                                   Tabitha the Pabkins

*Review Copy provided by Publisher for an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own.


Find The Vampire Stalker by Allison Van Diepen: AMAZON | BD |GOODREADS

Follow Allison Van Diepen: TWITTER | WEBSITE

Filed Under: 2 stars, book review, Pabkin's Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,
Review: Wrecked by Anna Davies

Review: Wrecked by Anna Davies

June 14, 2012 by · 4 Comments

Wrecked
by Anna Davies

 

Secrets of the sea have never been sexier than this.

 

Ever since the death of her parents, Miranda has lived on Whym Island, taking comfort in the local folklore, which claims a mysterious sea witch controls the fate of all on the island and in its surrounding waters. Sometimes it’s just easier to believe things are out of your control.

 

But then a terrible boating accident takes the lives of several of her friends, and Miranda is rescued by a mysterious boy who haunts her dreams. Consumed by guilt from the accident, she finds refuge in late-night swims—and meets Christian, a boy who seems eerily familiar, but who is full of mystery: He won’t tell her where he is from, or why they can only meet at the beach. But Miranda falls for him anyway…and discovers that Christian’s secrets, though meant to protect her, may bring her nothing but harm.

 

Seductive and compelling, Wrecked brings a contemporary, paranormal twist to a classic enchanting tale.


Wrecked – that is what this book felt like to me, a wreck.  Putting it lightly, I am definitely mincing words here when I say I couldn’t find a thing about this book that I enjoyed.

I’ll keep my musings short.  BEWARE SPOILERS!

Right from the beginning I found Wrecked to have a somber tone and then a few more pages more and it was just downright depressing.  There is so much talk of death or suicide, then there is a bunch of death, and then a bunch of pretty much everyone blaming the afore mentioned deaths on the main character, Miranda.  Made it hard to stomach and left me with no desire to carry on by the time I reached 100 pages.  Then we throw in this connection between the ‘Betwixt man” Christian and Miranda  – and I just didn’t see anything special there to really intrigue and draw me in.

I could say more but I’m not going to turn this into a bash fest just because it wasn’t my cup of tea. So for those of you still curious, here is a review of someone who enjoyed it – maybe I’m just the oddball statistic.

A review by Journey Through Pages – 4 Stars

                                                                   Tabitha the Pabkins

*Review Copy provided by Publisher for an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own.


Find Wrecked by Anna Davies: AMAZON | BD |GOODREADS

Follow Anna Davies: TWITTER | WEBSITE

Filed Under: 1 star, book review, Pabkin's Reviews, young adult Tagged With: , , , , ,
Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

June 13, 2012 by · 8 Comments

Lies Beneath (Lies Beneath #1)
by Anne Greenwood Brown

 

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother’s death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family’s homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock’s daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistible good looks and charm on unsuspecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there’s more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.


Mermaids with some interesting background, and a male character with more depth than I expected.  Lies Beneath is great in that our main character, Calder, is also a villain – he’s a killer, sucking the happiness and emotion right out of people as he drowns them.  Though admittedly he seems to be on a forced diet, just for experimentation’s sake.   What a way to possibly die – dragged to the watery depths in the embrace of some fabulously hot merman.  *dithers a little bit in la la land*  I admit, I liked him more because he was a bad guy but not the “bad boy” that so many girls fall for.

What helped make this not just another fluff young adult romance was that it WASN’T  just another, girl and boy falls immediately and helplessly in love sort of a tale.  Lucky us,  Calder has to work to win some trust and affection from Lily.  I know I’m not the only one who hates it when “love” is so easily come by.

More importantly though, there is a good story behind how all of the characters come to interact.  What drew all the players together?  Death and Vengeance.   The family unit portrayed for the mermaids is so drastically different than that of the human family they are plotting against.  What helps really suck you in is the little details you get about mermaids and how they live.

There are some interesting twists and turns in this book that I really enjoyed.  Overall it was a quick and very enjoyable read.  A nice choice if you’re looking for a mermaid book this summer.

                                                                   Tabitha the Pabkins

*Review Copy provided by Publisher for an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own.


Find Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown: AMAZON | BD | GOODREADS

Follow Anne Greenwood Brown: TWITTER | WEBSITE

Filed Under: 4 stars, book review, Pabkin's Reviews, young adult Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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