Short & Sweet Review: Ethereal Infulence: The Birth by Lana Bradstream

Title: Ethereal Influence: The Birth

Author: Lana Bradstream 

Format: Kindle edition, 266 pages

Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites

Received for review from the author.

Summary (via Amazon):

A person's faith can waiver when life becomes difficult. It is during that time when God sends an angel to guide that person and exert ethereal influence over them.

Laura's faith is shaken when she learns of the death of her baby. An angel named Ben tells her some information and she believes that hope is not lost for her baby.

Wanting to keep Laura's faith waivering, a fallen angel named Ryan exerts influence on her that will keep her soul further from God. The angels struggle against one another to exert their influences on Laura's will.
The battle between good and evil will take place over her soul. 

My Thoughts: 

This is the first e-book in a planned series, where angels and fallen angels battle against one another to see who can exert the most influence on a human in a time of need. The story focus on Laura, who just delivered her first child, but lost the baby a few hours later due to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). As a few months pass, and Laura is still coping with the death of her baby when she meets two angels. One is a messenger of God, Ben and the other is a follower of Lucifer, Ryan. Both angels give Laura startling new information on what really happened to her baby, all while trying to guide/influence her decisions.

The pacing of the story was good, not too slow but not to fast. I was expecting the book to have a more paranormal element to it but there wasn't much. The only paranormal element to the story were the angels, and there was only one brief battle scene between the two opposing sides. The book actually had a more religious feel to it than anything, which isn't really what I normally read. Overall a good book, with many surprises towards the end. There were certain scenes in the book where Laura told her husband and psychiatrist that an angel appeared to her, everyone thought she was crazy. I even thought everything was her state of mind, but boy was I wrong! I think readers will be just as surprised as I was when we find out what happened to Laura's baby. 

In My Mailbox [16]

First off, In My Mailbox is a feature that was started over at The Story Siren. Where we share what books we receive in the mail each week.

 

 Bought:

Second Grave on the Left by Darynda Jones

Blood Red Road by Moria Young

Vampire Empire by C. & S. Griffith

Won:

Dark Awakening by Kendra Castle (Thank you Bitten By Books blog and Kendra!)

Short & Sweet Review: Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep

Title: Kiss of Frost

Author: Jennifer Estep

Genre: Paranormal, Young Adult

Series: A Mythos Academy novel #2 

Paperback, 354 pages

Published November 29th 2011 by Kensington 

 

Where did I get it: Bought it for pleasure reading

Purchase the book on Amazon

 

Summary (via Goodreads): 

Logan Quinn was try­ing to kill me. My Spar­tan class­mate relent­lessly pur­sued me, swing­ing his sword at me over and over again, the shin­ing sil­ver blade inch­ing closer to my throat every time. A smile tugged up his lips, and his ice-blue eyes prac­ti­cally glowed with the thrill of battle...

I’m Gwen Frost, a second-year warrior-in-training at Mythos Acad­emy, and I have no idea how I’m going to sur­vive the rest of the semes­ter. One day, I’m get­ting schooled in sword­play by the guy who broke my heart—the drop-dead gor­geous Logan who slays me every time. Then, an invis­i­ble archer in the Library of Antiq­ui­ties decides to use me for tar­get prac­tice. And now, I find out that some­one at the acad­emy is really a Reaper bad guy who wants me dead. I’m afraid if I don’t learn how to live by the sword—with Logan’s help—I just might die by the sword...

 

My thoughts: I am a big fan of Ms. Estep’s Elemental Assassin series, and while I read the first book in her young adult series, Touch of Frost...I wasn’t yet fully sold on the new series.  Readers didn’t have to wait long for the second book in the Mythos Academy series, which released at the end of last month just three months after the first book. After reading Kiss of Frost, Mythos Academy #2, I am glad to say that this series will be on my auto-buy list from now on.  

 In Kiss of Frost, we return to the school for warrior-whiz kids, where Gwen Frost is continuing her second year. Within the first one to two chapter of the book Gwen is getting attacked again. She thinks a reaper (Loki’s minions) is out to kill her because last year she killed a classmate who was an uncover reaper. Gwen thought that maybe she would catch a break when the entire school goes on a holiday trip to the annual winter carnival (similar to a resort), but no surprise there when bad things begins to happen at the winter carnival. Instead of hiding in her room, Gwen does everything possible to find out who the killer before they strike again.

I enjoyed this book more than the previous book in the series. Readers will get to learn more about Gwen’s power and that there’s more to it than seeing and feeling people’s emotions. In the first book, we found out that Gwen mother passed away due to a car accident, but new information reveals the truth behind her mother’s death.  While I enjoyed most of the book, once again there were a couple of things that irked me.  The author repeated A LOT of the same information over and over. It felt like she was recapping throughout the entire book, I tried to not let that get in the way of me enjoying the book though. I hope that in the next book, there won’t be as much. If we took out all the filler/repeats it would probably be 178 pages instead of 354 pages.  Another thing that bothered me was Gwen’s whining. She kept repeating over and over how Logan, the Spartan turned her down, and how hot he is. She sounded so sad and desperate, which is a total turn-off in a character.

Overall Kiss of Frost was still a great addition to the series, and I look forward to reading the third book, Dark Frost which will be released May 2012. If you’re looking for a fun and quick read, pick up this series! 

WoW: Waiting on Wednesday [19]

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly post started by Breaking the Spine, to show books that we are patiently waiting for.  

Summary (via Amazon):

Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night... The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity-and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city...

[MARCH 6, 2012]

I posted this book before on my 'cover spotlight' post, but before it didn't have a summary. I am DYING to read this book! Seanan McGuire is the author of the October Daye series, and if you haven't pick it up yet...you're totally missing out. I bet this new series will be just as amazing...I mean seriously look at that cover!

Cover spotlight [11]

The Immortal Rules, book one in the Blood of Eden series by Julie Kagawa is one of the most anticipated novel of 2012. Julie Kagawa is best known for her Iron Fey series, which I really enjoyed. The synopsis for The Immoral Rules has me counting the days till the book's released, and today they finally released the cover! I LOVE LOVE the cover. What do you guys think of the synopsis and the book cover, are you swooning too? :)

Synopsis: 

You will kill. The only question is when.

In the dark days since the insidious Red Lung virus decimated the human population, vampires have risen to rule the crumbling cities and suburbs. Uncontested Princes hold sway over diminished ranks of humans: their "pets." In exchange for their labor, loyalty and of course, their blood, these pets are registered, given food and shelter, permitted to survive.

Unregistered humans cling to fringes, scavenging for survival. Allison Sekemoto and her fellow Unregistereds are hunted, not only by vampires, but by rabids, the unholy result of Red Lung-infected vampires feeding on unwary humans. One night, Allie is attacked by a pack of rabids, saved by an unlikely hero...and turned vampire.

Uncomfortable in her undead skin, Allie falls in with a ragtag crew of humans seeking a cure, or cures: for Rabidism and for Vampirism. She's passing for human...for now. But the hunger is growing and will not be denied. Not for friendship—not even for love.

The Immoral Rules will hits bookstores everywhere April 24, 2012! 

Waiting on Wednesday [18]

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly post started by Breaking the Spine, to show books that we are patiently waiting for.  

 Summary (via Goodreads):

As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ's boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.

Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.

While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering soldiers sent to help the city recover.

To make it worse, Gerald St. Simon has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and the killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.

[Publication date: April 10, 2012]

Short & Sweet Reivew: Sins of the Angels by Linda Poitevin

Title: Sins of the Angel

Author: Linda Poitevin

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Series: The Grigori Legacy #1

Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages

Published on September 27, 2011 by Ace

Source: Bought at the bookstore

Purchase the book on: [Amazon] or [Book Depository] 

Summary (via Amazon):

A detective with a secret lineage. An undercover Hunter with a bullet-proof soul. And a world made to pay for the sins of an angel...

Homicide detective Alexandra Jarvis answers to no one. Especially not to the new partner assigned to her in the middle of a gruesome serial killer case-a partner who is obstructive, irritatingly magnetic, and arrogant as hell. Aramael is a Power--a hunter of the Fallen Angels.  A millennium ago, he sentenced his own brother to eternal exile for crimes against humanity. Now his brother is back and wreaking murderous havoc in the mortal realm. To find him, Aramael must play second to a human police officer who wants nothing to do with him and whose very bloodline threatens both his mission and his soul.
 
Now, faced with a fallen angel hell-bent on triggering the apocalypse, Alex and Aramael have no choice but to join forces, because only together can they stop the end of days.

 

My thoughts:   

Sins of the Angels is the first book in a planned series, which features homicide detective Alexandra (Alex) Jarvis. There’s a serial killer on the loose, who happens to be a fallen angel who is trying to find a way back into heaven. In order to solve the murders and capture the killer, Alex will have to partner up with the supercilious but sexy Jacob Trent (Aramael). Aramael is a power, a fallen angel hunter who is posing as a mortal detective to stop his brother from murdering innocent people and wreaking destruction on earth.  What Alex and Aramael don’t know is that a murderous fallen angel is only the beginning of a sinister plan.

Mrs. Poitevin does an amazing job on combining angel mythology with police procedurals for an engaging story. There have been a lot of different angel books lately hitting the market. I’ve read a couple of books with angels, but I never enjoyed them as much as I did reading about vampire, faeries or witches. When I first heard the synopsis for this book, I was really intrigued by it and the cover reminded me of my favorite Fringe heroine, Oliva…I knew I had to check this book out. The beginning started out great but as you reached the middle of the book it felt like the story was being stretched. There wasn’t much happening, felt like I was reading word fillers till the next interesting scene. A little after the half-way mark, the book begins to pick up its pace as the author take readers through the many different plot twists. The other half of the book totally made up for the first half, and readers are left with a shocking cliff hanger till the next book!

This book would have been a solid 5, but there were two things that bugged me in the first half of the book which was the interaction between Alex and Aramael (Jacob Trent). There were moments when Alex briefly saw and felt Aramael’s wings, but she kept telling herself that she was only hallucinating and it can’t possibility be real. The two main characters also fight their attraction to one another for the majority of the book. They don’t really admit to their feelings till maybe three or four chapters before the book ended! Alex would keep finding reason not to get to know Aramael, and Aramael kept telling himself that it’s against everything he believed in/was told and he could never be with Alex, and that he shouldn’t feel the way that he does. I wasn’t a fan of the whole internal monologue they had going on.

Regardless of my little complaints, it was still a great well-developed story. I look forward to Sins of the Son (book 2), which comes out March 2012.  If you love reading about angels, or looking for a good new urban fantasy series than I suggest you give this debut novel a try!