A Lost Legacy: Awakening by C.E. Dimond - spoiler free review

Hi booklovers

A while ago I started following author C.E. Diamond on Instagram and she was giving away review e-copies of her first book. The story sounded interesting so I decided to ask for a copy. So, here's my non-spoiler review. The fact that this was sent to me for free in return for an honest review doesn't affect my opinion of the book.

Title: A Lost Legacy: Awakening.

Author: C.E. Dimond

Genre: YA, paranormal, witches

Format: e-book

*Story:

Meet Finn - Fionnuala - a 16 year-old girl. It's the beginning of a new school year and she's not really looking forward to it. Luckily, her best friend Tyler will be there as well. Finn seems to be your average teenager, but she's been having these strange dreams lately. Strange things start to happen around her. Then she meets Eamon, who recently moved to her town. When Finn's mother disappears, Eamon comes to - reluctantly - help her and the story takes off from there.

*Characters:

-Finn: I liked Finn as a character. She goes through a lot of things very quickly, but she somehow manages to get through it more or less okay. Although, I did sometimes feel that this went a bit too smoothly, but more about that later.

-Tyler: We don't really get to know him that well yet, but I have a feeling we might get to see more of him in the next part of the story. He's not your typical football playing teenage boy with all the girls flocking around him. He's actually genuinly concerned about Finn. You can tell early on in the story that he's in love with Finn, although she doesn't seem to notice this.

-Eamon: At first, I hated Eamon with a passion. He is such an arrogant prick, who's a so full of himself. He redeemed himself a bit because of what happened in his pas, but he still wasn't my favourite character.

- Of all the side characters, I liked Neely best. He's a very likeable, down to earth kind of guy.

*Plot:

At first I found the story moved along very quickly, a bit too quickly to my liking. Everything started happening really fast and I felt like the author didn't really take the time to explain things well enough. I also thought that Finn accepted her new found abilities and everything that was happening to her a bit too easily. She doesn't question the things that are taking place enough in my opinion. This rapid succession of events also made me feel like the author jumped around a lot in the story (for lack of a better way to describe it). Later on the story became more coherent and I enjoyed it a lot more. The storyline is much more developped which definitely helps the story. There's also more worldbuilding later on in the book. I started to get more into the story and because of the sort of cliffhanger ending I'm curious to see what will happen next.

*Overall rating:

I gave this story 3.5 stars. I couldn't give it a higher rating because of the beginning of the story. Beware that there are still some spelling and punctuation errors in the story, but that didn't really bother me - I just highlighted them, because the teacher in me couldn't resist :-)

Will I be reading the sequel? (It doesn't come out until next year :-( ) I'm pretty sure I will. 

Will I be reading the prequel? I'm not sure yet, because the prequel is from Eamon's POV and I'm not his biggest fan. But the premise does sound pretty good, so who knows...

So, if you want to read a story about modern-time witches and warlocks, this could be the book for you.

I would like to thank to C.E. Dimond for the chance to read and review this book.

Bye for now

Annelies

The Resurgence of Violet Blake - non-spoiler review

Hi booklovers

It's high time I did another review for you.

Since starting school again in September I've been using my e-reader a lot more while commuting to and from work and I decided to start the first novella in a series by Bre Faucheux.

Title: The Resurgence of Violet Blake - book I in the Violet Blake series

Author: Bre Faucheux

Genre: YA paranormal

Publication Date: 2014

Format: e-book

This is the new cover

*Story:

The Resurgence of Violet Blake tells the story of Shawn Cassidy, a girl who descends from a line of healers. She has always known that she is a healer and she has tried to use her abilities whenever she can. This hasn't always been easy, because when she was younger she healed a girl too much too quickly and her mom and dad told her off because she nearly exposed her whole family. Secrecy is an important concept in this story: they have to keep their ability a secret because the world can't know there are healers around. She lives together with her mom and dad - who are both doctors - and her brother Gavin - a paramedic.

We meet Shawn while she is in high school, where she is having a bit of a rough time. Together with her best friend Lucas she tries to get through the (school)days without being overly noticed. But things start to change when the hottest guy in school, Carter, starts noticing her and even asks her out.

From there on the story takes off because a lot of events happen that turn Shawn's world upside down. I'm not going to tell you anything more because that might spoil you for the rest of the story.

*Characters:

- Shawn Cassidy: I instantly liked Shawn because I could kind of relate to her while she is in high school. She is trying to go through the day unnoticed, but when Carter asks her out she gets picked on by his ex-girlfriend. I was never bullied or anything, but because I had my own style, fellow pupils tended to laugh at me from time to time. Shawn's character goes through a lot of changes rather quickly (but not too quickly, the changes are still believeable).

-Shawn's parents: We don't really get to know them in this story. We are told that they work very hard and that there are days that Shawn hardly sees them at all. This means that Shawn and Gavin mostly had to look after themselves.

-Gavin: He's a paramedic. He was supposed to become a doctor just like his parents, but he wanted to rebel a bit, so he became a paramedic. He's a good guy who wants to help people out as much as he can.

-Carter: Shawn has had a crush on him since forever and she can hardly believe it when he starts showing interest in her. We don't really get to know him, just that there is more to him than first meets the eye.

-Lucas: He's Shawn's best (gay) friend and the best friend you can have. He always has her back and always gives her 'advice'.

-Liam: He's a guy working for the CIA who turns out to be someone completely different.

- Isaac: Liam's boss. He's a strange guy and a bit temperamental.

*Plot:
This novella is a set-up for the other novella's in this series. We get to know some characters that are going to play an important part in the rest of the series (which I have already read and absolutely love). This is a very fast-paced story, because a lot things have to happen in a limited number of pages. We don't get much world building, but that didn't bother me because the story takes place in a modern day America and England.

*Overall rating:
First of all: I read a version of this book that still had some spelling/grammatical mistakes. I know that Bre has been very busy revising the stories and she has just released the boxset of the series. Keep in mind she is a self-published author and she has to revise her own work.

I gave this book 3.75 stars on Goodreads. I really liked the story, but as always it took me a while to adjust to the fact that I was reading a novella. On the one hand I think things sometimes move too quickly, but on the other hand I'm always surprised that the book ends when it does. This book made me curious enough to immediately move on to book two in the series.

If you like paranormal stories about healers, then definitely pick this one up.

Bye

Annelies

You can get the box set from Amazon or Kobo 

Auto buy authors

Hi booklovers

I think every (avid) reader has some authors they'll buy every book they publish and I'm no exception.

Here are two of my auto buy authors:

1. Katie McGarry. Ever since reading Pushing the Limits I fell in love with her writing style, her characters, the stories...

Katie writes YA contemporary companion stories that have a bite to them. Granted, the structure of the PTL books are pretty similar: boy meets girl (or vice versa) and they usually come from different backgrounds, they have their problems and together they try to work through them. But that's okay, it doesn't bother me. I only recently discovered contemporary because I always thought that contemporary books have fluffy love stories and I don't like those. (Or rather, I didn't like them, I warming up to them.) But reading the PTL series proved me wrong. Sure, they are love stories, but they are not always lovey dovy. I really hope Katie will carry on with the PTL series because it was really nice to read more about Echo and Noah in Breaking the Rules. Also, BTR really shows how much Katie's writing style is evolving. This story was a bit more mature (not NA) without being too explicit. I truly hope that one day she'll write a sequel to Crash Into You because Rachel and Isaiah are one of my favourite YA couples. We already learn a bit more about them in Take Me On since that story centres around Rachel's brother West, but we don't get to see them nearly enough :-s

 

I currently own the complete Pushing the Limits-series: Pushing The Limits - Dare You To - Crash Into You - Take Me On - Breaking The Rules (I own the e-book, but I want to own the physical copy)

I'm going to pre-order her upcoming book Nowhere but here, the first in a new series. This is actually one of my most anticipated Spring releases. I'm so curious to see what this series will be about. This comes out May 26th.

2. Cora Carmack. Another author I discovered last year. Cora writes NA stories, both contemporary and paranormal. I started by reading her Losing it companion series and I really really liked them. Little warning, these books do contain sex scenes - as do most NA stories - but they fit the stories. It's not like it's one sex scene after another, it's just part of the story. NA stories focus more on characters in the age group of those graduating high school and making their life whether it's by going to college or finding jobs and all the issues that go with that. Usually, these are fun, exciting, sexy, quick reads and I really enjoy them. Sometimes, NA stories tend to be a bit 'more of the same', but I don't find that's the case with Cora's stories. 

She currently has three series out and some novella's. 

I own the Losing it series: Losing it - Keeping Her (novella) - Faking it - Finding it - Seeking Her (novella).

I also have the two current books in the Rusk University series: All Lined Up and All Broke Down.

I'm going to pre-order the next one, which is All Played Out. This one comes out May 12th.

 I also own Inspire, the first book in her Muse series, but I haven't read it yet. But being on an NA kick lately, I'm sure it won't be long before I do.

Since I'm not a big fan of the covers (except for Inspire) I own these books on my e-reader.

Let me know in the comments what some of your auto buy authors are.

Bye for now

Annelies

Review - The Elder Origins

Hi booklovers

Today I'm bringing you my very first book review.

I've just finished 'The Elder Origins #1' by Bre Faucheux. I've been following Bre's BookTube Channel for quite a while and last year we started talking via Twitter. I've been wanting to read some of her books and I've finally started her 'The Elder Origins' series.

I went into this expecting this to be a bit weird, because Bre had warned me about it several times. But since I enjoy weird, I was very curious to find out about the story.

*Story:

The story starts in 1346 where we meet Kuruk and his son He Lush Ka, the Elders of the Native American Vam-pyr-ei-ak Tribe. We don't find out much about them except that they have these visions in which they see 'the white men' coming.

Then we jump to England during the winter of 1347. We meet Madison and her brother Jamison during the Hundred Year War when their house and village are being burned to the ground by the French. Madison, Jamison and some other people from their village flee and set out to find a new place to live. The arrive at a seemingly uninhabited stretch of land in native America. They decide to settle there and start building new houses. Unfortunately, disaster strikes again. From there on lots of things start to happen...

*Characters:

- At first I thought Madison would be a soft-hearted girl who did everything her brother told her to. But soon you start to see that she has her own opinions and she frequently doubts her brother's beliefs. Throughout the story she develops a stronger character, although certain events still make her doubt things. I'm curious to see how she will evolve.

- Jamison is okay, but we don't get to know that much about him.

- I wanted to strangle Jayden right from the start, he is so annoying and stuck-up. I wonder how he will develop in the next story.

*Plot:

I really like the way Bre writes about vampires. I've read a couple of vampire books and I like this original take on them. I'm curious to see where the story will go from here.

*Overall rating:

I really liked this book. Even though Bre had warned me about it being weird, I found it to be intriguing. You get a glimpse of the Elders and then you move on to Madison's story. Because of the cliffhanger I really want to know what happens next, so I will be starting it very soon.

I give this book 3.5 / 5 stars. (I will make a post about my rating system soon)

If you like vampire stories that are a bit different mixed with historical things, this is a book you should pick up!

Let me know in the comments if you've read this book or if you want to read it.

Bye

Annelies