Greetings from New York City, where I’m currently partaking of a super fun girls weekend of author signings with the fabulous Gail from Ticket To Anywhere.  We’ve been to The Strand, Grand Central Station and had some pizza at a little hole in the wall she knew.

Let’s take a look at where you all have been the past couple of weeks.

Georgia

A Novel Source reviews Natasha Threthewey’s Native Guard

North Carolina

BooknAround reviews Tender Graces by Kathyrn Magendie

Nebraska

Word Lily reviews Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop

Pennsylvania

Beth Fish Reads spotlights Jonathan Sturak author of Clouded Rainbow

New South Wales (Australia)

Reading Upside Down reviews Anita Heiss’ Manhattan Dreaming

Thanks for a great trip!

If you are interested in participating in the Literary Road Trip please be sure to head over to the main page (a link is in the top navigation) and sign up. I’d love to have you! Until next time, safe travels.

Title: Hearts at Stake: The Drake Chronicles
Author: Alyxandra Harvey
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Walker & Company
Source: Provided by Publisher
Parental Warning: Vampirism, Paranormal Activity, Ritual Sacrifice

“Being the only girl in a family of boys would have been tough enough to navigate, never mind a family with the rare ability to give birth to mostly male vampires.  Even among the Drakes, that ability is rare.  Most vampires are “made,” not born.  My mom, for example, had been human until my dad turned her shortly after I was born and they’d decided they didn’t want any more children.  He’d been born human too, like my brothers, until his sixteenth birthday — when he’d sickened, the way we all did — and would have died if my aunt hadn’t given him her blood to drink.”

Summary:
Solange is the lone daughter living among seven sons born to the Drake family.  Not your typical large family, the Drakes must also contend with being vampires attempting to live peacefully among humans.  Blending in to the best of their ability they attempt to keep the most glaring differences unnoticed by the local community as much as possible.  Only a few humans know anything about their secrets – fortunately for Solange one of them is her best friend Lucy.

A fiercely loyal friend Lucy finds herself in the middle of what’s to become a vampire war.  As it turns out Solange is the only female to have been born a vampire as opposed to having been made.  This makes her royalty, a future vampire queen in fact.  A future queen, that is, with more than one target on her back.

Given her potential to reign, Solange is targeted in a variety of ways.  Intrigues conducted by competing rulers are set in motion to either kill her or marry her off to rival factions in an attempt to gain power.  Given the precarious circumstances of her ascension her family attempts to protect her at all costs.  Of course, as one would imagine this teenager, equipped with curiosity and an inquisitive (and pushy) human best friend, sets out to solve all of her family’s problems on her own.

Confronting vampire hunters, ancient rulers of other families, potential romantic entanglements and even her own family Solange travels a path that could take her away from everyone and everything she loves forever.

Opinion:
Gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It was just the right combination of vampire family intrigue, romance and supernatural folklore to keep me interested and wanting more.  In fact I’m looking forward to reading the second in the series when it’s released in June 2010.

The plot was very straight forward.  Given the setting in current day small town USA, there wasn’t much in the way of world building necessary here.  I will say, however, that the settings felt appropriately dark and dank.  There was a richness in tone that portrayed a somewhat  ancient vibe without going too far into the past.

Where the story is at it’s best is in the history Harvey created for The Drakes.  Their past was both intricate and powerful.  Even better is that fact that she didn’t have to weave in copious amounts of twists and turns that would confuse the reader.  It was, in fact, quite straight forward which I liked.  Specifically, the mystery was in how the Drakes would overcome the adversity they were faced with as compared to the reader figuring everything out by having to wade through all the minute and unnecessary details of their past.

Most importantly, what it all comes down to is that this was a character driven story.  I loved the characters I was supposed to love, I hated those I was supposed to hate, and I loved to hate each and every person I was intended to love to hate.  I was rooting for Solange and her best friend Lucy to be successful.  I was rooting for their respective pairings to flourish and develop in the ways they were hoping for them to be so.  All in all, even though there were some surprises here and there I believe I reacted to this story as the writer intended me to.

To that end the ride towards the final result (which I won’t spill here) was filled with fun and exciting twists and turns.  It’s a quick enjoyable read, particularly for those that like the paranormal.

Good morning friends!  Or at this point I supposed I should say good afternoon…heck maybe even good evening, LOL.  Since I’ve been such a bad blogger again this week I don’t have much in the way of useful information to share.  So instead I’m going to provide you a list.

Woo Hoo! good times!

The purpose of this list is two fold.  One to show you what I’ve been reading and what needs reviewing (I swear I’m going to get to writing all of them).  Which then brings me to purpose number two — this list will shame….er, ah….motivate me into making progress on writing said reviews.

Currently I’m reading an ARC of Riding Invisible by Sandra Alonzo and illustrated by Nathan Huang.  It’s the story of a young boy who hops on his horse and runs away from home. One of the only things he thinks to take with him in his back pack is a journal to keep track of his travels.  Published by Disney Hyperion and written in journal format so far it’s a quick read.

What have I read before that?  Here is the giant list of books that require review writing:

• Cracked Up to Be – Summers
• Tomorrow, When the War Began – Marsden
• A Killing Frost – Marsden
• The Dead of Night – Marsden
• Nothing But Ghosts – Kephart
• Into the Wild Nerd Yonder – Halpern
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox – Pearson
• The Dead and the Gone – Pfeffer
• The World I Live In – Pfeffer
• The Wedding Girl – Wickham (audio)
• Someone Like You – Dessen (audio)
• Something Maybe – Scott (audio)
• Beautiful Creatures – Garcia/Stohl
• Shiver – Stiefvater
• Catching Fire – Collins
• Sweethearts – Zarr
• The Unit – Holmqvist
• Liar – Larbalestier
• The Dark Divine – Despain
• The Iron King – Kagawa
• Speak – Anderson
• Hearts at Stake – Harvey
• The Lonely Hearts Club – Eulberf
• The Returners – Malley
• The Sky Is Everywhere – Nelson
• Epitaph Road – Patneaude
• Before I Fall – Oliver
• Tagged – Purnhagen
• Aurelia – Osterfund
• The Line – Hall
• The Dead Tossed Waves – Ryan

It scares me to admit that some of these books date back as far as the summer!  Heck some I read as part of the last read-a-thon and since the next one is quickly approaching I’m thinking that this means I better get cracking! LOL

Here’s to hoping this giant list gives me a bit of incentive.

What are you reading?

Title: Merlin’s Harp
Author: Anne Eliot Crompton
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Source: Provided by Publisher
Parental Warning: Sexuality, Battle Violence

“We walked the sky, halfway to the Flowering Moon.  Far below us, two statue-quiet figures faced once another on a high earth rampart.  Below them on one side stretched earth, Goddess-lovely, clothed in silver night; on the other side Human bodies walked, made love, fought, ate or slept; Human spirits hovered like shining bees over clover, some in the flowers and some slightly above. A very few stood with us in the sky, like distant stars.  The nearest of these I thought might be Merlin.”

Summary:
Nivienne is of the Fey, living her life across two worlds.  The first, her home, filled with fairy and mystical creatures provides her happiness and a degree of solitude she longingly hopes to embrace for the remainder of her life.  The second, the land of humans, where pain and sacrifice took hold of the people whom she loved most.

A prodigy of Merlin, Nivienne travels with him between her beloved Avalon to the land of King Arthur in order to assist in various intrigues to keep the Peace.  Having lost the only child she’d ever born, endured her brother’s departure from their home, and losing the only man she could see herself connected to she felt no true allegiance to love.  Until one day in the throws of palace intrigue she finds her heart suddenly beating again; she finds that in keeping the Peace she could find happiness. Now she sets out to help save not only Arthur’s land but her own as well.

Opinion:
Touted as a new and different interpretation of Arthurian legend I thought perhaps this book would be a good bridge into fantasy for a reader somewhat interested in exploring the genre.  Unfortunately it fell short in that regard.  It was such a tough read that it did more to turn me off the genre than on.

The flowery and excessive prose made it, at times, difficult to follow.  I never really got a clear picture of what either land looked like.  Apple Valley (ie: Avalon) was slightly more vivid than Arthur’s kingdom but all things considered the characters hopped so quickly between different settings it was tough to grasp on to any sense of place or time.  Speaking of which, I had no idea if we were in the present or the past or seeing some sort of Fey vision of the future.

Not having read much in this genre or much in the way of Arthurian literature some of the intricacies were lost on me.  However, I will say I found some of the characterizations and relationships developed to have quite a bit of potential.  I would really have enjoyed seeing more of Lugh and the Fey girl he’d left behind.  I actually found that element of the story (while extremely short lived) quite compelling.  Heck I would have chucked the whole Arthurian aspect to just focus on that part of the story entirely.

In the end, what I take away from having read this book is that this type of fantasy isn’t for me.  Perhaps lovers of the genre will read it and find it’s strengths, I would certainly enjoy hearing a different perspective.

[This review is part of a blog tour arranged by Sourcebooks Fire where you can view a list of the participating blogs]

World peace be damned!

With the highly anticipated release of the third book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy less than six months away we must once again get our debate on about a very very serious issue that has arisen out of the ashes of The Districts. Over on Scholastic’s blog On Our Minds the awesomeness that is Beth Fish Reads and I are debating highly charged and life altering issues.  You guessed it — Team Peeta (woot woot!) versus Team Gale (boo, hiss).

I suppose you already know which side I’m on but in case you’re interested (which I know you aren’t) Beth Fish makes some mighty fine points for the Gale lovers out there.

Please go and check it out then weigh in on where you stand even if it is the wrong side. For now I leave you with my less than surprising declaration of which team I’m on!