Eve of Samhain by Lisa Sanchez Review

Five Stars!

I absolutely loved this story, which was told brilliantly by Lisa Sanchez. I couldn't stop reading this book until the end, and I didn't really want to stop then. I wanted more!

Ryann is a college student who works at a bar as a server and has a crazy busy life. She lives in an apartment with her best friend Jessica, and soon after the book starts a new roommate moves in with them. Her name is Martha and she dresses in black and has all kinds of crazy stuff in her room. Witch books and Jessica soon gets freaked out by her. Martha's attitude doesn't help matters much, either.

>One night while Ryann is at work she meets a man she can't take her eyes off of. Of course he has a date, though. And she only liked him until he opened his mouth. He was a pigheaded jerk, conceited and just plain rude. Until she gets to know him and finds out his real story.

Quinn quickly becomes her friend, even though she longs for more from him. They become inseparable. But there's one twist, they can never touch each other because of Quinn's curse. Frustration surrounds them wherever they go because they both feel the pull toward each other, but can never act on it. I don't want to give away too much, but I just love how their story unfolds. Quinn is such a jerk when they meet, but soon becomes everything any woman would want. Protective, loyal and kind, he treats Ryann like he never has treated any other woman. What girl wouldn't love that? And as they grow together, I just love how their love develops and changes each of them because ultimately that is what true love should do.

This story was beautifully told and I would highly recommend it. The characters are definitely well developed and to me that is what makes a good story. Lisa Sanchez brought a great story to life, full of imagination and action-packed to boot.

Review for Zarconian Island by Aja Hannah

Aja Hannah really did a great job with Zarconian Island! When I read the synopsis I thought it seemed like a really interesting idea, and it was brilliantly executed. Attie was a wonderful main character.

This book started with Attie and some of her friends from her school winning a trip to Hawaii on a cruise ship. She was hesitant about going, but decided to go. She continued to get strange sensations while on the ship and even overheard two deckhands talking about how they were off course. This all led to the boat being attacked and sunk by some giant whales, whales she hadn't ever seen before except for on documentaries. Five of them made it off the boat and onto an island, an abandoned island with strange prehistoric type animals on it.

Attie and Doug became close and soon learned they were both Zarconian. Their relationship developed quickly, but I assumed that is how it worked when you were of another world. Michelle, another of their classmates, became their healer and Kate and Bryan helped out whenever they could. Another survivor, Jack, was soon found when they were being attacked by giant ostrich type birds. He joined their group and together they trekked through this strange island, changing camp sites often due to predator animals and finding food and such.

There was a lot going on in this book and I loved all the action thrown in with the romance. It really kept my interest throughout. I couldn't wait to finish this one. I don't want to give too much away, but I would definitely put this in my must read category.

I hope you all enjoy Zarconian Island as much as I did!

Review for Once Upon a Changeling by V.J. Chambers

Let me start by saying Once Upon a Changeling was a good read. I can't say that it was a great read, but it was good. It started out kind of slow for me; was kind of hard to get into but the end caught me and it was exciting so I was glad that I finished it.

Russ Knight is a teenage boy who's girlfriend, Cindi, cheated on him and got pregnant, then had a baby in the bathroom on prom night and tried to get rid of said baby by disposing of it in the garbage after trying to suffocate it. After this happened, she went on as usual and even went back to dance with her boyfriend. Sounds a little crazy, right? That was before she started rambling about how her baby was a changeling and they took the real baby and she was supposed to kill the changeling in order to get her real baby back. Interesting idea and very creative writing from V.J. Chambers, but even with all that going on I just thought Russ was kind of annoying. Here he has this beautiful, popular girlfriend who is just using him for appearance but she's sleeping with half the school behind his back. She gets pregnant by another guy and doesn't even know, goes to the bathroom during the school dance and delivers the baby, tries to kill it and Russ takes responsibility for this child even though he never even slept with his own girlfriend. My sentiments went out to him, but how could someone be so incredibly blind?

Needless to say Cindi ends up in a mental hospital and Russ loses all his friends while everyone continually ridicules him. He befriends a strange new girl, Puck. And Marcos, a guy from his shop class.

Puck turns out to be a faerie. She ends up helping Russ and Marcos in their endeavors to get the real baby back. The story picked up for me as it went along, but it never really popped.

I think the reason I had a hard time getting into this book was because it just fell a little flat. Russ was supposed to be brave, and he was at certain times, but he didn't seem like a hero to me. At least until the end. All in all I give the book 3 stars. It was well written and descriptive which was nice. A good read, but not a book I would read over and over again.

Review for Real Vampires Don't Sparkle by Amy Fecteau

Amy Fecteau did a great job bringing this book to life. It is exciting, adventurous and it's action packed. Throw in some romance and it was everything I love in a book. Unfortunately, when I signed up to review this book I chose it because of its title, thinking it was going to be a quirky read and lots of fun. I really had no idea this book was about gay vampires. Nevertheless, after the initial shock in finding this out, I rather enjoyed the read.

Matheus is funny. He is definitely a Debbie-downer in a lot of ways, but he is definitely funny. I kind of fell in love with him, as well as Quin, even though I kind of didn't like him very much at the beginning when he made Matheus into a vampire without his consent. That is definitely a no-no in my book. You don't just go around turning people because you feel like it. Not cool at all.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way Quin and Matheus interacted with each other. Their witty repertoire had me completely entertained and I kept turning the pages. It wasn't long into it that I realized Matheus had a whole lot of denial going on in his life, with a whole lot of things. Add in the mess with his father and how he grew up. Yikes. Poor Matheus didn't need all the crazy in his life. But crazy is what he got.

Getting turned into a vampire was, mostly, the last thing on Matheus' mind most of the time. After it happened he has only a short amount of time to adjust until he is thrown into a hunt, which was only the start of his initiation into the undead world he was thrust into. I enjoyed the way these characters were written. Amy Fecteau brought them to life for me, and it felt as if I had known them all for years.

I don't want to spoil too much about this book, but I would definitely recommend this to my friends. I enjoyed this author's writing style. The only thing I didn't like was the ending, which I didn't even see coming when I turned to the last page holding only a couple of sentences. To me, I didn't feel like it was an ending. I didn't even feel like it was a cliffhanger, which would have made me a little less frustrated than I was. But all in all, I give Real Vampires Don't Sparkle 3 stars because the ending didn't satisfy me enough to bump it up to 4, however I would recommend this book for people to read.

Review for Buried by Gerily Marin

Cadence McKenna lives in a town called Fane's Cove. In this town, all kinds of crazy ghostly happening occur, quite frequently, and everyone who lives there knows their town is haunted. I have the give credit to the author, I just loved this story from beginning to end. It was well written, minus a few typos here and there, but I'm talking more about the quality of the writing. It was descriptive, I loved the characters and felt like they could be my friends.

So Cadence starts out rather openly glaring at a boy in school who she thinks has something to hide. And she doesn't just do it once or twice, she goes on and on just glaring and scowling at him at every opportunity. That is, until her friend gives her a brilliant idea. She should just ask him out on a date, that way she can get to know him better and find out the answers to the questions she has about him. Well, why didn't she think of that herself.

And that is where it all starts, the story unfolds after Grey Addison and Cadence go on their first, fake, date. There were so many things that I liked about this book it would be too hard to list them all, but I will list a few. The plot was very interesting and developed to where there was always something exciting happening to keep my attention fully engrossed in this book. I even took it with me to work and read on my breaks, which is something I generally don't do because I only have fifteen minutes, or a half hour. That just doesn't seem like enough time and I am not someone who likes to put a book down if it is good. But I did, even though I didn't want to. The characters were developed and very believable. And I just loved the ending, which I really didn't see coming at all.

Bravo to Gerilyn Marin, who does a fantastic job delivering us a well thought out book full of surprises. A definite must-read, if I say so myself!