Stolen Away - Alyxandra Harvey

This book played up to my love of all things faerie and fantasy. Not the cutsey thing of fairy tales and true love, but something a bit darker and more alluring.
<----Plus it looked pretty :D
It's a pretty standard premise: girl discovers family links to the Good Neighbours that end up coming home to bite them, plus some great friends and a splattering of supernatural romance. But luckily, some formulae are used often BECAUSE THEY WORK.
First off, there are our two main characters (that was a surprise - I was only expecting one): Eloise and Jo, best friends with lots of similarities but querks of their own - Eloise's quieter behaviour and Jo's fettishes for example. Eloise is the one with the faerie problem and Jo tries to help her out. These two made the story work for me and kept me entertained.
All the places and characters were wondefully described and it was really easy to imagine. I had a little trouble picturing Eloise at first as we didn't get a physical description of her until a little way in and she did not fit any of the stereotype images that my mind provided me with, but I got her after a few chapters. All of the characters seemed to have some sort of back story that was explained by the end and you could tell where most of their motivations stemmed from.
There were a few things that bugged me about the story though. First of was a major case of insta-love: not the couple-of-weeks-to-becoming-a-perfect-couple kind, the within-two-days-declaring-their-love kind. It was really only two days! The initial attraction between them was fine - from the description I'd jump him too - but how quickly it progressed to love was irritating. And there was the second case that wasn't as bad as the first but, again, travelled far to fast for me to believe it.
Overall, the entire time-frame of the book wasn't great: for three people who didn't believe in the supernatural they acclimatise to it all ridiculously quickly, even for book characters. It wasn't an absolute disaster and I still enjoyed the story but this niggled at me quite a bit.
In the end, I liked it a lot but there were just a few things that didn't sit right. As far as I can tell this is a stand-alone but I may venture to read a sequel if one appears.

Night School - C.J. Daugherty

I actually bought this book while I was busy reading another and I had planned to wait until the first was finished before I dug into this one. However, this one just kept looking so tempting just lying on my table that I abandoned the first book.
<---- I mean, just look at it!

Anyway, after completely ignoring my reading principles, I opened this book with high hopes - the description was as alluring as the front cover.

I'd expected to find some supernatural elements to this book, but it turned out there was as much magic in it as a lawnmower. But in the end that hardly mattered - there was enough going on without it. Far most grisley and gritty than expected, lots of plot twists - though they became more and more predictable - and lashings of humor.

Some characters were a little flat and I didn't like the fact that a couple of them kept switching from loveable to someone-I'd-be-willing-to-punch-in-the-face (okay, when it's someone who's fighting feelings I can cope with it, but when that someone is meant to be the 'best friend' ?), but the developed characters were well done and there are plenty that you know have a back story but you just don't know what it is yet. I liked our protagonist, Allie, who was nice and spunky, by no means a push-over and really relatable. And you could see her change and grow throughout the book, opening up more and becoming much more steady on her feet.

There were points where the story dragged a little and it was pretty obvious from the start who Allison was going to end up with, plus the inevitable love triangle situation that will no doubt play a part in the sequel. There were also far too many unanswered questions for my tastes. One or two things still unexplained are fine, but most of the things that were mysteries at the beginning still are by the time you close the book.
A good book to occupy yourself with but not one to read if you don't want to commit to a series. It's definitely only the start.

Insatiable - Meg Cabot

Well, another thing I tend to avoid: a vampire novel. But this one is more Adult than YA and by a well-established author (though, I'm ashamed to say, not one I'd actually read before) so I decided to give it a go.

The blurb was definitely a draw - someone who's sick of how often vampires pop up in modern culture, fits me perfectly - and it gave away very little of the story. No choice but to dive straight in!

Well, Meg Cabot definitely lived up to her reputation and I was hooked from the start. The main character, Meena, was wondefully ordinary with a few quirks and some supernatural excess baggage, but that excess baggage never seemed to take over the storyline - it was just there adding extra drama which didn't hurt at all. The supporting cast, also, were well developed and all had their own agendas, making for some amusing situations (Alaric and Jon in particular, one is clearly exasperated while the other won't give up pestering). There were one or two dotted around who I found a little two-dimensional, but it didn't bother me much and it's really only looking back that I noticed it.

The plot meanwhile, while predictable at points, certainly kept me entertained and there were some very unexpected twists towards the end. And the ending itself, while definitely setting up for the sequel, didn't just trail off like I'd been afraid it would. A couple of cases of insta-love (or at least insta-crush) thrown in there but none of them disaterous.

All in all making me much less leery about modern vampire books and I'll be keeping an eye out for the next.

Burn Mark - Laura Powell

Well, I definitely powered through this book - less than 24 hours I think.
I hadn't read any books by this author before. I picked it up because it had a really interesting premise: the modern world but with public awareness of witches.
The setting definitely proved interesting and well thought out: witches weaved into different parts of history and modern society. I also loved the way magic is actually described and used - not with ease as is often the case. Some parts of the plot were a little unbelievable for me: leaving the breaking and entering to one teenage boy, with the risk of arrest and torture, didn't make any sense to me (classic example of splitting-up and failing).
As far as the characters went; most ended up feeling fairly flat and stereotypical to me. There were the Thugs, the Well-Meaning Officials, the Bigoted Idiots and plenty more. Luckily I didn't really have time to focus on them with the fast  pace of the story. As for the main characters, I loved Lucas. You understood perfectly the struggle he was going through and really rooted for him. Glory, on the other hand, grated after a while. She started off quite interesting but became, if not arrogant, then certainly overly cocky. Still, she wasn't your average teenage heroine and I did manage to stand her until the end of the book.
It's definitely fast-paced and with plenty of drama, but it didn't quite have me on the edge of my seat. There aren't many things I could pick out that I found I didn't like about it; it just didn't quite seem to pack enough of a punch. Certainly readable but not memorable.

Until I Die - Amy Plum

Okay, normally I'm not a huge fan of Paranormal Romance and I get very annoyed if the whole story just becomes about the romance rather than the supernatural element. Thankfully, Amy Plum has managed not to do that: certainly the story does focus around the romance, but the supernatural is by no means lost amidst all the fluffiness.
I originally picked up the first of this trilogy, Die For Me, a year ago when I was short of things to read. I thought it would be interesting but not necessarily my cup of tea. How wrong I was. It seemed to tick all my boxes while still being mainly a romance: there was action, there was mystery, danger, a wondefully constructed romance (obviously), fun characters, witty exchanges - the lot. Overall I wouldn't say I was completely overwhelmed by it, but I certainly enjoyed reading it and was eager for the next installment.

Sadly, despite an awful lot of searching, I didn't manage to find a copy of Until I Die until nearly two months after it was released (which lost me the chance to win a signed bookplate). My heart nearly leapt out of my chest when I finally spotted a copy, standing on a shelf in Smiths next to Die For Me. Needless to say, I grabbed it before any other pesky reader could. Within half a hour I'd found a cafe and started reading.
The stakes had definitely been upped in this book and you got quite a few shocks as you went along. I started off fairly certain that the book would go in one direction, but then it veered off in a completely different one. The characters are just as I remembered from the previous book, exactly how I liked them, and I got to hear new stories from some of them while I learned about the new characters as well. The new characters were intriguing and - until a certain twist - you grow to love them (or dislike them) along with the protagonist.
Kate, the main character, is still a normal girl that you can relate to, but she is slowly but surely coming into herself and you can see the kick-ass heroine beginning to emerge. Vincent is as charming as ever and I really wish he was real at times. Jules and Ambrose are ever the flirts, and Jules is still being wonderful by keeping tight-lipped about his feelings for Kate.
The book ends on a massive cliff-hanger that left me gasping for more, but sadly I'm going to have to wait until May next year to get my answers. It's clearly setting up for the sequel, leaving plenty of questions, but is still a fantastic book in its own right.
Thank you, Amy. I can't wait for If I Should Die.

A Witch In Love - Ruth Warburton

I read the first book in the Winter Trilogy, A Witch In Winter, a few months ago and completely loved it; from the British coastal setting, to the magic, to the steamy romance brewing throughout. So I was naturally eager for the sequel to come out and quickly checked the publishing date: luckily I only had a few months to wait (February to July 5th).
I was actually fortunate to find a copy on sale a week early and snapped it up immediately. I had it devoured in less than 24 hours.

These were my thoughts:
This book is a lot darker than the other at points and there's an awful lot of drama (torture!!). As in the last, the writing is vivid and fun and Anna's voice isn't at all whiney or irritating; just an ordinary teenage girl with some extra-ordinary powers. Her lack of faith in her and Seth's relationship did begin to grate, especially as he was trying so hard to convince her and really putting himself out there in the open. I completely understood his decision at the end (which I will not share - spoilers!), though it still was very upsetting: Anna needs to sort herself out. Hopefully they can work things out in the next book.
The intrigue has certainly stepped up in this book and, as a reader, I've got no idea who Anna should trust and who she shouldn't; this definitely made things very interesting and unpredictable. It's also nice that we're finding out more and more of Anna's background as she does, though there's still more for her to find.  There's still an awful lot of unanswered questions at the end, but that's going to keep me hanging on for the last book in the trilogy.
I liked seeing more sides to some of the characters that we met in the last book: Emmeline's girly side and Anna's Dad's angry side, for example. They're feeling a lot more 3-dimensional now. And then - one of my personal favourites - we references to things like A-Levels: things that ordinary girls have to worry about and that I've just gone through myself. It grounds the whole thing a little bit.

My only negative thing to say, is that I'm sensing a love triangle being set up. In some situations I do like them and they add levels, but I think in this book there are loads of those already and this might just be too much. For all I know it could be really good and play out well, but - for now - I'm a bit wary.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and I look forward to A Witch Alone.

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

First thoughts after finishing were: wow, I need to read that again!
As intricate, intriguing and carefully put together as the Wunschtraum Clock described in its pages. You get drawn in by the tantalising descriptions of the circus and then bound in place by the delicately building romance and your own curiosity, to find out what exactly is going on in the Cirque de Reves. While not exactly a quick read, I at no point felt bored with the story and was just as eager to carry on. This is not a book to be devoured, so much as slowly taken in.
The main and secondary characters were well developed and each very individual, though I would have liked to have learnt a bit more about Poppet and Widget. I started off think that the story would be mainly about Marco and Celia, but then Bailey was introduced, and Mr Barris got his own section, and they all added their own tones and points of view to the story.
I got a little confused by the jumping times at first, but eventually just went with it and found it quite atmospheric - to have bits of the story developing at different rates - and it all tied up nicely at the end.
Overall, an enchanting read and definitely something I will be revisiting.