In My Mailbox 132

This meme was started by Kristi of The Story Siren who was inspired by Alea from Pop Culture Junkie. Check out their blogs for more information. All summaries are from the book jackets unless otherwise stated.

For review:

Dance of Shadows – Yelena Black (ARC)

Vanessa Adler attends an elite ballet school – the same one her older sister, Margaret, attended before she disappeared. Vanessa feels she can never live up to her sister’s shining reputation. But Vanessa, with her glorious red hair and fair skin, has a kind of power when she dances – she loses herself in the music, breathes different air, and the world around her turns to flames. Soon she attracts the attention of three men: gorgeous Zep, mysterious Josh, and the great, enigmatic choreographer Josef Zhalkovsky. When Josef asks Vanessa to dance the lead in the Firebird, she has little idea of the danger that lies ahead – and the burning forces about to be unleashed.

I can’t wait to get to stuck in to this! Thanks, Bloomsbury!

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares – Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I’ve left some clues for you.

If you want them, turn the page.

If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.

At the urge of her lucky-in-live brother, sixteen-year-old Lily has left a red notebook on her favourite bookshop shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept.

Curious, snarky Dash isn’t one to back down from a challenge – and the Book of Dares is the perfect thing to keep him occupied this Christmas.

As they send each other on a snowbound scavenger hunt across Manhattan, they’re falling for each other on paper. But finding out if their real selves share their on-page chemistry could be their biggest dare yet.

YAY! So excited to finally read this! Thanks Mira Ink!

Devil’s Bargain – Rachel Caine

Playing by the psychic underworld’s rules has a cost.

Jazz Callender’s whole life just got turned upside down. Her friend Ben’s been convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and Jazz is determined to clear his name, even if it means enlisting the help of dark forces.

Enter James, a stranger with a mysterious offer. If Jazz pledges to work for The Cross Society, a shadowy, secret organisation, he’ll help her save Ben.

But as she’s thrust into a world of psychic powers and dangerous magic, Jazz isn’t just bargaining for her firend’s freedm. She’s bargaining for her soul too.

And how high a price is she willing to pay?

Woop, Rachel Caine! Thanks again Mira!

Sophie

Third Year: Here I Come!

Hello my lovely readers,

As some of you may know, my university term starts next Monday for my final year at Bath Spa. Which is actually terrifying and horrible and I'm not ready to think about what comes next yet (can you tell I'm in denial about being a proper grown-up soon?). 

I've just finished writing the dates of all my assignments in to my diary and it turns out that I have a crapload of reading and writing to do this year so I'm afraid that the blog will have to take a back seat. I promise I'll still be around, commenting on your posts and procrastinating on Twitter, but as my reading will have to focus on all of the interesting (and intimidating) texts for my modules, reading for fun will likely slow down quite a lot. 

I'm going to do my best to still get a review out a week, but I can't promise anything - I'm doing an entire module on Virginia Woolf and I suspect that'll take some serious brain power... And then I actually have to do a dissertation and three other modules. If you're at all curious, my dissertation will be 10,000 words of a young adult contemporary novel. I'm excited and scared and totally ready for it!

I'll still be around, so please don't hesitate to say hi if you're missing me (I hope you are...) and I will still be checking the blog obsessively for comments and views so I hope you'll all stick around!

Sophie xx

Sweet Venom - Tera Lynn Childs

Sweet Venom – Tera Lynn Childs

Pages: 360

Publisher: Templar

Release Date: 4^th September 2012

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Oh.My.Gods., Goddess Boot Camp, Forgive My Fins, Fins are Forever

GRACE is new in town. It’s scary, starting over, but it gets scarier when she runs into a minotaur. And scarier still when a girl who looks just like her rocks up to fight it.

GRETCHEN is fed up of fighting monsters, especially on school nights. Getting rid of a minotaur is easy, but she never expected to run into her double in the process.

GREER is perfection personified. But her world is knocked off its immaculate axis when two identical girls appear on her doorstep and claim they’re all demon-hunting sisters.

Meet Grace, Gretchen and Greer- three teenage descendents of Medusa must embrace their fates in a world where mythological monsters hide in plain sight.

I enjoyed Tera Lynn Childs’ previous books which had a basing in Greek mythology so I was expecting to love Sweet Venom, but unfortunately fell a little short for me.

Sweet Venom began well with a dual narration split between Gretchen and Grace who couldn’t be more different. Greer doesn’t come into the story until about three quarters of the way through the novel and I couldn’t help but feel that it would have been so much better if her existence wasn’t mentioned in the blurb of the book. It could have been a fantastic plot twist, but instead I was waiting for her to appear.

I did find all three of the sisters to be fairly stereotypical, however. They were each so different that they fell into types of people that wouldn’t get along in a high school setting. I guess it just felt a little done before. That said, I did really love Grace – she was the first of the three characters that felt real to me. Saying that, Gretchen, Grace and Greer all had distinct and clear voices that were easily distinguishable. There were some very intriguing secondary characters as well: Milo, Nick, Thane and Ms West to name but a few...

I’ve been a fan of Greek mythology since being introduced to it in year five so I’m always up for a re-telling and Medusa is one that I haven’t come across very often. I loved Tera Lynn Childs’ take on Medusa’s story and her legacy and I hope that there will be a lot more about it in subsequent books.

Sadly, I did feel rather pressured to read Sweet Venom so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I may have under my own steam. I was intrigued by the mythology, however, so I may still read the rest of the series.

Thank you to Templar for sending me a copy for review.

Sophie 

The Diviners - Libba Bray

The Diviners – Libba Bray

Pages: 578

Publisher: Atom (Little, Brown)

Release Date: 18^th September 2012

Edition: UK hardback, review copy

Other Titles b this Author: A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing, Going Bovine, Beauty Queens

Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustle of New York City – and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will – and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realises her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides behind a shocking secret.

And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened...

The Diviners was everything I hoped it would be: creepy, atmospheric, vivid and involving. If you want to jump into the heart of 1920s New York City, this is your book.

Libba Bray has a way with words. There’s no doubt about it. From the very beginning of The Diviners, Evie’s world is created with an atmospheric and sumptuous prose that curls itself around your brain and hangs on so you can slip straight back in again. There’s the hint of threat and danger and the creep-factor only gets stronger and stronger as the novel progresses. Even though at nearly 600 pages, it’s a pretty daunting book, once you’ve read the first few chapters and become immersed in Libba Bray’s flawless writing, you’ll glide through it and never want it to end.

Probably my favourite element of The Diviners is how thoroughly evoked 1920s New York is. Place is very important to me.  Like a novel to be grounded in its setting and it to be almost a character in itself. Libba Bray knocks this out of the park. Evie and her friends speak with perfectly nuanced 20s slang and use terms that I’ve never even heard of, but they made the novel and Evie herself feel so, so authentic and genuine.

As well as the slang and expected visits to speakeasies, remnants of the Great War and a general disregard for the Prohibition, The Diviners also includes lots of pop culture references from 1926. There was death of Rudolph Valentino, sex symbol and actor, that traumatised many teenage girls and mentions of his films, the poetry of Langston Hughes and brief references to F Scott Fitzgerald and his boozy lifestyle. In doing this, Libba Bray doesn’t only tell a story, she really brings it to life and thoroughly involves you in it.

The occult and the supernatural is a big part of the novel. I loved how Evie didn’t just discover it after moving to New York and becoming embroiled in the murders, but had experience in it from her special gift. Her gift was pretty cool as well. I really liked that it was subtle and unexpected; it’s an unusual, but extremely cool power. Evie obviously comes under the header of a group called the Diviners, but there was also a plethora of obscure cult and occult mythology and belief that has flooded the US from all of the emigration of different cultures. That was very clever – I loved it.

As the final epic action sequence of The Diviners beckons, the second book in the series is immediately begun to be set up. When Evie finally comes face to face with Naughty John, a new threat is promised and so many questions pop up. What really happened to James? What’s Project Buffalo? And just what is good ole’ Uncle Will hiding...?

With some serious foreshadowing and tantalising questions, Libba Bray left me aching for the next instalment of The Diviners series.

For my 2012 YA Historical Fiction Challenge

Thank you to Atom for providing me with a review copy.

Sophie 

In My Mailbox 131

This meme was started by Kristi of The Story Siren who was inspired by Alea from Pop Culture Junkie. Check out their blogs for more information. All summaries are from the book jackets unless otherwise stated.

For review:

Mystic City – Theo Lawrence

Manhattan lies underwater.

The corrupt rulers of this new city live high above the flood and survive by channelling the energy of the mystics – a magic-wielding underclass who are forced to live amongst the poor in the squalor of the Depths.

High in the Aeries, Aria Rose’s fiancé has promised that their marriage will unite two of the city’s ruling dynasties. But the gap’s in Aria’s memory tell her that this romance isn’t all it seems – and the appearance of Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic and passionate revolutionary, is about to change the course of her life forever.

I’m really loving the sound of this one. Thanks Random House!

A Reckless Magick – Stephanie Burgis

Kat’s back for her third adventure, and as usual, social disaster is following in her wake...

When the Stephenson family travel to a grand country house in Devon for her sister Angeline’s wedding, Kat is stalked by a dangeorus magical enemy and finds everything she thought she knew about her late mother called into question.

With smugglers, sabotage, tangled romance and plenty of magical activity at work, it’s down to Kat to protect her family and her country from impending ruin.

I love this series so I can’t wait to get stuck in to this! Thanks, Templar!

Sophie