My So-Called Phantom Lovelife – Tamsyn Murray
Pages: 209
Publisher: Piccadilly Press
Release Date: 1st March 2011
Other Titles in this Series: My So-Called Afterlife, My So-Called Haunting
I knew the boy was different when I saw him walk on water.
When fourteen-year-old Skye Thackery meets Owen Wicks, it’s not exactly love at first sight. She’s getting over a broken heart and he’s, well, a ghost.
But as Skye gets to know him, she can't help wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Dating a ghost isn’t easy, and things get worse when Owen declares he’s found a way to stay with Skye for ever.
As Owen prepares to risk everything, Skye wonders if his desire to be more than just a ghost will cost them everything.
I thoroughly enjoy this series. They are funny, intelligent and easy reads that also have elements of darkness in them.
Tamsyn Murray has drawn up a set of brilliant characters. Skye is an amazing protagonist: her snarky comebacks and quick wit make me snigger every time; her boy issues sit along with her growing struggles with being psychic so perfectly that it doesn’t really occur to you me it’s slightly strange to have them need equal brain space until after and her relationship with Celestine and Jeremy makes me smile. Then you have the darkly arresting Nico who I couldn’t decide whether I liked or trusted for quite a while and Mary, the ghost who haunts Skye’s house, whose funny 16th Century speech lightens the mood regardless of the omens that she declares.
My So-Called Phanton Lovelife cements a style that I’ve come to associate with Tamsyn Murray. I perfect blend of stylish, modern writing, light humour and darker moments create a beautifully written and balanced novel that I would recommend to anyone with good taste in books. Along with this, Tamsyn Murray gets in lots of subtle pop culture references that fix My So-Called Phantom Lovelife firmly in 2011. Though this is a positive now, it may date the book very quickly.
I’ve loved every book in this series and I highly recommend you all read them while I wait impatiently for Tamsyn’s next book.
For my British Books Challenge 2011
Sophie
Afterlife – Claudia Gray
Pages: 360
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 3rd March 2011
Other Titles in this Series: Evernight, Stargazer, Hourglass
!SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ THE SUMMARY AND REVIEW IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE SERIES.
Destiny awaits Bianca and Lucas...
Bianca and Lucas have always believed they could endure anything to be together. When a twist of fate not only transform Bianca into a wraith but also turns Lucas into a vampire – the very creature he spent his life hunting – they are left reeling.
Haunted by his powerful need to kill, Lucas can turn to only one place for help...Evernight Academy. Bianca is determined to remain with him. But with the vampire leader of Evernight waging a war against wraiths, her former home has become the most dangerous place she could be, despite the new powers her ghostly transformation has given her.
A battle between wraiths and vampires looms, and Bianca and Lucas face a terrifying new reality. They’ve overcome every obstacle life has thrown at them, but is their love strong enough to survive the challenges of after life?
We left Hourglass on such a cliffhanger that Afterlife had to be amazing just to live up to it. And I did really enjoy it.
The theme that ran through the novel was Lucas and Bianca’s acclimatisation to their new states: a vampire and a wraith. The two things that they had hated and would have least liked to be from the very beginning of Evernight. Bianca had to face living as a wraith, basically getting used to being dead. There was also the indecision about revealing herself to her parents back at Evernight. Though Bianca struggled, it was even harder for Lucas whose worst fear had come true. As a vampire, Lucas had become the thing that he had been trained to hate, hunt and kill since he was old enough to stand. But now he was left facing an eternity as a vampire.
His struggles were written with such feeling that I could feel his pain at having to try so hard to resist his hunger that threatened to consume him. And then at the place that was supposed to help him come to terms with his new life, well, death I guess, he was constantly worried about Bianca’s safety. With all of the changes and adjustments that Bianca and Lucas faced, Afterlife didn’t really feel like the last book in the series. There were still more questions arising: What did Mrs Bethany want with the wraiths? Was Bianca going to reveal herself to her parents? Would Lucas be able to manage being a vampire? With all of these questions it felt like a new chapter of their story was beginning.
However, all my questions were eventually answered. We learned more about Mrs Bethany and the story behind her transformation and what she was doing with the wraiths and why. It was a little bit disturbing and completely unexpected. Even though all my questions had been answered, I did feel that some of the secondary characters had so much more story to tell. I wanted to hear more from Skye, I’m sure Ranulf would have some amazing tales, Vic seems like so much fun and, of course, there’s Balthazar. I’m so glad he’s getting his own book!
With the sweetest ending ever, Afterlife finished off an engaging, twisty and lovable series brilliantly.
Sophie
A Day in the Life of Liz Kessler…
…must ALWAYS start with a cup of tea.
Then it’s straight down to work.
Oh, except I just need to do a few yoga exercises first. (I don’t actually enjoy yoga very much, but it helps keep my back happy – which is important when you spend hours every day at a computer.)
During the yoga, Poppy (my dog) will generally come over and sit on whichever bits of me she can reach. Once she’s bored of this, she’ll go and stand by the door to my study and cry.
Yoga finished, tea nearly cold, it’s up the stairs to my study, where Poppy will install herself on the ‘Buddha Bag’ and I get straight down to work.
Ah. OK, sorry. Not quite yet.
First, there are emails to reply to; there is facebook to update and as of recently, there is Twitter to tweet.
And THEN, down to work?
Well, nearly. Except I’ve finished my tea, and need another one now.
Eventually, after I’ve been up for about an hour, have attended to everything that could possibly need attending to, phoned my sister, emailed my publisher, cuddled the dog and met my early morning Earl Grey requirements, I get down to work!
If I’m writing the first draft of a new book, I have a word target each day. My usual rule is that I have to write 2,000 words a day. If I’m editing, my rule is usually to edit a chapter a day. Either way, once I’ve met my target, I’m free to do what I like – but if it takes all day then I have to stick with it till I’m done.
It’s important to have lots of breaks throughout the day. I’m very good at this part of my job. My breaks include:
• Walking the dog
• Visiting a friend for a cuppa
• Chilling and chatting with neighbours in the garden
• Phoning my Mum
• Going out for lunch
• Going for a swim
• Generally faffing. (A lot.)
The important thing to remember, though, is that all of these things are part of the creative process. Ask any writer. It’s while you’re doing something completely mindless that you often get your best ideas. As I tell my friends, I’m not really lounging around sunbathing in the garden. I’m thinking of ideas!
I’ll generally work all morning and most of the afternoon, depending on what other things are going on at the time. Sometimes I’ll finish at lunchtime. Sometimes I’m so involved in what I’m doing that I’ll be at it till late in the evening. Usually I’ll work five days a week, but sometimes more and sometimes less. One of the great things about being a writer is that if I feel like working extra days, I can, and if I feel like taking a day off, I can!
So if I’m right in the middle of the book, I’ll usually be hard at it till tea time. But if the surf’s up and the sun’s shining, you’ll probably find me down on the beach by mid afternoon.
And even though, to the untrained eye, I might look as if I’m sunbathing and body boarding, you and I both know what I’m really doing. I’m staring creatively into space, seeking inspiration for my next book. In other words, I’m working very, very hard.
Thanks, Liz! Make you check out the other stops on the tour, visit Liz at her website and pick up a copy of Liz's new book A Year Without Autumn.
Sophie
Where She Went – Gayle Forman
Pages: 260 (ARC)
Publisher: Doubleday Children’s (Random House)
Release Date: 5th May 2011
Other Titles in this Series: If I Stay
From Goodreads: It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.
Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future and each other.
Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.
This review is in a very different style for me as I also submitted it for a creative writing assessment. Let me know what you think!
Gayle Forman’s long-awaited follow up to If I Stay is just as exquisitely written as its predecessor. I’ll admit to being a little hesitant at first as Where She Went is set three years after Mia’s story began and seen through a very different pair of eyes: Mia’s boyfriend of If I Stay, Adam.
Forman writes Adam’s anguish in simple but evocative prose than still retains a musicality that lifts her words off of the page, leaving them floating in the air around you. It is so raw and tangible that I feel Adam’s pain myself as he remembers Mia’s abandonment of him, his alienation of his band mates and the loss of the Hall’s. The anger that his sadness brings him; the anger that turns him to girls and a reliance on anti-anxiety pills is almost palpable and it makes me wonder of the effects that a person can really have on another.
This man has everything he has ever dreamed of: money, fame, success and thousands of screaming fans, and yet all he wants is Mia. Instead of the pleasure that Shooting Star’s success should induce in him, it has only resulted in pain, stress and isolation for him. This may reflect the idea that the album that made his band famous was written by him in reaction to Mia’s abandonment and so the snippets of the songs on that album that are present at the beginning of every other chapter give you an even deeper insight into the mess of Adam’s mind and how damaged and broken Mia’s leaving for New York left him.
It is amazing how Forman can provide her readers with so much. There is three years of uncharted time in Adam and Mia’s lives since they were left at the end of If I Stay and yet as I turned the last page I of this novel I felt that I had walked with them every step of the way. I had been at the edge of the stage at every Shooting Stars gig, I had watched Adam auction off his beloved guitar, I had roomed with Mia through Julliard and played alongside her at Carnegie Hall the night they were reunited. Where She Went covers such a tiny time span; a little over twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours in which old lovers fall back in love, where secrets are spilled, huge messes are mopped up and there story starts again.
Because that’s what I feel Where She Went has done for Adam and Mia. In previous book we left them on a knife edge. Mia had chosen to stay because of Adam’s plea and Mia had awoken from her coma with months of physiotherapy and healing to do as well as grieving for her entire family to get through. Although they were together again, would they stay that way? And though they didn't, Where She Went provided the opportunity for two beloved characters to recover from their ordeals and start again. The end of this book is only the beginning of a new chapter of their story.
Sophie
Darkest Mercy – Melissa Marr
Pages: 327
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 3rd March 2011
Other Titles in this Series: Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange, Fragile Eternity, Radiant Shadows
Send the messengers for the Faery Courts. This is the end.
Aislinn took a steadying breath. “I need to find out where Keenan is. If he’s not home, I’m going to war without him...which is not ideal. Someone knows where he is.”
“I do not, my queen. I give you my word that I will find out, though.” Tavish’s restrained facade slipped, and she saw the faery-cruel expression as he asked, “Are there limits to the methods?”
The Summer King is missing; the Dark Court is bleeding; and a stranger walks the streets of Huntsdale, his presence signifying the deaths of powerful fey. Love, despair and betrayal ignite the Faery Courts, and in the final conflict some will win...and some will lose everything.
This review is in a very different style for me as I am also submitting it for a creative writing assessment. Let me know what you think!
Reading Darkest Mercy was like slipping into an old, comfy pair of jeans that I haven’t worn in a while; both familiar and new. As the final instalment in a five book series, lots of loose ends and story arcs needed to be tied up in Darkest Mercy because the series focused on the stories of Seth and Aislinn; Keenan and Donia; Leslie, Niall and Irial; Ani and Devlin; Sorcha and The Hunt with each one of the first four books dedicated to one or two of the couples until they all came together in Darkest Mercy without losing the originality and intricacy that I’ve come to expect from Melissa Marr’s writing. And then each of the pairings brought the Faery Courts and their politics, traditions and hierarchies that are associated with them.
The Courts are evoked so perfectly that I can envisage the vicious brutality of the Dark Court, the strict and controlled High Court, the harsh and uncompromising nature of Winter and Summer’s frivolity and passion. Each Court has particular types of fey that fit in with the motives and traditions of each Court, such as the thistle-fey who belong to the Dark Court and the Winter Queen’s ly-ergs. But what astounds me about the Faery Courts the most is how they fit seamlessly into our world.
Marr describes the clashing of Faery and the mortal town of Huntsdale, Pennsylvania so lyrically and vividly that when I feel unexpected gusts of wind on the streets, I find myself wondering, however illogically, that maybe, just maybe, there are faeries warring just beyond my sight...
As well as the magic of Marr’s enchanting prose, the characters are what have made me devour each book in the Wicked Lovely series. This goes as far as me feeling sad as I turned the last page of Darkest Mercy on the end of stories that I’ve followed for four years. Although Darkest Mercy is comprised of a cast of complex and exquisitely wrought characters, my strongest feelings laid with the ones we were introduced to first: Aislinn, Seth and Keenan. And reaching back to my memory of the first book, Wicked Lovely, I’m stunned by their development and growth. With some series’ characters grow stale; they do not develop and change along with the story but remain exactly the same. This cannot be said for Marr’s characters in the slightest.
The premise of the entire series is based on the curse of the Summer King, Keenan, so throughout the series we’ve been waiting for him to find his queen and hopefully reverse the damage done by his curse. And he did. But his 900 year long quest didn't turn out quite how I imagined, and yet now, I realise that there was really no other way. And then you have, Aislinn, the heroine of the Wicked Lovely saga. The shy, scared and lonely girl of Wicked Lovely has become the strong, powerful and rightful Summer Queen by overcoming loss and hurt and making decisions that would dictate the future of Faery for centuries. With Seth you have a truly remarkable person who has very little and yet would sacrifice it all for the people that he loves and cares for with very little thought. His loyalty and dedication is admirable and makes him an even more compelling character to the reader as well as to Aislinn.
Though Darkest Mercy is in no way a literary feat or likely to be in line for the Man Booker, it is the best type of fiction in my opinion. There is spellbinding writing, an ingeniously woven and intricate plot, complex characters that I can easily connect with and a mythology that’s both twisted and romantic and utterly mesmerising. In other words, Darkest Mercy is escapism in its purest and guiltiest form.
Sophie
