Frostbitten by Heather Beck

2/5 stars

Great beauty hides dark secrets…

Seventeen-year-old Anastasia Lockhart has never led an easy life, but when she starts getting into serious trouble, she’s sent to live with her grandparents in Cedar Falls. The small, picturesque town hasn’t changed since she visited four years ago, with one exception – the presence of a handsome, mysterious boy named Frost. Despite warnings from her…

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Relentless (Relentless #1) by Karen Lynch (Goodreads Author)

5 of 5 stars
Sara Grey’s world shattered ten years ago when her father was brutally murdered. Now at seventeen, she is still haunted by memories of that day and driven by the need to understand why it happened. She lives a life full of secrets and her family and friends have no idea of the supernatural world she is immersed in or of Sara’s own very powerful gift.

In her quest for answers about…

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Relentless (Relentless #1) by Karen Lynch (Goodreads Author)

5 of 5 stars

Sara Grey’s world shattered ten years ago when her father was brutally murdered. Now at seventeen, she is still haunted by memories of that day and driven by the need to understand why it happened. She lives a life full of secrets and her family and friends have no idea of the supernatural world she is immersed in or of Sara’s own very powerful gift.

In her quest for answers about her father’s death, Sara takes risks that expose her and her friends to danger and puts herself into the sights of a sadistic vampire. On the same fateful night she meets Nikolas, a warrior who turns Sara’s world upside down and is determined to protect her even if it’s the last thing she wants.

Sara’s life starts to spin out of control as she is hunted by an obsessed vampire, learns that her friends have secrets of their own and reels from the truth about her own ancestry. Sara has always been fiercely independent but in order to survive now she must open herself to others, to reveal her deepest secrets. And she must learn to trust the one person capable of breaking down the walls around her.

Refuge (Relentless #2) by Karen Lynch (Goodreads Author)

Rating= ∗∗∗∗∗
To keep the people she loved safe, Sara left everything she knew behind. She soon learns this new world is nothing like her old one, and she struggles to make a place for herself among the Mohiri. But it soon becomes apparent to Sara and to everyone one around her that she is not your typical warrior.

As the weeks pass, Sara builds new relationships, copes with her new trainers,…

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Refuge (Relentless #2) by Karen Lynch (Goodreads Author)

Rating= ∗∗∗∗∗

To keep the people she loved safe, Sara left everything she knew behind. She soon learns this new world is nothing like her old one, and she struggles to make a place for herself among the Mohiri. But it soon becomes apparent to Sara and to everyone one around her that she is not your typical warrior.

As the weeks pass, Sara builds new relationships, copes with her new trainers, and tries to manage her ever-changing powers, while keeping her unique heritage a secret. Looming in the background is the constant shadow of the Master who will do anything to find her.

Sara finds herself on a journey of self-discovery that uncovers her true strengths and awakens a part of her she never knew existed. She experiences the delight of new friendships, the sweetness and pain of first love, and a loss so deep it could be the thing that finally breaks her. At the end of it all, she discovers that the one place she was supposed to be safe might not be the refuge she thought it was.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON

The Nexis Secret by Barbara Hartzler

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25734465-the-nexis-secret

“Full of intrigue, sass, and life or death choices, The Nexis Secret will keep young readers turning pages long past their bedtime.”
–Stephanie Morrill, young adult author of the Ellie Sweet series

Montrose Academy seems like any other snooty prep school, until Lucy finds herself seeing strange visions of wraiths, prophets, and angels.…

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The Nexis Secret by Barbara Hartzler

I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thank you to author Barbara Hartzler.

This book has the potential to be a 5 star rating. I really enjoyed the characters and the setting and the plot. I found myself confused in the beginning because the scenes seemed to jump around and sometimes I felt like I had missed something, like I had skipped pages. I found myself going back to make sure I didn’t actually skip around. There were also many instances of grammatical errors that distracted me.

After getting through the first couple of chapters I began to fall into the rhythm of the book. I would second guess Bryan and Will’s motives. I found it strange that Will “cared” so much for her the same day he met her. Bryan was fiercely protective immediately. Lucy was as confused as me but at 16 found herself crushed between two insufferably cute guys (because come on, what is more important at that age) and then discovers she is part of a larger destiny. She handles it better than I would have expected but finally develops her sense of self and where she will belong in the world and how important she will be. I could sense the “Nexis personality” in her mom and wondered how that was hidden from Lucy’s childhood.

The reader was drawn into the world of good and evil with the idea that Lucy would get to choose after being “Switzerland.” I didn’t sense any suggestion that she might choose the side of Nexis from the beginning. Even without being guided throughout her childhood or appearing to have a religious background her stance was determinedly grounded on the side of right versus wrong.

It will be interesting to see if she can or will be swayed by Nexi since she saw the angel standing resolutely at Bryan’s side.I get the feeling that the next book will have more action and this one was in essence a prologue of the rest to come. I appreciate Mrs. Hartzler’s take on good and evil and her faith shows prominently in the development of Lucy. I am actually looking forward to the next installment to see how the characters will grow in their abilities to fight the war that is inevitably coming.

Deadly Messengers by Susan Mays

Before I begin the review of this amazing book, I would like to spend a moment to give a shout out to the Author. Susan Mays blessed me with the opportunity to read a digital copy of her book “Deadly Messengers” in return for an honest review. I have never experienced such an open and honest communication with an author before. Throughout the reading I contacted her several times, whether it was…

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Deadly Messengers by Susan Mays

Before I begin the review of this amazing book, I would like to spend a moment to give a shout out to the Author. Susan Mays blessed me with the opportunity to read a digital copy of her book “Deadly Messengers” in return for an honest review. I have never experienced such an open and honest communication with an author before. Throughout the reading I contacted her several times, whether it was to praise her or ask a question or to tell her about a typo I found, she always responded with a thank you and positive feedback. I told her one of the things that impressed me about her was in her biography she stated “…I suffered from life-gets-in-the-way-osis.” I just love this statement!

Now on to the review! I would like to preface this by saying I am a genre snob. I pretty much stick with YA without fail. I don’t know what it was about this read-to-review that jumped out on Goodreads and grabbed me by the cojones and said emphatically “Read This.” Maybe it was the idea of the 15 minutes of fame of having my name as a reviewer in the front of her book… But upward and onward. Whatever it was I am grateful that I did jump across to the criminal/ mystery/ thriller genre because this may be one of my top 10 favorite books.

“Dana, I do this because I have a message to deliver, and I will not stop until somebody listens. Think of me as a messenger.”

It all begins with a murder that is just wrong in so many ways. Your typical Joe Schmo, Toby Benson, walks into a restaurant and starts slicing through people with an ax without a care in the world. At one point, the reader is able to glance into his mind and realize how wrong it is and that something is controlling him. ”He saw where he was, saw her, and recognized he had no reason to be there, no reason to take another step or do another thing, except put down the axe and run back out the door, leaving these people to their evening and their lives. Then the thought was gone like a car fishtailing down a street, glancing off parked cars before careening away, without leaving a note— it’s not their responsibility.” Before he becomes the robot again and says “…Add some soda to that and it’ll be good as new, sweetheart”. I just love how this made him a real person

Kendall, the main character, is sucked into a murder mystery she does not want to be in. Because of memories of a fateful night in her past, things like these give her nightmares. Lance O’Grady is the lead detective and will ultimately share a bond with Kendall because he, too, has memories of horrors in his past. That isn’t to say this bond will be a cohesive and compatible one. ”He turned to her and said, “It’ll be okay. They’re just bottom feeders, and I’ll protect you.” Trip Lindsay, O’Grady’s partner is along for the ride, but the readers will soon fall for his sweet goofy character.

By the third murder, I was entranced but I almost thought I wasn’t going to be able to finish. Susan May has a way of putting the reader right there in the scene with her descriptive writing. This third murder included a mother and children. I don’t like to think of children or animals being harmed. I internalize things too much to put myself there. In saying that, I couldn’t stop and I’m glad I didn’t, because I was able to objectively look at the murder and see that this story had to be told to make the rest of the story believable.

I was able to deduce the culprit and main idea of his thought process about halfway through but had to go back to the first few chapters to verify what I thought was happening really was. This in no way took away from my interest to continue or to skip ahead to see if I was right. (Bad habit of mine.)

The remainder of the characters were well thought out and portrayed very clearly and compassionately. At the end of chapter 41, my heart dropped out of my chest but then started to break when O’Grady had to deal with the aftermath of this murder. As I watched him grow and struggle with the right thing to do and overcome his cop way of thinking and to allow himself the chance at doing what felt right instead of what was drilled into him as a cop, I felt almost overwhelmed with emotion. I literally had tears falling down my face with my hand covering my mouth in the universal sign of O…M…G!

”It would be a beautiful message. The good, warm voice came one last time: You are the messenger. You will deliver peace. Then she was alone, completely alone, in the darkness. Her final thoughts were not of her mother or of herself or of anything or anyone in her life. As she touched the light, was welcomed by its gloriously warm embrace, it was a simple thought that engulfed her. She thought of her message and, with all her heart, she hoped she’d delivered it right.” “Oh, my God. Kendall. Stop! I don’t want to—” An explosion in her ear. A searing pain in her head. So sharp. As though thunder had exploded inside her skull. Where was the blackness? Where was her peace? Fear burst in her mind. Where was she? What had she done? A screaming, unbearable pain filled her body. Then falling … falling … falling. Forever.”

When I got to the pharmaceutical references, they made me want to research the validity but not before I finished reading. I’m glad I waited because Mrs. Mays put a post thought in that gave links to where to find the research material. She was also adamant that the content of this research was interesting but in no way declared her ideas towards the drugs portrayed as the necessary evil as the main idea of the story. I am grateful to her for that as I have struggled with depression and have at one point or another had to utilize these drugs. Knowing what I do now, if I had to take them again, I would research better options. She was also gracious enough to give her 12-year-old son the credit for his youtube observations.

Deadly Messengers is available for pre-purchase at
http://amzn.com/B01431LVOK and will be released on September 30, 2015. I truly recommend you do grab yourself a copy at the launch sale price of 99c.
If you hurry though, Susan has unlimited early reader e-copies available of Deadly Messengers until the 15th September, you can contact her via Goodreads. Just send her a private message there and she’ll be more than happy to send you an e-book:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173617.Susan_May