(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

This book was a bit more intense to read than I’d been expecting. The first few lines drew me in straight away and I was able to empathise with Jewel really easy.

I found myself fully invested in this book more or less immediately. I felt that the author did a really good job of showing the way Bird’s death affected everyone in the family.

I really liked the relationship that formed between Jewel and John. Although there were problems, no relationship is emotionally satisfying to read about or watch unless there’s real conflict involved.

I also liked the relationship that developed between Jewel and her Grandpa. That was really sweet and it was nice to see a member of Jewel’s family come across as truly caring for her. It was also intriguing to see how his character became more well-developed over the course of the book.

It was really interesting to read about Jewel’s dad’s culture and also to see the contrast between the past and the present through the tapes.

I did like the ending of the book, though it wasn’t a perfect one. This was quite an intense, emotionally-charged read. I would definitely read more books by this author in the future.

(I received a free copy of this book, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’ve only read the first book in the Beautiful Creatures series, but I did quite enjoy it, so when I saw this short story offered on NetGalley, I immediately decided I wanted to read it.

Ridley is a character I found particularly intriguing in the book, though I think her character was ruined quite a bit in the film. I found it interesting that, despite the whole Dark and Light Castors, Ridley was more of a well-rounded character.

It was good to see Ridley’s relationship with Link. I felt that theirs was a bit more believable than Ethan and Lena’s – mostly, I think, because there was more conflict involved. I wasn’t sure the first person bit at the beginning was necessary, though, since the rest of the short story was written in third person.

I did think this was a good introduction to the next series of books. I’d definitely be intrigued to read those, particularly if they do concentrate on Ridley and Link.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did think that the concept behind this book was quite an interesting one, but I felt a lot of the execution fell short.

In my opinion, there was a lot of telling rather than showing going on. There was quite a lot of info-dumping about the characters that made it hard to get behind them.

The science fiction aspect was probably the strongest part of this book. I felt that the author put a lot of thought and effort into the different options to save the planet. I’m not sure how many of those would have worked realistically, but I felt it was good that some effort was made to have the possibilities come across as realistic as possible.

I didn’t notice too many mistakes in the book. I think the main issue is that it’s just a bit too short. If the author had expanded the plot and the characters, I probably would have liked it a bit more.

The book was fairly easy to read, but one of the main things that I noticed was the alliteration – there was far too much of that with the characters. Once or twice might be quite clever… but there was only perhaps one named character who didn’t have the same letter for the first name and the surname.

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did actually quite like this book more than I thought I would. I’m sick of vampire romances with young adult heroines who fall in love at first sight, so this was a refreshing change from all of those.

I felt that the time frame of this book worked particularly well. I liked Eric as a character and in some ways, I did like his original relationship with Stefan. Things didn’t quite go the way I was hoping with that relationship, though, and I wound up not entirely sure how much of Stefan had been that bad before. I found some things very contradictory.

I did like the relationships between the characters once they formed, but I felt that there was a lot of falling in love at the drop of a hat. The characters were well-defined and intriguing. I also liked the idea of the different kinds of vampire there were.

The setting of the book was believable and I felt the language used mostly worked. I did find my head spinning a bit, though, with all of the twists and turns the storyline was taking. Most of the characters weren’t what they seemed and the ones I thought were good guys changed really quickly.

The descriptions in this book worked particularly well to enable me to picture the events happening inside my mind. This was a dark novel that had intriguing characters and although I didn’t think there was much development allowed for relationships, they still worked well eventually.

I would probably be interested in reading more books by this author at some point in the future. It’s at least free of perfect, Mary Sue characters.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did find this book a little hard to get into at times. The scene at the beginning was quite an intriguing one, but it was hard to see how it fit in with everything else for a little while.

I did like Spike as a character. He was easy to relate to and it was interesting to see him dealing with the courtroom case. Many of the characters were well-defined and so were the scenes in the story. The usage of other languages did make sense, rather than just feeling like they were being used for the sake of it.

I didn’t really like Jessica as a character and I did think that, although the bond that formed between Spike and Charlie worked well, I couldn’t say the same for Charlie’s mother. I had a lot of trouble getting behind that relationship, especially because of the lack of professionalism I felt there was.

Some of the supporting characters weren’t as well-defined as the main ones, I felt. They didn’t really seem to have a life outside of their interactions with Spike.

I did find this book easy to read and although I think it could have been improved, it did work well as a standalone. I’d be curious to read the preceding books at some point in the future.

(I received a free copy of this book, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I like reading books based on myths and legends, so when I saw this one offered on NetGalley, I decided to request it and download a copy.

I found this book to be a really entertaining spin on the King Arthur legend. It was nice to see Merlin used as a main character and I found the fact that his magic was more like science quite interesting, though I didn’t think that explained everything he could do.

I quite liked Jason as a character and I particularly liked his relationships with the other characters, especially with Merlin and Beverley. I also felt he came across as a really likable character. He wasn’t perfect, but he was clearly trying to do the right thing and that endeared him to me.

I didn’t think Morgana was as well-defined a character as she could have been. I might have been better off seeing a bit more of her past, but the scenes written from her perspective didn’t really show anything balanced about her.

I liked the use of the dragons and it was interesting to see the usage of the imagery in the book of Revelations in the Bible. I also felt a lot of research had clearly gone into this book. I did notice quite a lot of errors in the formatting, but the book was mostly readable and I read it fairly quickly.

I think I’d definitely be interested in reading the next book in this series at some point in the future.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’d probably ideally give this book 3.5 stars. It was easy to read this book, but I felt it fell somewhat flat in places.

The supernatural elements in this book were pretty intriguing and in many ways, when I read this book, it felt like I was watching a horror movie. There were some pretty creepy moments in this book and I could see a lot of the images Niles saw inside my mind. That was pretty effective.

Niles’ character did grow on me throughout the book. I wasn’t all that sure of him at first, but as the story went on, I liked him more. I could empathise with the guilt he felt over what had happened before and I felt that added a new dimension to him as a character.

I did figure out who was responsible for the murders fairly early on, but the book was still entertaining enough to keep me reading it.

I did find some errors in the writing, however. I also felt that some liberties were taken – such as a small-town police station having a lab to check DNA samples. There wasn’t really much explanation given for that.

I did think the ending didn’t really ‘end’. I’d like to read a sequel to this and find out what’s going to happen to Niles next.