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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did find myself drawn by the blurb of this book. I was intrigued by the plot of this and was very interested in reading it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the book quite met my expectations. Although there were some good elements of mystery in this, I felt that there wasn’t much in the way of twists. To me, it was fairly obvious where the story was heading. Although the journey to get there was fairly interesting, I was quite disappointed that there wasn’t more suspense in the book.

I got the feeling that this book was meant to be a mix of genres – romance, paranormal, mystery, young adult. While there are times this can be pulled off well, I was left with a lot of unanswered questions by the end of this book.

I did like the fact that this book was written entirely from the perspective of one character. While I did find Leo an interesting character, I didn’t feel she had any goals past the story. I could understand her weaknesses, though… but a lot of the backstory was given in the narration, rather than allowing me to see the events happening. I didn’t like Henry’s character and I couldn’t understand why Leo remained friends with him after how she was clearly viewing him.

I liked the elements of friendship in this book. I would have liked to see more of Leo interacting with the other characters and more of her friendship with others apart from Henry.

I did like the legend about the mansion, though I thought it felt rather unfinished. The paranormal aspects were pretty cool, but I didn’t think they added a whole lot to the book. I wasn’t really sold on the romance, though, I have to say. I didn’t really like Becket’s character and I especially didn’t like the hints of a love triangle… that didn’t really feel realistic.

While it might be interesting to see more of these characters, I don’t think I’d read a sequel to this book… at least not the way it stands right now.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’ve read a lot of books with collections of fables and I thought it was really interesting to read a collection set in Africa. I did recognise at least one of the stories (Pendo and Prince Nyamekye) had a lot of similarities to the story of Cinderella. And Kagiso, The Princess Bride also had similarities to stories I’ve read in the past.

I liked the fact that each of the fables had a specific theme. They allowed me to get to know bits and pieces of the African culture that the fables were set in… though I was surprised that some of them had a more modern setting to them, even though they had the traditional feel of fables.

I liked the fact that a couple of the fables were connected to each other, with Nyamekye appearing as a central character in two of the fables and being mentioned in at least one of the others.

Due to the fables being so short, a lot of the development in the characters and plots were left by the wayside… but they were really quick and easy to read. I found myself quite amused by Kiburi… though I did wish a lesson had been learned by the end of the fable.

I thought that the Zuli Envy fable could have had a slightly better ending. Some of the fables just seemed to stop, leaving me not entirely sure what happened to the characters after.

I thought Nduru The Squirrel And Mboma The Snake was a particularly interesting fable. Despite the comment addressed to the reader, I didn’t really find myself leaning towards either answer, I have to say.

I thought the lessons imparted from some of the fables were particularly good and I really did like the style of writing in each of these fables. Khola The Graceful Antelope was one that I thought was particularly good at showing the possible consequences of disobedience… and there was enough left to the imagination to make it effective.

I liked the illustrations in this book and I thought they went really well with the stories. This book definitely triggered my interest in reading more fables.

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

Although I’m not familiar with this series, not having read the other Telepathic Clans books, I found this to be quite easy to understand. Although I couldn’t see all of the details about the different Gifts the characters had, I thought there was enough explained in the narration and dialogue that I didn’t get confused.

I did like Rhiannon’s character, though I did think that she seemed quite high-powered at times and less so at different points in the storyline. I would have liked to have more details about how the different abilities worked. I wasn’t very clear on why succubus was such an offensive word, though… or why Rhiannon kept using it even knowing it offended the people she was interacting with.

I thought it was interesting to see the way people’s actions affected the colour of their souls. I was intrigued by the fact that it affected Rhiannon’s moral compass. I also found it interesting to learn about the succubi and how they had to recharge by sleeping with men.

I thought there was a lot of tension in this book. The concept of broken dolls kept cropping up and it was interesting to see it as a running theme throughout the plot… even though I thought the references were a bit disrespectful. There was also a lot of intrigue going on… and not a whole lot of nice people in the book.

I liked the fact that Rhiannon did come across as caring quite a lot about the girls who were being taken and used. I also thought it was good to see some of the details about how abilities were passed on… and I liked the opportunity to see how the succubi ‘hunted’.

There were a few things that I found a bit unexpected in this book, but there were others that I felt were a bit harder to follow. This book was quite short, but I think it could have been expanded… and I would have liked to see a lot more details about characters and their relationships to each other.

In the future, I’d be interested in reading the other books in this series and getting to know more about the world and the characters.