Old Review: To Catch A Pirate, by Jade Parker

To Catch A Pirate, by Jade Parker
Publisher: Scholastic/Point
Release Date: May 1, 2007
Paperback: 230 pages
Age Group: Young Adult
Buy:Amazon
Source: Bought
Challenge: none
Date Read: May 2010
Rating: 

Once caught, it’s harder still to let a pirate go
When Annalisa Townsend’s ship is set upon by pirates in search of her father’s treasure, one of the crew, James Sterling, discovers her in the hold.  When he moves to take her necklace, she begs him not to, as it is all she has left of her mother.  He accepts a kiss in exchange for the necklace.  “A fair trade, m’lady,” he tells her afterward, before disappearing.
A year later, with a forged letter of marque, Annalisa is intent on hunting down the wretched James Sterling and reclaiming her father’s treasure from him.  But now she’s in danger of him stealing something far more vulnerable this time: her heart.

This book blew my mind! At first I was worried I wouldn't be able to get into it because I kept getting distracted while reading the beginning of the book. I told myself that if I couldn't get into it after reading up to 50 pages, then I'd have to put it away for another time.

I FINALLY got into it around 50 pages, and was so relieved. It got really interesting and I kept wanting to read more. But by the sixth chapter I couldn't put it down and wanted to keep reading it.

I loved Anna, she was a good strong character and I loved how determined she was to find her father's treasure. She tried so hard during the book to hate James Sterling, but it was impossible.

Nathanial was a sweet guy, but after a while he got really annoying and I kept screaming at the book trying to tell him to leave Anna and Sterling alone. Haha!

The book was filled with twists that I never saw coming, which I absolutely loved! They took me by surprise so many times.

The way they speak most of the time in the book was a bit hard to get used to, but after a while you do.

I love historical romances, but it's hard to find really good ones nowadays. But this one really got up on my list of good ones. And it has pirates! You gotta love the pirates!


Overall, this was a great book. Pick it up. The writing draws you in and holds you. 


Fun fact: Rachel Hawthore, the author of The Dark Guardian series, is the author of this book as well! Jade Parker is just a name she came up with and used for her author name with this book because it was much different than the books she was writing at the time. 


*Note: This is part of my 'Old Review' collection. Where I post reviews randomly that I wrote a while ago before starting this blog.

Old Review: Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine

Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine
The Morganville Vampires, book #3


Next Book in Series: Feast of Fools
Mass Market Paperback: 248 Pages
Age Group: Young Adult (13+)
Buy: Amazon
Source: Own
Date Read: April 2010
Overall: 

Claire Danvers's college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead made things relatively safe. For a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking her, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring. To what end, Claire will find out. And it's giving night school a whole new meaning.

First Lines: The instant the phone rang at the Glass House, Claire knew with a psychic flash that it had to be her mother.

Okay, first of all, I did the same as I did with The Dead Girls' Dance, and immediately picked up Midnight Alley as soon as I finished. I just finished reading Lord of Misrule and so I can't really remember what happened in what book, mostly. Everything is starting to run together.

I love how she picks up nearly RIGHT after the last book ends. She's done this throughout the series and I love it. Nothing is left out. Nothing to make you wonder what happened in between the ending of one book and the beginning of the next.

And the characters are still growing and being utterly amazing. All the characters in Caine's vampire world, otherwise knows as Morganville, is all real to me. Sometimes to the point where I walk out of my house and wonder what crazy thing is going to happen in Morganville today, or where I nearly write Morganville down as my city, instead of my real city.

Can you imagine the looks I would get for that? ;)

In this installment Claire is paying for the choices she made in the last book and you get to know Amelie a bit more. Which is awesome, but doesn't mean that I don't have my evil stare ready for her at times. And Mrynin, I honestly do not know what to say about him. He's such a nut, but he is quite hilarious at times. He's such a whacko. But I do like him, though I do have my moments where I want to whack him with something and put him in a straitjacket.

We also continue to learn more about Morganville and it's history, along with the vampires history. Which is very fascinating and sends me to Google in search for more history on Morganville, but then I have to remember the fact that the lovely Rachel Caine created it.

Midnight Alley ends with yet another cliff hanger, and also a new visitor in town! Caine really knows how to end with a cliff hanger to keep you reading, which I both admire and find really annoying. But that's only because on one side it's genius, and on the other it becomes a pain in the butt when you can't get to the next installment fast enough.

Overall I really loved this installment. As I did the others and don't think I'll ever not like one of these amazing books. If you haven't read any books in this series yet, you REALLY need to put it on your wish list and 'TBR' list.
Cover: 
The cover is very pretty, but not one of my favorites. I think the first book, so far, is my favorite.
I recommend this to: All vampire lovers. 

Old Review: The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine

The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine


Publisher:The Morganville Vampires, book #2
Read my review for Glass Houses. 
Next Book in Series: Midnight Alley
Publisher: NAL Jam
Release Date: April 3, 2007
Mass Market Paperback: 256 Pages
Age Group: Young Adult 
Buy:  Amazon
Add to Goodreads
Source: Own
Challenge: none
Date Read: April 2010
Overall: 5/5

Claire Danvers has her share of challenges--like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains, homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. When a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls' Dance, hell really breaks loose. Original.

First Lines:  It didn't happen, Claire told herself. It's just a bad dream, just another bad dream. You'll wake up and it'll be gone like fog.... 

Like I said in my review for Glass House, as soon as I finished the first book I leaped across my room to grab the second installment, The Dead Girls’ Dance, and I immediately started to read it. As soon as my eyes hit the first sentence of the book I was sucked back into Morganville to see everything that was going on. Rachel Caine’s writing makes me feel as though I’m really in the book with the characters. Every feeling that Claire has, I experience.

The only thing I don’t like about it is that Claire jumps into a new person too quick. I mean, I’m glad she’s more confident now and more of a new person, because frankly at first she really bugged me. But still, it’s a bit too fast. I still love her nonetheless though. As I do all the main characters, especially Eve.

Nothing really changed about my loathing of Monica Morrell. Oh how I want to smack her! I also have a very high loathing for Shane’s father now and all of his little back-ups.

I really can’t figure out which installment I like better right now, Glass Houses or The Dead Girls’ Dance. I read through The Dead Girls’ Dance just as fast as I did withGlass Houses, which I’m very happy about.

But just as I did with The Dead Girls’ Dance, I ran to Midnight Alley after finishing. And boy does Rachel Caine know how to leave a cliff hanger. It isn’t really a cliff hanger, just a happy ending to a horrible day, that you just know will be destroyed again the next day. So that drives me as crazy as a cliff hanger does.

Sometimes while reading these books, I feel as though some of the characters are thrown in just to fill some space and make the story longer. But by the end of the book they have resolved themselves, so that’s good. But thinking about it really bothers me.

But on a good note, and a not so good note, a lot of secrets and choices have been revealed now in the second installment to the Morganville Vampires series, so that means a lot more stuff is heading our way in Morganville.

Overall, this was a great read, as was the first installment. I highly recommend this series; it’s now officially in my top favorite series and recommendations.


I recommend this series to all vampire lovers. 

Cover: The cover is pretty, but not one of my favorites. 

Old Review: Glass Houses by Rachel Caine

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine
The Morganville Vampires, book #1 


Next book in series: The Dead Girls' Dance
Publisher: NAL Jam
Mass Market Paperback: 256 Pages
Age Group: Young Adult (13+)
Buy: Glass Houses
Source: Own
Date Read: April 2010
Overall: 

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation. When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life, but they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood.

First Lines: On the day Claire became a member of the Glass House, somebody stole her laundry.

I’m going to start with the fact that at the time when I went to read this, I had been in a complete reading rut for a long while, it took me months to read just one book when normally it took me from a few hours to a few days to complete a book, depending on their size. But then I decided to try and get back into my reading and I remembered the Morganville Vampires series. I owned books one through five at the time, and I hadn’t read them yet. Except for the fact I started reading Glass Houses a long time ago when I checked it out at the library, but then had to bring it back before I had finished it. 

I had only gotten not even halfway through. After my birthday one year I decided to order all the books that were currently out in the series with a Books-a-Million gift card I had received. I remembered how much I had loved the bit I had read and so I grabbed Glass Houses, hoping it would be the book to snatch me out of my reading rut. 

And guess what, it did! The world Rachel Caine has created is so different from the normal worlds of books with vampires in them. Truthfully, it is so hard to find a good vampire book these days with a unique plot and storyline, because sadly most of it has already been used before, which is really sad to a vampire lover like me. 

When I learned that the town was run by vampires and that all the humans that lived in Morganville knew, it completely blew my mind! And not only that, but the vampires in the Morganville Vampires are bad! Not all of them are, but most. 

All I can say it that Rachel Caine is brilliant. She has also become an inspiration to my writing, so kudos to her for that as well.

I really loved the main characters. Claire kind of annoyed me at first, but later as she started developing more she became more real to me and less annoying. I absolutely love, love, love Eve. And Shane and Michael as well, god they are hot! But Eve is my favorite character. 

All I can say about Monica though is that I wanted to slap her 99% of the time. I really wish someone would kick her butt. 

Not only do I love the characters, and basically everything else about this book, but the cover. It’s really pretty. I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but a good story should always have a beautiful cover. Am I right?

The end of this book ended with a complete cliffhanger. Seriously made my jaw drop and run to my shelf to grab the second book, The Dead Girls’ Dance. Sometimes I hate cliff hangers, but in this case I had the next book so it didn’t bother me much. Except for the five seconds it took to grab the next installment.

Overall, I thought that Glass Houses was a great first edition to the Morganville Vampires series and it’s now one of my favorite series. I highly recommend this book. It’s a must read for vampire lovers, fantasy lovers and just book lovers. If you haven’t read Glass Houses you should really grab a copy of it, or at least borrow it from the library or a friend. You do NOT want to miss out on this book. 


Cover:
I love the cover. It's very dark, and mysterious and I love the picture of the house in the background. 
I recommend this to: All vampire fans. Period. 

Old Review: Stargazer by Claudia Gray

Stargazer by Claudia Gray

Evernight, book #2

Next book in series: Hourglass
Publisher: Harperteen
Hardcover: 329 Pages
Age Group: Young Adult (12+)
Buy: Amazon
Source: Own
Date Read: Unknown
Overall: 

Evernight Academy: an exclusive boarding school for the most beautiful, dangerous students of all—vampires. Bianca, born to two vampires, has always been told her destiny is to become one of them.
But Bianca fell in love with Lucas—a vampire hunter sworn to destroy her kind. They were torn apart when his true identity was revealed, forcing him to flee the school.
Although they may be separated, Bianca and Lucas will not give each other up. She will risk anything for the chance to see him again, even if it means coming face-to-face with the vampire hunters of Black Cross—or deceiving the powerful vampires of Evernight. Bianca's secrets will force her to live a life of lies.
Yet Bianca isn't the only one keeping secrets. When Evernight is attacked by an evil force that seems to target her, she discovers the truth she thought she knew is only the beginning....(Summary from Goodreads.)

First Lines: Frost began to creep up the walls.
Transfixed, I watched lines of frost lace their way across the stone of the north tower's records room. The pattern swept up from the floor, covering the wall, even icing the ceiling with something flaky and white. A few small, silvery crystals of snow hung in the air.

Stargazer was really pretty good, though it wasn't as good as Evernight. It just missed a lot of the amazing elements that Evernight had. 

The plot becomes even more complicated in Stargazer, which isn't completely bad. Everything just starts happening really fast and Bianca and Lucas are thrown into a very bad situation. The world is definitely throwing obstacles their way. 

You really learn more about some of the characters in this series and they become a lot more real than they were in the first book. The characters are very easy to get attached to. I kept bouncing back in forth between Bianca's two love interests, not going to name their names, but finally decided to pick Lucas (Sorry B!). I guess it's just because Lucas' and Bianca's story is just so amazing! 

One really awesome thing about Stargazer is that it had my head completely spinning with all the twists in this book! I never knew what was going to happen until it slammed me in the face! 

Overall, it was a great addition to the first book in the series. It didn't top my love for Evernight, but it was really good. I was a little disappointed in the ending, but I can't wait to read Hourglass! 

Cover: 
I really like this cover. Purple is one of my favorite colors! :) 
I recommend this to: All lovers of the awesome vampire lore. You don't want to miss this one!

Old Review: Evernight by Claudia Gray

Evernight by Claudia Gray


Publisher: Evernight, book #1
Next book in series: Stargazer
Publisher: Harperteen
Release Date: February 10, 2009
Hardcover: 336 Pages
Age Group: Young Adult
Buy: Amazon
Add to Goodreads

Source: Own
Challenge: none
Date read: January 2009
Overall: 5/5

Bianca wants to escape.
At the eerily Gothic Evernight Academy, the other students are sleek, smart, and almost predatory. Bianca knows she doesn't fit in.
When she meets handsome, brooding Lucas, he warns her to be careful—even when it comes to caring about him. But the connection between them can't be denied. Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart . . . and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed.

First Paragraph: The burning arrow thudded into the wall.

Fire. The old, dry wood of the meetinghouse ignited in an instant. Dark, oily smoke filled the air, scratching my lungs and making me choke. Around me, my new friends cried out in shock before grabbing weapons, preparing to fight for their lives.

Evernight is amazing and has definitely made it to one of my favorite books at the moment. I couldn't put it down at all. Every time I did it kept calling to me to pick it back up. It seriously became a drug.


Evernight is so filled with emotion and reality, even though it has fantasy throughout the whole book. The characters are so real. Bianca and Lucas's love for each other is so moving and heartbreaking. I can't tell you how many times I cried throughout this book.


Something in Evernight, which I'm not going to tell what because it's a major spoiler, completely made me drop my book. Seriously. It caught me off guard and I just dropped the book. It took me a few seconds to pick it back up and continue on.


Evernight is filled with so many things; unconditional love, suspense, great characters, original and intriguing storyline. It's just... wow. 

I hate myself for taking so long to read this. I had it on my shelf for a while!


I recommend this to anyone who is a big fan of vampire lore and would love to read a new and refreshing vampire story.

Cover:  The cover is very pretty. Not one of my absolute favorites, but it is pretty unique and pretty. Cover art by Karen Pearson; MergeLeft Reps, inc. Hand lettering by Sarah Jane Coleman, cover design by Christopher Stengel.   

Old Review: Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Darkside by Beth Fantaskey

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Darkside by Beth Fantaskey
Jessica, book #1

Next book in series: Jessica Rules the Darkside
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Hardcover: 368 Pages

Age Group: Young Adult (12+)
Author Website
Buy: Amazon
Source: Own
Date read: April 2009
Overall: 

The undead can really screw up your senior year ...
Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction.

(Summary from Goodreads.)

 First Lines: The first time I saw him, a heavy, gray fog clung to the cornfields, tails of mist slithering between the dying stalks.

First off: This wasn't what I was expecting when I first learned about the novel. At all. I mean, it sounded really, really good. But I thought it would be a little like all the other vampire books I'd read. I hate getting into a novel like that, because I love vampires and I love reading about them. So I was a bit worried when I first got this book.

But I was wrong! Oh, so wrong!

I never expected to love it as much as I did. This quickly made it to my number one favorite book before I was even done with it. (Sharing spots with other books, of course!)

Fantaskey recreated the genre and made it her own. Which is extremely hard to do nowadays with the amount of Young Adult novels that are out in the book world. Plus the percentage of them that include vampires in them.

I can't remember how many times I cried while reading Jessica's Guide. And how many times I got completely ticked off with Lucius. At first I thought I was going to hate him throughout the book, but a little ways in I started to fall in love with him just as Jess was.

At first while I was reading, I thought things were moving a bit too fast. Too many things were happening and it was just the first chapter. But now that I'm done with it, I feel that if those things didn't happen as fast as they did, all the other events wouldn't have played out as great as they did.

I also loved how Fantaskey threw in some things from Lucius' perspective. It added to the story and really let you get to know him more, and how his mind worked.

I really liked Jess, too. She was an amazing protagonist. All her feelings were geniune and real and I felt I really got to know her throughout the novel. I feel as though she's one of my best friends. Which I love those feelings when reading a book.

I felt all the minor characters really added to the story too. They were all really interesting and I loved Jess' best friend, Mindy.

Fantaskey's style of writing was really great, as well. It all really flowed well and drew you in. I always felt as though I were right there, experiencing all the events that were happening throughout the novel.

Overall, it was a GREAT read. I will definitely be reading this again in the future. It's one of those novels where you have to reread them at least once or twice every year.
The end was very good!



Cover:
I really love this cover. It is completely gorgeous and I absolutely love Jessica's dress!
I recommend this to: Anyone who loves a good unique vampire book, and, of course, the hot vampire boyfriend.

Other books by this author:  Jekel Loves Hyde