Book Review: The Assassin's Daughter

Today, I’ll be reviewing The Assassin’s Daughter by Jameson C. Smith.

Here’s the synopsis:

“For most of her life, Katira has trained to take on the role of assassin. While it’s far from the life she would have chosen, the law known as the Inheritance Proclamation dictates that she must follow in her father’s profession. At seventeen, she’ll be expected to use her training on a real assignment any day.

When new information about an old fugitive brings questions about Kat’s past to light, she must make a choice: Prove her loyalties to the Tederan Order and their laws, or become a fugitive to search after answers she may never find.”

My rating: *****

First off, let me just say how much I love this cover. It’s very simplistic, but still super awesome. I especially like the colors. Honestly, it makes me kind of sad that my Kindle Paperwhite only displays covers in black and white. Since the cover is a darker color, the purple in it is turned to a dark gray color and it doesn’t stand out as much.

Now onto the story itself. Overall, I enjoyed it. There were moments where I wasn’t quite sure where the plot was going, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It kept me guessing on what was going to happen to the characters, which can be rather fun. This is the first book in a series, so there were some story threads left to be explored in the future. I’m interested in learning more about the world of this story, because it seems like there’s a lot of interesting aspects to it.

Personally the characters were my favorite part of this book. Kat and Ed were really great characters and I loved their relationship. Their friendship and loyalty to each other felt like one of the strongest elements of this novel to me. Also can I just say that I love how simple their nicknames are to pronounce? I love fantasy stories, but they often leave me feeling clueless about how some of the names are supposed to be pronounced. It feels like it’s kind of a staple for the genre, but I really hate it when I’m not sure how to pronounce the protagonist’s name. Kat and Ed as nicknames were rather refreshing for a fantasy. J

The rest of the characters were great too. All of them were interesting and I’d like to learn more about them, so hopefully we’ll get to see them again in the next book.

All in all, this was an enjoyable novel and I look forward to seeing where the story and characters will go in the next installment. I definitely recommend giving this book a shot! 

Favorite Fictional Relationships

It’s that time of year again. It’s Valentine’s Day and love is in the air. Unless you’re currently single like me, in which case the only love that’s in the air is the love between fictional characters. So what better way to celebrate this holiday than talking about my favorite fictional romances? These romances range from books to movies to TV shows to games. So without further ado, I present my top seven favorite fictional relationships.

7. Tris Prior and Tobias “Four” Eaton – Divergent

Okay, I have a big love-hate relationship with the Divergent books, and by love-hate, I primarily lean towards hate. I loved the first book, the second was “eh”, and then the third book was just plain awful to me. That being said, I did like Tris and Four as a couple.

6. Emma Swan and Neal Cassidy – Once Upon a Time

I’ve mentioned on this blog before how I loved these two as a pairing, even though it was short lived because Once Upon a Time had to crush my heart and force me to lose interest in the show. Regardless, I still love the thought of these two characters in a relationship. Part of it is because they have a history together, they shared good moments and bad, and, frankly, their relationship wasn’t perfect. If Neal had lived these two would have had a lot of stuff that they would have had to work through and that could have been interesting to have seen. Also their relationship was so poetic when you think about it. The one meant to break the curse and the one who was the reason behind it. If only it could have worked out between the two of them.

5.  Daisy Johnson and Lincoln Campbell – Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

Oh look, another short lived romance. There’s really not a lot to say about these two characters except that I love them both and liked them together as a couple. A lot of people seemed to have issues with Lincoln, but I always liked him. I wish he could have stayed on the show longer. L

4. Stephanie Plum and Ranger Manoso – Stephanie Plum

This is the odd couple in this list, because they’ve never officially been a couple in the book series. They like each other and people ship them together, but they’ve never been an official item. That being said, I still think that they could make an awesome couple.

3. Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Malarik – The Hunger Games

These two characters really went through a lot throughout their journey and it was really interesting to watch them grow. This is another one of those couples where I just really like them together, but I don’t have much else to say about them. All I can really say is that I’m glad that they found some semblance of happiness together after everything that happened in these books.

2. Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner – Pirates of the Caribbean

Okay, so Will and Elizabeth are my favorite characters in the Pirates movies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Captain Jack Sparrow too, but I’ve always been invested in Will and Elizabeth’s characters and relationship. Which is probably why I’m so excited about the new movie coming out in May. Yay, Will’s back! I will say that Will and Elizabeth never got an official happy ending. As we can see now with the new movie, he’s still stuck having to roam the sea as captain of the Flying Dutchman, which means that his curse apparently can’t be broken and that he can’t be with Elizabeth all the time. Add in the fact that he’s essentially immortal now, unless you know someone stabs his heart, their time together really is limited.

1. Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson – Nancy Drew

Alright Nancy and Ned are my top favorite couple, and if I’m going to be completely honest, Ned is pretty much my fictional dream guy. Nancy goes on adventures all the time in the books and in the video games by HerInteractive, and a lot of the time that leaves Ned back at home. Understandably, he would get a little frustrated from time to time. I mean his girlfriend is traveling the globe often times risking her life, and he can’t really do much to help her. Also, Nancy gets so caught up in cases that she forgets other important things, such as her anniversary with Ned in the game Sea of Darkness. While Ned does get upset, he comes back around and forgives Nancy. He’s always understanding and supportive of her, and best of all he always believes in her. Two of my absolute favorite moments in the video game series come from The Silent Spy and Sea of Darkness and they are lines from Ned that go back to his relationship with Nancy:

"Nothing I say is going to stop Nancy -not this time. I understand why you don't want to help her. But that'll make things more dangerous for Nancy. She called me because she knows that my faith in her is stronger than my fear for her." – Ned in The Silent Spy

"You have that 'help people' gene. There's this fire within you. I firmly believe you're going to save the world one day. At times, I worry like crazy. Even if I'm out with my friends, or at a game, or in the middle of class. I've got one hand on my phone, terrified that I might get that call one day. A call that this time you didn't get lucky. And that used to terrify me, but now... I'm not afraid. What I'm trying to say is, I can't imagine life or the world without you. And even though I might get that call someday... I'm not gonna let fear hold me back. I love you Nancy. I love you so much." – Ned in Sea of Darkness

Isn’t he the sweetest?

Well that sums up my favorite fictional couples. What are yours?

Book Review: Take the Key and Lock Her Up

Today, we look at the final book in Ally Carter’s Embassy Row series: Take the Key and Lock Her Up.

Here’s the summary from Amazon.com:

"For the past three years, Grace Blakely has been desperate to find out the truth about her mother's murder. She thought it would bring her peace. She thought it would lead her to answers. She thought she could put the past to rest.
          
But the truth has only made her a target.
       
And the past?
          
The only way to put the past to rest is for Grace to kill it once and for all."

My rating: ***** (Though I’m sort of leaning closer to 3 ½)

Okay, so when I first finished reading this book I thought it was wonderful. I couldn’t put it down, I had to see what was going to happen next. Usually when that happens, I’m willing to give a book 5 stars. With this one though, the more I thought about it, the more issues that popped up for me.

Also I just want to say, I totally forgot that Adria had a prince close to Grace’s age. Really I forgot that there was a prince altogether and when they first mentioned him, I was thinking that he must be a lot younger. He’s not fortunately, or else some of the stuff in this book would have been very awkward (which it was already awkward, but it would have been worse). Also Thomas is a real MVP. He goes through a lot of crap in this book and he handles it like a champ.

Before I get into any issues, let me focus on what I liked about this book:

• The cover.

The cover of this book is absolutely gorgeous and it’s by far my favorite in the series. I want the dress that Grace is wearing. I would never be able to wear it, but it is so pretty. I’m adding it to my mental list of fictional dresses that I wish I could own.

• The characters.

The characters were great as always, well most of them were anyway. A few groups of characters were just odd and Alexei had a moment or two where he wasn’t spectacular (mainly due to a weird pseudo love triangle, that wasn’t really a love triangle, that was popping up).

• The overall story.

While there were a few issues with it, the story was still exciting and fun to read. I kept wanting to see what would happen next and I wanted to see how Grace would solve everything.

Okay, so now onto the issues with the book. The problem here is that many of the issues are wrapped up with spoilers, both for this book and for the previous ones, so I have to be vague which makes this very difficult to talk about. Ultimately there are two issues that I need to discuss. One: Where the heck is Grace and Jamie’s dad? They’ve been on the run for months, people have been trying to kill them, and he’s MIA the entire time. Shouldn’t he be trying to find them? Has anyone filled him in on what’s happening? There’s a similar issue with Grace’s grandfather, but we do at least get to see him in the book.

Problem number 2: Everything ultimately could have been avoided. That is my main issue with all of this. The people who went after Grace’s mom, go after her and her brother years after her mom’s death. If they were such a threat, why wait this long? The Society, the group of women who influence everything, are fairly idiotic. I mean they have valid concerns, they really do (primarily because Adria has a really stupid constitution), but they are of no help to Grace whatsoever. Also they brush off Grace’s way of ending everything as an impractical solution that couldn’t work, when apparently it could work just fine. Which leads to a rather weak resolution in my opinion. Also I’m going to be honest, but I find the resolution to be a little unrealistic. Though to be fair, a lot of things in this series are unrealistic and that’s why it’s enjoyable, but still.

Overall the story isn’t a bad one, but there are some plot issues that bug me. That being said, they’re not so terrible that it makes the story completely unreadable. It’s still a fun page-turning story and I do recommend checking it out. 

Optimistic Update

Hello everyone, long time no speak!

Well it hasn’t been super long, but still. I haven’t been as active with this blog as I had wanted to be when I first started it, but I’m going to try to change that this year. So more book reviews, and hopefully other posts, should be coming your way soon. I’ve had trouble in the past of coming up with posts to write, but I have a few ideas right now and I’m going to see if I can make them work.

By the way this blog is going to be one-year-old on Sunday, which is pretty cool.

In other news, I have finally finished the first draft of Iridescent! Which means I’m one step closer to being able to publish it! It’s taken me a lot longer to get this draft done than I had wanted. I’m hoping though, that now that I have it written down and I know how I want the story to go, it should be a lot easier to write from here on out. _{I’ve probably jinxed myself by saying that.} So within the next few days, I’ll start reading my first draft and jotting down some notes, and then it’ll be off to draft number two. I’m both looking forward and dreading this, mainly because I know there are going to be some issues in it that need to be worked out. But maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m thinking.

I have also made the decision that I will self-publish Iridescent once I get it to the point where it’s ready to be shared with the world. Before I was considering on going the traditional route, but there are really no guarantees that I would be able to get published that way. Plus, I want to be able to have complete creative control over what happens in this story and the others that follow it.

Well I think that about wraps up everything that’s been going on lately.

5 Things I Learned from NanoWriMo

50,000 words. That’s how much I’ve written this month. Okay, actually it’s a little over 50,000, but still. As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve been participating in NanoWriMo and it’s been an enjoyable ride. It’s also been a headache, frustrating, and a tad bit stressful trying to keep up with the word count goal. But hey, that’s writing for you. Actually, NanoWriMo has been pretty enlightening for me. I’ve realized some things about myself as a writer and about writing in general, and I thought I’d share it with all of you. So here are five things that I’ve learned from NanoWriMo:

1.) I Can Write More Than I Think I Can

This was probably my biggest takeaway from this month. In order to get 50,000 words written in a month, you have to strive to get at least 2,000 words a day. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, but some days 2,000 words can feel like 20,000. When it comes to writing, there are days when it feels like there are no limits, while others feel like you’re walking through quicksand. Writing 50,00 words in one month seemed like a reach to me, because it’s taken me longer to write that before. But this month I got in a rhythm that helped me keep up with the goal, and I could reach the point where I could write 10,000 words in a week. There were still days where I wasn’t very productive, but I used my writing pattern to force myself to catch back up. I’ve realized from this if I can keep up with this schedule I’ve created, I’ll be able to finish my first drafts a whole lot faster than I would if I was writing at my previous pace.

2.) I Am Terrible at Following an Outline

I’m honestly not much of a planner, even though I try to be. For my Nano novel, I Choose You, I wrote out a general outline of what I wanted to happen in each part of the book. I figured that it would help me keep on track with everything and help me know what I should do in the story. And it worked. For the first little bit. As soon as I hit what I wanted to be Act 2 of my story, the outline pretty much disappeared. New events popped up, events that originally were going to be there never showed up. Oh and a character that was supposed to be a bad guy, pretty much just turned into a jerk who really isn’t so bad. Yeah, me and outlines aren’t the best of friends. That being said…

3.) Having a General Idea of Where a Story is Going is Extremely Helpful

This might seem like a bit of a contradiction from my last point, but it’s actually not. Part of the problem I had with I Choose You was that I really didn’t have a good vision of where I wanted the story to go. I knew how I wanted it to start, and I somewhat had an idea of how I wanted it to end. The middle was pretty vague. I had an idea or two of things that could happen in it, but nothing that really connected point A to point B. This kind of made it hard to write. Without having a general idea of how I wanted to connect my beginning and ending, this story was more difficult to tell than it needed to be.

4.) Taking a Step Back from a Story Can Be Good

While I was writing I Choose You, I took a break from writing Iridescent. Which was honestly a really good thing, because while I was working on something else, I got new ideas for it and realized some of my current ideas just weren’t going to work. I was getting into a little bit of a rut with Iridescent and now I can see what the problem was and how I can fix it going forward. And hopefully these new ideas will help me make it an even better story than it would have been before.

5.) It’s Not About the Results, It’s About the Journey

Okay, I’m going to be honest and admit that this sounds like a cliché, but honestly it’s the truth. For a first draft at least. This month, I didn’t focus on what the end result for I Choose You would be. I knew that the story probably wasn’t the best and that a lot of it would need to be changed if I ever wanted to do something with it. But I didn’t go back and try to tweak stuff – something I’ve been known to do in the past. Instead I just wrote whatever came to mind. I played around with my characters and wrote a story. When I go back and reread it, I’ll probably cringe at parts and wonder what I was thinking when I was writing that. But it doesn’t matter. I can spend time editing and rewriting it later on. Right now, the important part is that I finished it. That’s what counts.

So how about all of you? Did you participate in NanoWriMo? If you did, did you learn anything new while you were writing your story? 

Book Review: Home

You know that book where you’re so excited to read it, but once you start you don’t want it to be over? That pretty much sums up my feelings when it comes to Harlan Coben’s newest novel, Home. This is a continuation of his Myron Bolitar series, which hasn’t had a new installment in years. Harlan Coben is one of my absolute favorite writers, and the Myron Bolitar series is one of my absolute favorite book series. Needless to say, I’ve been dying for a new Myron book and Home did not disappoint.

Here’s the synopsis:

“A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For ten years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend Win believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for ten years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken? And most critically: What can he tell Myron and Win about the fate of his missing friend?”

My rating: *****

I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. It was amazing, spectacular, spellbinding, pretty much any word that describes an incredibly terrific book! _{Okay, I’ll admit that I might be overselling it a little.}

First things first, this book is told in 3^rd person POV focusing on Myron and occasionally 1^st person POV focusing on Win. We read Win’s thoughts and it is amazing. If you’ve never read any of the Myron Bolitar books before there are a lot of important characters, but the main four are: Myron, Windsor “Win” Horne Lockwood III, Esperanza Diaz, and Big Cyndi. The four of them are a very eclectic group and are very entertaining. I’m making a point to mention that we’re reading chapters told through Win’s perspective, because he’s a psychopathic anti-hero. He’s pretty much the type of character I normally wouldn’t be a fan of, and yet for some reason I love this character. Win. An enigma of a character, and it is wonderful to get to read through his perspective.

Oh and Myron’s nephew Mickey Bolitar, and his friends Ema and Spoon from the YA books staring Mickey, also make appearances in Home.

The story itself was one full of twists and turns, because just when you think they’ve figured it out, it turns into something else instead. Which is great, because it kept me at the edge of my seat, trying to figure out exactly what went down with this kidnapping. The answer and ending to this mystery was a bittersweet one though. But I really didn’t dwell on the bittersweetness, because the ending to the novel, the very last page, dropped a bombshell.

To avoid spoilers, I will sum up my thoughts on said bombshell: “WHAT!? WHAT!? WHAT!? AHHH! NO WAY!”

I’m really, really hoping that there’s going to be either another Myron book or another Mickey book, because I really, really, really want to learn more about this.

And I say hoping, because there were moments in Home where I was wondering if this is going to be the last Myron Bolitar novel. I haven’t seen anything that states that it is, so I’m going to remain optimistic that Harlan Coben has more stories for these characters in the future.

Just hopefully it won’t take five more years. 

Book Review: Curious Minds: A Knight and Moon Novel

Author collaborations are always interesting. Each writer has their own unique style, so when you combine two of them you can wind up with two results: a disaster or an enjoyable story. Fortunately, all the ones I’ve read so far, have been very enjoyable. That’s why today, I’ll be reviewing Janet Evanovich’s recent collaboration with Phoef Sutton: Curious Minds: A Knight and Moon Novel.

Here’s the synopsis:

“Emerson Knight is introverted, eccentric, and has little to no sense of social etiquette. Good thing he’s also brilliant, rich, and (some people might say) handsome, or he’d probably be homeless. Riley Moon has just graduated from Harvard Business and Harvard Law. Her aggressive Texas spitfire attitude has helped her land her dream job as a junior analyst with mega-bank Blane-Grunwald. At least Riley Moon thought it was her dream job, until she is given her first assignment: babysitting Emerson Knight.

What starts off as an inquiry about missing bank funds in the Knight account leads to inquiries about a missing man, missing gold, and a life-and-death race across the country. Through the streets of Washington, D.C., and down into the underground vault of the Federal Reserve in New York City, an evil plan is exposed. A plan so sinister that only a megalomaniac could think it up, and only the unlikely duo of the irrepressibly charming Emerson Knight and the tenacious Riley Moon can stop it.”

My rating: *****

I really enjoyed this story. Riley and Emerson are both enjoyable characters, Emerson especially so. He’s a pretty big departure from Janet Evanovich’s usual male leads. Oh, he’s still attractive, just like Ranger, Joe, and Nick are, but his personality is pretty different. Emerson is pretty much a mash up between Sheldon Cooper and Sherlock Holmes. And that makes for a very entertaining character.

The story itself is a pretty average one, nothing spectacular, but it wasn’t bad either. The mystery was interesting, and I was curious to see where the story was going to go. Much like most of Janet Evanovich’s books, it’s the characters that leave a lasting impact, not the story itself. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I do have to say, that I love the various pop culture references that this book makes. If you manage to make superhero references in a story, I’m pretty much guaranteed to increase my liking of it.

All in all, this is a series I would like to see continued.