REVIEW

Title: Covenant Series

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Genre: YA Paranormal

 

This series was recommended to me a while back, and as I had not read a YA series in a quite a while, I was ready for this one.  I went on a bit of a reading binge and read all the books one after the other.  Reading this way is satisfying as it is a complete series – and there is no waiting, but it does make it difficult to review each book separately, so I will just give my thoughts on the series as a whole.

 

There was so much I really enjoyed about this series – the characters were awesome, the action was great, and the romance was heart-stopping at times, but more than anything it was the story and the writing which brought it all together beautifully.  It worked very, very well.

 

I liked Alex as a character – she is a kick-ass no holds barred kind of girl and I like that.  I enjoyed reading about her journey from the young troubled teen that she was to the strong young woman she eventually became – she is a great character. Her love for Aidan was beautiful and his for her was powerful and selfless and I loved reading about their journey.

 

Out of all the characters, Seth, to me, was The Man.  He made some seriously bad judgement calls and was taken advantage of, but deep down he wanted to be an honorable man and to be respected and loved.  He is a really great character with hidden depths.

 

The story itself was great.  I enjoyed reading about the Olympian gods and their arrogant and humorous (to me) outlook on life.  It is probably not easy to live forever – everything has been said and done a thousand times before, and after a while, life probably becomes a bore and you do what you need to do to alleviate the boredom a bit.  Throw in a Titan here and there and things are bound to get interesting.

 

The conclusion to the series was not what I was expecting, but it made sense in a way.  I would have liked to have seen what happens to the rest of the cast of characters as they were important to the story, but the book just ended ……..

 

I did not read Elixir, which is an 80 page novella told from Aiden’s perspective. At $4.99 (South African price) I could not justify the cost, and as I am not a fan of novellas, I avoid them if I can. Having said that – Daimon, the first book in the series is actually a 93 page Prequel to the first book, Half-Blood, so it was important to buy and read it – but I must admit, it irritated the heck out of me – I have no idea why it was a prequel and not part of the first book – Half-Blood

 

All in all this is a good series and the first I have read by Jennifer L. Armentrout.  Apart from some really annoying editing errors it was a really good read and I enjoyed her style.

 

 

 

Philip Eckstein is a private detective who strictly follows his own ideas of what’s right and wrong. His morality gets challenged when a woman hires him to find her criminal brother without the help of the cops.

Things get more complicated than he's used to then, from crazed dogs to dead bodies turning up. Philip begins to question if who and what he is after is the same as what his hot and secretive client says.

One of my favourite aspects of this book was how Falko Rademacher vividly describes Berlin in a way that makes you feel as if you're there. Along with realistic and amusing characters, 'A Suitcase Full of Blood' is a fast-paced and entertaining thriller that will leave you guessing to the end.

Love Poem.I want the next thing I write to have you in it, I always do. I want to write about your hair, or your hands, or the smile you have when you crack with emotion. But the next poem has a white wall in it, and a halogen lamp that’s so bright, it leaves ghost trails in the eyes, and is dangerously hot to touch.***********The next poem has got a beech wood in too, or rather the path that runs through the wood, and a meeting with a dog who smiles when you greet her. It will be a love poem, the next poem with you in. They always are love poems, even when they turn out to have bombs in them, or politics, or light switches.************************Full Blood is an anthology of poetry, previously published in an assortment of magazines, poetry journals & shared anthologies (Granta, The Guardian, Poetry Review, & The Rialto), before being collated in this work. The subject matter is as wide and as varied as life can be in our times and is encapsulated by the poem above, which even when it wants to discuss one subject it can’t help bringing in others. So the poetry runs through subjects such as the War (Afghanistan), Childhood, Racism, sex etc.In the official bumf for this collection it states that, “Full Blood is John Siddique's fourth full-length collection of poems for adults. Erotic, physical, completely open and fully engaged with the moral urgency of life, Siddique tackles his themes robustly and yet with great sensitivity, constantly defining and reimagining what it is to be a man in today's world, living fully in the moment”.All of which makes sense and is a fitting description of this book, this is muscular erotic poetry, the writing is beautiful as only someone who loves language - whatever it’s shape, whether fey or concrete, whether spiritual or something more bloodied, visceral can write. John Siddique has said that he regards his true countries of birth to be Literature & Language, this I can believe, but it isn’t what I want to say. What I want to say is that sometimes all those wonderful descriptions, all that verbosity etc., although by its very nature is wonderful, just gets in the way and all that really needs saying is… Look!http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/full-bloodjohn-siddique.html