Audience: Middle Grade

Format: Audiobook/Library Copy

It was the day Mom took the coast road to school.

- first sentence

Michael discovered his unusual ability quite by accident when he saved a dog wandering near the edge of a cliff. He isn't sure exactly what happened, but somehow he moved across the field in the blink of an eye. Soon afterward, he met Amadeus Klimt, head of the UNICORNE Society (UNexplained Incidents, Cryptic Occurrences, Relative Nontemporal Events) and Chantelle who also works for UNICORNE and keeps an eye on him. Amadeus gave Michael a mission - to find out about the dog and if he succeeds, he may eventually be able to find his father...

I enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

It was better than an ok read. 

I did enjoy parts of it.

I liked Cynthia, and the whole setting.

The vampire thing was pretty run of the mill.

I think the female lead would have deserved a better series, a better, more interesting world building than the "normal" mighty vampire lord stuff.

Still, it was a good read.

The story of the American Revolution is well known and thought of as gospel by average Americans, but is that story more myth than history?  Ray Raphael in his book, Founding Myths, aims to tell the true patriotic history behind the stories told about the American Revolution.

Investigating thirteen prominent stories surrounding the Revolutionary era, Raphael attempts to put the actual people and events in context of their time while demythologizing the past.  Some of the stories are that of individuals like Paul Revere, Molly Pitcher, and Sam Adams or such events like Yorktown ending the war, the Continental Army surviving Valley Forge, and the events before Lexington and Concord.  While a few myths that Raphael covered have been demystified by some pop-history documentaries since before and after the publishing of this book and others that a well-read history enthusiast already knows are false, there was one that completely surprised me and that was the events of 1774 that led up to the Lexington and Concord.

Although I knew the actual history behind the myths Raphael covered, this book was still a pleasant read if you can persevere through the repetitious references to films like The Patriot and Raphael’s continual hyping of the Massachusetts revolution of 1774.  While I understood the reference to The Patriot given its prominence around the time of the book’s writing but it could have been toned down.  Raphael’s description of the events in Massachusetts in 1774 are really eye-opening but he keeps on bringing them up throughout the book and given he already written a book about the subject before this one it makes it feel like he’s attempting to use one book to sell another.  Finally, Raphael’s brings up how the mythical stories he is writing about are in today’s textbooks in each chapter and while I think this was book information, it might have been better if he had moved that into his concluding chapter alone.

Founding Myths is fascinating reading for both general and knowledgeable history readers which is a credit to Ray Raphael’s research, yet there are pitfalls that take some of the joy out of reading this book.  While I recommend this book, just be weary of the repetitious nature that I described above.

TREACHERY . . . Something the powerful Vampire Lord Raphael has seen far too much of lately. 

RAGE . . . An emotion that, left unchecked, can burn like the fires of hell.

REVENGE . . . A dish that philosophers claim is best served cold.

It’s been months since the powerful French vampire Mathilde used Raphael’s arrogance against him and nearly succeeded in taking his life. His fury has grown stronger with every day since, fed by new bloody incursions onto North American soil by the Europeans, while vampire politicking has forced him to wait. But no longer. Someone has attacked his home, killing vampires, threatening Cyn. They’ve taken it one step too far, and Raphael’s tired of waiting. His enemies are about to discover that revenge can taste damn good when it’s hot, too.

Smokin’ Hot! Cyn & Raphael is once again heating up the pages while shaking up the vampire population. I can never get enough of Cyn & Raphael, these characters easily pull readers into their lives and get you hooked because not only is there never a dull moment, but readers get some red hot sex scenes that have me melting into a puddle as I read them.  The action scenes are just as intense and thrilling as the sex scenes are hot which keeps readers glued to every page.

I love how the author keeps giving readers these shorter novellas in between the main books of the series, not only because it allows me to keep in touch with Cyn & Raphael but it always ties things up nice and neat, connecting things that you might not have connected before. My only complaint is I really hate putting the books down and having to wait for the next one, which I am sitting on pins and needles waiting for, Quinn needs to hurry up on his take-over of Ireland, so I can get to reading his book.

Relentless is # 11.5 in the Vampires in America Series

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‘You’ve been unbelievably imprudent!’ said Raymon, carefully closing the door behind him. ‘And my servants know you’re here! They’ve just told me.’

‘I made no secret of my presence,’ she replied coldly, ‘and, as for the word you use, I think it ill-chosen.’

‘I said imprudent; I ought to have said insane.’

‘I would have said courageous. But it doesn’t matter.'

No, no, it does matter, and I would like to get back to using the word insane. This novel was insane. Seriously, there was nothing sane amidst the high drama in this story. There was no sane person among the characters in this story. All of whom deserved to be slapped repeatedly by the way.

At some point when reading this I asked whether Sand wrote this as satire, but apparently she did not. This was, apparently, an earnest attempt at a story and at characters. 

I am really torn about this book, because I can't decide whether I liked it: plot, characters, and style, were all over the place. There were inconceivable and weird turns, there were high dramatics, there were tantrums, there was a lot of sentimentality. 

And, yet, at no point did I want to set the book aside. At no point did I want to DNF this.

I guess this is because the plot was so incredibly packed with moments that astonished me, that I just had to watch this train wreck of a novel until the end.

And what an end this was!

I guess I should have written about how Indiana is Sand making a stand for women's rights, and the emancipation of women as individuals who are equal under law, and the general struggle of individuals of both sexes against the social constrictions of her time, but, oh boy, that would mean that I would have to take Indiana serious as a novel.

And that I just cannot do.

For all the courage, sass, and modernism that Sand stands for, I have to separate the author from this particular book. This particular book was insane!