***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

You know what makes me happy? That YA Westerns are finally becoming a thing. One of my favorite (and most anticipated books of the year) was a YA Western and as soon as I heard thatVengeance Road was a YA Western (AND SAW THAT BEAUTIFUL COVER), I was sold. I ached with the need to read this book. I could already see I would fall head over heels for this tale of revenge and was so excited to dive in. This book was amazing but the reason I cannot say that this book is the best thing ever is because of the few minor issues I had.  BUT LET ME TELL YOU, this book does the genre justice.

I am going to start off with my few criticisms and then move on to why this book was flipping amazing.

My no.1 problem with this book was how Native Americans came up in the book. There was a lot of distrust between Native Americans and the Caucasians at the time and the author does a good job in portraying that distrust. The problem is that I wanted something more, something that would go beyond just acknowledging the hypocrisy and would go into the details of the injustice being committed. Especially since one of the secondary characters in the book happens to be Native American. But some of the things the MC said were from a place of privilege and I wanted to see another side of her that acknowledges these privileges and that there was a LOT of injustice committed by her people.

My other problem was that sometimes the cowboy slang (idk what else to call it) being used grated on me.Now, I won’t say that I am a huge stickler for proper grammar because I make mistakes all the time, but after a while the Is get annoying.  That being said, I think that for the most part, Bowman nailed the language aspect and the fact that it grated on me doesn’t really speak on whether or not I thought Bowman made a good choice. Personally, I think it actually brought the story to life and made me feel like I was right there in the wild west.

Moving on to the good bits, Kate is an AMAZING female lead. She is someone you cannot help but root for and I had so much fun watching her go on this adventure. After her father is brutally murdered, she is out for blood. She wants revenge and her blood is filled with this need for vengeance. So our adventure begins. Along the way, Kate meets two men and one of them will come to mean a lot to her.

My favorite thing about Kate is how strong she is despite her loss. I love that she is able to hold her own and is just as badass as any other cowboy out there. She may not always realize when having other people around is a good thing but given that she was disguised as a boy, one can imagine why she would go out of her way to avoid hanging out with people.  But she also develops over the course of the book and learns what is really important and I loved being there with her and enjoying the journey with her.

Then we get these amazing secondary characters that join Kate on her journey but they don’t seek vengeance, they seek GOLD. Jesse and Will are so much fun to read about. Will may be someone who comes off as immature but he managed to surprise me when it came down to important stuff. He was never naïve and was always aware of the risks, perhaps even more so than Jesse. Jesse could sometimes be too ambitious but he was also sweet, closed off and SO ADORABLE.

One of my favorite things about this book, besides the characters is how fantastically Bowman brings this historical setting to life.With her choice of words, her choice of scenes, everything. There are gold hunts, gun fights, running away in the dark, and just good ole riding off in the dusk. Everything in this book screams western and I LOVED it.

There is this one twist towards the end that I didn’t necessarily enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very interesting twist and I didn’t see it coming but I also saw no need for it. It didn’t really twist my mind the way one would expect something like that would. It just seem like something that was thrown in but never fully explored and thus I felt as though the book would have actually been better off without it.

Never the less, this was a very good read for me and one I won’t fail to recommend because who doesn’t love them some cowboys and a good ole fashioned adventure?

Note that I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

This book is far from perfect but I absolutely adored it.When I first dived into this book, I pretty much had no idea what it was about, I remembered reading the blurb and being intrigued but the only concrete detail I remembered was that this book had something to do with woods. I had thought I was diving into a paranormal book, instead I found myself amidst a horror and a well written one at that.

I am not going to say there weren't loop holes, there were but I think what really matters in a story like this is that the author actually manages to make you the feel the fear the characters felt and I did. I find that I don't frighten easily (although I startle very easily) but when I was reading this book, I was SO JUMPY. Every time someone opened the door, I would freak out. I am just glad I didn't scream!

This isn’t some loosely plotted horror novel. The author takes her time to develop aspects of the story. It isn’t just meant to scare the readers but to actually make them feel more than just fear. To make them connect to the main character (as well as the other characters) and to make them cheer for her not just because someone has to survive but because they like her and want her to come out of this alive!

Penny is a very likeable character. You don’t need a likeable character to make a story work but hey likeable characters are... likeable and Penny is likeable. What I think makes her character a little interesting is the way her own doubt can make her some what of an unreliable narrator. My only complain was that we never actually find much about the ‘old’ Penny. We are given hints as to what she was like but we never really find out more about the kind of affect Rae had on her especially given how much the story focuses on the negative impact Rae’s friendship had on Penny. That said, I did adore Penny. She was far from perfect and that made her all the more rootable.

This book doesn't have any romance (heck yeah) but what it does have is a heep of fantastic secondary characters. My favorite is obviously Rob (who was the stepbrother) but both April and Miller are fantastic in their own right.

April is the stepmother and she can be pushy but the one thing that strikes you about her is that she is genuinely trying to get to know Penny better. I think that’s what gets to Penny too. Her stepmother isn’t the best person on the planet but at least she is trying to reach out to her.

What makes Miller so interesting is how so very abnormal he is. He would be the love interest if this were any other book but he is Miller. I think it’s very interesting to see how he spirals out of control over the course of the book as we find more and more about what has happened to him and the tragedies that he has to live through (and has played an indirect part in).

The author puts so much work into developing the atmosphere of the book and she does it just right. I was genuinely scared and my eyes were glued to the pages. This book is quite frankly, creepy as fuck and I am just incredibly glad I didn’t have nightmares that night.

What makes the horror aspect of this book work so much is that the author actually develops the back story of the events that lead to all this creepy stuff happening. We may not get all the answers but I think in this kind of situation, it's almost impossible to have all the answers. And anyway, what fun would that be?

One of my complains was that the author didn’t actually give us any details about how they were survivng in the creepy house. Considering they were shunned by the entire town, how were they getting supplies? How were they making their food? Assuming everything works is too much of a stretch considering the condition the house was described to be in so yeah... how were they living?

Aside from that though, I thought this was a very well written story and I cannot wait to read more of the author’s works.

There may be a couple of loop holes but all in all, this book is one hell of a ride and a book I’d recommend to lovers of horror and all things creepy.

Trial by Fire was exactly as I had hoped it would be but more. That sounds a little contradictory, doesn't it? I suppose the best way to explain it is that I knew I would love this book but I had no idea how much. Angelini never fails to surprise me.

I remember when I first read Starcrossed and now, reading the first book in her new trilogy, I feel the same way as I felt then. I feel that excitement. I feel the thrill. I feel everything. Yet at the same time, it's obvious how much she has grown as a writer. Angelini knows what she is doing.

This book does not start off lightly and if you're like me and don't deal well with anticipation, the first chapter and a half is going to be HARD to read through but once you're past those hard bits, it gets a lot better, I promise.

Lily is a fantastic character. She is strong and her strength never fails to amaze me. When 'her' Tristan is a jerk to her, she doesn't just curl up into a ball. She's heartbroken but also realizes that what he did to her, the way he treated her, was wrong and she doesn't just let that go away, she tells him that he was a jerk. That's just one showcase of the strength she possesses. She has to adapt to a whole new world yet she does it realistically. Even though she is quick to understand the mechanics of the new world, she continues to hold the ideologies of her own. She isn't just going to change who she is to adapt to this new world, instead she tries to understand these differences and the reasons behind them. That's what makes her such a likeable character.

The secondary characters are just as well developed. I want to start off by mentioning the brilliance that is Lillian. I have NO CLUE how Angelini does it. Lillian isn’t your typical villain and I have to say, I find it incredibly hard to hate her. Her actions are inexcusable yet Angelini still develops her character in a way where it’s possible for us as readers to empathize with her. Okay, so I know many won’t be enthusiastic about empathizing with a villain but just trust me. It’s important to the story. Juliet is a wonderful addition although to be honest, throughout the entirety of the book, I found myself missing Lily’s Juliet. That does speak volumes about Angelini’s character development skills, especially if you find yourself missing a character you knew for 1.5 chapters.

Let’s not forget Caleb and Tristan though. I think we get to know more about Tristan (the other version who is a lot nicer) more but I kind of connected to Caleb after a certain event. That said, they are both wonderfully developed as well and I cannot wait to see more of them in the sequels.

Speaking of, I still haven’t mentioned Rowan, the love interest. I am all about the romance and while I genuinely enjoyed the romance in this book, I also felt really uncomfortable at times. Knowing that Rowan had loved Lillian in the past and was hurt so badly by her made me uncomfortable. It makes me wonder if Rowan actually has genuine feelings for Lily as an individual or if he sees her as a nicer version of Lillian? Those kinds of questions kept on bothering me as I read the book so it made it harder to enjoy their romance, no matter how sweet it was.

What takes the cake is the world building and I am not the least bit surprised by that. If you’ve read Angelini’s Starcrossed trilogy, you’ll know what I am talking about. If you have not, you should go get started on that. Moving back to the world building, I have always loved the idea of parallel universes and this book explores the idea in an interesting way. It’s not a brand new idea but at the same time, Angelini manages to make it original. Angelini does an original take on magic but she also creates an interesting power hierarchy. There isn’t much in-depth world building and we learn more about the differences between this world and our own than we do about the history of this new world, but I think we’ll find out a lot more in the sequels.

The plot was so well paced although that’s to be expected in this kind of book. The pages flew by and before I knew it, I only had 30 pages left in the book and had to take a quick break so I wouldn’t die of thirst.

The way this book ends has me dying to read the sequel and all I can say is that anyone looking for an interesting book featuring magic, you need to check this out.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Before I say anything else, I feel the need to point out that if you’re interested  in this book because it sounds ‘fun’, you might want to reconsider because it is anything but.

This is a book I was looking very forward to reading after having heard wonderful things about the author’s Gretchen Lowell series (to which I own the first book) and I wasn’t let down in the least. This book is very emotional, and at times even hard to read, because you become so overwhelmed. That's not really surprising once you realize that this book deals with serious issues like pedophilia and child pornography.

Kick was rescued a decade ago from a man who kidnapped her when she was 6 and sadly, she would never be the same again. Her time with the man has affected her in ways that can and WILL make you feel so emotional. What’s even worse is that somewhere in the back of her mind, he’ll be ‘daddy’ to her since her own father left barely 4 months after she was returned. In spite of all that, Kick is still a very strong female lead, especially given her circumstances. Once she was returned, she trained herself so that she would always be able to protect herself and that no one would ever be able to force her to go ANYWHERE. Kick can literally kick your ass and knows many ways to kill you without having any weapons on hand. That’s what grounds her.

She also spends a lot of time paying attention to Amber Alerts and trying to save other kids; the kids that might have otherwise never went missing if she hadn’t auto nuked the files on her abductor’s computer under his order.

Then she meets Bishop or, more appropriately, he sneaks into her house and finds her and gives her an opportunity to help save some of the kids that recently have gone missing. And so they go to places from Kick’s past and try to connect the dots to find the assholes who took these young children.

I think what makes this book even heartbreaking is the flashbacks we get of Kick’s past, from when she was Beth and we see how that has an affect on her presently. How when near the presence of her abductor, she forgets she’s Kick and feels like the helpless child who obeyed his orders. The feels.

What makes this book so strong, aside from Kick, is the entourage of secondary characters - from James to Bishop to Mel and to even Frank - they are so well-developed. None of them are flat. They are all well-rounded characters with complicated pasts of their own (in the case of James and Bishop) that make them who they are today. Even in the case of Mel. You may not like him, I mean, who would? But the author characterizes him so well that even though you may hate him, you see that he is a very complicated character who in spite of his perversions actually cares for Kick.

There's no romance in this book, but there is a hint of one which would definitely be interesting to see developed considering how complicated the characters are.

This book is a mixture of a plot and character-driven book, and both aspects of the novel are very strong. The plot was well-developed and while there are several questions that haven’t been answered, I am sure they will be in the future instalments. This book in itself was wrapped up very well leaving us with enough questions to look forward to in reading the sequel but nothing that would torment us *cough* cliffhanger *cough*.

I absolutely adored this book. It was moving and emotional and really, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a gritty suspenseful read.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

I am genuinely surprised by how much I liked this one. I went into After the End expecting to be disappointed, but Khanh’s review offered a glimpse of hope, that perhaps this book wouldn’t be another disappointment. I had even more reason to be skeptical about this one because I haven’t had much luck with dystopias lately and I kind of expected it to be another generic one. Except it wasn’t. It put a very original spin on the idea of a dystopic world. Dystopias are so much more than mass destruction and scheming governments. There is so much more to them than just that and After the End realizes that. This was one of the reasons why I was also able to overlook some of the things that bothered me and just sit back and enjoy the novel.

The first 1/3rd or so of the novel is not very believable. There seems to be quite a few convenient situations that did initially annoy me and make me wonder how much worse the book could get, but once you get past them, the book starts moving along better and random coincidences start ‘minimizing’.

Juneau is going to be the next sage of her tribe and ever since she came into her powers, she has been practicing to defend and protect her tribal members. But then her tribe disappears. After a hunt, she comes back to find all their animals killed and all the members of her tribe gone. So she sets out into the ruins to save them but imagine her surprise when she learns that everything she has been told has been a lie all along. There was no World War III that demolished the entire world and lives have carried on for the past 30 years without them.

I found Juneau, for the most part, to be a very likeable female lead. I understood her naivety, seeing that the world which she was thrust into was so completely different from her own. I admired her determination and I loved her struggle. I loved that she was confused and conflicted. These people had lied to her for her whole life but at the same time they were her tribe, her responsibility. She was determined to save them but at the same time she lost faith in everything they had taught her and had to rebuild her belief system.

Miles on the other hand, yeah. He was a confusing one. I never understood his determination to help Juneau and his voice just didn’t work for me. He seemed more like a pre-teen than an 18 year old. He was stubborn, spoiled, and usually didn’t think twice before doing something. He was very impulsive and kind of contradicted Juneau. That did seem to be intentional but the contradiction didn’t have the effect it could have had if Miles hadn’t been so pig-headed all the times.

One of my favorite secondary characters (or I should say the only notable one) was Tallie.

“Doubt everything, Juneau. Doubt everything at least once. What you decide to keep, you’ll be able to be confident of. And what you decide to ditch, you will replace with what your instincts tell you is true.”

She gave the best advice and helped Juneau recover faith in things that were important to her, but she also gave her room to doubt things. I found Tallie’s appearance to be random and not as well planned out as it could have been, but the heart of the purpose her character served somehow worked in spite of the flaws surrounding their meeting.

The romance, predictably, wasn’t all that great either. At first it wasn’t based on insta-attraction. Neither liked the other very much but they had to rely on one another which consequently built an odd bond of sorts. But then the romance jumped out of nowhere. They kissed and I was just sitting there wondering what the hell had happened and where the kiss had come from.

The plot, although not particularly strong, was incredibly enjoyable. Kids on the run helps. Always. It usually makes for an exhilarating and exciting read and as someone who enjoys a good adventure/survival story, I didn't feel differently about this book in terms of that. The ride was a little bumpy (those bothersome conveniences I mentioned) but aside from that it was fun and it didn’t take me much time to devour the book.

I also enjoyed the concept of Yara. It’s not particularly original but the way it was presented was awesome. I am quite looking forward to see what the future installments hold in store for us.

Like I mentioned before, my biggest problem with this book was the random conveniences. Here was this girl who was carrying more money than anyone should be and no one really did anything about it. They might fleetingly mention it but for the most part it almost seemed like it was a normal occurrence. On top of that, if the money had come from an illegal source, the people who took money from her could get into big trouble which was why I was surprised when no one really said anything. Also there was that part where Miles reads his Dad’s email. His father apparently didn't have a password on his computer. He was a CEO and didn't have a password on his home computer. Does anyone else see what is wrong with that?

Also the cliffhanger. Nope. Not happy. Why would anyone do that? End on such an extreme note. That’s not a very nice thing to do.

This book, on the whole, is quite enjoyable but one’s ability to enjoy it will depend on whether you could overlook some grievances in order to enjoy the overall ride. I could and I ended up enjoying it. I would definitely recommend it to someone like me who is getting tired of generic dystopias and wants something new and (relatively) unique to look forward to.

Note that all quotes have been taken from an uncorrected proof and may be subject to change.