Title: Witch Hunt

• If US, the winner will receive a mystery box from Clean Teen Publishing
• If International, the winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

That was a fun and interesting book.

Each year the Noah sisters play a game, crushed. You blow magical dust in the selected boy's face, and he will do what you want. Ofcourse you need to be careful, the enchantment might break. And then you will lose.

Now this year, Kristen, goes and cheats, she "enchants" the bad boy of the school: Zach Bevian.

But is he really enchanted? Or is he just acting enchanted?

The story switches between Kristen and Zach, I really liked that, that way we find out Kristen isn't that shallow and that Zach actually isn't that bad, but that he has a (deadly) secret.

Man, did his sister/familiar scare me. That girl was really scary, popping up randomly, trying to kill everyone who came between her brother and her lovely relationship.

She even employed the help of Kristen's sister, Brittany.

In all, this was a great ride, it has romance, action, magic. I would recommend it to everyone. :)

Surprise surprise. This is my first straightmance and YA novel in a long long time.

It kind of reminded me why I swore off YA novels, but at the same time, strangely gave me the urge to take a longer look at the newest ones I've come across.

First thing is first, this kind of book, evidently, is not really my "thing". When I first started reading this it was kind of juvenile and off putting, but, of course, being me, I was also very much intrigued. I love that from the beginning, this book seemed to very obviously end with a HEA, of course, only after going through a not-so heart stopping plot. Yeah, it's not exactly praising this book, but for me, since I'm on holidays and overseas and all, it totally worked.

In the end? It's kind of juvenile, the romance is insta-love (no matter how much it tries not to be, with the whole "hate" going on), the plot is so and so (but grabbing nonetheless), and it's a totally fun and mindless read. Haha, cheers.

Rating: not quite three stars.

More of my reviews at Secrets of Lost Words You can also read the review here*A copy was provided by the author for reviewing purposes* Cover: Seems.. mysterious. Kinda reminds me of Pretty Little Liars (I don't even watch the show).My Thoughts:I think this was a very sweet story :)The Noah sisters go to Titan High and every year they have a secret game called Crushed. They blow magic dust (love potion) into their targets' faces (poor boys), and ask them to do bizarre things. Britney (one of the sisters) dared Kristen (the protagonist) to Crush one of the most dangerous boys in school this year. Zach Bevian, unfortunately for Kristen, is a wizard. Love potions don't work on witches and wizards (that is, if they're powerful enough). Through the story, you see Kristen doubt if Zach has actually been Crushed. He's glaring at her one minute and asking her out the next. I liked the romantic relationship between Kristen and Zach. It was really sweet :) There were moments when I was like this:Other than all the romantic stuff (fluffiness!), I really liked the mysterious case of attempted killings they were solving. Someone seems to target Kristen (of course) and wants to murder her. Through the whole book, I was like, "Oh yeah, blah blah blah totally wants to murder her." But I was proven wrong at the very end. I thought I got it.. but nope.. I didn't.Now, what I didn't like so much about the book was that you don't really see much of their powers. Besides brewing love potions and teleporting and some other stuff I won't say, you don't really see the extent of what the witches and wizards can do. I hope to find out more about their powers in the second book. Moment I was laughing:"No, I'm not chicken. The motorcycle doesn't worry me. The driver does.""Excuse me? I happen to be an excellent driver.""Yeah, that's what they all say." ~Crushed, K. C. BlakeMoments Kitty-expression worthy:"I love you, too," she said. "I want you to know that even though you're leaving. No matter how many boys come and go, I will never forget you, and I will never stop loving you." ~Crushed, K. C. Blake"I changed because of you. You've taught me that love is real and that I don't have to be perfect to be happy and that I have a lot to learn about life. I want to explore everything, try everything." ~Crushed, K. C. BlakeRecommended to anyone who likes witches and paranormal romance :)

(Book provided through ARR #27 in the We ♥ YA Books! group, in exchange for an honest review.)

Although I didn't find this book exceptional, it made me spend a good time. Its good sides managed to balance the peeves I had with it.

The characters were fun and pleasant to read about. While they appear as cookie-cutter high school caricatures at first (the bitchy twin-nice twin pair, the perfect popular girl, the tall, dark and scary guy with a bad reputation...), they all proved to be deeper and more complex people by the end of the novel, each with his or her motives to act the way they did. They had their strengths and weaknesses, and both of those played a role in how the story evolved. The relationship between Zach and Morgan was pretty touching, the 'bad boy' act being pretty much a way of keeping people at bay and protecting what was dearest to him. And I liked how Kristen managed to grow up emotionally and mentally, her experience allowing her to understand what she should do and not do.

The Crushed game itself (complete with rules stated at the beginning of the book) was intriguing, and has the potential to raise a lot of questions in the reader's mind. As in, 'would I be happy to have a boy obey my every whim like that', 'would I do it if I could', 'how would I react if I knew I had been under such a spell'... While those may seem evident to a mature audience, I think their answers aren't so obvious no matter what, especially for younger readers. And I'm always up for anything that challenges people's opinions and makes them reflect, whether they're teens, young adults or older.

I found the plot to be not overly complex, but with enough twists and turns to keep me wanting to know who did what and who was influencing who in the end. There's clearly a game of power and influence here, one that makes use of emotions and beliefs in order to deceive, and that's why the relationships between the main characters were made all the more important: if it had only rested on paranormal means, it wouldn't have been as interesting.

A few things prevented me from giving this novel a higher mark, though. First, I would really have wanted to read more about the Crushed game itself—to see more of the girls toying with people, perhaps, more of Kristen and Zack trying to fool each other, before falling in love. From the summary, I expected more in that regard. The first half of the story also had lengths, especially towards the middle. I also wondered about Kristen's reaction during her 'cold war' with her sister (shouldn't she have put up more of a fight, as the perfectionist and overachiever that she was, and not just give up like that on her reputation?). Finally, there were a couple of occurrences when I felt something was missing, and I had to read again to make sure it wasn't my mind playing tricks on me (I'm thinking more particularly about a chapter that ends with one of the sisters telling the other "your aura is black", which didn't seem to bode well... but then, the next chapter, they're sitting and talking together as if nothing had ever happened?)

That said, it's a story that has a serious potential of appealing to younger audiences. I think age also affected my views on it: it's the kind of book I'd have loved when I was a teenager, but am just feeling a little more detached from, now that I'm older. My actual grade would be more a 3.5 than 3/5.