Tag: Young Adult (Page 8 of 158)

Synopsis:

My name is Lady Aileana Kameron.

First the fae murdered my mother. Then they destroyed my world.

Now I’m fighting for more than revenge.

Aileana took a stand against the Wild Hunt, and she lost everything: her home, her family and her friends. Held captive by her enemy, and tormenting herself over her failure, escape seems like only the faintest possibility. But when she gets her chance, she seizes it . . . to rejoin a world devastated by war.

The future is bleak. Hunted by the fae, running for her life, Aileana has only a few options left. Trying to become part of a society scarred by – and hiding from – the Wild Hunt; trusting that a fragile alliance with the fae will save her; or walking the most dangerous path at all: coming in to her own powers as the last of the Falconers . . .

“Then what changed your mind?” I ask him seriously. “About wanting me to kill him.”
Derrick is quiet for the longest time, wings fanning softly. His golden glow is slowly returning. “I see the way he looks at you.”
I swallow, afraid of his answer. “And how is that?”
“Like he wishes he was mortal.”

Ultimately, due to the ending of this book that lead to an AMAZING finale, this got bumped to a 4.

It’s not often I go back and rescind old ratings, but with the way this series wove together, inevitably creating a very cohesive, high-stakes, romantic and perilistic nightmare, I couldn’t help but to become putty for Kiaran and Kam. Ultimately, this series deserves much more recognition and I am not willing to not review this accordingly…even if I reviewed book three first.

Now I see why Kadamach moved heaven and earth to find you.

It’s no secret that I had a few characters that I just couldn’t stand. I rarely am so bothered-and even rarer is me pointing it out in a review-that it effects the way I feel about a series as a whole but, here, it was ruining it. Plain and simple. The story started out dark. We knew she’d be okay, sure, but it started out with a little of what makes me tick, and I loved that because book one lacked a little of the tension I needed. So, we were good. But then it just got a little silly. Characters. Plot. And, ultimately, not really what I wanted or needed.

I know I shouldn’t trust Kiaran either. Not after everything he’s done. But the truth is, I can’t remember the single defining moment when I decided to trust Kiaran. It just . . . happened. Like the way I came to care so much for him just happened. Somewhere between our hunts and our kills and our kisses, he left his mark on my bones.

And then. AND THEN. The stakes were higher, the romance alluring, tortured, and a bit fatalistic (a theme in book three that catapulted the finale to a top favorite of mine), and it seemed like the author picked a direction and STUCK with it. I was finally where I wanted to be, and it continued into book three and we all know the rest is history.

“Why did you choose me?” It’s all I can do to keep my wits about me when he’s kissing me like this. Because when Kiaran kisses, he does it with the whole of himself.
He whirls me around with so much grace it’s as if he isn’t even trying. “Because you challenge me,” he tells me. And then we’re not dancing anymore. We’re standing pressed together, our hands entwined. “I chose you because you’re my equal.”

The way Kiaran treats Kam, the way he pines for her, the way he knows that even if they end up together, she won’t live as long as he, the way he knows it will all end in the blink of an eye…It just made me fall even deeper for them. He’d do anything for her, even as he knows it’s killing him slowly inside, seeing her slowly slip away, and seeing that even the smallest misstep means he could lose her no matter what he does. It’s just so damn gripping. And it’s honestly what helped me make it through this series when I didn’t know that I could.

We burn bright, and we burn out. That’s what it means to be human.

I wish I could say my reasons for rating it thusly were a bit deeper than that, but they aren’t. I’m simple, and I want simple things. Make a story interesting. Don’t make it easy. Add some tension. Add some romance that isn’t insta-fied, that the hero and heroine have to work to keep alive…and add some peril. Seriously. I’m as simple as that. Hell, if you create romantic tension and a plot that HALFWAY makes sense, I’ll likely enjoy it. That. Is. All. I. ASK.

Truth forces us to confront the ugliest parts of the people we love. The monstrous parts.

Luckily, where the first book and middle of second lacked, the end of book two and whole of three wrapped up the series and made it all wonderful. Book one was always good, but it definitely needed epic followers to make it memorable. So, here we are, and I dub it memorable. These books may have been shaky, but at least they found their way. And, unlike some other series that are epic up until the end, thus making me forget them, this series ended so well that when I think of it, all I think of is how epic it was. And we all know that’s not wholly true, but that’s how it works for me, and I’ll always remember this series positively and I’m more than happy about that.

I wonder whether the voices Daniel heard were talking about all the people I’ve lost, or if they were talking about Kiaran. Perhaps he’s my curse. Perhaps I’m his weakness. Together we left the world in ruins.

*********

Okay, what even ARE these books? They start SO strong, then I feel like the side characters kind of take me out of it (I just can’t with the pixie), but then they end where I am suckered right back in. I will admit, upon finishing this last night, that I immediately downloaded book three when before, I had been planning to jump to another series.

It’s true what they say-some epic things happen in this one and it really takes me there with my romantic/effed up peril. So. Ya know. When you’re fifty shades of fucked up and you find something that makes you tick, you kinda tend to stick with it. Like calls to like and all that jazz.

From 70% on I was trash for this book, and it really turned my opinion around concerning a lot of things. So, here we are.

Full review to come.

The Falconer (The Falconer #1)
by Elizabeth May
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:

One girl's nightmare is this girl's faery tale

She's a stunner.
Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.

She's a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she's leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.

She's a murderer.
Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.

She's a Falconer.
The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother's murder—but she'll have to save the world first.

The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller combines romance and action, steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.

I focus on the clicks, on mentally reciting my lessons. Propriety. Click. Grace. Click. Smile. Click. Kill. Click.
Hell and blast.

Ya know when you read something and you genuinely want to love it, want to obsess over it, but you just can’t? This is that book-To say I wasn’t obsessed with it at some point would be a gross misrepresentation, as I fell head over heels for Kiaran the minute he traipsed onto my screen and I found it breathed life into an otherwise clunky novel. I started to think about it 24/7, when I could pick it up next, and weeped when my plans fell through and I couldn’t read it as I wanted to.

Gavin studies me intently. “Did you choose this?”
Leaning in close, I press my cheek against his, a touch that goes against every social rule I’ve ever been taught. It’s the excitement of the hunt that courses through me, a savage hum. I’m beyond propriety, beyond etiquette.
“I revel in it.”

But, like all things, I need a strong finish, and an even stronger pull to continue with a series. This book, as it were, is hanging by a thread because I did start book two immediately upon finishing and I did find that book two started way darker [like I like it]. Already, though, I find the darkness slipping a tad (will it stay mildly dark, or go back to the style of book one? Who can tell?).

Time won’t fix me. Time allows me to become more skillful at hiding how much I hurt inside. Time makes me a great liar. Because when it comes to grief, we all like to pretend.

I find so many things palatable with this series-I’m truly enjoying it. But, as I read, I find it hard to grasp onto certain images, ideas, flowing of plot. And this just…it has always messed with my mind, made me wonder if I’m skimming, missing something, or just too damn tired to enjoy any book. As I read The Falconer, I felt as if I was in a fever dream. Never fully in the story, but never not immersed. I cannot possibly fathom how to explain that…but I think it has much to do with Kiaran, and less to do with the plot.

Kiaran surprises me by moving too fast again, shoving my chair back from the table. Then he leans in, his arms on either side of me. “That might have amused me this time, but try it again and I’ll break your pistol.”
I match his stare. “Break my pistol and I have about fifteen other weapons that will do the same job.”
His grin is slow, downright seductive. “I knew it since the day I pulled you out of that river.”
“What?”
“That you would always challenge me.”

Kiaran is a fae (I love this, I really really love this) who trains our heroine to battle his kind, because the end of the world as they know it is fast approaching. And upon his first appearance, for some inexplicable reason I still cannot name, my heart went erratic. I became utterly obsessed and knew this book had finally hooked me. Call me a sucker, but his snark and attitude just got me.

And one of my favorite tropes has to be the ‘I’m saying something important to you/about you in another language’, which generally leads to the biggest butterfly inducing revelation near the end of a lovers’ perilous battle or situation. I. Am. A. SUCKER. For. IT. And yes, it happened here. Was it the best I’ve read? No. But did it make my heart pitter patter? Yes. That being said, I did spoil it for myself by accident when perusing Goodreads reviews. So take that with a grain of salt.

When did I come to care so much for his opinion of me? I want so badly for him to see me as the huntress and not the lady, never the lady. The nights we hunt are the only times I’ve ever felt on equal terms with a man—even if he isn’t one.

And I never really felt anything in action sequences. Again, is this my fever dream style of reading this poor book, late into the night with dreary eyes, or is it a style of writing I don’t wholly connect with? It seems like everything is there to make a book I’d love, but maybe it just didn’t go there, for me. Maybe it didn’t reach that crescendo of destruction I so crave. Or maybe, just maybe, I’m a daft fool and it was written perfectly and I ruined it all on my own, since it seemed like something interesting was almost always happening. There was also her pixie who, while funny, made me feel like I was reading the movie version of Ella Enchanted or something. No idea where that came from but…it didn’t necessarily bode well.

I feel. I feel. Strong and untouchable and capable. An exquisite glow of joy fills me up and extinguishes my anger. For this instant, I am whole again. I am not broken or empty. The shadow-self inside me that compels me to kill is silent. I am unburdened. I am complete.

So perhaps, in the end, the stakes just didn’t ever feel high enough. They went to battle for their world…and it just didn’t feel like it. I don’t know why. I was tired, read it disjointedly (the most likely candidate here), or it just isn’t a style of writing that gave me a sense of urgency I needed to connect to the final showdown-either way, I didn’t ever feel like it was the end. I don’t know if that’s the author’s fault, or mine.

He looks amused. “No? Then what do
you long for?”
Vengeance is what I desire most, the only thing I’ve craved strongly enough to kill for. After all, it’s the oldest motivation in the entire world. People might think it’s love, or greed, or wealth, but vengeance gives you life. It strengthens you. It makes you burn.