JESS, RISING by DM Guay Review

Rating: 5 out of 5

About four months ago, I picked up this little book on a whim, a friend having suggested it, and figured that it’d be a good backup just in case I ran out of material to read and I was away from my precious WiFi hub. It was a young adult fantasy novel, after all, which I’m always game for, so long as it’s decently written. Other than that, I really gave the book no thought. Hell, I never even read the description before buying it.

And then, I forgot all about it.

Then the day came a couple weeks ago where I found myself at work, having just finished a fantasy novel by Michael Wallace that ended on a cliffhanger and salivating to read more. I’d told myself at the time that I’d get the second book in that series as soon as I got home, but until then, since it was still my morning break and there’s no way I could even consider going the rest of the day without reading something, I needed to scour my Kindle library. And there it was, “Jess, Rising”, sitting front-and-center as the only unread material on my device. So I opened the book and dove in, not remembering when I’d gotten it and with no expectations at all as to what might be inside.

By the time I finished my lunch break, I was kicking myself for not starting it sooner.

Wow. Just… wow. This little unassuming book should’ve been anything but. It’s a typical story for the genre—a teen girl in a new town that has a dark past who gradually realizes she has untold of abilities and a greater destiny—but that rote description hides so much narrative depth, so much emotion and personal exploration, that it’s like a sneak attack, creeping up at you when you least expect it and shoving a thick, meaty fist right into your gut.

Not since Wizard and Glass by King and The Cost of Betrayal by Dalglish have I read a work of fiction that so accurately and succinctly depicts what it’s like to lose a loved one, that so perfectly illustrates the empty space where that person used to be and the questions of what life should mean now that they’re gone. And that’s just the starting point in this little gem! DM Guay does just as fantastic of a job of carrying the reader through the healing process, and all the bumps and heartache and doubt that implies. Just as with the best works of fantasy, the supernatural is used as a proxy for real-life pain and torment, as well as a way to bring about an emotional climax that makes sense and allows the story to continue onward without lingering for an extended period on misery; because, let’s face it, if we linger on loss, we stagnate and die too, in certain regards.

That’s not to say this book is nothing but pain and healing. Oh, it’s totally fun and exciting too. Popular tropes are played with, shifted, perverted, with some playing up to expectations and most completely skirting norms and coming out on the other side as something completely different. We get to know Jess, our protagonist, intimately, with all her faults and hang-ups and desires, and through that tight point of view we’re just as much in the dark as she is. In fact, Guay does such a fantastic job of hiding the truth in plain sight that I was legitimately shocked by what happens at the end. She’d turned the tables on me, someone who usually can guess an outcome pretty easily, and did so in a way that was obvious in retrospect. So, so fantastic. I really wish that I could go into more depth here, but doing so would be plenty SPOILERY, and part of the joy in “Jess, Rising” is in the not knowing, so you’re gonna have to take it at that.

This is a novel that has everything I’d ever want in a work of fiction. Super powers? Check. Emotional weight? Check. Young love fraught with angst? Check. Unexpected, graphic violence? Check. An unexpected ending? Super-check. I loved every freaking minute of the experience, so much so that I grabbed the second and third books when I was only halfway through the first. And I plan on spending all of my reading time for the next couple weeks fully immersed in DM Guay’s world, with Jess and her friends, until there’s no more story to tell.

Honestly, I think you should too.

Buy “JESS,RISING” on Amazon now.

Release Day: Lost in the Shadows is now live!

After an extended delay, I'm happy to announce that the third volume in the ongoing saga of Jacqueline Talbot, "Lost in the Shadows," is now live! This has been many months in the making, and is, without a doubt, my favorite book in this series. Alright, enough about me. How about some promotional info?

_______________________

In the shadows, you can even hide from yourself…

When Jacqueline Talbot was in foster care, she often dreamed of being reunited with her father. Now she sees him every day, along with her long-dead mother. Together, they protect a world on the brink of collapse by fighting monsters from neighboring dimensions. Despite this harrowing existence, Jacqueline is actually happy. So happy, in fact, that she doesn’t realize she doesn’t belong here.

Back in the real world, Mitzy Sarin and the Otakus face problems of their own. Not only are Jacqueline’s friends dealing with the fact that she’s up and disappeared, they also seem to each have developed awe-inspiring new talents. They’ll need them too, because in Jacqueline’s absence, reality is starting to fracture. More and more creatures are slipping through the cracks. Natural disasters abound.

The only way to set the world right again is to get Jacqueline back home. But her friends need to act quickly, because the Nightwatch aren’t the only ones looking for her.

Now available at most outlets:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon (Ebook)

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Google Play

REVIEW: Grim (Reaper's Redemption Book 1)

Rating: 5 out of 5

A while back, I reviewed a fascinating literary novel titled “Anomaly” that chronicled a few days in the life of a tortured gender-fluid character named J. The book completely surprised me, and I fell in love with it. (Unfortunately, that particular title is no longer in print, so the world has lost out on reading it…for now.) So when I found out that the author of that little gem, one Thea Atkinson, had pivoted her peculiar talents toward Urban Fantasy, I just HAD to pick up a copy of “Grim” and see for myself how someone with a unique voice such as hers would tackle the genre.

And let me tell you, she tackled it perfectly.

“Grim” is a gem of a book. It is the story of Ayla, a young girl on the cusp of womanhood whose life has been anything but easy. As a child of the foster care system, she has all the insecurities and hang-ups of someone who’s shuffled from home to home. Her distrust lingers even now that she’s found relative safety living with her grandfather in the town of Dyre (great naming there). She’s a contradiction, as most real people are—flawed yet idealistic, fragile yet brimming with inner strength.

Atkinson doesn’t waste time, as the story starts with a bang, an encounter with a strange, tattooed killer in an old gothic church. It is this initial confrontation, and all the horror that goes with it, that begins a breakneck two days for our young, ornery heroine. There are secrets revealed almost immediately, both supernatural and otherwise. The author sure knows how to frame a fight scene, and the action is excellently paced. When reading this book, there really is not time to stop and catch your breath, which only adds to the urgency of the tale.

As with “Anomaly,” Atkinson shows off her biggest talent: the depth of her characters. The story is told through Ayla’s eyes, so obviously she is very well developed, but the rest of the cast, from her grandfather, to Callum the young and seemingly conflicted firefighter, to Ayla’s witchy friend Sarah, leap of the page in real-time. All three of them are complex individuals disguised as genre tropes, which makes them at once relatable and utterly mysterious.

And oh, the mysteries! One of the areas that I’ve seen most authors struggle with when creating any fantasy world is makeup and definition of the world itself. World-building, if you will. Here, Atkinson shows an almost saintly amount of patience. Even though we learn almost immediately of what Ayla’s big secret is, the functionality around that secret, the rules of engagement, and the underlying mythology are doles out bits and pieces at a time, sprinkled here and there throughout the narrative, slowly building the universe like a puzzle.

Being the first book in a series, of course that puzzle isn’t completed by the time the last chapter comes to a close. But what’s revealed up until that point is more than enough to have the reader pining to get to the next book. Which, really, is what the opening volume of a series is all about.

So yes, “Grim” is a great little book, and way more than it seems at first blush. The earnestness that drips like viscera just below the genus of the common is more than enough to make me honestly say, “More, please, and right freaking now.”

Purchase "Grim" at the following outlets:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes
Google Play

NEW BOOK RELEASE: INFINITY TRIALS #2

It's finally here. The 2nd book in the ongoing story of Jacqueline Talbot, "Wolves at the Door," is now available across most platforms. Here's a little about the book:

WOLVES AT THE DOOR

Sometimes, a girl just wants to be a girl...

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the other secrets regarding Jacqueline Talbot’s past—and future—begin to come clear. It’s a lot for a sixteen-year-old girl to deal with, especially when she’s told that the fate of the world rests on her shoulders. 

Jacqueline now must prepare herself to take on the rest of the Trials; the only problem is, no one’s really sure what they are. Not even her aunt, who seems to know a little too much about everything. 

At least she has her support system to help her through it all. But that system is as fragile as everything else in Jacqueline’s troubled life. Just one small misstep and it could all be over…for everyone.



Purchase now at the following outlets:

Amazon (Ebook)
Amazon (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Google Play

iTunes coming soon!

Spring Sale & Pre-Order News

Taking a break from writing today to tell everyone that until Sunday, April 12th, the first Covenant book, The Mirror of Souls, is on sale across all venues. Mostly it's listed at 99¢, though there might be a slightly higher price on Google Play. Below is the list of venues. Just click on the name to obtain your copy:

Amazon
Amazon UK
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
Google Play

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the 2nd book in the series, The Chalice of Sorrows, is currently available for pre-order on Amazon, with a firm release date of June 20th. Here's the cover:

For those who're curious...yes, that's Jordan!

Unfortunately, gaining readership for this series has proven a bit difficult. With this in mind, I'm offering up this second book for the same 99¢ that the first book is on sale for. The only difference being, this book will be 99¢ UNTIL THE DATE OF PUBLICATION!  After that, however, it will be raised to the standard price of $3.99.

In other words, for the next six days, you can get both these books for less than two bucks. And for the next two-plus months, you can pre-order the second book for less than a dollar. It's a win-win all around, people!

Here's the link to the pre-order: THE CHALICE OF SORROWS

And the blurb:

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the other secrets regarding Jacqueline Talbot’s past—and future—begin to come clear. It’s a lot for a sixteen-year-old girl to deal with, especially when she’s told that the fate of the world rests on her shoulders. 

Jacqueline now must prepare herself to take on the rest of the Trials; the only problem is, no one’s really sure what they are. Not even her aunt, who seems to know a little too much about everything. 

At least she has her support system to help her through it all. But that system is as fragile as everything else in Jacqueline’s troubled life. Just one small misstep and it could all be over…for everyone.

So peace, everyone, and happy reading!

RJD

Goodreads Giveaway

I'll be handing out four copies, so get on this now!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Mirror of Souls

by R.J. Duperre

Giveaway ends February 05, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

RELEASE DAY! The Mirror of Souls

Guess what day it is? That's right, it's Thursday!

Er, wait a sec...

Oh, that's right. It's actually the day "The Mirror of Souls", the first book in the new Covenant series, is released! To say I'm a little excited about this series is an understatement. I've been thinking about this plot, and these characters, for so long that it's a little surreal that there's finally words on a printed page for everyone to read. It's been a labor of love and pain, but well worth it. Jacqueline Talbot's live, people!

The book can be purchased in e-book form at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobobooks. Google Play is in the process of uploading, and let's just call ITunes a work-in-progress. For the time being, the paperback is only available at Amazon (all countries).

So please, read and enjoy, and make sure you write a review! As always, I can be contacted via email at rjduperreauthor@gmail.com.

LONG LIVE BOOKS!

THE MIRROR OF SOULS (COVENANT BOOK 1)

Fifteen-year-old Jacqueline Talbot's boyfriend Mal lives in the mirror of her makeup case. But then there's never been anything normal about Jacqueline, nor it seems her new hometown of Mercy Hills.

With rumors of actual monsters in the woods, the popular kids taking an unhealthy interest in her, and the revealing of her own dark past, all Jacqueline wants to do is run away forever with Mal. Too bad he's trapped in the mirror.

But when she learns the ancient forces of the town want to destroy everything she loves, the race is on to free the boy in the mirror, because he just might be the only one who knows how to stop them.

Request for reviews: ARCs now available

As I wrote in my previous blog post, The Mirror of Souls will be live in a scant 21 days. With that in mind, and having received a good number of betas back from my proofreaders, it's about time for me to start sending the call out for reviews.

If you would like an Advance Review Copy of The Mirror of Souls, please email me at rjduperreauthor@gmail.com and write "ARC Request" in the title. In the body of the email, tell me whether you require a .mobi (Kindle), .epub (Nook), or simply a PDF of the book, and I will send it on its way.

All I ask in return for these giveaways is a fair and honest review on Amazon (or whatever platform you use, aka Barnes & Noble or Kobo) when you are finished. Even though the release date for the Kindle isn't until January 22nd, it will be available at most other outlets ten days before that date, and the paperback will be live as well. Any words there, even if it's just a couple, would be greatly appreciated. This I beg of you.

Thank you in advance, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rob D

COVER REVEAL: THE MIRROR OF SOULS

Three years ago, I wrote a book called Silas. In that book was a young girl named Jacqueline Talbot, whose character I've been thinking about for a long, long time. I said then that I would one day write her story, and a few months ago, I began to do just that.

That's right, folks. The first book in the Covenant series, The Mirror of Souls, is soon to be published. For the first time ever, here's the cover:

Product description:

Fifteen-year-old Jacqueline Talbot’s boyfriend Mal lives in the mirror of her makeup case. But then there’s never been anything normal about Jacqueline, nor it seems her new hometown of Mercy Hills.

With rumors of actual monsters in the woods, the popular kids taking an unhealthy interest in her, and the revealing of her own dark past, all Jacqueline wants to do is run away forever with Mal. Too bad he’s trapped in the mirror.

But when she learns the ancient forces of the town want to destroy everything she loves, the race is on to free the boy in the mirror, because he just might be the only one who knows how to stop them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The book is currently on pre-order over at Amazon, and I plan on making it available across most platforms come its January 22nd release. This book (and series) is Young Adult with a horror slant. It'll be my first solo new release in over two years, and I'm quite excited about it. (Writing all those books with David Dalglish sure took a lot out of me!) Currently, I'm working on the 2nd book (The Chalice of Desire), with a tentative publication date at the end of April.

In the meantime, there will be another announcement coming in the next few weeks to add even further excitement! I will also be posting the prologue to The Mirror of Souls shortly. So until then, read a good book, dammit! Preferably one of mine!

THE MIRROR OF SOULS PRE-ORDER (CLICK TO PURCHASE)

Review: The Legend of Witchtrot Road (Spirit Guide #3) by E.J. Stevens

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Man, do I love E.J. Stevens. She has such a pure innocence in her prose, as if she’s capturing just what it means to be young and in love and also, at the same time, have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

In The Legend of Witchtrot Road, the third installment in her Spirit Guide series, Stevens steps back a bit. The far-reaching story arch that encompassed the first two books is still present, but it is allowed to linger in the background, to heighten naturally. As a storyteller she reins herself in, focusing on the tale at hand rather than building her world outright.

In many ways, The Legend of Witchtrot Road is very similar to a midseason “event episode” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yuki, our main character who smells the dead, has her own Scooby gang, and together they must solve the mysterious death of a classmate, whose untimely end came on the Witchtrot Road of the title. The road itself is steeped in myth, superstition, and dark history, and if the always stalwart Yuki is going to have a semblance of peace from her classmate’s lingering ghost, the answers to the mystery need to come quickly.

This is a tale of social conscience and, just like the great television show I mentioned earlier, takes some of the more pressing concerns facing our nation’s youth (bullying, eating disorders, the proliferation of drugs in the community, etc.) and presents them in a fantastic manner. It’s a type of storytelling that’s pure in intention and beautiful in message, especially when presented in a professional manner, which E.J. Stevens does with every book she puts out.

Now, even though the specifics of Yuki and company’s world aren’t explored in-depth, as I already stated, they are still there. There are some interesting developments when it comes to Simon (perhaps the best character in the series), and also certain events that made me, the reader, question whether or not Yuki and werewolf boyfriend Cal will indeed have the happily ever after they’ve seemed, until now, destined to live.

Yes, The Legend of Witchtrot Road is a fantastically naïve, touching, and thoughtful novel. Stevens continues on her journey as a writer, and you can plainly tell when you read the words she puts on the page that she continues to grow. The author has a wonderful story to tell, one that I thoroughly enjoyed and will certainly be passing down to my own daughter. To me, this is a coup of the YA genre, one that shouldn’t be missed.

Purchase The Legend of Witchtrot Road in Ebook format:

Review: Suspense (Spencer Nye Trilogy Book 1) by Jason Letts

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

In certain ways, Facebook has become an integral part of my life. I spend way too much time on it, conversing with friends, making connections, sometimes simply passing the time. It’s become a useful tool, but also a slightly frightening one. If you were to think about how connected everyone is through these bits of data flowing invisibly all around us, it would be very easy to come up with a nightmare scenario where we not only use programs like this as a tool, but they become necessary to continue our way of life, a world where without social networking, the whole of society would be lost.

Jason Letts took this scenario, fleshed it out, and in a flash of unique and original storytelling created Suspense, the first book in his Spencer Nye Trilogy. To say I was impressed with what he came up with would be a grand understatement.

Suspense centers around the exploits of the girl for whom the series is named, Spencer Nye herself. She is a gritty character, full of anger and distrust. She is also a diehard, one who will do anything – even kill – to protect and defend the image and life of her Idol.

What is this all about, you ask? Diehards? Idols? Well it seems that in Letts’s brilliant new universe, the general world populace uses a program called Connect – the most powerful social media ever invented, accessed through nodes implanted into peoples’ skulls – to, well, keep themselves connected. They float through life only half-existing in the real world, spending the rest of the time immersed in the data that flashes in front of their eyes, reading up on the latest trends, what their friends are up to, or just perusing. I found it to be a quite disturbing visual the first time I read a scene depicting this, representative of a world where the flesh is at times looked at as a hindrance.

A good chunk of society also uses Connect to keep up with their Idols – basically folks who’ve gained so much popularity, so many followers, that they’ve become, in a certain sense, godlike. All six of the Idols live in a fortress on a hidden tropical island, to keep them safe. And the animosity between the diehards for each of them is frightening. They’re constantly at war, constantly killing each other, with the end game being to elevate their Idol to an even higher level. It’s a scary thought.

The specifics of the society the author created are interesting, even beyond the whole social networking angle. There is no more industry, as anything anyone would ever need is created simply by pressing a button on something called a molecular synthesizer. There is no more crime – other than diehard-on-diehard violence – as why in the world would you have to steal if it everyone had everything they wanted and money no longer existed? And people get around by using terminals that transport them from place to place in the blink of an eye, simply by pushing numbers into a keypad.

In a lot of ways you could look at this and think, that’s not so bad. On the surface, this society is bordering on a utopia, but with the loss of personal freedom that comes with everyone knowing what’s on your mind at all times, and the amount of fanaticism the Idols create, it steers in the opposite direction and becomes pure dystopia. With a lack of purpose, a lack of direction, it leads folks to act irrationally, to search for meaning in a world that, in truth, means absolutely nothing.

The story itself is an adventure, as Spencer and her friends, a cyborg named Jetta and a programmer named Patch, seemingly uncover a plan to take out the Idols – including theirs, the actor Cleary Mintz. This leads to a great many action sequences and a rather ingenious plan, thought up by the three friends, to turn Spencer, herself, into an Idol and fix the situation from the inside.

What follows is a great amount of intrigue and a further exploration into how this whole world started in the first place. There is mystery, paranoia, and a hint that the direction society has taken was orchestrated by something wholly not of this world. And in the middle of all this is Spencer, the unstable teenager whose only desire has ever been for her life to have meaning.

This is a very good book, folks. Suspense is resourceful and technical, a mix of science fiction and dystopian fiction with a truly original premise. Though written for a young adult crowd, it’s definitely been created for an older audience. There are scenes of violence, confusion, and at one point a rather inspired scenario of sexual exploration while not in one’s own body, experiencing the sensations from the opposite viewpoint. The book is obviously not perfect – what book is? – but it’s more than worthy of your time and energy. In fact, I’ll go a step further to say this particular work of fiction may be important, as well. It allows us to look at our own actions, how much time we spend on the internet “connecting” with people while ignoring those who are standing right beside us, and urges us to find balance.

It’s a difficult tightrope to walk, and the author shows us what might happen if we fall off. Brilliant.

Purchase Suspense in Ebook format from the following sellers:

BOOK RELEASE: Suspense (The Spencer Nye Trilogy, Book 1) by Jason Letts

SUSPENSE
THE SPENCER NYE TRILOGY BOOK 1

by Jason Letts

$2.99 at Amazon
$2.99 at Barnes & Noble

-------------------------------

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Spencer Nye can’t control the rage bubbling under her skin over the world around her. The trouble is, by the year 2102, the world has solved most of its great problems. Without hunger, war, greed, or even money, people obsess over the glamour of the Culture Industry and its mega-celebrity Idols, who vie for followers over the social networks of Connect.

But Spencer discovers there is plenty to fix within the Idols’ competition for more popularity. She becomes a diehard and promises to do anything to help her Idol, a dreamy movie star named Cleary Mintz, bring his vision of hope and purpose to the world. When she stumbles onto a threat against his life, she’ll have to fight harder than she ever thought possible or lose the man who means more to her than any other.

Suspense, the first book in a dystopian trilogy, contains 76,000 words and is recommended for ages 16 and up because of depictions of violence and some sexual themes.

SPECIAL RELEASE CONTEST
SPONSORED BY THE AUTHOR

http://www.facebook.com/authorjasonletts

From the author:

Suspense Book Release Giveaway!

Coming out with the first book in a new series is always exciting, but I doubt I've ever been as excited about a book release as I am for Suspense, book 1 of The Spencer Nye Trilogy. To see if I can get your enthusiasm up, I'm announcing some big prizes for its early and observant readers. All you have to do is read the book and send an email to me with the answers to four little questions to be entered. Then you'll be in the running for the following goodies.

Grand Prize: Your choice of either a Kindle Wifi with Special Offers + a custom Suspense Gelaskin OR a Nook Touch + a custom Suspense Gelaskin

First Prize: A custom Suspense Gelaskin + a signed paperback copy of Suspense

Second Prize: A signed paperback copy of Suspense

Rules and Deadline: To be entered in the grand prize drawings, participants must send me an email at infinitejuly (at) gmail (dot) com with the correct answers to four questions about the book. These questions will appear here on the day that Suspense is released around September 9th, and the contest will run for one month until October 9th (my birthday!) when winners will be drawn. Only U.S. residents can win the Grand Prize, but the First and Second prizes can be awarded internationally. I hope you enjoy the story, and thank you for reading!

—Jason

(Visit the author's Facebook page, linked above, for questions and full details)

FROM THE JOURNAL

My own review of this book should appear before the last week of September, right here on the Journal. To say I'm excited to dive into this would be an understatement. I've been a fan of Jason's work from the beginning, and it will be great to see his writing continue to grow. Even without having read the book yet, I highly recommend.

Review: The Submersion: Powerless Book 4 by Jason Letts

Rating: 3.7 out of 5

I’ve been following Jason Letts’s Powerless series from the very beginning, when we were first introduced to Mira, the girl with no special talents in a world where the rest of the population is graced with super powers. I immediately found it a thoroughly entertaining and innocent ride, one that carried with it that sense of wonder and purity until the end of book 2 and into book 3, where events grew exponentially darker by the page.

So here we are at book four, The Submersion, one episode away from the climactic moments, and while there is still a lot of darkness, a bit of that purity has been retrieved.

The Submersion begins a short time after The Stasis ends. Mira, Vern, Chucky, and Aoi are sequestered in one Sunfighter labor camp while Will, Mary, and another character (who will go unnamed because I was shocked to see them and it would be a spoiler) are in another. They struggle through each day in quite depressing and depraved conditions, trying to keep their spirits up in a world that is trying to destroy them inch by painful inch.

This small band of survivors from Corey Outpost, the only ones who know how to offset the Warlord’s sway, are in constant peril. Their fellow townsfolk, those who’d been their friends and neighbors up until one book ago, have turned against them. Even Kevin and Jeana, Mira’s parents, are opposed to them, which helps to heighten the feeling of dismay. These two, through the first three books, were always points of light in an increasingly dark story; now that they’ve succumbed to the poisonous influence of the Warlord, their actions and words drip with venom. It makes for rather depressing reading, and this reviewer in particular wanted to bash them over the head just so I wouldn’t have to be reminded just how far the tone of the series has fallen.

The main plot of The Submersion has to do with the Sunfighters’ quest to build a giant ark, so the Warlord can sail across the nameless sea and bring his influence to those who might lurk on opposite shores. It also deals with the survival instincts of our young heroes, how they deal with day-to-day pain and attempt to foil the plans of the evil ones before it’s too late.

Now, I did enjoy the book. It has everything I’ve loved about the series from the start, from the characters constantly growing as individuals to the undercurrent of mystery surrounding why these people have been blessed with powers in the first place. Aoi, the strong girl who can absorb energy, and Chucky, the young man who sweats oil, in particular, have seen vast amounts of growth, to the point where they are the two best characters in the book, outshining even Mira.

I also enjoyed the darker elements, the ways the Sunfighters torture Mira and friends. It’s sadistic and cruel, and helps bring about an aura of hopelessness. And when the innocence begins to return, in the form of a birth that demonstrates the cyclical nature of life in all its wonder (and acts as a metaphor for always holding those who’ve passed close to your heart), I started to really get invested. I was so excited by what transpires afterward that I felt I should’ve been jumping for joy by the end of the book.

But I wasn’t…at least not completely. This is where we start to run into some of my problems with the narrative. While dialogue has never been a strength of this series, it’s often been easy to overlook. But in this instance, the clunkiness of the speaking parts tended to distract me from the story. There were also a couple instances of individuals acting completely out of character, seemingly just to ratchet up the tension, that didn’t strike me as authentic. And there were also certain aspects of the plan Mira comes up with that stifled me, being that they were over-explained and dwelled upon for much too long, especially in the planning process.

That being said, the beginning and climax worked wonderfully. It’s almost as if Letts was bored with the middle and simply trudged along, which is completely understandable in any series. But when it picks up its pace…man, does it pick up. The culmination of everything that happens leading up to said climax is wonderfully written, thrilling, and rang true with the tone of the series.

If only the whole book, like The Stasis, could’ve been like that.

That being said, The Submersion, while imperfect, is a necessary chapter in the long tale of Mira and her quest for self-discovery. Much of the time it hits the right notes, and I can sincerely say that the themes of friendship, family, perseverance, and the stalwartness of clinging on to hope are seriously important for any teen to come to understand, especially in this progressively me-first society. So pick it up, ingest the message, and look forward to the conclusion, because the way it’s set up promises that the next installment will be epic.

Plot - 8

Characters - 8

Voice - 8

Execution - 6

Personal Enjoyment – 7

Overall – 37/50 (3.7/5)

Purchase The Submersion in ebook format:

Review: Tempest by Holly Hook

Rating: 4 out of 5

There seems to be a growing trend in young adult fiction where the love story is the main crux of the plot. The main characters do grow in these instances, but their growth is charted by their feelings for the “other” in their lives. The hero or heroine therefore becomes defined by this other and fails to be a viable personality any longer. They turn into puppets on the strings of love and lust, and any real change they experience is nullified because the journey isn’t a personal one. Take the fictional example of Hannah and John. Hannah has no self-esteem. She meets John, who thinks she is a fantastic person. Hannah is now filled with pride and a sense of purpose – not because she has done anything to deserve this newfound confidence, but strictly because John says she should. It’s an artificial way to build character, the easy way out. And as it pertains to real life, it doesn’t last.

Because of this, I feel thankful any time a young adult book slides into my inbox that bucks this trend. Tempest, a wonderful slice of innovative fiction by Holly Hook, more than fits the criteria.

Tempest is the story of Janelle, a sixteen-year-old girl whose mother is long dead and whose father has recently moved them from Michigan to sunny Florida. Janelle is a brooding, generally unhappy youth. She misses her friends back home and suffers from a serious lack of communication between her father and her. She seems angry at the world, but in fact this is simply the result of being firmly tied to her convictions. Her outlook on right and wrong is solid in the usual teenage I-know-the-world-and-my-parents-don’t-see way, and she holds tight to these threads of morality like a barnacle clings to a rock.

At the beginning of the story, when a hurricane is plowing along the Florida coast, Janelle is dumbstruck by the fact her father seems wholly unconcerned. She cries out against him, asking why he should seem so cavalier in the face of impending danger, and yet her father offers her no explanation other than to say, “Trust me.” She is understandably flummoxed. His action (or lack thereof) only adds to her distrust, causing her to dive even further into the net of her own principles.

As the novel moves along, and be warned that there may be some **SPOILERS** here, Janelle comes to find out that she is descended from a long line of Tempests, which are basically human hurricanes. There is a list of names, and whenever a Tempest’s name comes up, it is their duty to jump into the ocean, become a swirling mass of destruction, and assist in the regenerative circle of life and death. In other words, these people are living forces of nature. When Janelle discovers this she is horrified – she cannot deal with the prospect of taking life and causing others hardship. So she does the only thing she can think to do – she runs away.

There is a very linear plot here. It surges forward in a straight line and doesn’t let up. We are introduced to the Tempest culture, which is pretty well thought out and quite original. Janelle meets Gary, a waifish kid of her own age and “special talent” who she naturally falls for. (Thankfully, this aspect of the story comes across naturally and is not a driving force.) We meet up with the Tempest leader, a wholly evil woman named Andrina, who has a plan for Janelle and might be much more to her than originally thought. There are attempts at mind control and unsavory plots unveiled, and everyone involved – Janelle, Gary, her father, and a whole host of other characters – must hurry to put things back in their natural order before Janelle’s time comes up.

This book deals with some very poignant issues, not the least of which is the danger of secrets. Is withholding the truth ever a good idea, especially when said truth would completely change one’s definition of themselves? When is it harmful? Do parents have a duty to their children to be completely forthright in disclosing information about their history? And, on a greater scale, would the world at large be ready and accepting if they were to find out that there’s a “different” group of people out there, folks with much more power than the normal human could ever experience?

There are no simple answers to these questions, and refreshingly, the author doesn’t try to answer them. Instead she puts the reader through scenario after scenario, showing how this lack of disclosure effects the characters at a personal level, and allows the reader to make up their own mind. This lack of pretension is a most welcomed tool for Hook to use, and allows her work to feel that much more accessible.

The other main thread that weaves through the plot is common to the genre – that of finding oneself. Thankfully, the device implied at the beginning of this review is not present here. Janelle grows on her own, makes her own mistakes, stays true to who she is, and grows naturally (or as natural as one who’s a living hurricane ever could.) Even when presented with the dire facts of her existence, she still goes through the proper channels – anger, distrust, sorrow, and finally acceptance. And it is with this acceptance that she truly shows her mettle, for Janelle is the only true hero in the entire story, the only individual that cherishes all life, even those that may wish to harm her. The others…not so much. The story goes to some surprisingly dark places and makes some very interesting observations about the human existence. One of the questions posed is one for the ages – is the life of one worth more than the life of many? There are righteous answers to both sides, and we see both here in full force.

With all these good things that went on this book, I still have one major complaint. Andrina, the big baddie in the tale, isn’t a well fleshed-out character. There were some attempts made at making her seem like a well-rounded creation, but they fell flat. She talks like a Scooby-Doo bad guy and comes across as more clownish than frightening. If the author had extended the book just a little bit, allowed us to see Andrina in a more vulnerable state, then perhaps this might be different. But as constructed, she’s a one-note character, and simply not up to the standards set by Janelle and her father.

Also, the writing is a bit off at times. The book is written in third person, but told from exclusively Janelle’s viewpoint. We’re so immersed in her that at times the story felt like it was being told in first, which threw me out of rhythm a bit. To my mind, it would have worked much better to either go the first-person route or by limiting the amount of character invasion into the text to italicized sections. Something that can definitely be fixed later on.

And here’s where we get to the crux of the review. Later on. I say that not as if this book needs extensive editing – it so does not – but because I’d like to see this go on as a series. I’d love to see the author grow along with her characters, as she takes them on new adventures and throws new obstacles in their way. With the brilliant mythology Holly Hook invented, there is no limit to the storylines she could incorporate. Now, I’m not sure if this is going to be a series or not, mind you. But it should be.

In all, Tempest is a wonderfully brisk read full of angst and self-discovery. Most of the characters ring true and are decently realized. The innovations are fresh and invigorating. I would most certainly recommend this book to anyone, or to anyone’s teenagers. It’s a good start, and by the end we’re left with

the feeling that things are just going to get better from here.

Plot - 9

Characters - 7

Voice - 7

Execution - 8

Personal Enjoyment – 9

Overall – 40/50 (4.0/5)

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Review: Spirit Storm by E.J. Stevens

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

It looks like my newfound love of paranormal romance will continue, and I can pretty much blame it on one of my new favorite authors, E.J. Stevens.

A couple months ago, when I read She Smells the Dead, the first book in her series, I wrote that the innocent and almost ideal aspects of the relationships between the characters appealed to me the most. It reminded me of my own youth – actually, reminded me how lacking in sincerity my own youth was – and left me grinning by the end.

Well, with Spirit Storm, Stevens has raised the bar…in that category and just about everywhere else.

We start out where SStD leaves off. Yuki, our heroine who receives “smell impressions” from the dead, is busy preparing herself, in both mind and body, for Samhain (aka Halloween), when spirits enter the world in overwhelming numbers and could potentially drive her crazy, or worse. She is assisted by her werewolf boyfriend Cal, Simon, Cal’s werewolf mentor, and Emma, Yuki’s best friend/vegan/animal rights activist/all around spitfire.

It would be all well and good if all this group had to do was prepare for the horrors of that night. But no, fate intercedes with a tragedy: a member of Cal’s pack has been murdered by a werewolf-hater and the ghost of the dead man now haunts Yuki, urging her to help put his soul to rest. And then another werewolf is kidnapped, potentially by the same person. The small group of four is put on the case, future obstacles be damned. Can’t a girl get a break? It’s not like she doesn’t have enough to deal with.

Add to this to the stresses between Emma and Simon (they really don’t get along, though the text makes you wonder if there might be a hidden attraction that slips between the cracks during their fights) along with the pressure Cal is under now that it’s been revealed to his hidden society that he is the alpha male, and therefore leader of the pack by birthright, and we have a recipe for potentially overwhelming these poor, loveable young people.

Luckily, they’re up for the challenge.

The plot of this book is really quite simple and straightforward. As with SStD, the dialogue is impeccable and the story flows as smooth as any you’ve ever read. There are no dull moments, and even the dream sequences, which in the first book seemed to come from left field a couple times (which is appropriate, actually, seeing as that book served as an introduction, and those dreams ways to extrapolate on the functionality of the mythology presented), serve to heighten the tension this time around. The characters are idealized versions of teenagers yet completely believable, especially if you allow the language to take you on the magical ride it has to offer. Also, the author has curtailed her penchant for inserting Yuki’s thoughts into the story. Instead of being redundant this time around, they’re funny and poignant, which is a great improvement.

Perhaps what Spirit Storm does best, however, is something more mundane, more easily overlooked, especially when dealing with teenage romance. Stevens drives home the point that Yuki and Cal are soulmates throughout the story, and yet there are subtler tones there as well that bode well for future conflict. The author, while at times idealizing their behavior, doesn’t allow that to make them caricatures of young love. Instead, she inserts a rather brilliant thread involving the dangers of being too close, too young. In this way, she’s telling us that although these two wonderful creatures belong together, things don’t always end up the way we think they should. She’s careful to let her audience know that these are still children, that there will be other choices, other paths, other dangers, presented to them as time goes on. The risk comes from obsession, from thinking a situation to be too good to be true. She warns against holding on to this love, even if it might hurt to let go, because in life, when things go bad, the hurt and pain will do nothing but drag you into a deeper well of despair, the full cost of which may actually be a loss of self or identity.

As I said, this point isn’t preached about, but it’s there. And this line of reasoning is pressed up against the more surface themes of the work – responsibility, morality, and loyalty. This is illustrated wonderfully when the characters finally come face-to-face with the werewolf killer, himself. I won’t get into the particulars, but it was quite refreshing to see that a simplistic tale such as this, which often can veer into absolute shades of black and white, took the opportunity to splash massive amounts of gray on the landscape. What makes us who we are, the story asks. And who is to blame when we discover that those we’ve judged have reasons beyond our capacity to understand for acting and thinking the way they do, that their lives, and their actions, are the result of a cacophony of unfortunate life experiences? The book offers no answers to this question, only begs for forgiveness, for patience, for perspective. In this regard, I’ll even go out on a limb and say that this book may not only be an outlet for entertainment, but a teaching tool for the young, as well. It has something to say, after all, and it states its message with class and respect.

Now I have to be honest here and say that I was this close to giving Spirit Storm only the third perfect score

I’ve ever handed out. By the time I reached the last page, however, I discovered that I couldn’t. For as wonderful as the first ninety percent of the book is, I found the last bit a little…unsatisfactory. Again, I won’t go into detail, but there is a huge buildup to a climax that never seemed to come. I’ll leave this open to interpretation by the rest of you readers out there, because I’m only one man and perhaps I’m saddled with a need for action and resolution. Perhaps others will see the ending differently, perhaps they’ll find it perfect for the story it has to tell. But for this reviewer, it was slightly disappointing.

However, with that being said, the points I dock for this are minimal. The rest of the book is fabulous. More than anything, it is beautiful in both style and substance. It’s a quick read, and I continued to fall in love with the characters and root for them to succeed, both at the tasks at hand and at love, as the layers that make them who they are get pulled back. The romance between Yuki and Cal is refreshingly innocent yet needy, and it’s interesting to think about whether they’ll be able to grow as people or if they’ll find their only distinguishing characteristics are each other. This is a story of perseverance and devotion, both to loved ones and community, and still makes sure to let you know that there are pressures, both internal and external, that wish to rip apart everything they’ve built.

What else can I say? I adored this book, ending be damned. It deserves to be up there in the pantheon of new PR releases, right alongside Amanda Hocking, another of my favorites in the genre. I know I will be passing both Spirit Storm and She Smells the Dead down to my daughter, and I will feel confident in doing so; confident that the messages she receives from the words Stevens has put down on paper will enlighten, amuse, and most important of all, make her think.

That’s really all you can ask for.

Plot - 10

Characters - 10

Voice - 9

Execution - 7

Personal Enjoyment – 9

Overall – 45/50 (4.5/5)

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Review: The Stasis: Powerless Book 3 by Jason Letts

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Growing up. It’s hard. It sucks. Our heroes are revealed to be mortal and flawed, our presumptions about the world are constantly proven untrue, and the evils that surround us, which we’ve been gleefully naïve of in our younger days, slowly trickle into our consciousness, threatening to crush our spirit. Often, when I look back on this myself, I wonder how I was able to keep a positive outlook on life. But the thing is, that positive outlook was learned. It came from realizing that I didn’t really want to dwell on the bad, that I wanted to appreciate what I had, the people who loved me, while they’re still here.

That, in a nutshell, describes the atmosphere of The Stasis, the third of the Powerless series by Jason Letts.

As with book two, the story picks up where the previous volume left off, with Mira, the powerless girl in a world where everyone else has superpowers, leading her fellow students from Dustfalls Academy into the war after her failure to win the Rite at Shadow Mountain.

In book two, Mira learns her rather sordid history (which I will not disclose here for fear of a major spoiler for those who haven’t read it), and in The Stasis her emotional deconstructions is complete. Whereas she was once full of wonder and innocence, she now carries herself with a coldly logical hardness that is difficult to see from a character that’d once been so glowing. But it makes sense; her definition of self has been stripped away, leaving behind a skeleton of her former life that she’s ill equipped to reconstruct. So she does what people do when they’ve been abandoned by hope – she latches onto an ideal (to free her sister from the clutches of the army her people are fighting against) and pushes tirelessly and fearlessly for that goal, all else be damned.

Along the way she alienates her friends, becomes involved in a great many battles, and gets wounded (physically as well as emotionally). From there, the meat of the story deals with Mira trying to rediscover the love and purity she’s lost.

This is a very dark book, especially for something in the young adult genre. Quite a few characters are killed off (thousands, actually, if you count all the soldiers fighting in the war), and those that do survive are stricken with such difficult circumstances that their guilt threatens to overcome them. You have to remember that these are sixteen-year-old kids the author has written about here, and they’ve been asked to risk their lives for what amounts to opposing principles they haven’t the maturity to grasp. The senior officers of the army treat them like fodder and are willing to sacrifice them at a moment’s notice to simply prove a point, which brings to mind some very real circumstances that have occurred in our own military during the last ten years or so.

And yet these kids do fight, they do push themselves to the limit, and that aspect of the storyline owes itself to simple survival. When the chips are down and you don’t understand what everyone’s fighting for in the first place, it’s your own life and the lives or your friends that end up mattering more than anything. I couldn’t help but think of World War II and the stories my grandfather has told me of the young people in his platoon stepping up when their superiors went down and all seemed lost. Like the characters in The Stasis, my grandfather fought to keep his friends alive. In that way, this book acts as homage to the stories of these wars past and the grand sacrifices much-too-young individuals had to make during battle, when death surrounded and threatened to swallow them whether or not they stayed on their toes.

Speaking of battle scenes, The Stasis has a few of them, and they’re all pretty grand in scale. They’re confusing to read, what with so many different people having so many different powers that affect their surroundings in so many different ways. This could be looked at as a drawback, but I ended up appreciating the execution. When I found myself being confounded by what was going on, I put myself in the characters’ shoes; if it was difficult for me, the reader, to follow, how must it be for those involved? Reading them actually made me tense, which in books usually only happens during overly emotional scenes.

With all of this violence and the overarching spiral into different facets of the social unrest that started this war, it would’ve been easy for poignant characterization to fall by the wayside. However, the opposite happens. Even with the confusing mess of fighting, the characters actually come more alive, gain more depth, prove more of their usefulness as metaphorical vehicles. Each individual grows and demonstrates just how pure of heart and mind they are, even those that make irrevocably bad decisions. I applaud Letts for this, because he definitely didn’t take the easy way out.

I had very few problems with this book. At times I found the dialogue stilted and robotic, and still the head-hopping persists, but I’ve come to simply accept these as a part of the series’ voice. I’ll no longer dock points for it, considering that if you’re here reading this review it most likely means you’ve already read the first two books. It’s still a wonderful and emotional read, one that I’m growing to appreciate more and more with each installment.

Before I end this review, there’s one last thing I want to mention. With all the death, destruction, and ominous foreboding in this book, there is one particular scene towards the end that jumps out. Letts does something I didn’t expect – he takes these characters that he’s lead through the ringer and allows them to once more rediscover their youthful innocence, if only for a fleeting few moments. I was taken aback and made to feel rather morose. Again I thought of my grandfather, eighteen years old and trapped behind enemy lines. Did he take the time to engage in a games and laughter in the down times, those moments when the fear of imminent death took a much-needed breather? If so, did it help steel him against what was surely to come next? It seems like such a depressing state to find oneself in, and yet I couldn’t shake how real it felt. If nothing else, Letts has a handle on the emotive core of human nature.

The Stasis is a powerful work. It dares to question everything from what constitutes family and the nature of morality. It brings you into the depths of despair and then pulls you out, only to shove you back in once more. It’s a fantastic book, for all ages, and one that I’m not shy at all about giving a heartfelt recommendation to. The best of the series so far, which says a lot. By the end, you’ll think of one line Mira states at the beginning of the novel – The only inevitable truth is death – and hope that the characters will come to realize that despite the nugget of truth of that statement, there are many inevitable truths.

Death is only one of them.

Plot - 9

Characters - 9

Voice - 9

Execution - 9

Personal Enjoyment – 10

Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)

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