27 April 2014

Bitter Blood * Rachel Caine

Bitter Blood by Rachel Caine

Now that the threat of the Vampires to Morganville has been defeated, the gravest danger to the human residents is the enemy within...

For years, the human and vampire residents of Morganville have managed to coexist in peace. But thanks to the eradication of the parasitic creatures known as the draug, the vampires of Morganville have now been freed of their usual constraints. With the Vampires indulging their every whim, the town's human population is determined to hold on to their lives by taking up arms. College student Claire Danvers, with ties to both humans and vampires, isn't about to take sides. 

To make the matters worse, a television show comes to Morganville searching for ghosts, just as vampire and human politics collide. Now, Claire and her friends have to figure out how to keep the peace without ending up on the nightly news...or worse. 

For Claire and her friends, things are finally looking up for them around Morganville. If you can forget about the knifes and stakes being pinned to their front door with messages telling them to die. Simply because of what happened last time with the Draug, and also because of Eve and Micheal's Marriage. 

Though they should of known that it wouldn't last for long, as are letters pinned to their front door with all their names on. Which consist of their ID cards for there hometown, to which Eve and Shane don't take to kindly too. But there's something else, something different. Micheal has one, though his is Gold plated and his is for a privilege. The privilege being to have one free hunt a year, that's right. To hunt down any human that isn't protected and feast himself upon a little midnight snack. 

If that isn't enough bad news, there seems to be something wrong with Amelie, seriously wrong. Since her attack by the draug she has become more cold, more sinister. Oliver is brainwashing her and she cannot see it, as she slowly falls more and more in love with him. Though things aren't all as they seem as it's not Oliver that's causing her to do this. 

There is only one other person who has a high power like Amelie, and that is her cold blooded sister Naomi. Back and living, well...kind of. With things rapidly going downhill in Morganville for everyone, with no control or power from the Founder herself. People can only start to fend for themselves, which is exactly what the humans and vampires start to do. 

Not listening to anything that anyone has to say, both the vampires and humans decided to run for founder which causes a whole lot of problems for everyone. The team of friends aren't safe anymore in their hometown, they've been left to fend for themselves before, but it has never been this bad and it's as bad as it can get, as Monica Morrell is helping. 

As tension grows between the town, it also grows between the four friends of the Glass House. As relationships are torn though Morganville's lies and the founders lack of help, tears are shed and hearts are broken as everyone's lives hangs in the balance. Not to mention, Miranda the ghost has found a new way to come back and haunt everyone for good, not to mention bringing some of her spooky friends along to for the ride.  

And as if things couldn't get any worse, the only man that can help everyone, the one true strange man who may be a bit mental in the head and incapable of stopping himself from going insane. Myrnin has gone missing, and won't be returning anytime soon. 

Will Morganville get their founder back? Will Myrnin come back? And most importantly, will Claire and Shane, Micheal and Eve all get their friendship and relationships back to normal? Will Claire ever forgive Shane? Or will they all fall crumbling apart? 

Bitter Blood by Rachel Caine is the thirteenth instalment in the book series the Morganville Vampires and follows the lives of Claire Danvers and her friends trying to live in a town filled with Vampires.

I think this books is quite different from her other books in the series because to me, I think it showed a more emotional side to all of the characters in the book. They have come a long way from The Glass House and how they have all matured through the book is great and how Rachel Caine has captured that is brilliant. 

There is more, how to put it...thinking in this book and more tactic I thought. What I'm trying to say is that there is hardly any fighting in this book, which in a way I like as it's something different. Though in another I thought it could of done with  bit more adventure. 

But I did enjoy the difference in the books, it showed how dangerous the town has got and how it has affected Claire and her friends and their friendship, the strain it has put on them over all the years and the books. Which I love about it as you don't really see that side to them in the other books, they just get suited up and go to  battle. 

I will give this book... 7 out of 10


6 April 2014

The Summoning * Kelley Armstrong

 The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.
All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost - and the ghost saw me.

Chloe Saunders is a normal teenage girl, until she starts to get the nagging feeling that someones watching her and she can't understand why she's so afraid of the basement. 
But it all starts to become clear when she's at school, or so it seems.

When she nips to the ladies toilet to hear someone crying in the stall next to her. Though when she looks under the cubical, there are no feet in the one next door to her. Looking around the room she realises that there is no one in the bathroom with her, but the crying still continues. 

Running out scared, she bumps into a janitor, though his face is all burnt and twisted and he smells of death and dirt. He starts to chase after her but she can't get away. In all this panic, she runs into a room and the teachers have to pin her down. Soon enough her auntie and father ship her off to a 'special home' for troubled kids. 

Here there seems to be people as strange as her, many nurses and a counsellor of some sort. But there's something wrong about the place, something that doesn't feel so secure, though she can't quite place her finger on it. 

Though things start to drastically change when she shares a room with Liz, a young sweet girl with a haunting problem that only her and the children in the house believe. Until she got angry and threw a pencil at the nurse. Except it wasn't her that threw it. There was something or someone trapped inside her, wanting to get out.

Soon things get worse as children are shipped off to hospitals for the ill and the nurses start to cover there tracks. As Chloe starts to find out more about the kids that live in Lyle House with her and the strange powers they have also, they go on a mission to find the children who have been taken and to find out what's really happening to them after they go.

Seeing ghosts and decapitated bodies where ever she turns, Chloe must learn to control her power and get to grips with that it's never going to change. But the more she talks to Simon and Derek, other kids from the house and the dead also. Things start to fall into place, drastically and deep into place.

One thing is for sure, be careful who you trust in life. As not everyone is who they seem.

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong, is the first novel within the Darkest Powers series, that follows the lives of troubled kids as they are placed into a "safe" home, so they won't hurt anyone else. Though things start to go drastically wrong very quickly. 

Well, I loved this book so much that I can't wait to read the next instalment of the series! Though I must finish my current read at the moment! I finished this book in three days as I just couldn't get enough, which I'm sorry that I didn't get the review up earlier or that it's not a very good one, I didn't want to give it all away! I can tell you now that I was shocked at the end of the book!

I really enjoyed this book, and even though it is a YA book, I did feel quite freaked out by the story line, which just made me want to read more horror / thriller books! Kelley Armstrong has written this fantastically with her wording and I couldn't get enough. 
The way she captures the characters is good also, I must admit when I first started reading it was that: 

"Oh god, this is going to be a book about a stroppy "messed up" girl who is trying to find  herself and her friends go on adventure, yay!"

But I stuck at it and read all the way thorough it till the end and I'm glad I did as I loved it. I hope that you pick it up and enjoy it too! 

I will give this book 9.5 out of 10