Lake Silence - Review

Title: Lake Silence

Author:  Anne Bishop

Series:  The World of the Others

Synopsis:  “Human laws do not apply in the territory controlled by the Others - vampires, shape-shifters, and even deadlier paranormal beings.  And this is a fact that humans should never, ever forget.

     “After her divorce, Vicki DeVine took over a rustic resort near Lake Silence, in a human town that is not human controlled.  Towns such as Vicki’s don’t have any distance from the Others, the dominant predators who rule most of the land and all of the water throughout the world.  And when a place has no boundaries, you never really know what is out there watching you.

     “Vicki was hoping to find a new career and anew life.  But when her lodger, Aggie Crowe - one of the shape-shifting Others  - discovers a murdered man, Vicki finds trouble instead.  The detectives want to pin the death on her, despite the evidence that nothing human could have killed the victim.  As Vicki and her friends search for answers, ancient forces are roused by the disturbance in their domain. They have rules that must not be broken - and all the destructive powers of nature at their command.”

Review:  Before I read this book I thought I couldn’t enjoy a story set in the world of the Others more than I enjoyed Written in Red (the first Novel of the Others).  I was wrong.  They are all great novels.  But Lake Silence is my favorite novel set in this world.  I think it’s because I identified with Vickie.  She is a woman who escaped an abusive marriage and is looking for a new, quiet life.  She loves books and solitude almost as much as I do. 

     Lake Silence is the perfect combination of mystery, fantasy and thriller.  It starts with a dead body on Vicki’s property.  The detectives working the case are trying to pin the case on her, but the Others realize what is happening and take it upon themselves to protect her. I love the interactions between Vickie and her boarders.  Her love of books and stories is an important bonding point when she becomes the Reader for the terra indigene in The Jumble.   Vicki’s friendly and caring nature helps her to make friends with most of the beings she comes into contact with, including the Lady of the Lake. 

     I couldn’t  believe that after all that has happened in this world anyone could be stupid enough to believe they stand a chance against  The Elders, but  Yorick and his associates are that stupid.  When Vicki’s ex husband arrives to attempt to steal the property out from under her, the friendships that she has developed become very important as she fights to retain her rights to The Jumble.  I loved Lake Silence, and if Sproing were a real place I would move there, open a shop and feed the Sproingers carrots. 

Publisher:  ACE

If you like this book you may want to read:

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Wild Country (The World of the Others) by Anne Bishop

The Passage - Review

Title:  The Passage

Author:  Justin Cronin

Series:  The Passage #1

Synopsis:  “It happened fast.  Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

     “First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment.  Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered.  All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear – of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

     As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary.  FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty.  Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse.  He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors.  But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey – spanning miles and decades – towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.”

Review:  I loved this novel.  It’s truly epic, spanning a large period of time and multiple characters.  If you’ve read my other reviews then you know that I love zombie novels and apocalypse novels.  I found this to be a unique take on the traditional zombie apocalypse.  The use of vampires instead of zombies is not all that original.  What I found unique is that the majority of the vampires are just mindless feeding creatures, semi controlled by twelve elder vampires; and then there’s Amy.  She is a different sort of creature.  She is not human anymore, but she isn’t like the vampires either. 

     I especially enjoyed the sections of the novel dealing with the human compound struggling to survive 90+ years after the start of the apocalypse.  They have struggled for more than 90 years to keep the lights on and the vampires at bay.  They have created their own government, and their own laws to keep their civilization alive.  The Passage is a vast and complicated novel that sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go.  I was only halfway through when I went to the store and purchased the next two in the series.  Cronin has created a masterpiece.  The world building and the character development are spot on.  Once you start reading The Passage you won’t want to stop.

Publisher: Ballantine Books

If you like this book you may want to read:

Dies the Fire (Emberverse #1) by S.M. Stirling

Feed (Newsflesh #1) by Mira Grant  (read BookGirlR’s review here)

The Twelve (The Passage #1) by Justin Cronin

Nightshades - Review

Title:  Nightshades

Author:  Melissa F. Olson

Synopsis: “Alex McKenna is the new Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the Bureau of Paranormal Investigations—the division tasked with investigating crimes involving shades.

“Or vampires, as they’re more widely known.

“Children have been going missing, and agents are routinely being slaughtered. It’s up to McKenna, and some unlikely allies, to get to the bottom of the problem, and find the kids before it’s too late.”

Review:  A fantastic beginning to what I hope is a new series.  Nightshades introduces us to a world in which vampires exist among humans, a fact which has only fairly recently been revealed to the wary humans.  The Bureau of Paranormal Investigations has been created to deal with vampire (or shade as they are called) crime.  The story follows new agent Alex McKenna as he investigates a series of disappearances and murder.  While rather short, it’s really a novella not a novel, Nightshades introduces readers to what has the possibility to be a deep and well thought out new world.  My hope is that future novels in this series will be longer and give the characters more depth. 

**I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review via NetGalley.**

Publisher: Tor

If you like this book you may want to read:

Generation V by M.L. Brennan (Check out  BookGirlR’s review here)

Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews

Fevre Dream - Review

Title:  Fevre Dream

Author: George R. R. Martin

Synopsis:  “Abner Marsh, a struggling riverboat captain, suspects that something’s amiss when he is approached by a wealthy aristocrat with a lucrative offer.  The hauntingly pale, steely-eyed Joshua York doesn’t care that the icy winter of 1857 has wiped out all but one of Marsh’s dilapidated fleet; nor does he care that he won’t earn back his investment in a decade.  York’s reasons for traversing the powerful Mississippi are to be none of Marsh’s concern – no matter how bizarre, arbitrary, or capricious York’s actions may prove.  Not until the maiden voyage of Fevre Dream does Marsh realize that he has joined a mission both more sinister, and perhaps more noble, than his most fantastic nightmare—and humankind’s most impossible dream.”

Review:  I’m not a huge fan of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.  Don’t get me wrong, they are wonderfully written novels.  The story just doesn’t do it for me.  That has always made me sad, because I admire Martin’s gift with words and the way he puts them together into sentences, which then form paragraphs.  You see where I'm going with this right?  I don’t have to be sad anymore, because I have discovered that he has written other novels and these novels are just as well written and catch my fancy better than A Game of Thrones. 

     Fevre Dream is a wonderful historical story of horror and vampires, and steamboats on the Mississippi River.  Since I picked it up I haven’t wanted to put it down.  When I reached the last few pages I was sad because it was almost over.  Even now, an hour later, I’m still grieving.  I feel sorry for whatever I choose to read next because I know it won’t even come close to being as good as Fevre Dream.  The mystery of who, or what, Joshua York really is grabbed me right off.  I knew the truth, and watching Abner Marsh come to the realization so slowly made me want to grab him and shake him until he figured it out.  Martin’s amazing description of the rich history of this time period flowed off of the page and into my brain so vividly that I could see the swirling muddy water of the Mississippi and smell the smoke in the air.  The ending was perfect and could not have met my expectations better even if I had written it myself.  This is not your typical vampire novel, it’s way better.  Do yourself a favor and add it to your summer reading list!

Publisher:  Bantam Books

ISBN:  978-0553577938

Looking for more novels that give a different spin to the classic vampire tale?  Try these fantastic novels:

Sunshine by Robin McKinley (Find out why this is BookGirlR's favorite book here)

Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

A Taint in the Blood by S. M. Stirling

Blood Rights by Kristen Painter

Generation V - Review

Title:   Generation V   

Author:  M. L. Brennan

Series: American Vampire #1

Synopsis: “Fortitude Scott’s life is a mess.  A degree in film theory has left him with zero marketable skills, his job revolves around pouring coffee, his roommate hasn’t paid rent in four months, and he’s also a vampire.  Well, sort of.  He’s still mostly human.

          “But when a new vampire comes into his family’s territory and young girls start going missing, Fort can’t ignore his heritage anymore.  His mother and his older, stronger siblings think he’s crazy for wanting to get involved.  So it’s up to Fort to take action, with the assistance of Suzume Hollis, a dangerous and sexy shape-shifter.  Fort is determined to find a way to out-smart the deadly vamp, even if he isn’t quite sure how.

          “But without having matured into full vampirehood and with Suzume ready to split if things get too risky, Fort’s rescue mission might just kill him…”

Review:  My love of reading comes from both of my parents.  My choice of genres comes from my Dad.  My brother and I shared a bedroom when we were young; and one of my earliest memories is of Dad sitting between our beds, and reading to us aloud from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Recently I have gotten Dad hooked on the urban fantasy genre.  He reads Laurell K. Hamilton, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris (he loves True Blood), and Kim Harrison.  One of his biggest complaints however, is that the best urban fantasy is about women.  He says that too many of the urban fantasy novels have female main characters, where are the urban fantasy novels with male main characters.  Well, I’ve got one for you Dad.  And you should read the books I’ve listed below as well. 

          This novel was great.  I picked up Generation V on a whim.  I hadn’t heard anything about it.  I just happened to see the second book in the series on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, and after realizing it was the second in a series I decided to buy Generation V first.  I read it in a little bit more than two days, but in my defense I had to work.  I get 30 minutes for lunch at work every day and I always read while eating my lunch.  Today I was almost done with Generation V when I realized it was time to go back to work.  I seriously did not want to go and had to force myself; promising that I would finish it as soon as I got home from work today.

Fort is an awesome character and Brennan has fleshed him out well.  In fact Brennan has fleshed out his secondary characters, and the world within the novel, so well that I want to know more about them too.  Fort’s struggle with his job and his boss is something that many people can relate to, as are his struggles with his family and personal relationships.  Your family does not have to be a family of blood drinking vampires for you to understand how forced the conversation at dinner can be, or how hard it is to say no to a request to show up for dinner with the family; and your girlfriend doesn’t have to be a cheating whore for you to understand what it’s like to be confused and hurt by the opposite sex.  The kitsune are a fun and interesting race that don’t show up in very many other urban fantasy novels.  I enjoyed Suzume’s interactions with Fort and learning about her family.  I was sucked into the world that Brennan has built in Generation V immediately when I started reading and was on the edge of my seat during Fort’s final showdown with Luca. 

As soon as my fiancé and I have had dinner (homemade gluten free deep dish pizza tonight) I’m going to Barnes and Noble to buy the next book in this series, Iron Night. 

Generation V.  Read it.  It’s awesome! 

Publisher:  ROC

ISBN: 978-0451418401

For more urban fantasy featuring a male hero:

Iron Night (American Vampire #2) by M.L. Brennan

The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

The Farm - Review

Title: The Farm
Author: Emily McKay
Series: The Farm #1

Synopsis: “Life was different in the before: before vampires began devouring humans in a swarm across America; before the surviving young people were rounded up and quarantined. These days, we know what those quarantines are – holding pens where human blood is turned into more food for the undead monsters, known as Ticks. Surrounded by electrical fences, most kids try to survive the Farms by turning on each other…
      “And when trust is a thing of the past, escape is nearly impossible. “Lily and her twin sister, Mel, have a plan. Though Mel can barely communicate, her autism helps her notice things no one else does – like the portion of electrical fence that gets turned off every night. Getting across won’t be easy, but as Lily gathers what they need to escape, a familiar face appears of out nowhere, offering to help…
      “Carter was a schoolmate of Lily’s in the Before. Managing to evade capture until now, he has valuable knowledge of the outside world. But like everyone on the Farm, Carter has his own agenda, and he knows that behind the Ticks is an even more dangerous threat to the human race…”

Review:   The Farm was wonderful. I read it in one afternoon, in one sitting. Seriously, I didn't even get up to eat or pee. Mel and Lily are great characters faced with a tough decision. Lily doesn't always make the right decisions but everything that she does is because of her love and concern for her sister. I love books with strong female characters. Women don’t always need to be rescued by a man. It’s nice to have another person to lean on occasionally, no one can be strong alone forever, but having a man swoop in to save the day is just insulting. Author Emily McKay allows Lily to be strong. She leans on the people around her when she needs to, but she doesn't have to.
      In my opinion there is an obvious flaw in The Farm. I was a bit turned off by the “head hopping”. If you have read my other reviews then you know that I do not like first person narratives that jump around between more than one character. If you’re going to write in first person then pick a character and stick with them. If you can’t tell your story that way then first person is not the correct point of view for your story! That said, I was able to overlook that flaw and enjoy The Farm. I look forward to reading more in this series.

Publisher: Berkley
ISBN: 978-0425257807

If you like this book you may want to read:

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan








 The Hallowed Ones by Laura Bickle see BookGirlR’s review here.

The Outside - Review

Title: The Outside

Author: Laura Bickle

Series: Sequel to The Hallowed Ones

Synopsis: “The world is not what it once was.  Two thirds of the population has been killed by a plague of vampires, and the survivors hide out in isolated territories – both protected and trapped by forces beyond their understanding. 

          Exiled from her Amish community and shunned for her refusal to adhere to the new rules of survival, Katie enters an outside world of unspeakable violence with only her two “English” friends and a horse by her side.  Together they seek answers wherever they can find them – but each sunset brings the threat of vampire attack, and each sunrise, the threat of starvation.

          “And yet through this darkness come the shining ones: luminescent men and women with the power to deflect vampires and survive the night.  But can these new people be trusted, and are they even people at all?

          “In this thrilling sequel to The Hallowed Ones, it’s up to one Amish girl to save her family, her community, and the boy she loves.  But what will she have to leave behind in return?”

Review:  First of all, if you haven’t read The Hallowed Ones stop reading this and go read my review of that one.  Then go read that book first.  I mean it.  Go now.

          Okay, is everyone who hasn't read The Hallowed Ones gone?  Good.  Here we go.   This book continues the story that was started in The Hallowed Ones.  Katie, Alex, Ginger and Horace (the horse) are struggling to survive after being cast out of the Amish Community that Katie called home.  I stayed up way past my bedtime to read this book.  I should have known better, but I love to read in bed before going to sleep and so I started reading The Outside about an hour before I absolutely had to go to sleep.  I finished 4 hours later.  It was 345am.  I was so very tired at work the next day.  I was grumpy, and I’m almost never grumpy.  Laura Bickle owes my boyfriend and my work peeps an apology.  The Outside was amazing.  I am an animal lover, to the extreme (I’ll post pics of my spoiled rotten cats for you sometime), and so when animals appear in the cast of characters for a novel I get nervous.  When authors cruelly kill off those fuzzy characters I get very upset and generally will avoid novels by those authors in the future, and so I got nervous when Katie and her crew came across the private “zoo” with the caged animals.  I know many people feel the same way I do about animals, so I will go ahead and say read The Outside.  There’s a crazy preacher man, undead bikers, and glow in the dark scientists, how awesome is all that? I was caught up in the spell of this story and could not put it down until I had reached the end, no matter how tired I was.  Read it, read it, read it!

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ISBN: 978-0544000131

If you like this book you may want to read:

 Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter (review coming soon) ISBN: 978-0373210893

Plague Town by Dana Fredsti ISBN: 978-0857686350

The Hallowed Ones - Review

Title:  The Hallowed Ones

Author: Laura Bickle

Synopsis:  “Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers are free to experience non-Amish culture before officially joining the church.  But before Rumspringa arrives, Katie’s safe world starts to crumble.  It begins with a fiery helicopter crash in the cornfields, followed by rumors of massive unrest and the disappearance of huge numbers of people all over the world.  Something is out there … and it is making a killing.

         

          “Unsure why they haven’t yet been attacked, the Amish Elders make a decree: No one goes outside their community, and no one is allowed in.  But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man lying just outside the boundary of their land, she can’t leave him to die.  She refuses to submit to the Elders’ rule and secretly brings the stranger into her community – but what else is she bringing in with him?”

Review:  I spent all of my teenage years in a Mennonite Community.  I walked the walk, talked the talk, dressed the dress… whatever you want to call it.  I immersed myself in the culture and I loved it.  We still had cars and telephones, although back then hardly anyone had cell phones, so it wasn't as extreme as the Amish.  I tell you this so you understand that when I saw the cover of The Hallowed Ones I absolutely had to have it.  Some of my family still follows many of the Mennonite ways, although I am no longer living in the Mennonite Community for those of you that wonder.  My Mother’s nearest neighbors are Amish, and I am very familiar with their beliefs and customs.  I understand that each Amish community is a bit different, but I was a tad disappointed in Bickle’s portrayal of the Amish.  Two points: 1) The Amish do not pray out loud at meals.  They pray silently before and after a meal.  2) The Amish do not believe that they can know they are going to heaven as this would lead to pride.  Now I understand that this may garner me some flack as each community is different.  However I have been led to understand, by the Amish that I know, that these are rigid rules and beliefs that should be the same in every community.  I also understand that there is such a thing as poetic license which is why I will not let this small disappointment tarnish my love of this book.

          I did love The Hallowed Ones.  I read it in less than a day.  It was my birthday and I treated myself to a trip to Barnes and Noble.  I bought a lot of books.  At one point a salesperson offered me a basket.  I declined because my rule is that I can’t buy more books than I can carry.  A few minutes later another salesperson offered to take some of the books to a register for me.  She looked very concerned for my safety.  I can carry a lot of books!  Okay, back to the book.  The cover of The Hallowed Ones grabbed my attention right away.  I didn’t really pay attention to what it was about until I got home; I just knew that I needed this book with the Amish girl on the cover. 

The Hallowed Ones is a horror novel about an apocalypse told from the perspective of an Amish teenager.  It was wonderful.  I was sad when I finished it.  It made me angry and it made me sad.  It made me smile and it made my heart pound.  I loved Katie and the fact that she didn’t just blindly follow along with what the Elders told everyone to do like a sheep.  She loved her community but wanted to understand the reasons that they did things the way that they did.  She knew that she would most likely end up choosing the Amish life but wanted to experience life outside of the community first and all of that was ruined by this disaster. 

When we read and write novels about apocalypse or dystopian earth we rarely consider what would happen to these people who already live apart from the rest of society.  With no phones, no television and no radio, these communities would be the last to know about a disaster and the least affected by one.  The Hallowed Ones was very original and told a story that many of us have not really considered before now. 

Publisher: Graphia / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ISBN: 978-0547859262

If you like this book you may want to read:

Obernewtyn: The Obernewtyn Chronicles book 1 by Isobelle Carmody

The Forrest of Hands and Teeth Series by Carrie Ryan

Friday Favorites #1

Like the vast majority of book bloggers I could never pick just one favorite book.  However I do have quite a few favorite books!  These are books that I reread quite often and turn to when I’m having a bad day.   So here at BookGirl’s BookNook on the last Friday of every month I'll be talking about my favorite books.

September’s Friday Favorite:

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

I found this book a few years ago; I can’t remember the exact day.  I was shopping in B&N and just randomly picked up Sunshine.  I love Robin McKinley’s books and I love a good vampire story so I’m sure that those were two major reasons why this book appealed to me.   I devoured the book.  I read it in about two hours.  Now, when I’m having a bad day this is the book that I turn to.  This is one of those books that I won’t let people borrow because I need to know it’s here for me to read anytime I want!  For Christmas last year I received a hard cover copy of Sunshine because my paperback edition was falling apart because I’d read it so many times.  The magic, the vampires, the demons, and the baking combined with characters that I would like to know have combined to provide readers with one of the best books I’ve ever read!  

Tell me about your favorite books.

Dracula in Love - Review

Title: Dracula in Love
Author: Karen Essex

Synopsis: “London, 1890. Mina Murray, the rosy-cheeked, quintessentially pure Victorian heroine, becomes Count Dracula’s object of desire. To preserve her chastity, five male “defenders” rush in to rescue her from the vampire’s evil clutches. This is the version of the story we’ve been told. But now, from Mina’s own pen, we discover that the story is vastly different when told from the female point of view.”

Review: This retelling of Dracula from Mina's point of view was wonderful! What if the vampire wasn’t the bad guy? What if the bad guys were the men trying to prevent women from gaining a foothold in Victorian Society? This book provides illuminating insight into the struggles of women during the Victorian era. Parts of Dracula in Love made me angry. In particular the number of women being diagnosed with “female hysteria”, a man’s attempt to control strong women, pissed me off. The Count was as sexy as ever, and I loved Essex’s portrayal of Mina as a strong woman through the ages.

I love gothic novels. Give me a creepy setting, dark characters, maybe throw in a dungeon and a foggy cemetery, or a deserted castle at night and I’m in heaven. Many of my favorite books are considered “gothic romances”. Bram Stoker’s Dracula in particular is one of the books that I read over and over. Thus said, I strongly recommend that readers read Dracula before reading Dracula in Love. I loved this novel, but I don’t feel that it would have had the same impact on me had I not been familiar with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula in Love is going on my “keeper” shelf.

Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 978-0385528917

If you like this book you may want to read:



The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (ISBN: 978-0316070638)



The Master of Blacktower by Barbara Michaels (ISBN: 978-0060878146)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (ISBN: 978-0143106159)

Sims 3 - Vampires

The vampires in Sims 3 are going to be awesome! A producer at EA games apparently feels the same way I do about, ahem, sparkling vampires because they started the most recent press release with this statement:

"Let’s get a few things clear – Vampires in The Sims 3 Late Night do not twinkle, sparkle, or cry. Vampire men look like men and vampire women, well, they’re clearly girls. When in daylight they smolder with fire and are in deep trouble as they should be. They aren’t “beautiful” in the eyes of silly, adolescent girls."

Check out the full release here!


That's freaking fabulous! I thought that the first thing I would do would be to have a sim create a band and become a celebrity. After reading this press release I think that the first thing I will do will have to be having a sim become a vampire.

Did I mention that I took October 26th off from work so that I will be able to stay home and play Late Night all day? The sad thing is that I will be knee deep in mid-terms that week. Think I'll find any time for studying?