ARC Review: Ice Kissed (Kanin Chronicles #2)

Ice Kissed (Kanin Chronicles #2) by Amanda Hocking

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2015
300 pages, kindle edition

Source: Netgalley

Release Date: May 5th 2015

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Magic

Links: Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon AU | Amazon UK

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

In the majestic halls of a crystal palace lies a secret that could destroy an entire kingdom…

Bryn Aven refuses to give up on her dream of serving the kingdom she loves. It’s a dream that brings her to a whole new realm…and the glittering palace of the Skojare.

The Skojare people need protection from the same brutal enemy that’s been threatening the Kanin, and Bryn is there to help. Being half Skojare herself, it’s also a chance for her to learn more about her lost heritage. Her boss, Ridley Dresden, is overseeing her mission, but as their undeniable attraction heats up, their relationship is about to reach a whole new level—one neither of them is prepared for.

As they delve deeper into the Skojare world, they begin to unravel a long-hidden secret. The dark truth about her own beloved Kanin kingdom is about to come to light, and it will change her place in it forever…and threaten everyone she loves.

My Review:

There have been a few books that I have been reading lately that were written in third person it was a real change to all the other books I usually read in first person. But I find that stories being told in first person have so much more emotion and personality. This story stars with Bryn recapping a failed mission along side Ridley and she is beating herself up over that failure.

I really enjoyed read this book, I grew to love the characters in the story, but I fell in love with them in the first book Frostfire. I did not understand the ending or how much depth that went into it until I properly read the synopsis of Frostfire again, it was like I light switch flicked on.

Author Bio:

Amanda Hocking is a lifelong Minnesotan obsessed with Batman and Jim Henson. In between watching cooking shows, taking care of her menagerie of pets, and drinking too much Red Bull Zero, she writes young adult urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

Author Links: Website | Facebook | Pinterest | Wattpad | Email | Tumblr | Publisher Website | Instagram | Youtube

ARC Review: Fairy Keeper

Fair Keeper by Amy Bearce

Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press, 2015

236 pages, kindle edition

Source: Netgalley

Release Date: March 5th 2015

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Magic

Links: Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon AU | Amazon UK

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Forget cute fairies in pretty dresses. In the world of Aluvia, most fairies are more like irritable, moody insects. Almost everyone in the world of Aluvia views the fairy keeper mark as a gift, but not fourteen-year-old Sierra. She hates being a fairy keeper, but the birthmark is right there on the back of her neck. It shows everyone she was born with the natural ability to communicate, attract, and even control the tiny fairies whose nectar is amazingly powerful. Fairy nectar can heal people, but it is also a key ingredient in synthesizing Flight, an illegal elixir that produces dreaminess, apathy and hallucinations. She’s forced to care for a whole hive of the bee-like beasties by her Flight-dealing, dark alchemist father.

Then one day, Sierra discovers the fairies of her hatch are mysteriously dead. The fairy queen is missing. Her father’s Flight operation is halted, and he plans to make up for the lost income by trading her little sister to be an elixir runner for another dark alchemist, a dangerous thug. Desperate to protect her sister, Sierra convinces her father she can retrieve the lost queen and get his operation up and running.

The problem? Sierra’s queen wasn’t the only queen to disappear. They’re all gone, every single one, and getting them back will be deadly dangerous.

Sierra journeys with her best friend and her worst enemy -- assigned by her father to dog her every step -- to find the missing queens. Along the way, they learn that more than just her sister’s life is at stake if they fail. There are secrets in the Skyclad Mountains where the last wild fairies were seen. The magic Sierra finds there has the power to transform their world, but only if she can first embrace her calling as a fairy keeper.

My Review:

Army Bearce’s twist on fairies and magic in her novel the Fairy Keeper is imaginative and it works really well. Fairies are not sweet at all. They are very fierce, Fairy Queens are not so motherly but they are very ruthless and cutthroat. Magic is not something of this world. But it is literally what holds the world together. So welcome to Aluvia a world that is literally coming undone because magic is being drained from it. Sierra is the main character, her world is coming undone too. She is a fairy keeper, one with the responsibility of collecting the magic nectar from a fairy hatch. When her father trades her younger sister to a rival, the only way Sierra can free her sister is if she finds her missing Fairy Queen and return her to her father. What she ends up finding when she sets out to do is so much more that her missing Fair Queen, she learns the reason the world is falling apart. The important things about herself and what she is destined to do about it.

Alucia is a world, full of dark alchemists and merchants who make and sell poisons and a powerful drug flight made of the nectar produced by the fairies. Sierra is the daughter of jack the most powerful alchemist. She is also one of the fairy keepers, a person who tends to the fairies and collects their nectar from them much like a bee keeper. But what the people of this world do not know is taking this nectar that contains magic that the fairies are supposed to sprinkle across the world is damaging the whole fabric of their world. As magic is being drained from their world, the world is literally weakening causing earthquakes and figuratively weakening as people are increasingly corrupt, violent and addicted.

When all the fairies die and their Queens disappear, Sierra sets off on a quest to find her Queen with her best friend Corbin and Nell, a guard sent by her father. She intends to return the Queen to the hatch so she can save her sister but soon realizes there is more at stake than just her sister’s freedom. Along the way, she grows as a person as she has to figure out what is right and wrong, in her relationships, as she must figure out her place with Corbin and Nell, and learns her role with regards to magic, because she has a destiny that is more than just a fairy keeper. Throw in a handsome faun, some villains and a dragon and you have the making of a fun adventure with a message.

My Rating:

Author Bio:

Amy Bearce was an Army kid who moved 8 times before she graduated high school. The one constant in her life was books--particularly fantasy and science fiction--and that hasn't changed.

Despite all the moves, Amy married her high school sweetheart. They met in their junior English class in an American school in Germany in 1991. They have two wonderful daughters and are hopefully passing on their love of fantasy and science fiction to them, too.

A former English and reading elementary and middle school teacher, Amy has recently completed her Masters of Library Science and is excited about a career working with kids, teens, books and technology.

Amy is a homebody with a serious addiction to personality tests, which is not uncommon for an INFP (Myers-Briggs) such as herself. (Take a free test here!) According to the DISC personality test, she is also a perfectionist, a title she hated. She immediately retook the test, changing some answers. When the results came up as Perfectionist again, she took it a third time, changing more answers to get a better result…not even seeing the irony until later.

And yes, the result still came back as “Perfectionist.”

Now, though, Amy is working on embracing imperfection, knowing full well that life is full of mistakes, that we learn through errors, and sometimes the best things in life are those things we didn't intend to happen at all.

Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

ARC Review: Southern Fried Wiccan

Southern Fried Wiccan by S.P. Sipal

Publisher: BookFish Books, 2015

173 page, kindle edition

Source: Netgalley

Release Date: March 24th 2015

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal

Links: Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon AU | Amazon UK

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Cilla Swaney is thrilled to return stateside, where she can hang up her military-brat boots for good. Finally, she’ll be free to explore her own interests—magick and Wicca. But when she arrives at her grandma’s farm, Cilla discovers that life in the South isn’t quite what she expected. At least while country hopping, she never had to drink G-ma’s crazy fermented concoctions, attend church youth group, make co-op deliveries...or share her locker with a snake-loving, fire-lighting, grimoire-stealing Goth girl…

…Who later invites her to a coven that Cilla’s not sure she has the guts to attend. But then Emilio, the dark-haired hottie from her charter school, shows up and awakens her inner goddess. Finally, Cilla starts believing in her ability to conjure magick. Until…

…All Hades breaks loose. A prank goes wrong during their high school production of Macbeth, and although it seems Emilio is to blame, Cilla and Goth pay the price. Will Cilla be able to keep the boy, her coven, and the trust of her family? Or will this Southern Wiccan get battered and fried?

My Review:

I was a little unsure of what to expect when I started Sipal's Southern Fried Wiccan. The premise sounded cute and I thought the title was clever. What I got was a coming-of-age tale of a military brat who is trying to find her place in the world. The addition of religion was not over-bearing or meant to sway the reader one way or another. This is simply about a girl who is on the path to self-discovery and she uses wicca to find herself. I loved the incorporation of MacBeth, it really added a lot of depth and flair to the story. I also adored Cilla. She was easy to relate to. If I were still in high school, I could easily see myself becoming friends with her. I also cherished Cilla's family, particarly her grandmother. I would love to have a "G-ma" like Cilla, who is into making her own tea, and grows and sells organic vegetables. Overall, this is a sweet southern tale. I will definitely make a note to read more from Sipal in the future!

My Rating:

Author Bio:

Susan Sipal had to travel halfway across the world and return home to embrace her father and grandfather's penchant for telling a tall tale. After having lived with her husband in his homeland of Turkey for many years, she suddenly saw the world with new eyes and had to write about it. Perhaps it was the emptiness of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus that cried out to be refilled, or the myths surrounding the ancient Temple of Artemis, but she's been writing stories filled with myth and mystery ever since.

When not writing--wait, scratch that--she's always writing. Actually, she does have one other interest besides making sense of the voices constantly yabbering in her head (and her family, of course). She's heavily into nutrition and traditional foods. Her kitchen is usually filled with fermenting, bubbling concoctions of yesteryear.

Her small farm, however, is filled with kids and animals. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, two kids, one dog, two rabbits (though that's about to soon multiply), three cats, six goldfish, a dozen chickens, and too many frogs to count.

She is best known as an analyst of the Harry Potter series, with essays published both in the US and the UK discussing the alchemical and Egyptian metaphors. Along with multiple writing-craft workshops, Susan has spoken on the mythological underpinnings of Harry Potter at several fan-based and academic conferences in the US and England.

Author Link: Website | Twitter  | Goodreads