Review: The Hands of Time (Elementals #5) by Michelle Madow

Book info:
Title:  The Hands of Time
Author:  Michelle Madow
Series:  Elementals #5
Genre:  YA Mythology
Published:  November 25th, 2016
Source:  E-galley through Michelle Madow's street team
My rating:  4 Stars

This conclusion to Michelle Madow's Elementals series is very well done.  I was excited to see how the group that we had left would be able to close the gate to Kerberos as well as defeat Typhon.  The end of book 4 left us wondering if all that they had done so far would be enough.  If the losses they'd suffered would not be in vain.  If the final tasks would be surmountable.  The way Madow lays the story out is done in a well-thought out way, without any sort of cheating or unsatisfactory tying up of loose ends.  If you haven't read the first four in the series, you can go back and read my reviews of each of them in the links below, because I can't promise to not give any spoilers for the first four in my review of this final book.

1.  The Prophecy of Shadows
2.   The Blood of the Hydra
3.   The Head of Medusa
4.  The Portal to Kerberos  

Where we pick up at the beginning of this book, Nicole and Danielle have stepped back through the portal thanks to Chronos being able to turn back the time so that they can keep Blake from dying.  But not only Blake, they're also able to save Chris from the poison of the bite he sustained.  However they're still left without Kate, who was turned to stone by Medusa in an earlier story.  Now the four of them that are left must figure out how to get Typhon stopped before he comes through the portal, which happens to be in Sicily.  If they can do that, it doesn't mean that everything will be all perfect, because the portal will still be open, and all kinds of creatures, centaurs, cyclops, dragons, all will come through.  

But when it comes to figuring out how to close the portal, before the summer solstice, it seems that one of them may have to be on the side of Kerberos, which means they will be stuck there forever, as there is no other way home.  In their searching for a way to close it, they will also try to find a way to bring Kate back, something that may only be done in turning her into a minor goddess, but could also kill her.  They will try talking to the Oracle for another way to open the portal so no one has to stay in Kerberos.  But the Oracle is in the Underworld, which will require a trip there by a few of the group.  

In the end, it mostly will work out.  There will still be some loss, but there will be things that are unexpected. 

I really liked all the tasks and things that they had to go through.  However, I knew the way that they could do what they wanted, and I think it is a little silly that it was such a surprise to everyone.  To me it was obvious as soon as they said one of them had to be on the other side of the portal.  I knew exactly who would be okay with staying there, because there would be something in Kerberos for them.  So that is my only gripe with the story.  Other than that, I loved the way they figured out how to save certain people, but I also loved how the battles weren't perfect and easy for everyong to make it out alive.  

I definitely recommend this series to anyone who likes mythology stories similar to The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter, any of the Rick Riordan series, and even a little bit like Covenant series by Jennifer L. Armentrout.  I look forward to future stories from this author!

 

Review and Giveaway: Bones and All by Camille DeAngelis

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for sending me an ARC of this title and letting me sign up for the Street Team!  This was a very unique read.  I actually went through several thoughts about this story as  I read it.  I started out very excited, followed by wondering if I was going to really get into it, then I figured out what was kind of going on, then I felt the love, then I was sad about the love, and at the end I was pleased with the story over all.

The main character is Maren.  Maren has a deep, dark secret.  Basically you'd call her a cannibal.  But not one that cooks and eats the meat of a human like you'd think.  No, once she starts, it is only mere  minutes before there is no trace of the person left, other than any blood that might get on her clothes or the person's clothes.  Bones and all are gone.  It happened first when her mother left her with a babysitter as an infant.  Of course she has no memory of that.  The next time was a boy at summer camp.  Every time it happens her mother has to move them. While there really isn't any evidence left to prove that Maren did what she did, it is just safer.  When the story really begins, Maren is 16, and she has woken up to find a note from her  mother, who has left her on her own.  The note also includes a copy of her birth certificate.  Maren knows her mother has gone to her parents, grandparents she's never met.  But she also wants to meet her dad.  Her mom  has left her money, and she used the money to buy a bus ticket to where she knows her grandparents are.  She finds her way to the house and looks in the window. She sees her mother crying, and knows that she is the reason.  At the grocery store a little old lady sees Maren and wants to help her out.  Asks Maren to help her home with her groceries and she'll fix her a nice lunch.  On the bus trip to the woman's house, Maren first sees the creepy old man she will come to know as Sully.

Sully will soon meet up with Maren, and she will find out she is not the only one of her kind.  Only Sully eats dead people.  He offers for her to come and stay with him.  But next she just wants to find her dad.  So she heads that way.  Only now she's kind of short on money.  So she tries hitchhiking, which only works so far.  She gets to a Walmart where she meets another of her kind, Lee.  Lee is a 19 year old boy.  And the people he eats are all "bad people".  And he helps Maren out even when she can't help herself and eats another boy that is trying to help her.  For some reason she attracts boys who just want to help her, and then she can't help herself.  She and Lee are able to get along and he promises to help her get to see her father.  They run into Sully along the way.  And while Maren still feels like he is trying to mentor her and be her friend, Lee doesn't trust Sully.

Maren will find her father, and of course her daydreams of getting to live with him are only that, dreams.  She and Lee will have a disagreement about what she should do, about Sully, about her dad, with her life.  She will fall in love, she will meet her father, and that will be a touching moment, even if it's not all she dreamed of.  There will be young love, and there will be heartbreak.  And in the end, it of course can't really be happily ever after, not for someone who eats people.

A very unique story as I said.  We don't really get much of a glimpse into the actual eating of people.  We don't know for sure just why they do it.  We only know that it isn't just Maren, that there are other people in the world, maybe more than ever would be imagined.  And in the end, we will root for Maren, knowing she can't help what she does, and that for the most part she is trying to stop herself.  You'll root for young love, and hate when the heartache comes.  At least I did.

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