Review: Revenge and the Wild by Michelle Modesto

First, thanks to Edelweiss and Balzer and Bray for allowing me to read an egalley of this one.  In the end I'd kind of classify this as a bit of a steampunk type of story, as well as western and fantasy.  And while I'm not normally a fan of steampunk, the way it was done in this story, well it just fit perfectly for the whole tale.  This was really quite an original story, can't quite compare most of it to anything I can think of.  All in all it was a good book, and I really enjoyed it, can't wait to bring it to my students at school to read!

The main character is Westie.  Westie lost her family to cannibals when she was little.  Not only did they take her family, they also took her arm.  She was found by one of the native tribes, who took her to a man in town, Nigel Butler, who was able to save her arm. Well, he saved it by giving her a mechanical/robotic arm.  Nigel is an inventor.  I believe this is where I felt the steampunk bit came into the story.  But Westie isn't the only orphan that Nigel took in, there is also Alistair, who also had a run-in with cannibals.  Only it is his face that is scarred. And so he either wears a mask with a robotic voice that Nigel created, or else he wears a scarf to cover his lower face, and uses sign language.  Westie has been a bit of a wild child, she is not lady-like in any way, no matter how hard her adoptive father tries to get her to be.  She used to be best friends with Alistair, but something happened that made him start distancing himself from her.  And really, Westie is now on a one-track plan to find the cannibals who killed her family and bring them to justice. 

But when Nigel invents a great machine, and he tries to bring in sponsors to help him get it up and going, these strangers throw a bit of a wrench into Westie's plans.  First there is their young nephew, James, who she first meets when he is getting into a fight outside a saloon in town, with a troll I think.  He kind of flirts with Westie, and seems so much different from the rest of the family of investors.  The biggest issue here though, is that Westie is sure the investors are the same people who killed her family.  Now she is on a mission to prove they are who she thinks they are.  When weird things start happening in town, a prostitute gets bitten by a women, and not just love bites, but take a bite out of her! 

This story did have a little bit of everything.  I mentioned trolls already, but there were vampires, one named Costain who seemed to have a bit of a thing for Westie, something I do kind of wish maybe there had been more about that in the story.  So many different kinds of characters.  But not in a bad way.  Although I'd have liked maybe some more with some of them, it worked fine for me.

A very unique tale as I mentioned.  There is a lot of action and mystery and wondering how will Westie prove what she thinks.  And then, the twist at the end, whoa, I didn't see that coming!  I definitely think it is worth a read.  While I can see how it might seem slow at the beginning, Westie's foul-mouthed, sarcastic character  really grabbed me and drew me in.

Review: Crystal Kingdom (Kanin Chronicles #3) by Amanda Hocking

First, thanks to St. Martin's Griffin and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an egalley of this final book in the Kanin Chronicles.  As I mentioned in the review for the 2nd book, Ice Kissed, that I finished right before I started this one, I just love this author and her writing.  And I have to say that this ending didn't disappoint me at all.  Again, if you haven't read the first two books yet, there are definitely going to be things you won't want to read about in this review.  So you should go back and start with my review of the first book in the series, Frostfire, in that case.

Of course at the end of the last book Bryn was accused of being guilty of treason, and now she had to flee her home and try to prove her innocence.  Once out of danger and on the run, she is joined by Konstantin, her one time enemy, who now seems to be the only one she may be able to trust in this mess.  The two of them try to work with some of the other troll tribes to get the true mastermind and guilty one, Queen Mina, out of control.  But it will take finding some kind of actual proof of the Queen's treachery, as well as finding which other tribes or members of tribes are not already part of Queen Mina's revengeful scheme.  She will work to avenge the death of her friend Kaspar, and will even call on help from her friend's family back in the Trylle kingdom, so we get to go back and see some of my favorite characters from the Trylle books.  The characters that really got me hooked on Hocking's books.

In the final battle, because there will be one, she will have allies in those that she has helped in the past, but will lose loved ones as they fight to save those they love.  And she will find true love, and work to set her kingdom right as it should be in the best way that she can.  Another great series by Amanda Hocking, one that I could not bear to put down even though I did have to work and sleep at some times. 

Review: Frostfire by Amanda Hocking

First, thanks to St. Martin's Griffin and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I've been a fan of Amanda Hocking since I downloaded a 99 cent e-book of the first book in the Trylle series, Switched.  I read that book while sitting in line waiting for one of the Harry Potter movies one summer.  And I was hooked!  And I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed returning to this same world as well. 

In the Trylle trilogy we spent our time with the Trylles, obviously.  But this book deals with the Kanin trolls.  It begins with a very intense scene.  The main character for this story is Bryn, and the night of a big party in the palace she finds one of the soldiers or guards that she looks up to, Konstantin, attempting to kill her father.  She is able to save him, but at the same time she is also wounded.  Then we jump ahead to a time when Bryn is a full blown tracker, and something she always has on her mind, to find Konstantin, and find out why he did what he did, and then get justice.  Bryn's life isn't always the easiest besides that event that has shaped her career and life.  She is only half Kanin, her mother was from a different race of trolls, the Skojari.  They are what you would call water beings, many are even born with gills. Because of this their whole way of life is different.  But they are also different in that they are light skinned, and have light colored hair compared to the Kanin.  So Bryn has blonde hair that sets her apart, and as she grew up, it made her stick out and get bullied even.  Because her father married her mother, he lost his title, and so did her mother.  This only made Bryn want to be a tracker any more.

It is on what should be a routine tracker job, where Bryn is out to find a Changeling, and prepare them to be brought home to his true parents, that she runs into Konstantin again.  He is sitting in a car that has been following the changeling around Chicago.  She confronts him and gets into a fight, but he gets away.  Once again he leaves her with some cryptic message, like the one he gave her the night he tried to kill her father.  She grabs the changeling and gets him back to his parents before the planned time, but to keep him safe, because she doesn't know what kind of danger he might have been in.  At first the King and Queen try to say it is a one time occurrence and don't set up a big security change.  But soon things will escalate.  And now Bryn and her fellow trackers will have to start trying to save all of the changelings, while also figuring out what Konstantin and his cohort are up to.  As with any story that has royalty, there is intrigue, and possible mysteries that could go back farther than what it seems with the present time issues.

My only complaint with the book is that it kind of ended abruptly.  I tried to turn the page to read what I figured would be a final concluding chapter, only to find out I had read the end.  I'll be very eager to read on in this series.  I did see people say that they wondered if they had to read the Trylle trilogy first in order to understand it, and I don't really think you do.  It was fun to see characters pop up from those books, like Tove and Wendy, but I feel like most things were explained that needed to be explained in order to understand the story. 

I definitely recommend this to people who enjoy a good paranormal/fantasy romance.  And if you liked the Trylle trilogy, you need to pick this one up as well.

Torn (Trylle Trilogy #2) by Amanda Hocking

Torn by Amanda Hocking
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually read this as an ebook just like the first one in the series, Switched. When I enjoyed the first one as much as I did, I went ahead and purchased the 2nd and 3rd as ebooks, I believe for only about $2.99 at the time. Like with the first one, I read this on my iPhone Nook app whenever I was somewhere and didn't have a book with me. After I finished my last book, I decided to go ahead and finish this book. These are now coming out in actual "books" so I thought I'd go ahead and get my reviews done on them.
At the beginning of this Wendy has run away, back to her human family, to get away from having to be the Trylle princess. She just wants her normal life back, and believes she can actually do that if she leaves. She brings home Rhys, the child that she replaced as a changeling. So her human brother Matt gets to meet his "read" brother. But of course, she can't just go home, as it turns out there are other trolls out there, the Vittra, who come back to try to kidnap her, and do succeed. They take her to their king, who turns out to be her father. But while she is being held there, she learns about why the Vittra want her, and meets her stepmother. She learns the Vittra can't have children, and hope that she can come in and help them, as she is a mix between them and the Trylle. Finn comes in as a Tracker to rescue her, along with her brothers Matt and Rhys. They all are taken back to be safe in her mother Elora's home. Wendy learns that she must become the princess in order to save her people, and must even become betrothed to help. But there are some mysteries she must solve while she's there, like why did it end up being so easy to escape the Vittra, it was like one of them just let her walk out, a Markis named Lucas. And why then does he show up at her mother's home?
I enjoyed this book, and will probably read the 3rd one in the next month or two. I look forward to seeing how it will end. As I mentioned in my review of the first one, I'm glad we still don't really have a love triangle, at least not to the point of other stories these days.
This goes in my A-Z Challenge as my "T" book.  And because I've had it so long on my ereader, I'm counting it as part of my TBR pile challenge as well.  And the 3rd one, Ascend, will count towards that challenge as well when I get to it, as I've had these books probably for close to a year downloaded to read.

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Switched by Amanda Hocking

Switched by Amanda Hocking

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I downloaded this book to my Nook because it was only 99 cents. At first I was only reading it on my iPhone Nook app, and let me tell you, reading a book on an iPhone is not much fun. It is like you turn the page every paragraph! I only resorted to this when I ended up somewhere where I'd had no idea I might need a book. Then, while waiting in line to see the Harry Potter midnight premiere, I didn't want to bring a bunch of books with me. Plus, I was finishing up a book on my Nook, so I just brought my Nook and figured to read whatever was on there when I finished that book. And I decided to read this next. And wow, once I really was able to read it like a real book I was sucked into the story. I really liked this! I see many reviewers have called this a Twilight knockoff. I disagree. I do think that people who enjoyed Twilight will also enjoy this, but to me the story is a bit different. The main character is Wendy. When she was a little girl growing up her mother was never happy with her, and on her 6th birthday, her mother tried to kill her with a knife, saying she wasn't really her child. Her mother was put away into a mental institute, and she lived from then on with her aunt and her older brother who had always kind of been her protector. They've moved around quite a bit due to Wendy not really trying to fit in and the problems she has. At the latest place she's at she meets a boy named Finn, who she can't quite keep her eyes off of, and he can't seem to keep his eyes off of her too. Well, it turns out that he is there to take her to the real world that she belongs in. Her "mother" was actually right all this time. In case you're wondering what "Trylle" means, it means troll, although not trolls in the way we have always described them. And we'll learn more about it in this trilogy, which I've now had to buy the rest of them, still a pretty good price for an e-book, although not the 99 cents.

I really enjoyed this, I like the characters, the world she's going into, and somewhat how Wendy is dealing with it. I can totally see her point. Like all these supernatural books lately, she is a teenager, who just wants to have a normal life after all the things she's already been through. My one hope, is that there won't be a big love triangle, as seems to be the "thing" these days. But we'll see as I read on!



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