Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Book Review Tuesday


 Genre: Middle Grade Urban Fantasy

Banshee at the Gate by Wendy Knight 

 Description: Thirteen-year-old, half-breed banshee, Seven, likes her life. She leads souls safely to Death and she has the planet’s most awesome dad and little brother. But a cryptic message from Atlantis asking for her help changes all that. And then there’s Death, who has decided it’s time to take her brother’s soul. Now she’s racing across the world, trying to stay one step ahead of Death.

Unfortunately, getting to Atlantis from Ireland isn’t easy, there are evil minions determined to keep her away every time she turns around. But fighting for their lives teaches Seven one very important lesson—she isn’t human, and she isn’t a banshee. She has to be both if she wants to save her brother and make it back home alive.

Guardians of the Gate by Laura D. Bastian


Description: Thirteen-year-old merman, Exander, wants to leave Atlantis to mingle with the humans and explore the world above. Talia, his best friend, wishes she was a guardian of a gate leading to the surface. She'd keep those nasty humans out of her beloved city of Atlantis. When Talia accidentally short circuits a gate, Exander is trapped on the wrong side, getting a crash course in navigating the human world. As Talia fights to help Exander come home, she learns someone is closing the other gates, and it’s destroying the magic of Atlantis. If they can’t convince the magical creatures of the world to save the gates, the destruction of Atlantis will only be the beginning.


Secrets of the Mine by Juli Caldwell

 Description: Adam Alfaro daydreams about magic, myths, and becoming famous for discovering the lost city of Atlantis. The only problem? He has to spend spring break in Africa while his mom works. To make it worse, everyone expects him to be friends with the annoying Clancy Pitt while he’s there. It’s dislike at first sight...until he realizes she might know a few secrets about Atlantis.

Then he meets Nef, a spirited sea kelpie who needs help rescuing kidnapped naiads, left to die in an ancient mine. Suddenly the strange creatures Adam dreamed of become all too real. And they’re after him. Can Adam, Clancy, and Nef fight their way through the maze of tunnels in the mine and reach the naiads before it's too late?


Magicians of the Deep by Jaclyn Weist

Description:
Thirteen-year-old Colin knew nothing of the magic world until he is bitten by a mischievous pixie. He meets thirteen-year-old Alleya on a secret website devoted to magical creatures.  Alleya has been hidden away from the rest of Atlantis because of who she is. She accidentally lets slip a dark secret—the gates to Atlantis are being shut down and it's destroying magic. For her treason, Alleya is exiled to Indiatlantis. 

Together, Colin and Alleya must find a way to bring back the old magic and fight to save Atlantis.






Madness Behind the Throne by JR Simmons


Description: Callidora is an Atlantian noblewoman and member of an elite guard whose purpose is to keep Atlantis pure...until her life is turned upside down by the birth of a son.

Phoibos, bullied and taunted by other kids, is sure of one thing: something is wrong with Atlantis. Impure, Atlantian-Human hybrids are ruining his city, and he'll stop at nothing to rectify that. Callidora is the only one who knows the truth of who her only son really is, and how dangerous he can be. Can anyone stop Phoibos before his need for purification brings Atlantis to the very brink of destruction?



Battle for Acropolis by Mikey Brooks

Description: Thirteen-year-old Talon is in trouble...again. He didn't mean to burn down the school library. It just happened. Things like that always happen to Talon. His life is a mixture of the weird and bizarre. No one else he knows can shoot fire from their hands or cause an earthquake...but he can.

Every night the same dream haunts Talon: the destruction of an underwater city. He doesn't have a clue what it means but he feels like fate is trying to warn him. It's not until he runs away with his foster sister Hattie that he discovers his trouble-making powers and strange nightmare are connected. Together they are the key to saving magic...to saving Atlantis.


Review:
Honestly I have only read one of these books, however being on the inside of the interworking of this series I have a good idea of what each book entails. They are written to be a series but technically could be read separately. The one book that I have read is number 6, Battle for Acropolis. It was a fabulous book and could be read, like each of the books, on its own, however it helps tremendously to read each book to get the whole story. The characters appear throughout the different books in the series. Saying this, I read the last book in the series and when introduced to a huge amount of characters in the end of the story became a little confusing remembering who everyone was. I feel the confusion would have been avoided if I knew these characters better from reading the books they “star” in as well. I look forward to reading the other books in this series and would recommend anybody to read the series in its entirety

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Buy the books:

Banshee at the Gate:
Paperback | Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Guardians of the Gates:

Secrets of the Mine:
Paperback | Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Magicians of the Deep:

Madness Behind the Throne:
Paperback | Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Battle for Acropolis:

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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Book Review Tuesday


With school getting ready to start up again I’m hoping I will have more time to devote to my blog. Bean is going into Kindergarten and Buggy will start preschool. My babies are growing up so fast! My goal is to start reviewing books, and posting them on a weekly basis. Book Review Tuesday! One of my favorite things to do (when I can find the time) is reading! My husband is constantly telling me I read far too much, and to my author husband I said if it wasn’t for people like me he’d be out of a job :) needless to say he doesn’t bug me about reading anymore ;)  So I thought why not put more into my reading and help other people find good books out there to read and also which to avoid… in my opinion anyways. So here is goes…
The book I would like to start with is very dear to me! One of my favorite books that I have read too many times to count… the book is falling apart if that tells you anything.

Return to Red Castle by Dorothy Keddington

Genre:  Clean Romantic Mystery

Description: (found on Amazon.com)
     Red Castle ... an ancient citadel of wine-red stone in the heart of Utah's primitive High Uinta Mountains. Hidden away near its rocky base, a small plane lies twisted and broken.
     The four men ... desperate, ruthless, will stop at nothing to retrieve the plane's valuable cargo, but their only clue to its location are the words ... Red Castle.
     Jesse Chisholm ... rugged, lonely, one of the new breed of modern Mountain Men. As a geologist for the Forest Service, he calls the wilderness his home and only the mountains know the secrets of his heart.
     Melissa Heydon ... spirited, young, in love with life, the mountains, and Jesse Chisholm.

Review:
This book is seriously one of my all-time favorite books. It is one of the first books I can remember reading and is a big part of why I love reading so much! I can’t remember quite when, sometime in my early high school years, I was bored during the summer so my mom made me read this book. I fell in love with it and have been a read-a-holic ever since. That summer I went through countless novels and haven’t stopped reading since.

I couldn’t tell you a bad thing about this book, I love everything about it! Dorothy is great at painting a picture in my head of the scenery and things she describes. When I read her books I feel like I’m watching a movie in my head as I read.

Rating:
5 out of 5 stars (seriously 10 out of 5)