Hey my lovelies, today's review is of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, after receiving this series for my birthday, I decided to finally pick it up whilst on a weekend break. And I have to say even though I am writing this review, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the book. As I did not particularly love it, but I didn't dislike it either. It was simply alright. And that is never really a good thing to say in a book review, as overall I found the book meh. However, I have been told by quite a few people that they didn't find the first book all that interesting, but fell in love with the second book, so I am willing to persevere with the series.

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pub. Date: September 27th 2011
Date Read: Wednesday 1st June 2016
Pages:  418
Rating:3.5/5 stars
Summary: Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.  In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.  And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out. When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Overview

Daughter of Smoke and Bone follows Korou living her life as a art student and as a monsters apprentice, whilst trying to figure out how everything links in her life, as well as who and what she is. To be honest, I didn't think the book was going to go in the direction it did, I thought it was about a girl who was the daughter of a angel and demon, and it was her figuring it out and saving the world, instead it was the opposite and had nothing to do what I thought. 

Writing

For me there was something missing in the writing, I am not exactly sure what it is, but there is definitely something missing. And this has nothing to do with it being in third person, as I personally like third person and prefer it over first. 

Characters

Korou is our main character and has the predominant main role through out the book. She seemed very unsure of herself at the beginning, as she was not very confident when dealing with certain characters, as she almost lied to the reader and pretended like she didn't know what was going on, when she did know what was going on, if that makes sense. This made me feel very deceived as a reader and not in a good way, like some psychological thrillers made me feel that I read last year. This made me distrust the character and then throughout the novel, I disliked more and more of the choices she ended up making. 

Akiva is the love interest of Karou, and has a few chapters with him in the main role. I personally found him quite annoying as I think he was made to make us sympathize with him, and even though we get to know his backstory, I felt I didn't get to know him and his personality, which I would have much preferred. 

I personally thought that a few characters seemed to get dropped as soon as they were found uneccesary and then never mentioned again, which I didn't like, as I now have no idea why they were added to the book in the first place. Examples of this include the the best friend and the ex-boyfriend. 

Relationships

In preparation of what to write in my review I have checked out various other reviews and most of them didn't think that what Karou and Akiva had was insta-love, but for me it definitely was, and they went from practically trying to kill each other to wanting to be together, and to me that is simply insta-love and right now, I am not a fan of it. As a lot of the books I have been reading recently have had it, and I personally love a good slow burn story, where the characters only get together later on once everything is fully developed. 

Conclusion 

Overall, this book is a strong 3.5 to me, mainly because I didn't dislike it or particularly love it either, so I'm going to stick it in the middle and hope for the best with the rest of the trilogy. 

Would I Recommend this....

Yes, mainly because I have been told that the sequel is amazing. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys books with the classic angel vs. demon/devil story line.

Book Links

Amazon UK ~ Amazon.com ~ Waterstones ~ Goodreads

Please note that some of these opinions could change once I have read the rest of the books in the series, as these could make some of the decisions made in the book make more sense, and could cause me to enjoy the book more. Thank you for reading my lovelies, this is it for this week, if you would like to see more of what I am currently reading you can check me out on Goodreads, Instagram and Twitter. 

Previous Book Review: Out of Order by Casey Lawrence

Next Book Review: Mirror Image by Michele Pazia Wacek

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Hey my lovelies, welcome to the first official review of 2016 and it is the Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker, the worst thing about this is I received this arc a few months ago, but i have only just gotten round to reading it. First of all I would like to state that I received this arc for free in exchange for a honest review. 

Title: The Witch Hunter

Author: Virginia Boecker

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Pub.Date:  2nd June 2015

Date Read:  16th December 2015 

Pages: 368

Rating: 4.6/5 stars

Goodreads Summary: Your greatest enemy isn't what you fight, but what you fear. Elizabeth Grey is one of the king's best witch hunters, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and doling out justice. But when she's accused of being a witch herself, Elizabeth is arrested and sentenced to burn at the stake. Salvation comes from a man she thought was her enemy. Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the kingdom, offers her a deal: he will save her from execution if she can break the deadly curse that's been laid upon him. But Nicholas and his followers know nothing of Elizabeth's witch hunting past--if they find out, the stake will be the least of her worries. And as she's thrust into the magical world of witches, ghosts, pirates, and one all-too-handsome healer, Elizabeth is forced to redefine her ideas of right and wrong, of friends and enemies, and of love and hate. Virginia Boecker weaves a riveting tale of magic, betrayal, and sacrifice in this unforgettable fantasy debut.

Hey my lovelies, I am finally back and with a book review no less. This is the first review of my christmas series, so be sure to check out all of my new posts! Now lets get down to it!

Hey my lovelies, today's review is of Like Candy by the lovely Debra Doxer. I received this novel thanks to netgalley, Debra Doxer and it's publishers for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book, a lot more than what I was expecting. Which is why I rated it a full five stars on Goodreads.

Title: Like Candy

Author: Debra Doxer

Publisher: Not Known

Pub.Date:  28th July 2015

Date Read:  6th August 2015 

Pages: 299

Rating: 5/5 stars

Goodreads Summary: Revenge is sweet, just like candy.

Candy Seaborne knows she’s badass. She takes after her father, an assassin and possibly a spy, although he won’t admit to either. She idolizes him. Her dream is to follow in his footsteps. But first, she has to finish high school.
Biding her time, waiting for real life to begin, Candy craves drama and isn’t above manufacturing some. If you’re a classmate who wronged her or a boyfriend who cheated, watch your back. She’s no pushover, and revenge may be her favorite pastime. 
Jonah Bryson is the senior class heartthrob who breaks all the stereotypes. He’s a jock, but he isn’t the typical player. He’s moody and antisocial. No girl has gotten anywhere with him since his last girlfriend broke his heart.
Candy sees Jonah as a challenge and the perfect distraction. But she may be in over her head because unlike everyone else, Jonah isn’t buying her tough act. He sees the lost, lonely girl inside. He sees too much. When he looks at her that way, she wants to let her guard down and be vulnerable. But that’s the last thing she should do because her father’s world is spilling over into hers, and life is about to get real much sooner than Candy expected

Hey my lovelies! Guess what I received in the post last week? The one and only End of Days by the fabulous Susan Ee. I am absolutely in love with her writing, it took me four days to finally pick up this book after receiving it, as I just didn't want this series to end. I rated this 5 stars on Goodreads, but would rate it a 4.75 in real life due to a few unanswered questions and one confusing moment in the book.

Title: End of Days
Author: Susan Ee
Publisher: Skyscape
Pub. Date: May 12th 2015
Date Read: May 23rd 2015
Pages: 344
Rating: 4.75/5 stars
Goodreads Summary: After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all.

When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?

If you have not read any books in the Penryn and the End of Days series yet I suggest reading my review on Angelfall and World After before reading this review. This review up until the spoilers below point, will have spoilers for the previous books.

My first impression of the books cover was confusion. The Angelfall book has pink segments, but is mainly black overall. World After if predominately dark blue, but End of Days is a golden/yellow colour and it makes the spines look as if they don't match properly, which I admit I was a bit disappointed with, but it still pretty overall. I know it doesn't really have anything to do with the books content, but it matters to me.

Spoilers Below
End of Days starts of where World After left off. Penryn is in Raffe's arms and they are flying with Paige to get away from the Angels. Then we meet this white Locust, who Beliel made to be the leader of all the locusts. Beliel is the one if you don't remember who stole Raffes wings at the beginning of Angelfall. Then Paige and this white locust have a mental battle for power over the other locusts and all but three or four leave with the white locust.


There was only one part of the book that I didn't really like. I didn't like it when Raffe and Penryn traveled down to hell through Beliel, I admit I got a bit confused especially at Beliel being there already, but then we found out that time goes a lot faster on Earth than it does in the pits. Which sort of makes sense. But not completely, as when the watchers were freeed and went back to Earth, they still had battered wings and physical differences from the other angels. So how did Beliel's eyes heal and why did he not recognise Penryns voice. As I think I would remember if the person who freed everyone but me was in front of me, I believe I would recognise the voice.

After getting back to Earth, the watchers give Beliel a proper Angel burial, which sounded very pretty to be quite honest and they leave without Penryn to go to this trial for who is going to become the new messenger of God. Soon after them leaving Penryn receives a message that the way the angels are deciding is by doing a blood hunt. So the angels must kill as many as they can to win, and the group of angels that kills the most, their leader becomes the arch angel. Which is when Penryn realises that she told Raffe, where all the refugees and the resistance are holding up and that she has basically told him where a bunch of humans are that they can kill. Realising that she must save them, the three of them (Penryn, her mum and Paige) go to the resistance and find it has already been attacked and half of the fighters are gone due to a fire that the angels have started at the other end of the city to try to herd the humans to one end of the city, so there will be one large group of humans to kill.

When Penryn gets back to the resistence camp she finds Obi dying and he gives her the power of being the resistance leader. After finding out that most of the resistance army is either dead or seriously hurt due to the fire, Penryn and Dee-Dum decide to save all of the innocents who are trying to get off and leave by boat, so to do this they try


At the show the San Francisco Ballet, or the remaining people of it anyway, do a performance and during the performance one of its lost members join them. Which reinforces the hope that people can survive in a apocalyptic world in a similar way that Clara's story did World After. It was really nice to have that parallel in there.

I have to admit, I did have my doubts towards the end of the book, as it really did look like she wasn't gonna make it and there would be some sort of face off between her and Raffe. But I am happy to say there wasn't there was a nice happy ending and I am really sad that this story had to end.

Unanswered Questions
If you know the answer to any of these questions, please comment or contact me in some way, as I would love to find out the answers.

• Where is Penryn's dad? After Penryn and Paige talking about him, I did expect to see him at some point. Otherwise I am assuming he is dead.
• What happened to Paige? I really hoped this question was going to be answered and I was a bit gutted, when we got to the end and we never found out. 
• Was Penryns mum really crazy? As she knew all about the rotten eggs, which we found out worked, but was she really crazy or did she just have more of an understanding?
• Is God real?
• Did angel Gabriel ever really talk to God?

That is it for today guys! If you want to keep more up to date on what I am reading follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads.

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Hey my lovelies! This weeks book review is ... Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. I picked this up a few weeks ago, but was put off reading it due to seeing some of my favourite reviewers talking about how much they didn't like it. As I'm currently in a reading slump, I figured I would give it a shot and boy am I glad I did. I really enjoyed this book, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be about, but it was awesome! I rate it a full 5 stars on goodreads. BEWARE THIS REVIEW DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS.

Title: Red Queen
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Publisher: Harper Teen 
Pub. Date: February 10th 2015
Date Read: May 2015
Pages: 383
Rating:5/5 stars
Summary: The poverty stricken Reds are commoners, living under the rule of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers.

To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from The Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change.

Mare finds herself working in the Silver Palace, at the centre of
those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control.

But power is a dangerous game. And in this world divided by blood, who will win?

Red Queen. Red Queen. Where to start, Basically our main character Mare lives in a red village with her disabled father, mother and seamstress younger sister. She has grown up her entire life knowing that when she turns eighteen she will be forced into the army, where her three older brothers already are. Knowing this she steals whatever she can to help her family get by, as they are living in poverty.

In the red queen world there are two different types of people. The silvers and the reds. The silvers have special abilities where they powers like fire and stuff and reds don't have powers. They are like ordinary humans. I know a lot of people have mentioned how they didn't like the world building, but I have to admit I really liked it. For me I have a clear picture on what is happening and where is where.

The silvers have a very twisted sense of reality, they all believe that due to their special abilities, they are much better than any of the reds. So due to this they make the red's do all of the jobs that they don't want, for example; the reds are beggers and merchants, whilst the silvers are generals and all of the important people who go to war for only a short period of time, but take all the credit for what the reds do. As mentioned in the book, one of the highest ranking jobs for reds that are close to the silvers, is a seamstress. As they will get to work with all the crystals and pretty materials that the silvers wear. Which is what Mare's sister is and this makes Mare incredibly jealous of her sister.

So weeks before her eighteenth birthday, her best friend Kilhorn loses his job as an apprentice and is told he must got to war. Angry with this, she travels to where her little sister works (with the silvers) and attempts stealing some stuff, so she can pay to get the money to run away, but gets stopped when news of a rebellion of the reds hit the market. Then all of the silvers start attacking the reds and her sister's arm gets broken in the process.

Angry with herself for getting her little sister hurt, she goes out to pick pocket, where she meets a guy. She tells him all of her woes and then leaves. The next day she finds out she has been requested to have a job at the palace, meaning she won't have to go to war.

Mare was a good point of view, for me she was similar to Penryn (Angelfall), as she was incredibly sarcastic and witty. She often spoke out of turn and strives to get what she wants, doing almost anything to get it.

Maven was a bit too perfect, handsome, has a similar complex to Mare(is the shadow to their siblings flame). He seemed to get on really well with Mare, almost too well if you ask me.

The Queen seemed like a major bitch at the beginning, then I started to like her, especially the way she acted with Maven. And then by the end of the book I didn't like her again. Elara is a true silver through and through.

Is it wrong that I kind off enjoyed Evangeline? Even if she was a complete bitch through most of it, i still liked her.

As the book went through you could see the characters forget that Mare was a red and treat her as if she was a silver and then even going as far as slagging them off in front of her. So basically Mare then has to deal with the life of a silver princess, as she falls for her future brother in law, conspires to overthrow the silvers, has to deal with her abilities and keep people from finding out what she really is.

The betrayal was sort of expected, now I look back on the book there was a lot of hints from major characters that Mare trusted and I'm guessing when I reread this I am going to feel silly for not realising it. Overall though I really enjoyed and definitely recommend that you read it. If you've read it, what do you think? Did you enjoy the book as much as I did?

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