Series Spotlight - Nightwalkers (1-2) by Jacquelyn Frank

The Nightwalkers series is a paranormal romance / urban fantasy series about things that go bump in the night. Among your Nightwalkers, you have Demons, Vampires, and Lycanthropes. The main focus of the first two books are the Demons. Along with a fragile peace between them and the other two Nightwalker species, there are necromancers threatening to destroy their way of life and loved ones. I definitely recommend reading this series so far!


Jacob by Jacquelyn Frank
Series: Nightwalkers #1
Publisher: Zebra
Publication Date: 1 December 2006
Genre: Paranormal Romance
My Copy: bought - mass market

Since time began, there have been Nightwalkers - the races of the night who live in the shadows of the moonlight. Love with humans is absolutely forbidden, and one man makes certain to uphold this ancient law: Jacob, the Enforcer...

For 700 Years, He has resisted temptation. But not tonight...

Jacob knows the excuses his people give when the madness overtakes them and they fall prey to their lust for humans. He's heard every one and still brought the trespassers to justice. Immune to forbidden desires, uncontrollable hungers, or the curse of the moon, his control is total...until the moment he sees Isabella on a shadowy New York City street. Saving her life wasn't in his plans. Nor were the overwhelming feelings she arouses in him. But the moment he holds her in his arms and feels the soft explosion of her body against his, everything changes. Their attraction is undeniable, volatile, and completely against the law. Suddenly everything Jacob has ever believed is inflamed by the heat of desire...

Bring on the night.

Review:
Jacob immediately pulled me in. A Demon protecting the prey from another Demon? And being brothers at that? I was hooked. I wanted to know why Jacob stopped his brother from harming a human. Demons are usually all portrayed as bad guys. These Demons are far from evil. They just have unique abilities based on an element (Wind, Earth, Fire) or important human aspect (Mind, Body). Jacob is an Earth Demon which allows him to turn to dust, communicate with animals, or cause earthquakes.

Isabella, or Bella, has her own talents due to her ancestry. The same ancestry sets up the conflict for the series. I really enjoyed Bella. Maybe because of her love for books and history.

Okay, I have to say the resemblance at times between this book and Twilight are uncanny. I mean, Jacob and Bella. Vampires. Imprinting. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe there is any foul play or connection. Twilight was published in 2005, and Jacob in 2006. And other than those three things, the rest of the books are nothing alike. I just found it intriguing.



*****


Gideon by Jacquelyn Frank
Series: Nightwalkers #2
Publisher: Zebra
Publication Date: 1 June 2007
Genre: Paranormal Romance
My Copy: bought - mass market

They're called the Nightwalkers--proud, ancient beings who live in the shadows, existing just beyond the human world. But there are also dangerous humans who hunt them--necromancers who use the blackest magic to manipulate them. And for a Demon named Gideon, the battle against these evil forces will soon be all too personal...

AS A HEALER, HE KNOWS HER BODY. BUT IT'S HER HEART HE WANTS.

For a thousand years, Gideon has healed his people. And as the oldest surviving male of his race, his wisdom has always been respected without question. But Gideon knows that even he is vulnerable to the powerful, primitive desires that befall his kind during Hallowed moons--and nine years ago that truth was hammered home when he found himself claiming Magdalegna, the Demon King's sister, in a wild embrace. Horrified by his lack of control, he left her wanting and furious--and then exiled himself for the better part of a decade. Now, with necromancers threatening his people--and Magdalegna nearly their victim--Gideon must face another truth. He and the beautiful, stubborn Magdalegna are destined to be together, to share a love as deep and old as time itself. But first he needs to regain her trust. Then he'll have to save her life...

Every night holds secrets.

Review:
I didn't like the second installment quite as well as the first. I had a hard time liking Gideon. He was rather full of himself. Normally that doesn't bother me in romance novels as I expect it to a certain extent, but this time it just annoyed me. Gideon is a Body Demon, so he can heal others and astral project. I did like Legna, but I have to admit that the full name, Magdelegna, threw me off the entire book. I would read it as Magdelena first and then have to correct myself, which was very distracting. She seemed kind of weak when it came to Gideon and strong when it came to anything else. Legna is a Mind Demon who can feel others' emotions. Yet when she Imprints with Gideon, she gets this angry, revengeful side as well which is hard for me to reconcile considering her gift.

There are lots of new characters and more insight into the Nightwalker world. We are also introduced to the Vampires and Lycanthropes. I definitely look forward to seeing more from them in the later books of the series. I also really enjoy that the books in the series do not focus just on a single couple at the neglect of the rest. You still get plenty of Jacob and Bella from the previous book, plus you can see some of the set up for Elijah. The Imprinting process is fascinating to me. I loved the telepathic connection in the two books. Plus the idea that the Imprinted pair could die by not seeing each other for a length of time is kind of intriguing, if perhaps a bit cheesy.

Review - Grave Witch by Kalayna Price

Grave Witch by Kalayna Price
Series: Alex Craft #1
Publisher: ROC
Publication Date: 16 December 2010
Genre: Paranormal Romance Mystery
My Copy: bought - mass market

Grave witch Alex Craft can speak to the dead, but that doesn’t mean she likes what they have to say.

As a private investigator and consultant for the police, Alex Craft has seen a lot of dark magic. But even though she’s on good terms with Death himself—who happens to look fantastic in a pair of jeans—nothing has prepared her for her latest case. Alex is investigating a high profile murder when she’s attacked by the ‘shade’ she’s raising, which should be impossible. To top off her day, someone makes a serious attempt on her life, but Death saves her. Guess he likes having her around...

To solve this case Alex will have to team up with tough homicide detective Falin Andrews. Falin seems to be hiding something—though it’s certainly not his dislike of Alex—but Alex knows she needs his help to navigate the tangled webs of mortal and paranormal politics, and to track down a killer wielding a magic so malevolent, it may cost Alex her life...and her soul.

Review:

I devoured this book. It is excellent! The blend of paranormal, romance, and mystery is perfectly balanced. And I was never able to predict what was going to happen next. It was very refreshing and original. There are a lot of questions and possibilities raised throughout the book, but the ending ties up all the loose ends except for a few bare minimum which I'm assuming lead us into the next book. It's also fascinating to see into the world created by Price. The magic is intriguing to visualize.

Alex is one of those really great, strong heroines. She's independent and brave. She's got spunk and plenty of backbone. She's also edgy and perhaps a little dark. Also for those of you who dislike insta-love or friend-abandoning-heroines, you have nothing to worry about in this book. All of her friends that make up the secondary characters are entertaining and come from a wide range of types.

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but I love Death. I know there are actually relatively few scenes with him in the book, but he came across so deeply caring and compassionate. He's also mischievous in a good way and a flirt. I really hope the next book has more of him in it!

As for Falin, he was pretty sexy in the book, but I never quite wanted Alex to be with him because of my preference for Death. That said, he would still make a good alternative. I am really curious to know more of his back story. He's very mysterious, and Price only gives us hints and tid bits about him sporadically throughout the book.

I will definitely be reading more in this series, and I highly recommend it!

Book Beginning:
The first time I encountered Death, I hurled my mother's medical chart at him.



Rating Breakdown:
Plot: 5 hearts
Pacing: 5 hearts
Characters: 5 hearts
Character Relationships: 5 hearts
Ending: 5 hearts
Recommend: Absolutely! Highly recommended!

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Review - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Publisher: Dutton
Publication Date: 10 January 2012
Genre: YA Contemporary
My Copy: hardcover - library

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Review:
This was the first book I've read by John Green. I've only seen maybe two of the Vlogbrothers YouTube videos. It's not like I'm some crazed John Green fanatic. I'm almost too worried to read another book by him because now I have high expectations. I say this so you understand that this book really did blow me away, and it wasn't just because I was already biased to like the book.

I wish I could put into words how absolutely fantastic this book really is. My words, however, do the book no justice. I was in tears for last couple chapters of the book, which does make it difficult to read. It’s one of those books I just want to shove into everyone’s hands and tell them they must read it. When I finished the book, I immediately turned back to the beginning and reread it. I have never done that with any book before. This book ripped my heart apart and then somehow stitched it back together again. It’s a book that takes you awhile to recover from. I expect it will stick with me forever, and I think maybe it has changed something inside me. I know that sounds ridiculous and cheesy, but I’m not being dramatic.

This book had me laughing so hard I was in tears. Then I was in tears because of the overwhelming feelings the book inspires. The characters are amazing. They're teenagers, but they are going through things that most of us couldn't begin to imagine. Green does a wonderful job balancing the angst of teenagers with the maturity that comes with facing adversity. Hazel and Augustus are eccentric and yet still very grounded. The book is filled with their existential ponderings which add great depth to the story. Isaac behaves in a way which is a little closer to what most people might think the average teenager would react. There are parts in the novel, mostly with Kaitlyn, which make it seem like this is a book written by an adult with preconceived notions of how teenagers act, but overall I think it's believable that the characters could be real teenagers.

The plot is incredible with some unexpected twists and turns which ground the book in reality. The pacing is pretty solid throughout the book except perhaps towards the end where it speeds up. I wasn't prepared for the ending and then it was over. However, I hesitate to call that a weakness in this story because it really happens that fast sometimes. That feeling of imbalance in the world is completely realistic. I don't want to say more than that for fear of giving something away. But seriously, if I could put this book into the hands of everyone I met, I totally would.

Book Beginning:
Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

Favorite Quotes:
“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.” -pg 12-13

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. -pg 33

"All salvation is temporary," Augustus shot back. "I bought them a minute. Maybe that's the minute that buys them an hour, which is the hour that buys them a year. No one's gonna buy them forever, Hazel Grace, but my life bought them a minute. And that's not nothing." -pg 59

"But I believe in true love, you know? I don't believe that everybody gets to keep their eyes or not get sick or whatever, but everybody should have true love, and it should last at least as long as your life does." -pg 75

Wounded. Like Caroline Mathers had been a bomb and when she blew up everyone around her was left with embedded shrapnel. -pg 98
"I'm like. Like. I'm like a grenade, Mom. I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?"
My dad tilted his head a little to the side, like a scolded puppy.
"I'm a grenade," I said again. "I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there's nothing I can do about hurting you; you're too invested, so just please let me do that, okay? I'm not depressed. I don't need to get out more. And I can't be a regular teenager, because I'm a grenade."
-pg 99

"You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you." he said.
"I guess?" I said.
"All efforts to save me from you will fail," he said.
"Why? Why would you even like me? Haven't you put yourself through enough of this?" I asked, thinking of Caroline Mathers.
Gus didn't answer. He just held on to me, his fingers strong against my left arm. "We gotta do something about this frigging swing set," he said. "I'm telling you, it's ninety percent of the problem." -pg 122-123

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. -pg 124-125

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you." -pg 153

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. -pg 189, 260

But that wasn't quite right. I called it a nine because I was saving my ten. And here it was, the great and terrible ten, slamming me again and again as I lay still and alone in my bed staring at the ceiling, the waves tossing me against the rocks then pulling me back out to sea so they could launch me again into the jagged face of the cliff, leaving me floating faceup on the water, undrowned. -pg 263 [referring to level of pain on a scale of 1 to 10]

My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations. -pg 311

The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths.
We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either. -pg 311-312



Rating Breakdown:
Plot: 5 hearts
Pacing: 5 hearts
Characters: 5 hearts
Character Relationships: 5 hearts
Ending: 5 hearts
Recommend: Absolutely! A must read for everyone!

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