Review: Shadow Bound

Title: Shadow Bound
Author: Erin Kellison

Source: downloaded from Barnes & Noble

LendMe Status: Not Available

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:
When a demon breaches the barrier between death and life, the salvation of the world depends on the passions of a beautiful banshee just coming into her power and the man willing to use her to avenge the destruction of his family.


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This novel takes a different approach to the world of the fae and the relations between life and death, Heaven and the Underworld then I've seen used before. The frame story is that of the Shadowman - the Grim Reaper, Death himself - falling in love with a mortal woman. He knows this union is against all the rules, but his love for her makes him act against those conventions. The product of that union - which through her birth, ends up killing the mortal woman, completly denies Shadowman of his true desires - is a woman of both worlds with powers all her own to weild. Though she doesn't know it at first - Talia O'Brien has the ability to bend the boundaries between life and death and by doing so - change the rules by which Life and Death interact.

I really liked this book. It was a new take on some familiar themes in fantasy literature and a great introduction to this new author. It seems that this will also be the first book in a series, so I look forward to reading more!

E-reader revolt: I'm leaving youth culture behind

E-reader revolt: I'm leaving youth culture behind

I find the author's initial response very interesting, and something I have thought about myself, though - not enough to not use an e-reader myself of course! Are we really that nosy as a society, that we can't NOT know what our neighbor on the bus/train/plane etc is reading? I hope not. Books are for personal enjoyment, and not to be read over other people's shoulders. And, frankly, you could still do that with an e-reader. :)

Review: Weddings Can Be Murder

Title: Weddings Can Be Murder
Source: Downloaded from Barnes & Noble
LendMe Status: Unavailable

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:


When her wedding planner is murdered, Katie Ray is forced into close proximity with bad boy PI Carl Hades - and into reconsidering the man with whom she wants to spend the rest of her days.


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Weddings Can Be Murder by Christie Craig - Okay, gotta say - I read this because.... we're getting married and I saw the title, and couldn't resist! :) But, this book  was not only fun to read, it was well-written. A bit predictable, but overall, this is a fun, and pretty fast read that isn't over the top in the wedding theme, and has enough twists to keep the reader flipping the pages! 

Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Title: The Girl Who Played With Fire
Source: Downloaded from Barnes & Noble
LendMe Status: Unavailable

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:
The electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ("An intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing thriller" —The Washington Post), and this time it is Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, who is the focus and fierce heart of the story.

Mikael Blomkvist—crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium—has decided to publish a story exposing an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.

On the eve of publication, the two reporters responsible for the story are brutally murdered. But perhaps more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander.

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Second in the "Millenium Series" by Stieg Larrson, The Girl Who Played With Fire continues the story of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. I had high expectations for this novel, after The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I was not let down. The fast-paced, action-packed storyline returned again and I could barely put this novel down! I highly recommend this series for anyone who likes an engaging read with well-developed characters and unexpected plot twists.

Review: The Lost Symbol

Title: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Source: I read this one on my boyfriend's Kindle
LendMe Status: Unavailable

Synopsis (from Barnes & Noble):

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object -- artfully encoded with five symbols -- is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation . . . one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon -- a prominent Mason and philanthropist -- is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations -- all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

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Okay, yes, I read The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, and yes, I was expecting this novel to top those in every way - but, although the story was very intriguing and the characters just as well developed as one would expect from Dan Brown, I wasn't as enchanted by this novel as I was with his other Robert Langdon books. Generally, I like Brown's style. He definitely knows how to write a cliff-hanger, I'll give him that. Though, as a departure from his other novels, this time - I felt he used the cliff-hanger inappropriately, leaving the character not only for another story, but another time - often unnecessarily. Let me rephrase. There were a lot of flash back sequences in this novel, and they were often inserted in a strange place for me as a reader. For example, when a character we're currently following is about to bleed to death... is not the time for the narration to shift focus and talk about something that happened 25 years prior in the character's life. It just didn't have the same effect for me.

That said, I still really enjoyed the world Brown creates for his readers by mixing real science and history with fantastical insider information readers should feel privileged to hear. This book does offer what's expected of a Dan Brown novel in this sense and is well worth the read.

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Now, another type of review: Since I read this novel on my boyfriend's Kindle instead of on my Nook, I feel I should comment on the use of this device in comparison. I have to say, I did sort of miss the interface I'd gotten so used to on my Nook. The look and feel of the Kindle does vary enough to make the experience very different. I mean, obviously, there was a reason I picked the Nook over the Kindle and it wasn't purely aesthetics. He made his choice, and I made mine. But... I'm glad to have my Nook back!

Currently eReading... on my KINDLE? *gasp!*

In a departure from all I believe in, I've borrowed my boyfriend's Amazon Kindle and on it, I am currently reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. I will not apologize further though, I have to say - it just seemed silly for me to buy this novel and for him to buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (previously reviewed here) when we'd already bought them for the other device. So, I'll still review it here, but with the caveat - it probably would have been better on the Nook! :)