published March 2010

Bloodmaiden by Christine E Schulze

TITLE: Bloodmaiden
AUTHOR: Christine E Schulze
PUBLICATION DATE: May 28, 2010
PUBLISHER: Old Line Publishing LLC
PAGES: 208 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: From author
RATING: 3 stars

I am honestly unsure what to say about this book. An ebook version was sent to me by the author for review and it has taken me far too long to get around to reading it, but I really wanted to love it. In fact, anytime I win or am given a book (either ebook or physical book), I desperately want to adore it. But I didn’t. It came off as rather mediocre to me.

I did enjoy main story. I loved the selfish dragons who were sacrificing one girl every year, selecting a new girl for the sacrifice and forcing her to marry. Allowing the couple a year to produce a child and then slaughtering the entire family for nothing more than their own amusement was an interesting idea. Yay for sadistic dragons. The characters fell a little flat to me. The only ones I truly liked were Pan and Brydon. Crisilin and Chalom were too religious for my tastes. In fact, the whole novel came off a little to religious for my liking. I realize that the author has done a lot of Christian novels, but I was under the impression that this wasn’t one of them. Either way, I cringed every time they praised/thanked/prayed to Usamah. Leaving my own personal Atheist views out of the picture, it still came off as rather fake to me. I also really dislike Mokuolu. I hate when someone calls everyone “brother” or “sister” and even more so when they pronounce it “brotha” or “sista”. ::shudders:: My only other issue was the fact that you are never told Crisilin’s age. In the beginning I thought she was 16 or so, but throughout the novel, she is always referred to as a child which implies younger to me. Since she is forced into marriage and expected to produce a child immediately, she can’t be younger than 13 or 14. It wasn’t a huge deal, it was just something that could have helped me in getting a better feel for the character.

Despite my complaints, I think that anyone who likes fantasy and doesn’t have a problem with some religious overtones, will definitely enjoy this novel.

****Thank you to Christine E Schulze for providing me with a digital copy in exchange for an honest review****

Hourglass by Claudia Gray

TITLE: Hourglass
SERIES: Evernight #3
AUTHOR: Claudia Gray
PUBLICATION DATE: March 9, 2010
PUBLISHER: Harper Teen, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
PAGES: 339 pages
FORMAT: Hardcover
SOURCE: Purchased
RATING: 3 stars

Well, this seems to be one of those series that gets progressively worse. I liked the first one pretty well and the second one was decent enough, but this one irritated the fuck out of me. Bianca is just as annoying as she is in the previous novels.

In this novel, Bianca and Lucas run away from Evernight and both start working for the Black Cross (along with Raquel). The Black Cross trains the newbies but Bianca struggles to get blood because they are in lockdown and she is not allowed to leave on her own. Then Balthazar got captured and Bianca & Lucas save him. Eventually, the Black Cross figures Bianca out and her and Lucas run away. I hate the way this novel ends. Hate, abhor, loathe…none of them seem like strong enough words. After that ending, I’m wondering if/how this series can have a happy ending and it better fucking have a happy ending.