Sunday, August 14, 2011

Fallen, Torment, Passion By Lauren Kate

Synopsis: Some Angels are Destined to Fall
There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

My thoughts: When I started reading Fallen, I had no idea what it was about until I got to chapter 15. Before that, I kept reading with the purpose to find out what was the big secret. And I have to confess, it blew my mind. We are first presented to Luce, a girl that is sent to Sword & Cross reform school because she was thought to be a suspect of a mysterious fire that killed her boyfriend. But it wasn’t her fault! It was the shadows, who followed her everywhere she goes and she doesn’t know why. When she first met Daniel Grigori, she has a kind of déjà vú because she feels that she knows him. And, even though he keeps avoiding her, she can help herself to be drawn to him. Another character that appears is Cam, a seducting, hot guy that will try everything – literally – to have Luce’s attention; and of course we can’t forget Luce’s roommate, Arriane, sort of a rebel girl, and Penn, the only friend that Luce made.  When you find out what Daniel is hiding so much from Luce – which I’m not going to tell (hehehe) – you get so chocked that after a while you connect every single thing and you think “how could I be sooo blind? OMG! Daniel can’t be that! And what about the others?”. Yeah, I totally understand you. Every page is a little box of surprise right?
Synopsis: LOVE NEVER DIES

Lucinda is sure that she and Daniel are meant to be together forever. Now they are forced apart in a desperate bid to save Luce from the Outcasts–immortals who want her dead. As she discovers more about her past lives, Luce starts to suspect that Daniel is hiding something. What if he has lied to her about their shared past? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

My thoughts: After you have found out what Daniel really is, you think that nothing is going to separate him and Luce right? Wrong! In a desperate maneuver to protect his love from the Outcasts who are trying to kill Luce, he takes her to Shoreline, a school where the students aren’t normal boys and girls. And there she meets Shelby and Miles who are half what Daniel is. There she learns how to control those shadows that keeps following her.  As the story goes on, you start hating Luce so much that you almost give up reading. Please don’t otherwise you won’t know the end. She starts suspecting Daniel, thinking that maybe he is lying and that they are not supposed to end up together after all. With that thought the book ends with such a chocking scene that you ache for the next one, Passion.
Synopsis: "Every single lifetime, I'll choose you. Just as you have chosen me. Forever."

Luce would die for Daniel. And she has. Over and over again. Throughout time, Luce and Daniel have found each other, only to be painfully torn apart: Luce dead, Daniel left broken and alone. But perhaps it doesn’t need to be that way. . . .

Luce is certain that something—or someone—in a past life can help her in her present one. So she begins the most important journey of this lifetime . . . going back eternities to witness firsthand her romances with Daniel . . . and finally unlock the key to making their love last.

Cam and the legions of angels and Outcasts are desperate to catch Luce, but none are as frantic as Daniel. He chases Luce through their shared pasts, terrified of what might happen if she rewrites history.

Because their romance for the ages could go up in flames . . . forever.


My thoughts: This is the BEST of them all in my opinion! In this one we aren’t presented to just one Luce: but to hundreds of her while Luce searches for the truth about her and Daniel; and the same goes to Daniel: hundreds of him. And you think through the whole reading “How can you be so ungrateful Luce? He loves you isn’t that enough?”. The only new character is Bill, a gargoyle that decides to help her finding out why she keeps dying, but he has second intentions and plans for her and her beloved one. They go to the most historical place imagined: from Russia at World War II to Egypt at the Pharaohs period! Between getting into one Announcer – the shadow – to another, this book shows us an image of the extension of Luce’s and Daniel’s love for each other and that the forces of Hell are planning something very big that, if it’s not stopped, threaten to erase the whole story of both of them.
 
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Monday, August 1, 2011

Dracula In Love by Karen Essex

Synopsis: This variation on Bram Stoker’s Dracula tells the story from Mina Murray Harker’s point of view. As a child, Wilhemina was given to strange dreams and sleepwalking, which so alarmed her parents that at age seven she was sent to a boarding school for young ladies to “learn to control herself and her urges.” And she did become a proper young lady, with a proper fiancé, a young solicitor named Jonathan Harker. But the bewildering dreams continue, and one summer, which she is spending in Yorkshire with her friend Lucy Westerna, she sees a mysterious shipwreck at Whitby. After that the dreams become more like memories, and a presence, which she cannot see, follows her. Essex, who has been praised for her historical novels, has drawn a detailed picture of England at the end of the nineteenth century, including some of the horrendous psychological practices introduced from Germany. Essex’s twist on Stoker’s plot is sufficiently original, and the quality of her writing makes this novel stand out among the vampire offerings.

My thoughts: What a marvelous reading! We are presented to Dracula by the girl of the story: Mina Harker. With her, we discover an entirely different point of view of The Count. If you read Dracula, you probably thought that he was an ugly, mad and evil vampire; but after you read Dracula in Love you will wonder if you were correct. In this book, we are presented to a totally different Count, one that had fell in love and have been waiting for seven hundred years for his love to accept him again. With a lot of sexy scenes and romantic quotes from our handsome and rich Count Dracula, this is a “must read”, especially if you read the original Dracula and want a different way of thinking. Mina goes through many situations – from being attacked by a lunatic while sleep walking to find out that she is half immortal (SPOILER). The book shows us that maybe the Count wasn’t a vampire at all: just an eternal Merlin! With an astonishing end, Karen Essex shows us that even immortal beings are able to love someone and wait for them.
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