Touch the Dark by Karen Chance

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has read or viewed my blog. I woke up last week and when I logged into blogger I found that I was at 2,000 page views!! I know it may not seem like much but for me it is way more than I thought I would get when I first started this review blog some time ago. Thank you again!

Now that that is said, this is the first book in the Cassandra Palmer series by Karen Chance, there are a total of 6 books published and two more anticipated. I have heard that the seventh book in the series has had it's publication date pushed back a couple of times. It doesn't seem that this will be happening any more, hopefully. There is quite a number of books by Chance published, some that go along with this series and ones that do not.



Sometimes being able to see the future isn't as cracked up as it sounds. Cassandra Palmer knows this all too well because her ability makes her sought out by the dead and undead. Ghosts aren't a problem but they will talk your head off. It's all the other creatures of the night that make problems for her. Cassie escaped a crazy house run by an even crazier vampire three years ago and has avoided vampire as much as she can. But the person she is running from has caught up to her and she goes to the vampire Senate for help. Their help comes with a price, and she ends up working with one of the most powerful vampires. He demands a price to be paid as well and Cassie doesn't know if she is willing to pay up.

I guess I go through fazes of getting books that don't have enough action, to getting the books filled with action. Touch the Dark had lots of action, pretty much from about 20 pages in there was almost nonstop action all the way through. I was kept interested with the action but also with the talk about Cassie's back story, and especially a few of the vampires too. As always, I loved that there was more than two mythical creatures in the book. I do plan on reading the second book eventually and I hope to see more of the Fae, and witch aspect. *SEMI-SPOILER ALERT* I did see the part with Tomas coming. I didn't really like him in the beginning, he gave me a weird feeling. *SEMI-SPOILER ENDED* Whereas I wasn't really surprised, I am glad that Chance did that because otherwise events that where going on wouldn't have made sense. I extremely liked that just because one becomes a vampire, they are not automatically "awesome", they get there through lots of work and through the years. Otherwise they are nothing special.

I know I said I liked all the action, but I also had a slight problem with it. There wasn't much down time, and with this things moved really fast. I got confused quite often in the beginning because of this. Cassie would start to talk about her time with Tony and it just wouldn't make sense to me as to what was going on, and then the fighting would start. After a while it did become clearer but that was more toward the end of the book. I would have preferred a little novella to come before this first book just to give a taste as to Cassie's history.

With the couple of problems I had with Touch the Dark I still really enjoyed it. Like I said before I really want to read the second book because things have just gotten started. This is considered an "adult" book, there are a few sex scenes, but I have read much, much worse. A more mature teenager could handle this book no problem. I recommend this book, obviously with the caution to the younger audience because of the sex. I wouldn't mind owning this book, but it remains to be seen how the rest of the series is going to turn out.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Page Count: 307 pages (paperback)

Price: $7.99

Next book: Nightwalker by Jocelynn Drake

Thank you so much for reading!
~Jade


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Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead

Fifth book in the Vampire Academy series, I do have the fourth book reviewed. I do explain in that why I do not have the first three books up. Maybe one day I will reread them and also review them. There is one more book for this series, and eventually I will get around to reading it. Mead has quite a number of other books out, including a series called the Bloodlines series and it sort of goes along with the Vampire Academy. (Yes, there is a reason why I didn't mention the movie, I'm pretending it didn't happen.)

A heartbroken Rose returns to St. Vladimir's after a long and tiring trip to Siberia. She returns back to Lissa, and soon graduation takes place. The girls are ready for their life to begin outside of the academy's grip. Though even with that excitement looming there is almost always something that reminds Rose of Dimitri and she feels the heartache all over again. He's out there, and she knows it. Rose failed to kill him when she had the chance, Dimitri tasted her blood and now he's hunting her. She knows that if she doesn't join him as a Strigoi he will silencer her forever. But Rose won't give up hope, there are rumors and she must decide who matters most to her because of them. Risk everything and lose it all, or gain from it, is one of the hardest decisions she must make.

Rose is still my favorite character, though she annoyed me this book which I will get into in the next paragraph. Abe is creeping up in second place for favorites now. Rose was sassy and it had me laughing along with Adrian and him being himself. Speaking of Rose and Adrian, I was really happy to see that Rose apologized to him for certain things. She wasn't above apologizing when she knew she was in the wrong. I think more people need to be like this, and not so full of themselves. Apologizing to someone when you have done wrong isn't bad, if anything it can pave the way for making things better between the people. I liked that there was action pretty much throughout the book. It kind-of had to be that way because I probably wouldn't have finished Spirit Bound. The main problem was "solved" about half way through the book, so if there wasn't any action through the rest of the it I would have been disappointed. There where breaks long enough to process what just happened but soon after things would start back up again. Now, a lot of you know that I loath cliffhanger endings. This one however, when I finished reading the last line, it felt right. I don't know how I would have taken any other ending.

As I said before Rose annoyed me. Even though both she and Adrian knew that Rose wasn't over Dimitri, they still decided to try out a relationship together. This personally made me want to smack them both. Rose and Adrian should have stayed close friends (no I don't mean that in a sexual way unless they wanted that mutually) and waited until Rose was either over Dimitri or knew fully that she wouldn't be able to be with him. Let your heart heal before you try to jump into another relationship with someone, this keeps you from being hurt again and hurting the other person. I could go on about this but I won't. The other thing that bothered me was Adrian's family was being nice to Rose, including Tatiana. This didn't sit well with me, I almost feel as though Rose is being set up. I wouldn't have been rude, but I wouldn't let my guard down either. Also, with everyone being nice how did this not raise a number of red flags with Rose? The last thing that bugged me, I mentioned before, is the big issue for the book was "over" half way through the book, because of this I knew something big had to happen to be able to fill a second book. This thing had to be something other than Dimitri being a Strigoi. So I wasn't surprised when that big event was revealed.

I'm still a big fan of this series and I really look forward to reading Bloodlines down the way. I didn't realize that its been 5 years since this book came out, I was genuinely baffled when I saw that. I do recommend this book to readers of all ages, and not just teens. I will put a warning out for younger readers, there are a couple of heated scenes but they don't go far at all. This is my personal copy, I rescued it from my library on one of their book sale days. I did have problems with Spirit Bound but I still very much enjoyed reading it. I do plan to read the last book eventually but I will not start Bloodlines until I do, so that should lit a fire under me to get on it.....sometime in the future.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Page Count: 489 pages (hardcover)

Price: $17.99 (I got this book for less than $0.10)

Next: March & April Book Haul

Thanks for reading!
~Jade

I Kissed a Zombie, and I liked It by Adam Selzer

This is a stand-alone book by Selzer, who does have a number of other books published. I honestly don't know how this review is going to turn out at the moment of typing this. I really hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings. I don't intend to, and this is my honest thoughts and feelings of this book. If you loved or liked this book there is not a thing wrong with that.

Uniquely named Algonquin (Ali) Rhodes is the high school newspaper's music critic. While reviewing a gig she gets awestruck by a singer named Doug. He looks goth, and not a fake kind of goth. They are introduced after he gets done singing, and upon a little questioning he talks very quietly almost like a whisper. Once they are dating, Ali finds herself falling hard and because of this she doesn't notice a few things about Doug. He doesn't change his clothes, his head is slightly shaped differently, and he really doesn't speak. It isn't until a classmate points out the obvious for Ali, that it all comes crashing down. Doug isn't exactly a goth, he's a zombie. Seeing things in a new light, Ali learns that zombies are really hard to get rid of. Not to mention the vampires, that are practically like the mafia, don't appreciate Ali's critique that makes fun of the band.

I loved Ali's full name, Algonquin. I thought it was really different and I haven't read any other book with that name for any character. I like her whit for the most part and I really wish that she would have used her brain a little more than she did. I like that vampires, werewolves, and zombies are known and how that came to be. Obviously not all zombies are mindless because Doug is up and walking without moaning "brains". He's alive because he drinks embalming fluid to keep him going, where as if he doesn't he will turn to dust which is what happened with most of the other zombies. I love the message at the end the "don't take life for granted". I think a lot of younger people do do this and don't realize that you won't have your younger years forever. Don't just waste it away, enjoy it, because eventually you won't be able to. The vampires straight out annoyed me but in a good way, it's been a while since I have read a book where the main character doesn't like them. I also like the point that gets made of, get your head out of your S.O. butt and back into your life. Your life cannot just stop because your boyfriend or girlfriend is there. You have to live for yourself. I chuckled just a couple of times, I wish I had more because this book had a lot of potential for it, but it just didn't happen.

Now, this is the part where I hope not to offend anyone. For this being a younger young adult novel I can see where some of this is relevant, but for the most part I found it annoying. Ali lets herself be blinded over the fact that Doug sings a few songs that she loves and he really puts some emotion behind his singing. She blatantly ignores the very, very obvious fact that Doug is a zombie. Then once she finds out she decides to break up with him but never gets around to it. She decides to break up with him over a few things; him not texting her back that very moment, him not telling her that he is a zombie the very moment that they met, and a few others. Also along the lines of her not realizing that he is a zombie, Megamart are the people who made the zombies rise and used them as slaves. Doug takes her to Megamart to specifically pick up his medication. She then goes into this rant about Megamart, and reveals a few things that all point to Doug being a zombie. Yet it still didn't click for her. For a girl with a head on her shoulders she sure as hell let one thing knock it off. I really didn't see a plot to this book. Live life fully? Don't take things for granted? Don't be an ice queen? What? My favorite annoyance is the sexual innuendos list. "We might have to do #7 from out list later." They hadn't been dating long and yet she is ready to go all out with him. Don't put this in a YA book. I really could go on about what annoyed me in this book but I won't.

I can see this being a younger adult novel, it's small, and it's a quick read. I think younger girls especially need to see how dumb it can look for them to be completely and utterly wrapped up in their S.O. It took for Ali to see how others where acting, before she realized that she was doing the same, and it looked bad. There is nothing wrong with being in love, just don't make it the end all be all when you are still so young . I liked a few of the messages but overall this book annoyed me and made me want to hit my head against the wall. If I saw this book for sale I most likely wouldn't get it. I recommend this book to those who have read this review and still want to read it but you have been warned.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Page Count: 177 pages (paperback)

Next Book: Gone by Lisa McMann

Thanks for reading!
~Jade