Exile

(Warning: this book is a sequel to Aurelia and may contain some spoilers on the first book.)

The murderous plot is over. The villain is exposed. In most cases, the words “Happily Ever After” are expected to come. But not for Aurelia.

While she is no longer in immediate danger, the feeling of fear is still there. She is living in constant danger, on the run from her family with the only man she can trust, Robert. Nightmares and visions of what happened a few months ago still haunt her. Her family tried to kill her. She is no longer the crown princess. Everything she loved and cared for is gone, leaving a numb feeling. The only thing she has is Robert.

But soon a new issue arises. The land she travels is wild and unruly, much like Robert’s stallion, Horizon. Soon Aurelia gets a glimpse of life outside the palace, and it hits her hard and fast. You can be sure to expect plenty of action in this book.

And even though Aurelia may not be living at the palace, her duty rests of her heart, keeping her from unlocking her true feelings for Robert.

For Robert, the trip isn’t a picnic, either. Plagued with the memory of killing his cousin in order to protect Aurelia, he can’t shake the guilty feeling. Aurelia is numb to the world, and scaring him. He has to protect her, not only as his duty to her but as his duty to his heart.

Together they travel through uncharted territory, struggling to survive the natives and the threats of assassins. Assassins who will finish the job this time.

Exile is a fast-paced, thrilling novel that is just as demanding and addicting as the first. Aurelia and Robert spring off the page with life. Their emotions are so fresh and raw, truly electrifying to read. Literally. There were multiple times where I literally got chills. This book is a great read for anyone and everyone, from romance lovers to the greatest action adorers.

Honestly, I hadn’t planned on reading this book. After I finished Aurelia, I thought it was finished, just with a very bittersweet ending. I actually put the book on my shelf and forgot all about the possibility of a sequel.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was in a bookstore (naturally), looking for a new book to read. My eyes scanned the bookshelves before they stumbled upon a beautiful cover. I was actually drawn to it because the girl on the cover looked familiar. Too familiar. I turned to the back, and of course, it was the sequel to Aurelia. Of course I got it, and devoured the novel in a few hours. I couldn’t put it down until I finished the last page. This book is addicting. It’s food for the soul. As much as I loved the first book, this one has to be my favorite.

In most stories, the author never talks about the aftermath. How does the hero feel after killing the villain? What about the penetrating numbness of remembering that last fight? In this novel, Anne Osterlund focuses on Aurelia’s emotional sense. She brings back the action and the romance, but what captures my attention the most is the heart and emotion. It’s very messy and blunt. It amazes me how real these characters and their feelings are.

I would recommend this book to anyone, though I would suggest reading the Aurelia first, another great novel. You don’t have to read it before Exile, but things might make more sense.

Just try reading this book. I dare you to try to put it down while reading. I doubt anyone could.

Chasing Lincoln's Killer

            April 14. The year is 1865. Thanks to President Lincoln, slaves are free, the civil war is over, and the country is once again whole. Who could blame the man for wanting to celebrate? Who would know that while the president convinced his wife to accompany him to a play, a killer lurked at the theater, waiting for the president of the United States to fall into his carefully plotted trap?

            The time is 10:00 p.m. The place is Ford’s Theater. The play is Our American Cousin, currently the most famous play in the nation. But soon it would be famous for a completely different reason. It would become famous for the play being preformed while the nation most beloved hero was killed.

            At exactly 10:15 p.m., a gunshot went off. No one heard. Thanks to knowledge of the play, the man who pulled the trigger knew that at 10:15, the crowd would be laughing too uproariously to hear anything. Even a gunshot.

            We all know what happens next. Lincoln’s murderer, renowned actor John Wilkes Booth, leapt from the balcony, catching his leg on the banner, but he managed to land on the stage and shout, “Sic semper tyrannis,” Latin for “Thus always to tyrants.” He dashed out the door and jumped on horseback in time to safely escape.

            But does anyone truly know what happened next? In Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, a distilled version of the bestseller Manhunt, author James L. Sawnson goes into riveting detail of the twelve-day manhunt following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Not only is this book action-packed and exciting, but I think the best part is that it’s a true story. From every line to every detail of a uniform, the facts are straight and perfect. I usually don’t like nonfiction, but this book is absolutely perfect. After reading this book, one can not only truly say what happened at 10:15 on April 14, 1865. A reader can also relish in the adventure of the following twelve days the world seems to forget.

The Bad Beginning

            You will notice that this book is not entitled The Littlest Elf.

            There is a very good reason for that. First of all, nothing in this book even closely resembles an elf, or anything elf-like. Secondly, The Littlest Elf is a happy story filled with singing and dancing helpers of Santa who happen to be vertically-challenged, while The Bad Beginning is a terrible novel filled with terrible people who do terrible things to three smart and resourceful children.

            You will also notice that this book begins with a warning, which you’d better heed if you value anything in this life we are given. This book should not be called The Bad Beginning. The words “the” “bad” and “beginning” placed in that order infer that there is only a bad beginning. But no. There is a bad beginning, a bad middle, and a bad end.

It all began on a bad morning on Briny Beach, where three children receive word that their parents had died in a terrible fire, and their mansion melted into a pile of rubble. Newly orphaned Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are shipped off to their relative at the request of their deceased parents, only to find a series of unfortunate events waiting to attack the orphans. Their sly and sneaky guardian, Count Olaf, plots to get his grubby, dirt-under-the-nails hands on the famous Baudelaire fortune Violet is to inherit when she is of age. The children are forced to perform ridiculous chores for their guardian and his terrifying theater troop, receive abuse at the hands of the villainous count, and try to remain optimistic while their life slowly dwindles down the drain.           

 But when things can’t get possibly any worse, they do. The children know Count Olaf is plotting something, but they can’t find out what it is. They must rely on their inventing, reading, and biting skills to uncover their vile guardian’s plot to seize their stack of cash in the bank. But heed my warning: the dreadful, addicting lives of the Baudelaire orphans will compel you to read for days without stop until you have completed every miserable volume.

(Readers looking for happy books...don't look here.)

Flipped

Back of the Book:

Bryce: My mom didn’t understand why it was so awful that “that cute little girl” had held my hand. She thought I should be friends with her. “You like soccer. Why don’t you go out there and kick the ball around?” Because I didn’t want to be kicked around, that’s why. And although I couldn’t say it like that at the time, I still had enough sense at age seven and a half to know that Julianna Baker was dangerous.

            Julianna: What did a kiss feel like anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast. Like a wolf and a whippet. Only science would put them on the same tree. Looking back, I like to think it was at least partly scientific curiosity that made me chase after that kiss, but it was probably more those blue eyes.

Bryce Loski’s impossible dream is for the girl next door to simply leave him alone. From the day he moved in, she’s been a thorn in his side. And he cannot shake her, no matter how hard he tries. He’s done every play in the book to try and shake her off his trail, but nothing seems to work. From pitching out her chicken’s eggs every day for a year (wouldn’t want to get salmonella) to dating the popular girl Juli hates, he frantically tries to escape her. But what happens when he realizes that maybe, just maybe, he likes her too?

The second Juli Baker saw Bryce Loski, she flipped. Ever since then, she’s desperate for his attention. But no matter how hard she tries, Bryce just can’t seem to notice. He shoots down every one of her attempts to reach out to him. But as the years pass, her eyes slowly begin to open until she realizes what a jerk he is. Bryce finally seems to take an interest in her, but could she only have flipped for those big blue eyes, not the person within?

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen is a must-read for teens. This book is packed with laugh-out-loud humor, and the reader will sympathize with Juli’s desperate crush on Bryce, and his desperate need to escape her. Told from the perspective of both next-door-neighbors, the truth of life and love are conveyed through each chapter. The novel Flipped is the perfect fast, funny, romantic, comedic summer read.

The Lightning Thief

        Back of the Book:
        Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.
        Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.
        With cover art from the major motion picture, this first installment of Rick Riordan's best-selling series is a non-stop thrill-ride and a classic of mythic proportions.

            Percy Jackson knows he’s not normal. Not only does he have ADHD, but he’s also a dyslexic with a bad rep of getting kicked out of every school since Pre-K. He doesn’t feel like he’s good for anything, but everything changes one night when he discovers who his father is: a god. More specifically, Poseidon, god of the sea.

            Oh, the gods are real alright. And they’re angry at him. They think he is the lightening thief, the boy who stole Zeus’s legendary lightening bolt. Soon he finds himself leading a dangerous quest with his friends Grover and Annabeth (satyr and daughter of Athena) to recover the bolt and save his mother, who is the prisoner of Hades. If he succeeds, he will finally mean something to the gods and his father. But if he fails…his mother spends eternity with the lord of the underworld, he will be hunted down by every divine being, and the world will be at a war with itself as Zeus and Poseidon destroy everything fighting over his innocence.

            Fans across the world have been raving over this fantastic series by author Rick Riordan. The Lightning Thief is a perfectly paced, action-packed, mind-blowing series for anyone and everyone. High adventure, excitement, and suspense entice you in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Each chapter is an action-packed suspenseful glimpse of Greek mythology in the modern world. Just one sentence of the book reveals its true identity as a perfect passage into the life of a very special teenage boy.

To Catch a Pirate

            Ever since her ship was attacked a year ago, Annalise Townsend has been on the hunt. To catch a pirate. Her pirate, to be precise. The pirate who stole a kiss from her when the bloodthirsty villains were attacking her ship and seizing her father’s treasure. Now, after a year of fencing, a forged marque, and constant determination to catch the loathsome James Sterling, Anna is ready to take back her father’s stolen treasure. But now Anna’s is danger of something much worse: Sterling stealing her heart.

This is a fluff book. It has a basic plot—which is predicable at some parts—with basic characters and a basic ending. It isn’t life changing, or even close to Shakespeare, but it is a good book. The writing makes it good.

            The nerd that I am, I researched this book for weeks. I read review after review, trying to find out if this book was worth reading. Finally, I just bought the thing and read it, cover to cover, in a few hours.

            The writing was beautiful. Each sentence is golden. Most writers can’t jam-pack beautiful sentences on every page, but this one sounds natural and flows perfectly. As I said before, it isn’t that complex of a plot, or characters, but it is worth reading. It’s my fluff book, the book I read a few chapters out of when I’m bored or skim through the ending when I’m in the mood for a happy ending. If you’re looking for a complicated, action-packed adventure novel, this is not for you. But it is worth reading, worth keeping, if even as a fluff book. The writing is worth reading. Personally, I think every woman should read this, just for the charmingly cocky James Sterling.

Cloaked

Johnny is a modern cobbler in South Beach. But his dreams of princesses and adventure are permanently put on hold thanks to his duties to his family shoe business and his poor mother. When a gorgeous European princess offers to foot the bill for an adventure in Key West, Johnny doesn’t hesitate to agree. But there’s a catch—he’s looking for the princess’s very own frog prince…her brother.

            Johnny agrees to go, but the last thing he expects is real magic at work. Alex Finn’s latest novel cobbles together many different fairy tales, from the Elves and the Shoemaker and the Frog Prince to lesser known the Salad. It’s fast pace and action scenes keep it a quick read. Cloaked engages the reader from beginning to end. This is a delightful happily-ever-after fairly tale that will have you rooting for the average hero the whole way.

Back of the Book:

I'm not your average hero. I actually wasn't your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all.

     It all started with a curse. And a frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission.

     There wasn't a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I've ever heard. Before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Everglades.

     Don't believe me? I didn't believe it either. But you'll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got cloaked.