amanda_readingnwritinglife's Reviews (180)

This was my favorite book so far. I really liked learning more about the psy classifications and more about the elite psy assassins. Judd was one of my favorite characters, and I loved watching him become a feeler instead of trapped in his emotionless mind. Brenna had a lot to deal with after surviving a Psy serial killer. It was really hard for her to open up to another psy, but I loved the way this was done. I also still really love how the background storyline continues to move forward and for me it overshadows the romance storyline sometimes. That makes this a refreshing series, and I can't wait to keep going.

I was frustrated with this one at the beginning. I feel like when Talin showed up to find Clay again, after 20 years away from him, she went about it the wrong way. She should've had herself together a little bit more, or just called and asked for their help. I didn't like that she surprised him and just came out of nowhere, but I did like seeing them reconnect and fall in love. It also gave us more information about the underground psy movement of people who chose not to join Psylence. I really liked this one.

I really liked this one because it kept us guessing from the beginning. Ashaya seemed to be a regular mother sometimes, with real emotional motivations, and then other times, she seems to be an emotionless psy who needed her son for other reasons. It was just a great look into her life and her past, and I loved her as a character. I was also wondering who was going to be able to connect to Dorian, and I think she was the perfect match for him. Dorian didn't grow as much in this novel as I think he did in an earlier one after his sister was killed, but I do like him as a character. I loved Ashaya so much that I think I will always smile when I see her show up in other future books.

I was wondering when we would get a romance in between the wolves and cat changlings. This was exactly what I didn't know I wanted. First of all, this one seemed to be more about the romance than the books before this. I loved Riley more than I loved Mercy, but the two of them together were really good. I loved how once Riley decided that Mercy could be his mate, he was all in. He just jumped in and didn't hold anything back.
I love how the two of them worked together with their alphas (I cannot WAIT for Hawk's story!) I love the interaction that the two changling groups have with each other and it makes the books that much more likable.
The background storyline is really ramping up and I'm loving all the political intrigue happening with the psy council and how they're relating to the changling groups but also how all the underground factions are interacting with all the other groups. This might be my favorite so far, and I can't wait to keep going.

This one might be my favorite so far. I love the background storyline so much and I love that we get so many POVs that it makes it feel like we are the ultimate being in the mindmaze/hive mind thing. We are the ones who know what everyone wants to do. At the same time, we are learning that some of the people who give us "information" from their POV might not be telling us everyhting or might not be giving us the true information. I have enjoyed this series so far and can't wait to move forward.
We met Dev in Talin's book and learned that he was part of the resistance movement to get the psy to leave their net or to at least release psylence and become emotional people again. Now, he meets a woman who doesn't know who she is. She names herself Katya and they determine that she is a plant sent my Ming from the psy council to kill Dev. However, they are falling in love and Katya doesn't want to kill anyone. This was just a great meeting/falling in love story and I really liked it.

I picked this book because I was doing a reading challenge and we got extra points for long books. I am so glad that this is the one I randomly chose. It was so good. The basics are that something has happened to the earth. We assume it's the atomic destruction that everyone was afraid of in the 1980s (this book was written in 1987). We don't ever find out exactly what it was that triggered the first bomb, but clearly all of the US was bombed and affected by the radiation. We meet four different people before the bombs go off, and we follow them through the bombing and then through the next seven years of their lives after the bombing.
Sister, a "bag lady" in NYC. Sue Wanda (Swan), a 9 yr old girl in the middle of Kansas. Josh, a professional wrestler driving to his next match. And Roland, a young teenager going with his parents to stay in an underground bunker.
Not only do we follow them through everything that happens next, but we learn to love some of them and despise some of them through the course of the journey. It was a wild ride with almost nonstop action. I loved switching between the different stories and how they all twined together in different parts of the book. This was a wonderfully epic journey and I'm so glad I jumped on for the ride!

I really wanted to like this book. I had heard a lot of good things about it and not very many bad things, so I'm still kind of wondering why I didn't like it. I think it's just becuase it was so slow through most of it. There is one characters who we see a lot of throughout the book and I think we would've been fine without him in the book at all. The plot things that he added could've been achieved another way and we could've saved all the pages of his storyline. I didn't even understand who all the characters were and what was happening for the first 150 pages, and usually I will DNF a book if I don't like it after 100 pages. I kept reading this one though because I was reading it for a challenge. So, I finished it. And I still didn't like it. I liked the storyline of Ead for the most part, and the romance was nice because it isn't something we see in a lot of fantasy books, however, those good points weren't enough to make me like this. The final battle when the dragons were actually ridden and used in combat was the best part, but up until then there were almost no dragons. This book was way more political intrigue and world building and LOTS of expository writing than what I want to read.

I haven't read Manhunt, but now I really want to. This book is almost like a companion to that book with a lot of extras thrown in. This is an audible original and is read by the author.
If you ask anyone in my family, they will tell you that I love Abraham Lincoln. I have read a couple of books and I've visited a ton of sites related to him and his life and death. However, this book introduced me to more places that I'd like to visit.
I loved how James Swanson added in personal connections with Lincoln, and how he went through a list of still unanswered questions about the assassination. It was just really interesting and a really short read.

I feel like saying more than what is said on the blurb about this book will give it all away, so I'll just reiterate that this story is about a lawyer who doesn't believe in the death penalty. He is defending a serial killer, well, not defending, but trying to get his death penalty repealed and get him life in prison instead. The man never denies that he's a serial killer, and even says that God wants him to kill to balance out the world. This has an unexpected ending, and overall it was an awesome story where he really shows us some characters in just a few words. I really liked it.

I am beginning to think that I don't like these novellas that check in with people we've already read about. I mean, if the novella moves the overall storyline along, then I don't mind it, but I didn't really need to read about them finally getting married and having their baby. I think this could've been added to the end of another novel and been a lot shorter just showing their wedding and the birth.
I did like the part where we found out how Luna and her father have been bonding a lot more, but nothing else really added anything to the story. I feel like I'm going to start leaving these novellas to other people.