This has been a great weekend for great books. I thought this was going to be more of a witch/elemental book, but it isn't. The Elemental Enmity series is all about the Fae. There are already three books out in this series and the fourth one is coming out this year. I love finding a series that I know I am going to enjoy and not having to wait for each book. I can just read them back to back to back if I wanted to. And that is awesome.

I really enjoyed the dynamic between Rayla and her best friend Cassie. They have a genuine friendship. They squabbled a few times, but they were always there for each other. I thought it was so funny when all the fae lords showed up and wanted Rayla- Cassie understandably got kind of grumpy and made some comments like, "why do they ALL want Rayla?" I mean come on, if these gorgeous guys all showed up at once and all wanted one person, I would probably be a little grumpy too.

I loved learning about the lore of the elementals. I thought that was a really awesome and unique twist about the fae that I have not encountered yet. I love the idea. Each elemental is in tune with a specific power and each house of fae is associated with a power as well. When you unite an elemental with a fae lord of the same power, that power is magnified. Cool stuff.

In my opinion, Five is an example of a paranormal YA done completely right. The description in this story is incredible. I felt like I was right there alongside Rayla as she fought to figure out what to do. And it is always enjoyable to have a strong, spitfire heroine. And Rayla certainly is all of that and more. Plus, there are so many guys. Not all of them nice, but certainly all of them alluring. We get to know Zach a lot better than the others so he almost has an unfair advantage, but I also like Luke. I am reserving further judgment until the next book. Because I need to read the next book. This has favorite series potential all over it.

I am going to attempt to pull myself together for this review. I have so many thoughts and emotions flying around my head with this book. Fractured light was one of my favorite books of 2012. I really loved it, so I was so excited to read the second book. And I was not disappointed. It has a different feel than the first book. I felt like there were secrets, twists and surprises at every turn.

Fractured soul picks up where the first book left off, with Llona at Lucent academy. We got to learn more about auras, and furies, vykens and lizens. Now I know that auras are supposed to be super peaceful and nice and unable to kill and all that but honestly, I'm glad that Llona was never like that. I wouldn't want her to be like the other girls that grew up at the academy or like Sophie. I couldn't stand them. But I love Llona. She is inquisitive and has a mind of her own. I love that she questions things don't add up. Plus I think she is so much nicer and caring than the other girls. She is the one that went out of her way to be nicer to Tessa, a lizen.

Christian is back at Lucent too and he is charming as ever. The same goes for May. May is too awesome for words. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about the plot because the brilliance of fractured soul is in its secrets and surprises so I am just going to share two parts that I liked in the story. First, I really liked how quickly Llona picked up on the fact that all aura history before 1939 was never mentioned but fury history went back to the 1700s or something like that. And then I loved the part where Llona started running outside of formation in gym and raced the other auras. I thought that was so much fun, even if it went against the whole no competition thing.

Fractured soul is a wild ride to say the least. I laughed, I gasped, I cried. The ending is brutal, but it makes me want to read the next book even more. I love how the story is told. All of the characters and plots are woven together so well. This is a great ya series.

Right off the bat I was impressed with the land described in Surrender. Rhiannon Paille does a fantastic job with the detail and world building in Surrender. I could see the waterfall and cave at the start of the story so clearly. I knew right then that this was going to be fantasy done right. It is pretty different than most other books I have read lately. I felt like everyone in the whole book was against the love between the two main characters. At first I was a little confused about what the big deal was. But in time, the reasons are explained.

Kaliel seems so different than most of the other girls like her. That was honestly my only complaint of the book. Why was she the only "different" one? I would have liked a little bit more diversity in the characters personalities. It seemed like everyone else in the book was totally fine with doing just what was asked of them and no more. I like a little spunk in people. Which is probably why I liked Kaliel so much. She didn't just accept things the way they were. She did what she wanted and what she thought was best.

I really liked the romance in the story as well. It was pretty instant but they only met once briefly and they each made such an impact on one another it didn't bother me at all. I liked seeing their initial reactions to each other. I thought it was really cute that Krishani felt inspired to develop one of his powers when he first met Kaliel. I think they are so good for each other. There are so many complications for them though. They each have their own destiny and they don't work well for the two of them being able to be with each other.

Surrender is a great book for fantasy fans. The ending is brutal, but it seems like I have been reading a lot of books lately that have really tough endings for me to read. I don't really know where the next book is going to go, but the writing and world building seen in Surrender makes the next book a must read for me!

I was completely surprised by Pantomime. After reading the book, I went back and re-read the summary before I wrote my review. I liked the summary of the book even more after the secrets of the story were revealed. I loved how well thought out Pantomime seemed to be. You can really tell all the thought that Laura Lam put into the details and storylines of the story.

While I wouldn't say the big "twist" is super surprising, it is something that I initially had not expected. But as the book goes on, I caught on pretty quickly as to what was going on. Pantomime is another one of those books where the chapters alternate between present and past. I found it easy to follow and I really liked the backstory that it added. The back and forth chapters made it easy for me to see what the balancing act from the summary was going to be. I felt like I really got to know Gene this way.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about each of the individual characters, except Micah, because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone. I thought that the story was organized in a great way, and honestly it is much better if you can experience it for yourself. I will say this- everyone in this book has their own secrets for you to discover. And I do mean everyone.

Micah is tough. He is scrappy and resourceful and just trying to figure out who he is. He joins the circus and I felt so bad for him when a lot of the other performers gave him a hard time. I will say this, I would have liked to establish everyone's age a little bit more clearly. I kind of just had to guess and I would have liked to know how much younger/older the characters were in relation to Micah.

The world of Pantomime is a fantasy world but it was pretty similar to our own world. I kind of pictured the book taking place in in a location like 18th or 19th century London. The every day life was similar to that in my mind. But there was culture and mythology worked in to create the fantasy aspect of the story. I loved that at the start of each chapter there were quotes or passages from various books and myths from their land. It helped create a fuller picture.

Pantomime is an excellently written book. I thought Laura's writing style really shined and I was able to easily connect with the plot and the characters. It was really descriptive, but not over the top. I could picture all of the circus acts in my head. That is a pretty big accomplishment, because circus's are so visual. A few of the secrets were a little out there for me, but it was all really interesting to read about. I wasn't the biggest fan of the cliffhanger ending, because I really wanted to know what was going to happen but I will definitely be eagerly awaiting the next book!

Seeds of Discovery is a fun and vivid fantasy with a touch of mystery woven in. I really enjoyed Seeds of Discovery, the first book in the Dusk Gate Chronicles, by Breeana Puttroff. There isn't a huge romantic element but the potential is all there for any number of swoon worthy possibilities in book two. And honestly I don't even know which way I am leaning because there really wasn't too much romance in this book. Which normally is not my thing (I love romance) but it completely worked with Seeds of Discovery. Honestly, I think it worked out better this way. Characters and the beautiful land of Eirentheos.

Quinn is such a sweetheart. She is quiet and smart and so very determined. I loved Quinn. I can't imagine anyone NOT liking her. I thought it was adorable that she tried to be all sneaky and stealthy and William knew what she was up to anyway. Poor Quinn, stealth isn't her strong suit. But hey, she still made it into Eirentheos. In Eirentheos, Quinn met William's whole family. And holy cow! What a huge family it was. 13 kids??! That is nuts. But I really enjoyed getting to know the whole gang- Thomas in particular.

Thomas is so charming. But at first I expected him to be a bit of a womanizer, but he really seems to be very well mannered and polite. I have no idea what is in store for Thomas in the next book but I really hope to see more of him. I think I may have liked him best out of the boys. Although William is a close runner up.

William is serious. He puts so much pressure on himself. The thing that I liked the most about Eirentheos, was that William seems so much more at ease there. Don't get me wrong, he is still super serious, but at least he cracks a smile sometimes there. The characters in the dusk gate chronicles are all so unique and I loved watching them interact with each other.

Along with great characters, the writing in Seeds of Discovery is fantastic. It was descriptive and the land jumped right off the pages for me. I could picture the flowers and the birds, which are totally awesome by the way, and Breeana clearly knows her way around the concept of "show, don't tell." I loved Seeds of Discovery and I want to start book 2 right away!

I enjoyed Farsighted, the first book in this series, so I knew I would enjoy this book too. And I did. Open Heart is a good follow up to Farsighted. I really liked how the character narrating switched. It was interesting to see the series through a girls point of view. I was really used to Alex and the way he described things that it was a very different writing feel in Open Heart. It really proved to me how versatile Emlyn Chand is with her writing. Alex and Simmi are very different and I loved how each of the books writing was different to reflect the different narrators. I was impressed with the writing.

This was Simmi's story. I have to say, she seemed really different in this book than I remembered her in the first book. But I read the first book awhile ago, so I can't be sure if my memory is completely accurate. Simmi is concerned with her weight and throughout the book she has a lot of body issues, and she doesn't deal with them in the healthiest way. She becomes bulimeic. This is only one of the serious issues that the book deals with. I enjoyed Simmi but at times near the start of the book I was having a hard time connecting with her. I didn't always agree with her actions. I wanted so badly to like her, but I just wish she went about some of the things she did in another way.

Alex and Sharpi are back, and are as great as ever. Or Sharpu if you are Simmi's dad. (I thought that was too funny that he always called her that!) And Dax is back as well. I don't want to talk to much about them as I considered this Simmi's story but I think they rounded out the cast of characters well. I am especially interested in seeing Dax in the next book.

I enjoyed Open Heart and you already know that I loved the writing. I also liked that this book has a wide variety of characters. Different races and religions. There is a lot of diversity, and I appreciated that. You don't find that too much in YA books. I also appreciated the fact that this book deals with real and serious issues, but at times I felt like too much was going on. I got bogged down in everything. I wanted to focus more on the paranormal element, which you do towards the end but I thought it took too long to get there. Other than that though, I liked Open Heart and I am liking the series as a whole. I can't wait to read the next book because I think more of the focus will be on the powers, which is what I loved about the first book. Fans of paranormal YA, and someone looking for a well developed and written book should check out this series.

I think it's fairy tale week at Book Briefs, because here is another fairy tale book. But this isn't a retelling, it is more of an alternate universe to fairy tale land, kind of book. I loved how the worlds were set up. Fairy tales are real and Bianca's family has possibily the coolest museum in the whole world. They have a fairy tale artifacts museum. I would love to go there!

So one day Bianca finds out that the stuff at the museum is real and that her family are actually witches that come from a direct line of Snow White. First Frost is a fast paced action adventure with a big time magical twist. I loved seeing all of the various items from the fairy tales and seeing how Bianca used them on her quest. What was her quest? She had to get her mother back from the evil witch. First Frost kind of reminded me of the tv mini series, The Tenth Kingdom or the ABC show Once Upon a Time. I just love the idea of all the fairy tales together and having a modern take on how all of it really went down.

Bianca took the news that her family is magical all in stride. At first I thought it was a little unrealistic how easily she was taking in all of the information, but then I stopped to think about it for a minute. She saw actual magic. I guess once you see magic in action, the cat is out of the bag. Plus her friend, jumped on board as soon as she found out as well, BUT she was justifiably nervous in the new land. I thought that she initial reaction was a little unrealistic, but as soon as Ming had time to think things over she reacted how I would have in her shoes. It made me like her a little more.

Bianca crosses over to Everafter with a spell. There she meets a prince and Terrance. I liked both of them. I really liked how the prince was kind of cocky and thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, because lets be honest- a prince probably would be spoiled and a little arrogant. I thought that was a nice touch, rather than having the super charming prince that everyone loves.

First Frost mixes a bunch of different classic fairy tales together. I thought it was well written, and I loved seeing all of the characters work together and interact. My favorite part was seeing how Bianca would use the artifacts from the museum on her quest. There is even a small, but adorable, romance brewing in the story. Fans of fairy tales should check out First Frost. There is a bit of a cliffhanger to segway into book 2, but I thought overall book 1 was a complete story on its own. I wasn't left completely hanging. This is a great fairy tale adventure.

I thorogouhly enjoyed Shuffle Up and Deal. It was a quick witted, and hilarious adventure from start to finish. There was never a dull moment with Isabella and Nick. I loved the poker premise and I actually feel like I picked up a few game pointers while reading!

Isabella was such a joy to get to know. I loved her. She is a great poker player, a hard worker, and super sassy when she wants to be. But even though she can be no holds barred feisty, she is still genuinely a sweetheart. She is always looking out for other people. She was vibrant and full of life and I was so happy when she ditched her lame ex boyfriend early on in the book. I especially loved that Isabella wasn't super thin and didn't have the perfect body. And it was great that she can really take a joke. She has no problem laughing at herself and that is always a great trait.

Nick is a bit cocky, and that is a bit of an understatement. But he is so far from a cocky jerk. When it comes to Isabella, he was actually kind of adorable. I loved how the book was split up into 4 or 5 sections and each one was from an alternating point of view, but it isn't chapter by chapter. You go several chapters with Isabella before we got to the Nick part of the book, so it was a surprise to me when I finally got to see things from his point of view. I loved the way the book was set up. I thought it was the perfect amount of switching view points. Ok, back to Nick. Even though he has a bit of a reputation, we didn't see too much of his playboying in this book. I liked that right away Isabella seemed to catch his eye.

The writing in Shuffle up and Deal is so witty. I really loved reading this book. It was full of pop culture references and banter back and forth between the characters. Susan DiPlacido showed some very smart writing with this book. I thought it was perfect for the two main characters, and it made me fall even more in love with them. So much goes on in this book, I feel like we got to experience several years of Nick and Isabella's life, and I loved that. I think this was meant to be a standalone book but Isabella and Nick are one of my favorite couples that I have read about in a long time and I know I would love to read more about them. I would love to see some of their hi jinks continue. This book is like a royal flush- sorry, I couldn't resist.