I freakin' loved this book! Holy cow, it was so good. Ok I will stop gushing now, and try and write a normal review. I just had to get that squee out. Evie is a demon hunter. The tatoos they get and the magic they carry within them kind of reminded me of shadowhunters in the city of bones series, because they were a little like the runes that they wore. The overall concept is kind of similar. Hunters are people that can see demons lurking around in the real world. They get recruited and train with the sole purpose of fighting and killing those demons. These are all adults, but I liked the dorm like home they lived and trained in. It was cool having all the characters in the story there under one roof. Plus is was a lot of fun watching Evie and Daniel run into each other all the time.

Evie is pretty much the best hunter the organization has ever had, so when they get a fresh new recruit, she is assigned to train him and they kind of become partners for missions. Daniel is good but he is so new that she sometimes gets frustrated with him. Ok, a lot of the time. She is pretty hard on him at first, but she owns that she is kind of a hard-ass. And I loved watching them train. The book switches back and forth between their two point of views. I can't even decide whose point of view I liked reading more. They both really liked each other but Daniel didn't think Evie would give him the time of day romantically because she was all business, and Evie was just scared out of her mind to have feelings for someone. She is scared of losing them. I get that, but for a while in the first half of the book I was just screaming at her like her best friend, Tess, was to just get with the program and do something about her feelings!

I love Daniel. Evie kept calling him cocky, but I never really saw that in him. Not really, I did see that he was determined and stubborn, but never overly cocky. He did really enjoy pushing Evie's buttons and it was hilarious to watch the two of them together. And when they finally did kiss, oh man. I was cheering them on a little bit. I loved it! And I really liked his determination to find out what her tattoo on the back of her neck meant. It was adorable.

I know that the romance was a huge plus for the book, for me, but there is so much more to divinity than the awesome romance. There is a kick butt action and demon slaying. And cool weapons, and tech and flat out awesomeness. I really enjoyed the demon plot of the story. The demons are up to something big, that's for sure. Divinity is going to be a favorite series of mine. I can just feel it. I need to read the prequel book and the next book in the series ASAP. Fans of paranormal and supernatural NEED to read this series. It had more of a new adult vibe to me because Evie and Daniels characters appear to be around 23, but it is classified as Adult.

Deprogrammed picks up right where the action packed events of Program 13 left off. And don't worry, McVeigh is as creepy and awful as ever in this book. He certainly takes the cake for awful villians. I just want one of his programs to squish his head like a grape. Or bash it in. Or fry him with electricity. Ok, I think you get the picture. I hate him. In Deprogrammed we get to see a couple of different people's points of view, including Alexis. We get to see some insight into her backstory, which I really liked.

13 and Emile do some more inner battling this book. I can't seem to dislike 13. I know she is just what McVeigh wants her to be, but for some reason, I have a little soft spot for her. She just wants a chance to live. A little part of me is still rooting on her and Emile becoming friends and sharing her body peaceably. We get a lot of questions answered in this sequel to Program 13. And we find out some really cool things. I find it really interesting that even though there isn't even the slightest romance in either the first book or deprogrammed, but so much of this book was about Love. The concept of Love, what it means to feel love and other emotions. What it is that makes a human, human.

I also loved that we got to meet a couple of other programs that were kind of like Emile and program 13. We have grant and Jessica. I'm still not 100% sure about what is going on with Jessica, but I am sure we will find out in the next book. I will say this, I felt so bad for poor Hayden. I really hope he is ok, but we don't have enough answers about him yet. If you are a fan of sci-fi and of creepy dydstopians, you will really enjoy the program 13 series. It is a unique take on the dystopian. It is not a corrupt government, but rather a corporation doing creepy things that no one seems to take enough notice of. Although there is a hint in this book that that may be changing soon. And honestly, that is what makes me excited to read the next book. I can't wait to see when some of the general population gets a whiff of what is going on right under their noses. Should be interesting!

Blood Debt is my first centaur book. I have to say that I was expecting the horse creatures from Harry Potter and I was wondering how much I would enjoy a book about half horse creatures, but Nancy Straight's take on centaurs was so interesting! They weren't horses at all, they were just characterized as such because of how fast the men centaurs can run. I loved the magical world that was created in Blood Debt and I thought Nancy did an awesome job answering any questions we might have while still holding just enough cards in her pocket to make the story seem a bit mysterious.

The story follows Camille, or Cami as she preferred to be called. I really liked her. She was strong and independent but she had a tendency to be kind of rude through her stubbornness. I get that she doesn't like the ways and the customs of the centaurs but I thought she could have at least been a little more understanding. Her family was nothing but nice, warm and welcoming to her, and they never tried to force her into anything that she didn't want. I just thought she could have tried a little harder to be ok with things, or at least to not sound so rude in her refusals. But other than that I didn't have any problems with her. I liked her and I loved Drake. There was just something about him. He seems so pure and good. I had to stop reading for a while because of something that Camille's grandmother did to him in the book because I liked him so much.

I think that I would be an awesome centaur. I love how powerful women are in their society. They are really the ones that call a lot of the shots. They get to pick their husband out of tons of eligible guys and the guys are all tripping over themselves to get picked by a female centaur to continue on their family bloodline. There are way, way more men than their are women in centaur society. Plus the girls get all the cool gifts. I would be a little freaked out by all the mind reading and future seeing going on if I were Cami.

Blood Debt is such an awesome concept. Fans of YA paranormal romances need to check out this series. And the best part is that the second book is coming out pretty soon, I think. So not a ton of wait time inbetween books. Personally, I want the second book right now because I need to see what on earth is going on with Cami's friend Daniel from back home. I feel like there is something big there that we just don't have all the pieces to yet. Plus all of this Lost Herd business. I am dying to find out! Such a great book, it exceeded all of my expectations.

I loved Azure. I sat down to read the a little bit of this book, but I ended up blowing off errands and dinner and a phone call last night. I was just entranced by the story. I loved the lore and magical quality of the island. And I was basically as desperate as Liv to find out what the heck was going on with Kai. The romance between the two of them is really the star of the story. It is wonderfully developed, and not rushed at all. You just watch as it organically grows between the two of them. It comes so naturally that I wanted to hop the next plane over there to find out more about this beautiful place. The place itself just seemed magical. Sure, the romance between the two of them was great, and they are each great characters, but half of what I liked about the courting of the two of them was the things they did together and the places they went. They hiked to all sorts of gorgeous beaches, and went to yummy restaurants and just enjoyed the beautiful little town. I loved that! The setting is so detailed and beautiful. I felt like I was there with them.

Liv is such an interesting girl. I had no idea she was only 19! I thought that both her and Kai were at least 25. I wish they were a little older. They both seemed to have really lived and experienced a lot and I think it would have been a little bit more realistic for them to have been a little older. It would have fit better within the new adult genre too, I think. As it was though, they were both VERY mature for their ages of 19 and 20.

Kai is so secretive. I totally got where Liv was coming from when she started to get frustrated with him. She was opening up so much to him and he was a steel trap. I know it was hard for him to open up but it would have been nice if he had given her a little something earlier on. It didn't have to be about his big dark "secret" but just something about him. But eventually she does get him to open up and she pokes around his family and finds some things out and what I absolutely loved was that the book was set up in such a way that you could choose whether to buy into the mysticism of the town and the supernatural-ish aspect of the book. I could see it going both ways. It was such a light touch that you could choose to believe into the lore's, but you could also rationalize it away and the book would still completely work. It was really well done by Chrystalla Thoma. I am super impressed with her writing. She can tell a story! Azure is a magical read.

I participated in a book blitz for Eramane a while back and I read some excerpts from the book and knew that it was something that I wanted to read. I love the world building that fantasy books can provide. I think it is like an imaginations wonderland in fantasy. I love to see what the author can come up with, and Frankie Ash did not disappoint. The village and the mysterious mountaintop were equally detailed for me. I got a real feeling of the setting in this book. At first we are just dropped into this world, and it can be a little jarring but eventually I got my bearing and from that point forward the story flowed really well for me.

Eramane is fascinating. She is seventeen and has had no suitors yet, which I found really strange since she was described as being very beautiful. But her parents were very protective of her. It was nice to get a chance to see her whole family in the story and to get to know her and her brother. I liked how close they all were. I certainly have some experience with a close family and very protective parents. Eramane is a feisty girl, and you know I like my main characters feisty. She has more than a little snap in her. I think she is going to be such a great character in this trilogy. When she arrived in the mountaintop castle, I really started to like her. In fact, that was the big turning point in the story for me. It was then that I really got interested in the tale.

We get to see things from both Eramane and her brothers perspectives. I personally liked Eramane's more because I connected with her better, but her parts were a little slower than her brothers. But that is probably just because there was lots of action going on in her brothers parts. The book started off a little slow for me, but it really picked up in pacing towards the end. Eramane has piqued my interest enough to want to read the next book in the trilogy.

I love me some some mythology. And this is druid mythology, which I have not had the opportunity to read anything about the druids. It was really interesting and it was different. Because it was so different, there is a lot of new information, but it never felt like an information dump. I thought Nicola Marsh wove the details and necessary information into the storyline very fluidly. I really liked the combination of action, humor, and romance that Scion of the Sun delivered. Really cool book, and looks like it is going to be an epic series!

Holly starts having "freaky" visions and promptly gets shipped off to a boarding school for freaks like her, ahem, gifted teens like her. I liked that people were split at this school. There were a lot of students there that didn't actually have any gifts or powers, but who were interested in learning about the new age subjects offered there. I think they just wanted to be able to learn to do something like the truly gifted. What was funny was that the people with the real gifts didn't always want them. People always want what they don't have, don't they? Holly wants to learn how to control her visions so she can stop having them and hopefully be out the school by summer.

But just on her first day, school gets even weirder for her. As soon as she visited the innerworld unintentionally, I knew I was going to love this book. It took an already interesting idea and then stepped it up a notch. And that was how the whole story was for me. It just kept getting more and more interesting. We are always finding out something new about the scion or the sorority, and then on top of it all Holly is so sarcastic. She really does not even know how to hold her tongue. I thought it would get her in more trouble when she first got to the school, but people seems almost impressed with her because of it. I liked that.

This is just the first book in the series, so I am not sure if there is going to be a love triangle or not. I love Joss, the connection that he had with Holly was great. I think it even surprised him at the beginning. Scion of the Sun is great. I kind of saw the ending coming, but that wasn't a bad thing at all. I am so anxious for the next book. Nicola Marsh's writing is so descriptive and she makes a story that is addictive to read. I couldn't put it down.

I like paranormal books that have a good mixture of creatures, and Undertow certainly had that. There is a lot going on in this book. I loved the mix of mystery, action and romance, and KR Conway even managed to throw a good bit of humor into the story as well. Overall, it was really well done. I think a lot of that had to do with a great group chemistry going on between all of the main and secondary characters. Eila, Raef, Ana and MJ are such an interesting and surprisingly tight knit group considering how short of a time they had to get to know each other.

Eila starts the story off packing up and moving to a small new england town where she mysteriously inherited an old family house. I kind of wish she did a little more digging into the house and why she got it when she got there but she seemed to get swept up in the start of school and everything else that was happening that it just got pushed aside. But other than that, I really enjoyed Eila. She is tough and resilient. She has a lot thrown at her in a short period of time. She didn't know anything about anything paranormal when she got to her new house and then it seemed to be popping up everywhere she turned. But still, she didn't back down from anything new and scary. It helped that she had a great group of friends surrounding her. And her friends each had secrets of their own that I enjoyed finding out about. As soon as I first met MJ I knew that I would like him. He has such a great sense of humor and he was just fun to be around.

Raef was someone that I was unsure about at first. The book starts out with a flashback and so I had this idea in my head that Raef was the bad guy, but around Eila he didn't seem to be. I wasn't sure what to believe for a while, but eventually he won me over. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing in this book so I'm not going to say much more about that.

The romance in this book has a very natural feel to it. I loved the progression of it, and there were certainly more than one swoon-worthy scene. There is a ton of stuff that goes on in this book. And it all takes place very quickly. I would have liked to seen the timeline stretched out just a bit. I think that would have made it seem a little more realistic as far as the group of friends went. Eila is a new girl in town and she becomes so close with Raef, Ana and MJ so quickly, and they go to great lengths for her. If they knew her for just a little longer that would have made their bond even better for me. But that won't be an issue at all in the next book. I'm excited to read the next book. There was no cliffhanger ending on this one, but there is still plenty to happen in the Undertow series. Undertow is a good start to a promising series.

Snowed Over is my first holiday book of the season and it hit the spot. It was cute. It dealt with some tough themes as well. It highlighted the fact that the holidays can be a really festive and great time for some, while being a tough and even sad time for others. Snowed Over has it all. It has cute romantic moments, and I loved seeing Katie and Alex figure out their feeling for each other, but it also has bittersweet moments- like when Katie has to deal with her parents very sudden separation, and her mom hauling her and her sister up to a guys cabin that she insists is “just a friend”. That must have really stung.

I enjoyed Katie. She is determined and strong willed. She didn’t cowed and cry when she was facing a pretty traumatic situation, being stranded out in the middle of a blizzard. She was resourceful. Both her and Alex were. I liked that about them so much. They really dug deep and looked out for each other. A few times I was cringing about the damage they they were doing to this unsuspecting family’s cabin, but they did what was needed. (And I really liked that Alex’s dad did for them at the end.) Alex and Katie worked well together and most of the book focused on the two of them. Katie’s experience with her mom and “not-the-boyfriend” became secondary until the end. Speaking of which, I thought Katie’s mom was behaving very immaturely. I just did not like her at all. But she didn’t play a huge part in the story so I hardly had to deal with her.

Snowed Over is a novella, at just over 120 pages it is something warm and cozy to cuddle up with on a cold day. It’s a cute little Christmas story about two people that just met and had to survive together. A couple of times, I wavered with the situation just like Katie did (I’m not going to spoil what it is though) but ultimately I was good with everything the way it happened. Angie Stanton does a great job of turning a short story into something very detailed and captivating. I really enjoyed Snowed Over.

3.5 stars

This is my second book by Denise Grover Swank and I have to say, I am a big fan. Both books got very high ratings by me, and I was really impressed with each of them. Denise just has a way with words. The Curse Keepers was so well written and so well thought out that everything had a purpose in the story, everything was incorporated into the big picture at the end of the book. I love it when that happens. Plus the idea behind the book is just so cool. I have always been fascinated with the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and that is what The Curse Keepers centers around. A curse was placed on the colony all that time ago and it went wrong, sending all of the people and the colony to the spirit realm and since then, the ancestors of the two people that cast the curse are called the curse keepers. Their ability lays dormant in their family line until the two keepers meet and touch, then the legend says they have one week to "close the gate" or all hell breaks loose. Literally. Don't worry, I didn't spoil anything, you find out all of this in the first two chapters. The real story is what happens between Ellie and Collin on their quest to end the curse.

Ellie is skeptical of all this curse business, and frankly, I don't blame her. It is something that is kind of hard to believe. But Collin shows up and he eventually makes a believer out of her. But Ellie doesn't make it easy on Collin. She is kicking and screaming and being stubborn the whole way. I have to say, I loved that about her. Almost as much as I loved watching the progression between her and Collin. If you hate insta-love, this is the book for you. The romance is slow and develops so naturally. It was great to watch it unfold. And both Ellie and Collin were so hesitant even though you could see the chemistry between the two of them jumping off the page. And then Collin kept warning her away from him. But you could tell that they were both going to eventually give in, and I was cheering them on. Rooting for it to happen sooner.

I had inklings of what the ending might be, but I was still surprised when it finally happened. I didn't quite guess what it was going to be, but I was sad about it nonetheless. I am so happy that this is a series because while it wasn't necessarily a cliff-hanger ending, there is still so much that can happen. I loved that the story centers around the mystery of Roanoke. Denise Grover Swank just made my must read author list. The Curse Keepers is a great first book to what looks like is going to be an AWESOME series.

These are intense books. I read the first one a little over a year ago and I remembered that I really enjoyed it, so i was really excited when the author approached me and asked me to be a part of the blog tour for her second book. Stalking Shadows is a really good follow up Lethal Inheritance. I am not crazy about the cover but the story is wonderful! If you feel the same way about the covers as I do, look past it and read this series! It is a really great fantasy series. I called the first one Young Adult, but I think this one is more New Adult, or at the very least YA/NA borderline.

One of the cool things about the Diamond Peaks series is that a central message is focusing on the positive emotions. All of the different kinda of minor and major Rasas, or demons in this book feed on various different negative emotions. Some feed on fear, some on jealousy, and others on arrogance, pride or feelings of superiority. And to defeat them, not only do you need training and to be able to physically kick butt, but you have to be in control of your emotions and focus your positive energy for extra fighting power.

Stalking Shadows picks up where Lethal Inheritance left off, and Ariel and Nick are continuing their way up the mountain to defeat the big honcho demon. I like that each book focuses on a different Major Rasa Demon. This book was Amic- a demon that feed on feelings on arrogance and superiority. He would disguise himself as anyone that he thought you would look down upon, and feel like you were better than them. Some of the people he disguised himself as was pretty clever. But there isn't just one big fight at the end of the story, the whole way up the mountain is a struggle. I love how vast the mountain is. Ariel and Nick run into cities, and towns and each are so different than the last. There are medieval towns and modern cities full of luxuries. It is whatever the people living there want. It makes for a very cool book.

There are multiple points of views in Stalking Shadows. For the most part it is just Ariel and Nick but a couple of chapters were told from Ariel's mom's POV as well. I liked having the different narratives, but I would have preferred them to have been marked so I knew right away who was speaking. It wasn't overly confusing or anything like that but it would have just made it easier since sometimes the view points switched in the middle of a chapter.

Fans of fantasy will really like the Diamond Peak Series. I know I do. It is full of action, adventure, and lots of tentative romance. I love finding out more about this mountain, and I am so rooting on Ariel to kick major demon butt. She is great. She is not infallible but she learns quick and she is so determined. Thats what I love about her. Great Sequel.