*3.5 stars

So this book had a lot going on. It takes place about 20 years in the future. A virus called HPSV has made most people over the age of 20 infertile, so the world has changed to make pregnancy, and "pregging for profit" the main goal of all teenagers. Little girls are raised to score contracts with older couples who want children but have been left infertile by the virus. A whole new set of slang has been developed that centers around pregnancy: words like "fertilicious", "neggy", and "breediest" are commonplace. This makes the writing creative and original, but also causes it to be a little confusing at first.

The main characters are twin sisters named Harmony and Melody. They have just met for the very first time.

Harmony: was raised in the Church, the most extremist religious environment in the 2030s. She has faith in her faith, but she doesn't completely support the way of the Church- marrying girls off as young as age 13 to start reproducing. As soon as she found out she had a twin sister, it became her main goal to find her in the "Otherside", save her, and then bring her back to the Church settlement of Goodside. Harmony seems very innocent and pure, but she definitely has her own demons that she's running from.

Melody: was raised in a mainly secular society, by her adoptive parents Ash and Ty, whose main goal in childraising was to make Melody the most unique, talented girl in the world, so that she would be able to get the very best conception contract when she came of age. This is jeopardized, at least in the eyes of her parents, when her identical twin comes into the picture.
Melody has a very obvious crush on her sweet, well-meaning best friend Zen, but he is waayyy too short to bump with, and Melody is scared that having an "everythingbut" (as in, everything but sex) will give too much possibility of messing up her contractual obligation to bump with only the Sperm that is specially chosen by the people who she's signed to (in this futuristic society, there's no such thing as protected sex. Condoms are illegal, and all sex is for the purpose of reproduction, not love).

This book is very creative and innovative. I was able to connect with both of the main characters, even though at first it seemed like they were going to be very distant. The revelations that they each had were incredibly true to their characters, but still were almost complete turnarounds.

What really bothered me about this book was the ending. I know that there is a sequel planned, but that's no excuse for ending the book right in the middle of a scene. It was awful. Overall, however, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I am definitely going to read the sequel.

*Cover: Okay. I don't know what the author could have done differently to make it better, but I thought it wasn't the best.*

*4.5 stars

About 50 pages into this book, I stopped and thought to myself, "Wow. This is intense." And that feeling stayed with me throughout the entire book. I loved it. Although this book centers around girls who share everything from taste in clothing to DNA, they had very distinct individual personalities. I LOVED how the thoughts of the parents were seamlessly woven into the story along with those of the girls. The characters were all very well done.

Pretty much the only thing that I didn't like in this book was how Genevieve was introduced so late into the story. If the author had started to talk about her sooner, and developed her as a character from the beginning, I think the story would have gone a whole lot more smoothly.

I'm sorry for not writing more...I just don't want to spoil the story, since it is a mystery from the very first page.

*Cover: Pretty good. Nothing special, but pretty well done.*

I loved how Andrea Cremer was able to bring so much consistent action into a romance novel. I think many paranormal romance authors have trouble meshing romance and action, but Andrea Cremer seems to do it effortlessly.

I liked Calla a lot more in this book than in Nightshade, because she seemed to take charge more often, rather than just talking about taking charge. Although Calla seemed to be a lot stronger as a female main character, I was glad to see that she didn't lose the aspect of loyalty to the pack, which is definitely one of her defining characteristics.

*DISCLAIMER: In this paragraph, I'm not saying I dislike either Ren or Shay.* I still can't tell how I feel about both Shay(mus) and Ren(ier). Shay seemed to be a lot more of a jerk in this book, which was a little disappointing. His character actually reminded me a lot of how Ren was portrayed in Nightshade (I think that was intentional, though. Shay was just acting as an alpha, so it would make sense that he and Ren start to seem similar.) Ren, however, was barely in this book, so it was hard to tell if he had changed at all from how he was in Nightshade. Calla obviously still has feelings for both Ren and Shay, so I'm curious as to what will happen with each of them in the next book.

I LOVED the Searchers. I hope that they remain prominent characters in Bloodrose. I can't wait!!!

*Cover: I liked the original one SOOOOOO much more than this. This one is okay, I guess.*

WOW. I loved how this book featured a mixture of romance, mystery, and historical fiction. It was obvious that the author had spent an incredible amount of time researching each of the time periods featured in this book. The quality of the descriptions of both settings and characters were amazing.

At the start of the book, Michele is presented as a fairly typical, average girl who just happened to be born to the runaway only daughter of one of the few remaining elite New York families, the Windsors. The one thing that seems paranormal about her life is a recurring dream that features a handsome young man.

Then tragedy strikes. This was actually one of the few parts of the book that I had trouble accepting. It just seemed so random, which then led to it sounding forced. Michele's mother, Marion Windsor, gets into a fatal car accident just after dropping Michele off at school in the morning. Michele is then sent to live in a mansion in New York, with the famed grandparents that she's been alienated from all her life. And this is where the story really begins.

Michele finds a key among several valuables that had been in her mom's safe deposit box. This key is identical to the one that she is always wearing in her dreams, and it quickly guides her to an ancient diary in a locked drawer, that Michele realizes once belonged to her great-great-aunt Clara Windsor, the first adopted Windsor daughter. Michele brings the diary and the key together, and she is suddenly launched back in time, to New York's golden age of the early 19th century. Here she meets the boy from her dreams, the heir of the Walker family, the Windsor family's biggest rival. Their romance is passionate, true, and sweet, but it is also limited, because Michele Windsor and Philip Walker live in completely different time periods.

From here on in the story, Michele's daily life with her strict grandparents is peppered with visits to the past to meet the one person who makes her feel truly alive. I was blown away by the sequences of the book that take place in the past. The author's ability to paint such a captivating picture of decades so far in the past was incredible.

The last few chapters were AMAZING. Every single detail mentioned in the story has a purpose, and that is realized in the end of the book. The puzzle of how the future changed the past was simply entrancing. I ABSOLUTELY ADORED THIS BOOK.

*Cover: Okay. Not wonderful.*

*3.5 stars.

I thought that the plot was very well done, and the writing was excellent. The reason I'm not rating it higher than 3.5 is that I didn't especially like most of the characters. I know that's the intention of the author- the reader isn't supposed to like Mallory or Ryland- but it caused me to enjoy the book a lot less than I might have. Also, Phoebe seemed a little bland. The only traits that I could really identify in her were her anxiety and insecurity, as well as her pride concerning her heritage. I think if she had been fleshed out a bit more, I might have liked her more.

The majority of the book made me sick to my stomach, but I really liked the last quarter or so, where we really get to see the characters develop. I wish the character Benjamin could have had a larger role in the story. All in all, I enjoyed it, but not that much.

This book is about a 16 year-old girl named Amelia who is sent to Baltimore by her brother to stay with her cousin Zora and try to find an eligible husband. She becomes fast friends with her cousin, but has trouble connecting to any of the young men on her social level. Instead, she falls for a poor artist named Nathaniel. Meanwhile, Amelia discovers that she has a gift to see glimpses of the future at the time of the vespers: sundown. The premonitions start out with a very lighthearted vision of Zora dancing with her crush in a beautiful dress, but quickly derail and become very grim.

I had mixed feelings about this book. The plot seemed like it would be very interesting. However, the dialog that was supposed to sound authentic to the time period ended up sounding forced and a bit fake. The romance between Amelia and Nathaniel was very underdeveloped, and I had trouble feeling the emotions that were supposed to be felt by the reader.

However, I was swept up in the supernatural aspect of the story, the part featuring Amelia's "gift." I loved the scenes in which she told fortunes, and I thought the characters of Amelia and Zora were very well developed and strong.

I wished that there could have been more scenes with August and Lizzy in the fall, because I think that could have been a more powerful part of the story.

My only other problem with this book was that it was unclear near the end whether the fortunes that Amelia predicted were caused by her, or if they were going to happen anyway and she was just in the middle.

So I liked this book. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I just liked it.

P.S. Sorry for rambling so much :P

*Cover: I honestly didn't like the cover that much. I don't think it really related to the story at all.*

*4.75 stars

I loved this book so much. The writing was amazing, each of the characters maintained a set of traits and behaviors throughout the entire book, and the story was intriguing and interesting. It centers around a poor family in the late 1940s.

This story is told through the eyes of Elvira, who is the daughter of Connie and Ray Witsil. Ray, a drunk, abandons the family to enlist in the army. Within a few months, the family receives a letter that tells them that he is MIA, and most likely dead. Soon after that, Connie's mother moves into their small house to help out. Her way of "helping out," however, mainly consists of shouting matches with her daughter and cold silent periods in which Elvira is forced to carry notes between her mother and grandmother.

Nine months after Ray left, Jessie is born. Jessie is not a normal toddler. She starts talking much later than most children, and when she finally does, she will only say words like "damnation" and "surgery." She often gets a glazed look over her eyes, as if she's seeing something other than what's going on around her. A visit from a peddler to tell the family the latest gossip helps them realize the truth: Jessie is a seer, some sort of psychic.

The family is forced to move out of town to escape judgement from the local citizens. Joining them is a traveling preacher. They embark on a cross-country trip, to a destination not known by Elvira.

I adored this story, but the one thing I didn't like was how preachy the writing was. At the start of the book, Elvira didn't believe in God, but by the end she was practically a missionary. I don't mind religion in writing AT ALL, it's just when it becomes the center focus of an otherwise brilliant story that I get annoyed. So that's why I took of a quarter of a star :P I can't wait for more from this author, hopefully somewhat less centered around religion.

*Cover: I really liked the cover of this book, because I felt that it really related to a key part of the story :)*