Bite Club by Rachel Caine

Title: Bite Club
Author: Rachel Caine
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: May 3rd, 2011
Publisher: NAL Trade
Pages: 340
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Glass House, The Dead Girl's Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, and Ghost Town
Age Group: Young Adult

After discovering that vampires populate her town, college student Claire Danvers knows that the undead just want to live their lives. But someone else wants them to get ready to rumble.

There's a new extreme sport getting picked up on the Internet: bare—knuckle fights pitting captured vampires against each other—or humans. Tracking the remote signal leads Claire—accompanied by her friends and frenemies—to discover that what started as an online brawl will soon threaten everyone in Morganville...

Just when I thought that Rachel Caine could not surprise me more, she does it again, but this time two fold. Not only are we reading about Claire and all her adventures, but now we even get Shane's point of view. And things are getting a little tense.

The whole book kept me on edge, as Shane fell further and further down a road of no return, while Claire scrambles to find a way to bring him back. When a new gym opens up, things with Shane begin to change as he begins to change.

And an old enemy returns, one that many faithful readers would be very familiar with.

As much as I love this book, I was also starting to get irritated with Eve. For once, I was really wishing that she wasn't around because she just annoyed me and I have a bad feeling that she will continue to irk me for the rest of the book series.

Every time she appeared, I just had to roll my eyes because she was a thorn on my side.

Besides that, I honestly liked the book. A lot of things in Morganville are going to change and I'm a little excited to see just what happens!

Broken by A.E. Rought

Title: Broken
Author: A.E. Rought
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: January 8th, 2013
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Pages: 366
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Advance Reader's Copy
Age Group: Young Adult

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.

The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

When this book is described as a modern day Frankenstein they weren't kidding. I am so glad that Strange Chemistry sent me this book because I honestly enjoyed every minute. I stayed up all night finishing this book, biting my nails, just thinking of everything that could happen.

The character of Emma made me upset. Mostly because I felt like she was too young to feel the way she did about her dead boyfriend Daniel and then on top of that she just cried a lot and mourned. I understand the mourning portion, but she was a little too focused on her pain and I'm just glad that she realized this eventually.

Also, another problem that I had is how fast she went from loving Daniel to loving Alex. While there were four months in there, and she was still mourning to Daniel.

But aside from these two points, I did enjoy the book. Rought brought a wonderful story to life that somehow mixed creepy and romance together into one.

Bree was my favorite character. She was so patient and took everything into stride with whatever was going on with Emma. And Josh - can I just say that there could not have been a better antagonist.

Overall this story was really great. And I'm surprised that I'm even writing this review since reading it I felt like like I didn't know what to say. Honestly, I was at such a loss of my general feelings towards this novel, but writing it now I think I see why it was great.

The pace wasn't too slow, the characters developed nicely, and I almost wish there was a sequel to this story. For awhile I thought there was since everything cuts so close to the end, but Rought wrapped it up nicely!

The Boo Hag by David Morgan

Title: The Boo Hag
Author: David Morgan
Release Date: March 28th, 2012
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 327
Format: Electronic Copy
Acquired: From Author
Age Group: Young Adult

Lenny Petrakas is worried about her skin. Not the way you're thinking. Not like that at all. While most people spend time concerned about dirt and elasticity, temperature and moisture, Lenny has a more pressing problem. Something is after her. Something evil that won't stop until it has peeled every last inch of skin from the teen's body. And then, it may end her misery quickly, or it may dump her body in the woods. Let infection and dehydration run its course. Lenny is just your normal sixteen-year-old girl. Was. Was just your normal sixteen-year-old girl. Quiet and polite. Petite. Introspective, but not to the point of isolation. Loyal? Fiercely so. Outstanding? Noteworthy? Different? No, no, and no. Or so she thought. What started as an eerie feeling, a certainty that someone had been in her room while she slept, has spiraled into something far worse. Something was in her room. Something that finds her highly different, extremely noteworthy, and intensely outstanding. Game over? Wrong. Lenny's a fighter, and she isn't about to lie down and take what's coming to her. Enlisting the help of her best friend, a not-so-secret admirer, the hottest guy in school, one odious cheerleader, and a paranormalist teacher, Lenny is facing her fears head on, in a battle she knows can only end in death

I just want to start out by saying that I don't normally read horror stories, and this is what I'm classifying it as by the way, because I am a big coward. No seriously, I can't even watch horror films. Anyways, I did a little research on what a boo hag was and I can just say that I am glad I never heard of such a thing when I was young. Urban legends/folklore are the worst type of scary stories that exist in my opinion, just because they are uncanny.

So, what is a boo hag? A boo hag is a skinless woman/ghost/witch/demon that sits on her victims while they sleep in order to take their skin. The victims usually feel a weight on them while they sleep, and anyways it isn't very good what happens. They enter through cracked walls or floorboards and the only way to stop them is by putting a broom at the end of your bed or keep a gun beside you. If you want to know more about them, you can go here where I got the information from.

Well, when I first started reading it Lenny was already figuring out that something was out of sorts and it just got creepier and creepier as the story went on. Needless to say I had to read the story during the daytime because Morgan's writing was so gripping that I had to keep looking over my shoulder. Reading this at night and having an active imagination is not a good mix, just to let you know.

Luckily for Lenny she's got people on her side who are helping her deal with the pesky little boo hags that are determined to come after her. The story was much quicker than what I was expecting, but it kept the reader trained on what was going on in the story. One thing Morgan did well was bring the story to life and make the characters believable. He brought an urban legend to life, and while I probably won't be having nightmares of boo hags, this is an urban legend I cannot forget.

For the majority of the story I did like it and I liked Lenny. She's a strong and memorable character. This novel was dark, twisting, and haunting fun that can make a person's skin crawl.