Review: Also Known As

Also Known As
by Robin Benway

Book Description:
Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good and bad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations.

Then Maggie and her parents are sent to New York for her first solo assignment, and all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend one aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the essential information she needs to crack the case . . . all while trying not to blow her cover.

Review: 

I really enjoyed this light-hearted spy story.

The teen voice was perfect. Maggie and her friends were all totally believable, each with their own foibles and backgrounds. The action was both believable in the sense that Maggie was not the perfect spy... and had me on the edge of my seat at times.

The romance...ah, the romance... I loved it. It was rocky. It was funny. It was just gushy enough.

I did not want to put this book down at all as soon as I started reading and in fact, I would love to see a follow-up story! Fun, funny, and full of surprises.

Recommended for high school readers looking for a fun summer read! 

Review: Falling Kingdoms

Falling Kingdoms

by Morgan Rhodes

 

Book Description:

In a land where magic has been forgotten but peace has reigned for centuries, a deadly unrest is simmering. Three kingdoms grapple for power—brutally transforming their subjects' lives in the process. Amidst betrayals, bargains, and battles, four young people find their fates forever intertwined:

Cleo: A princess raised in luxury must embark on a rough and treacherous journey into enemy territory in search of a magic long thought extinct.

Jonas: Enraged at injustice, a rebel lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country impoverished—and finds himself the leader of a people's revolution centuries in the making.

Lucia: A girl adopted at birth into a royal family discovers the truth about her past—and the supernatural legacy she is destined to wield.

Magnus: Bred for aggression and trained to conquer, a firstborn son begins to realize that the heart can be more lethal than the sword. . . .

The only outcome that's certain is that kingdoms will fall. Who will emerge triumphant when all they know has collapsed?

 

Review:

Intricate storylines weave together into a tale of magic, betrayal, greed, and even murder. Three kingdoms on the brink of war... four teens struggling to survive and prosper. Each teen has something to fight for, and unfortunately, that brings each of them up against one another as they work for the interests of their own kingdoms.

Throughout, there is the hunt for magic. Once acknowledged as existing in all the kingdoms, magic has now seemingly disappeared. Each kingdom believes that if they can harness the magic, they will be triumphant...and the ancient Watchers who keep tabs on all are desperate to retrieve the magic that they've lost. One teen is the key to it all.

Politics, murder, secrets, war, romance...this book has it all. Rhodes masterfully built an intriguing world and left me breathless at the end. I cannot wait until this story picks up in book two! I NEED to see where everyone goes from the cliffhanger at the end... 



Gold Star Review: Etiquette and Espionage

Etiquette and Espionage

by Gail Carriger

Finishing School, book one

Publication date: February 5, 2013

Book Description:
It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.

Review:
Gail Carriger is awesome. I love her blend of steampunk and the paranormal. I LOVED this first book in the Finishing School series. 

The blend of proper behavior, the distinct ignoring of said proper behavior (LOL), adventure, friendships, and "mechanimals" was brilliant. There are airships, balls, poison classes, "sooties," werewolves, and of course, Bumbersnoot. Who is Bumbersnoot? Why he's the most fashionable little mechanical dachsund ever! He eats coal, produces ash, and can conceal a prototype for the proper Lady spy.

The tie-ins to Carriger's adult series had me giggling throughout. Hints dropped here, there, and everywhere. :) I don't want to give anything away, but if you've read her other series, you will find at least one or two familiar faces...

With wonderful witty word choices and frankly fashionable fetes, Etiquette and Espionage is a bang-up start to a new series that leaves me shouting, "HUZZAH!" I cannot wait to return to Finishing School!

 

A gold star book, indeed. And, just to whet the appetite, check out this awesome trailer that was created for the book! LOVE.  

 



Adult Book Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

Book Description:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Review:

This adult book is Erin Morgenstern's debut and has been hailed as one of the best adult books published in 2011.  I know that at least a few of you that like fantasy books will adore this one!

I am so glad I picked up this book! Morgenstern has literally created a magical masterpiece. Every time I cracked open the cover, I found myself immersed in another layer of seductive imagery... a world that I longed to live in. I wanted to become one of the fanatics that followed the Cirque de Reves from city to city, wrapping a red scarf round my neck, and marveling again and again at its wonders.

Aside from the love story that defied time and fate, the wonder of this book is that you truly lose yourself in it. The words wrap themselves around you and refuse to let go, taunting you to read *just a little more*... When I closed the book for the final time, I sat there momentarily stunned and immensely disappointed that I had no further excuse to linger. I believe this will be a book that I will read again...