Book Review: The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz

With the stunning revelation surrounding Bliss's true identity comes the growing threat of the sinister Silver Bloods. Once left to live the glamorous life in New York City, the Blue Bloods now find themselves in an epic battle for survival. Not to worry, love is still in the air for the young vampires of the Upper East Side. Or is it?

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz - This is my favourite to date. The series only gets better the longer it goes to me.  This was so action packed & full of intrigue it was awesome.

Schuyler & Oliver are on the run, travelling all over the world to hide from the Venators only to be found by none other than Jack Force.  This is so very romantic, imagine the love of your life rescuing you when you thought they were safe back in New York.  This was a good turn in the story.

Mimi & Bliss also have a big part in this book.  Mimi sees action & love instead of being the stuck up young princess, she seems to have a personality & feeling for others that we didn't seem to see in the previous books.  Bliss goes follows her path & tries to work out what is going on in her mind.  Tries to work out what is going on with the baddies.  It all works out perfectly & meshes together wonderfully.

Melissa de la Cruz is amazing, her ideas & all the detail she goes into for the back stories for each of her character is just fantastic.  This book goes into further detail of the previous cycles for the main characters & some on the plots seem to click into place with more detail that is offered.  At the beginning with each chapter was a different person & their story evolving, I thought this is going to take forever to get to the action, but it worked.  They all intermingled & became the story as a whole.

The ending is great as well.  Poor Oliver giving his heart away & then being left behind by his own choice because it was the right choice.  I can't wait to see what Schuyler gets into in Misguided Angel.

I rated this a 4star.  Awesome.

Book Review: Betrayed by Morgan Rice

In BETRAYED (Book #3 in the Vampire Journals), Caitlin Paine awakes from a deep coma to discover she has been turned. Now a true, full-bred vampire, she marvels at her new powers, including her ability to fly, and her superhuman strength. She finds that her true love, Caleb, is still by her side, waiting patiently for her to recover. She has everything she could dream of.

This book was very good.  Caitlin had a lot to learn in this one.  She did some combat training & learned how to use her new senses.  Sera played a big part as well; she had a very sad story & I could sympathise with her emotional state.  It was good to read the back story for Sera & understand where she was coming from.  But it still didn't show us why Caleb doesn't love her anymore!

Betrayal was a very big part of this book, hence the name I assume.  Caitlin felt betrayed by Caleb, but she also felt she betrayed Caleb with Cain.  Love triangle??  This all worked out well in the book & I found myself wondering who she choose & what will happen.

Sam & Samantha - WOW. Didn't see that coming & it was awesome.  At the end though I thought Sam would get his happily ever after too with Samantha, but I guess that could come in DESTINED.  Poor Sam, I really felt sorry for him, being used like he was & then the guilt that followed.  I hope he is in the next one because it was left open for more perhaps.

The surprise that is included is awesome.  I again can't wait to see what happens with this surprise & I will be excited if it eventuates.  No wonder Caitlin was so emotional!!

The ending was such a cliffhanger, oh my goodness what a surprise.  I thought it could go either way, but when time travel starts to come into it, WOW.  Definitely leaves the reader waiting for the next installment.

I really think this series is only getting better the further along it goes.  Loved this book more than the last.  I gave this one a 4star rating.  Highly recommended.

Turner's Antics - Funny Friday

This is my first blog about my children, other than my very first hello.  These blogs will be shorter than the reviews for obvious reasons.

Today was a funny day!  The children and I were getting cabin fever, so decided to head out to our local shopping centre.  The thought was good, but gee whiz, William can be a little difficult at this age when in every shop it's "William wants........".  Anyway, we stopped at the coffee shop first, I definitely needed a caffeine hit before entering the shops containing toys and other fun things for the children.  Got juice for William and a couple of Yo-yo's, plus my LARGE coffee with caramel.  The idea was to have one each, William had another idea.  I had a bite out of mine and William pinched the rest, little rascal.  He has found another cookie that he likes....

After my caffeine stop, headed to the shops for a walk around.  We both went into the book store first, but walked out empty handed.  I am currently addicted to my Kobo eReader, so would prefer eBooks.  Then next door was the pet shop, had to look at all the cute puppies and kittens.  Then some not so cuddly mice.  The last stop was Target and William headed straight for the Crayola display and I got, "William wants........".  So he ended up with a new colouring pack for Cars 2.  This kept him quiet at least for a little while.  Next we needed to find something for Emily.  You would all know (those who have children), that if you buy something for one, you have to buy something for the other too.  So Emily ended up with clothes.  It was very cute, William was helping me decide which to pick.  Going through the aisles Williams says to me, "Mum, this is pretty", and then the next aisle, said the same thing.  William ended up picking the outfit, which I found very adorable.  He does love his baby sister, even though sometimes you wouldn't know it.

Once home William was excited to do some colouring with his new purchase.  I was happy as well because Emily went to bed and William was colouring, so I had a half hour of quiet.

Please stay tuned for the next entry of Turner's Antics.  Hopefully over the weekend something will inspire me for another blog.

Book Review: Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

I have finally finished Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr.  I was a little distracted while reading this one, but got there in the end.  You will have to excuse my review, this is my first book review blog.  PLEASE NOTE:  this review does have spoilers, so if you haven't read the book yet, you may want to brace yourself towards the end of my review.




When I started this book I had great expectations and it did deliver. As I found with Wicked Lovely, this one also was a little confusing and hard to follow in the first couple of chapters.  Once Leslie's story started to get more detailed things started to get exciting.

Leslie is a teenager with a best friend whom is the Summer Queen, but of course Leslie has no idea.  Leslie's had a hard life and it was only going to get harder.  She had family issues that had made her isolate herself from Aislinn and her other friends.  Leslie was embarrassed about what had happened, which is common in reality. 

The attention to detail of the tattoo, the equipment and process was amazing.  I myself have a tattoo and it was wonderful to see the perspective of the artist themselves.  Leslie's tattoo was awesome and really became apart of the story.  Leslie was hoping once she finished getting her ink, it would change her confidence and help her life become more stable.  Of course, this was only the beginning and she didn't realise what was going to happen once it was completed.  I was really happy when at the end of the book, an actual picture of the tattoo was shown.  Of course you have the picture in your mind when reading the book, but to actually see the Author's vision was a lot better.

The story skipped a little ahead towards the end when Leslie decided she didn't want to continue in the Dark Court.  I was a little surprised that all of a sudden she was saying yes to Niall and wanting out.  I felt like there was a step missing, but that could just be me.

I was surprised to see what happens after she leaves the Dark Court.  I thought there would be a happy ever after for her and Niall.  But I guess it could happen in the next book, Radiant Shadows.  It was also a surprise to see Irial give up his crown.  I did love these surprises and was happy that Leslie made her own decisions to make herself happy in the end.

This book was fantastic overall and I would recommend it to everyone.  I can't wait to read the next one to see which Court is being written about and if Aislinn and/or Leslie will be in them.  I gave this book 4stars, excellent, thank you Melissa Marr.

Hello

Hello to all.  I am extremely new to all of this, so I will start by introducing myself.  I am a Mother to two beautiful children, William (3) & Emily (10  months).  I am married to a wonderful man who provides for us & keeps me on my toes. I love reading books, but love reading books on my Kobo eReader. I am currently reading Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr & am enjoying it immensely.  I am half way through & will blog a review once completed.

My son attends Kindergarten two days a week & will attend a playgroup starting next term.  This keeps him occupied & helps him learn to interact with other children.  I love seeing him playing with his class mates & creating beautiful art that we place on our walls.  They are also great gift ideas for the Grandparents.

My daughter to 10 months & trying to walk around; is obviously crawling all over the house & venturing into unknown places where she isn't meant to.  She is a beautiful little girl with a lot of personality & beautiful big blue eyes.  When she smiles, you smile too.

My husband & I originally lived in Brisbane, but are now living in Melbourne & have been for the past six years.  Our families are still living in Brisbane & we try as often as we can to go up & visit.

This is all for now & will keep you updated on Turner's Antics as often as I can.