Review: Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

Title: Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

Published: June 21^st 2011 by Walker Children

Source:  Library

Challenge(s): Support your Local Library

Grade rate: A-

Violet Willoughby doesn't believe in ghosts. But they believe in her. After spending years participating in her mother's elaborate ruse as a fraudulent medium, Violet is about as skeptical as they come in all matters supernatural. Now that she is being visited by a very persistent ghost, one who suffered a violent death, Violet can no longer ignore her unique ability. She must figure out what this ghost is trying to communicate, and quickly because the killer is still on the loose.

Afraid of ruining her chance to escape her mother's scheming through an advantageous marriage, Violet must keep her ability secret. The only person who can help her is Colin, a friend she's known since childhood, and whom she has grown to love. He understands the true Violet, but helping her on this path means they might never be together. Can Violet find a way to help this ghost without ruining her own chance at a future free of lies?

My Review

Haunting Violet is the first book I’ve read by Ms. Harvey and I think I can now say I’m a big fan as I loved this book.  It definitely falls in the “can’t put it down category”.  Maybe my fascination has to do with my love of historical romance novels, and this book almost qualifies as one.  I felt like I was wearing a familiar and comfortable pair of slippers. *sigh*

On with the review… Violet is a charming character.  She is beautiful, pragmatic, not conceited and with a strong sense of morals and self-preservation.  Violet had a difficult life and an abominable mother, I don’t know how she turned out to be such a good person with such a bad role model, but then again, she had Colin.  I loved Colin.  He is not only handsome, but resourceful, loyal, and he really cares for Violet and more important, he accepts her the way she is.  I really enjoy Violet’s best friend, Elizabeth (lovely name, right?).  She is also very loyal and open minded about the “Spiritualism” and loves a good adventure as well.  I really came to hate Violet’s mother and I don’t know what it is about Lord Jasper that I quite can’t trust.

The plot was excellent and unpredictable.  I certainly didn’t suspect any of it (although I have to admit I usually don’t!).  It is a combination of paranormal / historical romance / mystery, it actually reminded me a little of both Amanda Quick and Julia Quinn writing style and plot building.  The writing was easy to read and follow, the story line and setting was introduced nicely and the pacing was perfect.  I only problem was that the ending was kind of abrupt and it left the story wide open for a sequel.  What happens now with Violet and Colin?  Can they have a future together? How would Violet handle her new-found ability?  I can’t find any indication that Haunting Violet has a sequel, but it certainly should.  Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top?  I know I will start reading The Drake Chronicles soon!

About the Cover:  I really like the cover, the significance of the river and the lilies is evident in the story.  The girl in the cover looks “haunted”, I liked how delicate she looks and the colors as well.

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Feature and Follow Friday

Feature and Follow Friday is an awesome blog-hop hosted by Parajunkee's View and Alison Can Read

This week's features are Kate @ Musings of a Book Lover and Erika @ Badass Book Reviews and the questions is:

 

 

Many readers/bloggers are also big music fans. Tell us about a few of your favorite bands/singers that we should listen to in 2012.

 

My kids always make fun of me when I listen to music, especially when I listen to music in Spanish!

 

Music in Spanish: Shakira, Camila, Alejandro Sanz, Arjona, Ricky Martin, Ednita Nazario, Mecano, Maná, Reik, Mark Anthony, Christian Castro, and many, many more.

 

Music in English: Coldplay, The Script, Taylor Swift, Katie Perry, Plain White T's, Rhiana, Shinedown, Daughtry,Adele, Kings of Leon, and again a lot more. 

 

I am usually more moved by the lyrics more than by the music (or course there are always exceptions) and with kids constantly with me in the house and in the car I really need to pay attention to the lyrics to make sure they are not listening to anything inappropriate.

I am eager to see what kind of music you guys like!

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Review: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey (The Monstrumologist #1)

Title: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Published: September 22nd 2009

Source: Library audio book

Challenge (s):  Support Local Library

Grade rate: A

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for nearly ninety years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.

So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphan and assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late night callers and dangerous business. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was feeding on her, Will's world is about to change forever. The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagi--a headless monster that feeds through the mouthfuls of teeth in its chest--and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. Now, Will and the doctor must face the horror threatening to overtake and consume our world before it is too late.

My Review

I finished listening to The Monstrumologist audio book a few days ago and since then I have been thinking on how to begin this review.  This book was a rich mix of horror, mystery and something else I quite can’t put my finger on, but that combined put together a masterpiece that I am afraid I lack the words to describe.

Our protagonist and narrator is Will J. Henry, a 12-year-old orphan that is the assistant to the monstrumologist, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop.  Will is such an endearing character, and by the end of the story I felt like we intimately knew him; his loyalty, his fears, his eagerness to please his master, his resourcefulness give us a glimpse of the great man he is sure to grow up to be.  Dr. Warthrop’s character is a mix of the good and the bad.  I would like to think that he really cares for Will, but he is such an unlovable character himself, so full of knowledge and self-evident genius, and at the same time lacking the common sense and basic empathy that most people have.  *SNAP TO Will Henry*.  What to say about Jack Kearns?  Only that monsters come in all shape and sizes.

What made this novel so fascinating to me was not only the original plot, the gothic experience, the feeling of jumping out of my skin every few minutes or making disgusted faces at everyone (remember I was listening to it while driving!), but the storytelling itself.  Mr. Yancey is a master, and I bow to you sir.  Words become the things that he uses to craft a magnificent story, in which the metaphor and simile become an art.  Read this expert from chapter one:

But nothing had prepared me for what the old man delivered that night. I daresay your average adult would have fled the room in horror, run screaming up the stairs and out of the house, for what lay within that burlap cocoon laid shame to all the platitudes and promises from a thousand pulpits upon the nature of a just and loving God, of a balanced and kind universe, and the dignity of man. A crime, the old grave-robber had called it. Indeed there seemed no better word for it, though a crime requires a criminal...and who or what was the criminal in this case?

I will most definitely snap to and read The Curse of the Wendigo (which I already own!) soon and The Monstrumologist has made Mr. Yancey one of my favorite authors.  

About the cover:  Creepy, uh?  Well, the book IS creepy, and not for the weak of stomach, that’s for sure!

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Waiting on Wednesday: Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine

Title: Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Published by:Harper Teen

Release date: July 24, 2012

There’s something strange and deadly loose in Philadelphia…
Eleanor Fitt has a lot to worry about. Her brother has gone missing, her family has fallen on hard times, and her mother is determined to marry her off to any rich young man who walks by. But this is nothing compared to what she’s just read in the newspaper— 

The Dead are rising in Philadelphia.

And then, in a frightening attack, a zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor…from her brother.

Whoever is controlling the Dead army has taken her brother as well. If Eleanor is going to find him, she’ll have to venture into the lab of the notorious Spirit-Hunters, who protect the city from supernatural forces. But as Eleanor spends more time with the Spirit-Hunters, including their maddeningly stubborn yet handsome inventor, Daniel, the situation becomes dire. And now, not only is her reputation on the line, but her very life may hang in the balance.

 

Why I want to read it:  This book sounds so good.  Spirit-Hunters, a log interest, a daring heroine, and zombies! To top it all, it was a gorgeous cover!

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Top Ten Authors I Wish Would Write Another Book

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish

 This is a really hard question so I'll do my best!

 

1. Jane Austen – This is the very first author that came to mind.  I love all of her books and wish she would have lived longer to write many more.

2. Charlotte Bronte – Again, I love Jane Eyre, imagine what else she might have written if she lived longer!

3. La Vyrle Spencer - I love her books and I’ve read them all.  My favorites are Morning Glory, Years and The Endearment, there is something so beautiful and poignant about her writing, but alas she has retired. 

4. Jules Verne – Here is an author with a huge imagination!  I’m sure his next book was going to be about computers!

5. J.K. Rowling – She is alive and well, and as far as I know not retired.  BUT we don’t have any more Harry Potter books!  I still think we deserve to know what happened between Voldemort’s defeat and the Epilogue of The Deathly Hollows. Don’t you?

6. Ann Brashares – I have never read the Traveling Pants series, but I did read My Name is Memory.  What on earth happened here?  Is this a series?  I was left without a proper ending and I can’t find information about a sequel anywhere!

7. Rebecca Maizel – Infinite Days was published in 2010 and I’m still waiting for Stolen Nights (its sequel).  I know it’s coming, but it’s taking forever.  I really hope that if there is a third book we get to see it sooner (two years is a loooong wait!)

8. Stephanie Perkins – I know she wrote a book after Anna and the French Kiss, but I want a sequel to Anna so bad!  It is hands down, one of my favorite books ever.

9. Sarah Dessen – This is one of my favorite authors and I love her books (especially The Truth about Forever), but they are all stand-alone books.  Not that this is a bad thing, but sometimes I want to know what happens next. 

I almost made it to ten!  Well, that’s all I have.  I am eager to know what is in your Top Ten this week :)

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Review: Past Perfect by Leila Sales

Title: Past Perfect by Leila Sales

Published: October 4^th, 2011 by Simon Pulse

Source: Library

Challenge(s): Support your Local Library and ABC Reading Challenge

Grade rate: B

All Chelsea wants to do this summer is hang out with her best friend, hone her talents as an ice cream connoisseur, and finally get over Ezra, the boy who broke her heart. But when Chelsea shows up for her summer job at Essex Historical Colonial Village (yes, really), it turns out Ezra’s working there too. Which makes moving on and forgetting Ezra a lot more complicated…even when Chelsea starts falling for someone new.
Maybe Chelsea should have known better than to think that a historical reenactment village could help her escape her past. But with Ezra all too present, and her new crush seeming all too off limits, all Chelsea knows is that she’s got a lot to figure out about love. Because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it….

My Review

Past Perfect is a book by the author of Mostly Good Girls (see my review here), which I enjoyed, therefore I was eager to read this book because it sounded like fun and I loved the cover.

Chelsea was a fun character to read.  She is very opinionated, pretty, a great friend, but full of insecurities.  She was easily persuaded by others into doing something she didn’t want to do, and sadly that is true for a lot of people.  I liked her frankness and several parts of the book were laugh-out-loud funny.  I loved Dan, he was fun, considerate, and handsome and it pained me to see what happened between him and Chelsea.  I also liked Fiona, Chelsea’s best friend, she was a drama queen and so loyal that she deserved an award for sticking to Chelsea and for opening her eyes.  There is a good word to describe Ezra, but I won’t use it since I don’t like to write curse words (you get the drift, right?).  Other members of the Essex Colonial Village were so “high school”, there were popular girls and guys, and just the opposite, but they were all united by the “War”.

The plot was very original and I love the concept of the "War", even when it got a little out of hand.  the only thing that bummed me out is how Chelsea caved in so easily to betray Dan.  It just seemed our of character for her.  Just as her previous novel, Ms. Sales left a lot unsaid and I feel like the end was inconclusive.  I hope that Dan gave Chelsea a chance (it seems like he did.)  The writing was insightful, funny and easy to read. 

It's funny how sometimes we look at something from our past, maybe a childhood memory or that of your first crush through "pink" glasses instead of the way things really happened.  Past Perfect was an entertaining and short contemporary read that I hope you enjoy as I did.

About the cover: I like that the cover is unusual and pretty, although it has nothing to do with the story!

Have you read Past Perfect?  What did you think? 

In My Mailbox #29

IMM is a weekly meme inspired by Alea at the Pop Culture Junkie and hosted by the wonderful Kristi at The Story Siren.  All links are to Goodreads

Purchased

 

The Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare - I am yet to start this series.  I know it's great because I LOVE the Immortal Instruments series.  I'll get to it soon!

Gift

 

Those of you with Hispanic descent might know that January 6th was Three Kings Day (Día de los Reyes Magos).  It is a tradition in which the three kings (the same ones that visited Jesus when he was born) come during the morning on the 6th to bring toys to the children that leave grass for their camels.  Well, anyway my hubby got me two books, because I've been such a good girl and all.

 

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi - I've been dying to read this book!

 

Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles - At last, the last book of the Perfect Chemistry series!

 I also received a set of autographed bookmarks from a Giveaway hosted by Young Adult Book Reviews.  Thank you Tammi!

 

That's it for me. How about you, what is in your mailbox this week?

Please see the post below to enter my 300 Follower Giveaway!

Celebrate 300 Follower Giveaway!

Hello Everyone!  To celebrate by brand new blog design by the awesome Hafsah from Icey Designs and my hope to reach 300 followers soon I've prepared a great giveaway. 

Here are the facts:

• You don't have to be a follower to participate, but I sure will appreciate it! (and you get extra entries :)
• If you would like to follow Reading with ABC you can do so by using  GFC, Network Blogs, RSS, Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook.
• There will be THREE winners and each of the winners gets to choose one of the wonderful books above.
• The Giveaway starts today (Sunday, January 8th and ends on January 31st) 
• The Giveaway is International, as long as the Book Depository delivers to you.

Please use the form below to enter and THANK YOU for your continued support.  I love you guys!
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