Captivate by Carrie Jones

Goodreads Summary: Zara and her friends knew they hadn't solved the pixie problem for good. Far from it. The king's needs grow deeper every day he's stuck in captivity, while his control over his people gets weaker. It's made him vulnerable. And now there's a new king in town.
A turf war is imminent, since the new pixie king, Astley, is moving in quickly. Nick nearly killed him in the woods on day one, but Zara came to his rescue. Astley swears that he and Zara are destined to be together, that he's one of the good guys. Nick isn't buying it, though Zara isn't as sure -- despite herself, she wants to trust the new king. But it's a lot more than her relationship with Nick that is at stake. It's her life -- and his.

***Spoiler Review***

My Take: I really like this series. To read about pixies and the battle Zara has to choose if someone is good or evil is a nice change for me.

First off, as an FYI...I am going to do a lot of complaining in this review but it is not because I didn't like the book because I LOVED it! SO here I go.

My problem with the book is Zara's personality. I don't mind the obsession with phobias but her obsession with Amnesty International and spending all her free time writing letters to protest for prisoners really bugs me. Doesn't she have other things to worry about? I mean really!
#1 - She has a crazy father that is determined to turn her mother into the pixie queen.
#2 - There are 2 kings that are after HER to turn her into the new pixie queen.
#3 - She is half pixie so she turns blue whenever she is near a pixie king but she does not want to be a pixie she wants to be full human.
#4 - The pixies she trapped in a house are pissed off at her and they are determined to make her pay. (OH and she is still thinking..."isn't it the same that I have trapped pixies in a home when they haven't proven that they are all guilty of evil?" OH PLEASE!
#5 - Her boyfriend is in danger because he is a threat to the 2 pixie kings.
#6 - Her boyfriend is a were-wolf, her grandma is a were-tiger and her friend is a were-eagle...OH AND DID I MENTION that she is half pixie? (LOL)
#7 - Her father is in NEED so the pixies are going to run wild and go after teen boys for blood.
#8 - All pixies are gathering together in her town to start a war.

All that and she is still giving herself carpal tunnel writing for Amnesty International and creating her own Amnesty International at her school! GAG!

Please leave politics out of UF books!

1st to Die by James Patterson

Goodreads Summary:  James Patterson, bestselling author of the Alex Cross novels Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, and Pop Goes the Weasel, offers the first of a new series dubbed The Women s Murder Club, featuring a four-woman team that occasionally works outside the system. None of the gritty darkness or frenzied action is lost in 1st to Die, although the female protagonists offer an even deeper emotional context to this suspense thriller.

Inspector Lindsay Boxer of the San Francisco Police Department suddenly finds herself in the middle of two horrifying situations: The first is that she s just learned she has an often-fatal blood disease. The second is a double homicide case she s now heading up that involves the murder of newlyweds on their wedding night. Burdened with Chris Raleigh, a new partner reassigned from the mayor s office, Lindsay finds that she has too much to deal with and turns to her best friend, Claire, the head ME on the case. Claire offers helpful advice and human, friendly contact amid a job filled with violence, cruelty, and fear.

Soon a fledgling newspaper reporter, Cindy, makes contact with Lindsay looking for a career-making story. Although Lindsay can t officially comment on the case, the two women form a rapport, and Cindy joins Lindsay and Claire for their weekly meeting. When a second pair of newlyweds is murdered, and later a third, the investigation leads to a prominent crime writer, Nicholas Jenks, who has a history of spousal abuse and a predilection for kinky, dangerous sex games. With the help of an understanding assistant D.A., Jill Bernhardt, Lindsay tries to make a case against Jenks, who even had an affair with one of the slain women. Eventually Jill joins the Murder Club, and the four ladies share private interdepartmental information in an effort to track and stop the killer before he strikes again.

The major subplot -- Lindsay's facing up to her illness even while she learns to fall in love again -- carefully compensates for the novel s coarse scenes of brutality. Lindsay Boxer isn t merely an obsessed cop trailing a maniac; she s also a terrified woman confronting the onslaught of disease. The story lines balance out to show us the true mettle of someone who puts the safety of others before her own.

Again, Patterson s skill for producing furiously paced fiction are evident as the novel breezes by rapidly. The short chapters keep the narrative leaping with increasingly taut plot elements, but there s an emotional commitment that makes our protagonist even more amiable and involving. 1st to Die is a novel that works as an intense series of character portraits that will leave the reader touched and delighted.

My Take:  I like reading murder mystery on occasion. It is a lot of fun trying to guess the murderer along with the investigation.

I actually figured out who the murderer was pretty early on, but 2 things in the end caught me completely by surprise.

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Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

Goodreads Summary:  A beautiful retelling of the Celtic "Swans" myth, Daughter of the Forest is a mixture of history and fantasy, myth and magic, legend and love... To reclaim the lives of her brothers, Sorcha leaves the only safe place she has ever known and embarks on a journey filled with pain, loss and terror. When she is kidnapped by enemy forces and taken to a foreign land, it seems that there will be no way for Sorcha to break the spell that condemns all that she loves. But magic knows no boundaries, and sorcha will have to choose between the live she has always known and a love that comes only once.


My Take:  This wasn't the book for me. I really tried to get into this book at one point I found myself just doing some skipping around and skimming to see where it was going and decided, this is not worth the effort to read.


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