Review for Desires of the Dead by Kimberly Derting

Last year The Body Finder- the first book in this series- completely blew me away and was one of my favourite reads of 2010. It was creepy, suspenseful and had a fantastic love story, so when I heard that there was going to be a sequel Desires of the Dead I started counting down the days for the release date pining for my next Jay and Violet fix. Desires of the Dead has an intriguing new plot. The book starts with Violet finding the body of a young boy in unusual circumstances attracting the attention of the FBI who are dumb founded as to how Violet managed to find him. They’re convinced that Violet has some kind of power which could prove very useful to them and so Violet must decide does she keep her abilities to herself or risk being used as a human guinea pig for the FBI? On top of that Violet is struggling to figure out the new rules with her and Jay’s relationship. Now that they’re officially a couple Violet feels that she can’t tell Jay things that she used to especially when it comes to her abilities, she almost lost him once and she doesn’t want to put him in that kind of danger again, so when a series of disturbing events unfold Violet feels that this time she should try and handle things on her own but with the FBI on her back and a stalker growing more and more sinister will Violet turn to the people who love her before it’s too late? What I loved about The Body Finder was how completely creep-tastic it was. Kimberly Derting didn’t shy away from the scary and that made The Body Finder completely thrilling and unputdownable. I have to say that I was slightly disappointed by Desires of the Dead’s lack of creepiness. Unlike The Body Finder I figured out all the big twists and didn’t find the villain to be as terrifying as the murderer from the first book. Kimberly Derting definitely toned down the terror taking away a lot of the suspense that The Body Finder had, taking away the thing that made it stand out from other young adult books. I personally love my thrillers and I admired Kimberly Derting for not shying away from the ugly stuff just because she was writing for a teen audience. I like my villains to be as terrifying as possible, the more sinister the better and I really hope Kimberly goes back to that theme with the rest of the books in this series. That being said I loved everything else about this book. I loved Kimberly Derting’s idea of bringing the FBI into the story setting up for potentially a whole lot of awesome in future books. Violet asks a lot of questions about her abilities in this book, like should she use her powers to help track down killers and missing people? And is she the only person with these kinds of powers or does the FBI already work with people like her? I really like the direction Kimberly Derting’s taking this series and I had to keep reading to find out what Violet was going to do. I loved seeing how Violet and Jay’s relationship developed in this book. It was so sweet and endearing watching them cautiously develop from best friends to a couple. Violet and Jay are one of my favourite young adult couples and I just love reading about them and watching them develop. As was with The Body Finder I loved all of the characters and found them to be really well developed. I didn’t agree with all of Violets decisions but I could understand why she did them so although I didn’t always agree with her choices I still respected and liked Violet because her intentions were always good. As always Kimberly Derting’s writing was wonderful if a little less creepy and atmospheric. She writes fantastic full bodied characters and creates the sweetest tenderest moments between Violet and Jay. Like The Body Finder there are alternate chapters giving us insight into the villain’s mind who in this case is Violets stalker. I always enjoy these chapters and find it adds a nice touch to the book. To sum up no I didn’t love Desires of the Dead as much as The Body Finder but it was a good solid sequel none the less. Desires of the Dead sets up all kinds of awesome for a potentially brilliant third book. I just hope that Kimberly goes back to The Body Finders roots and throws in lots of creepiness to give the third book that extra oomph that The Body Finder had. Overall I would recommend this book and I’m eagerly awaiting the next instalment to find out what happens to Violet and Jay next. My Rating 4/5 stars **** Thanks go to Headline for sending me a copy to review

Author Interview with Savita Kalhan author of The Long Weekend

Hey guys, I have a special treat for you this Friday to kick start the weekend, an author interview with the hugely talented Savita Kalhan who is in fact a lovely, very sane woman despite her gritty, psychological thriller for teens The Long Weekend. The Long Weekend has been receiving huge praise throughout the blogosphere as of late but in case you haven’t heard of it here’s what it’s about. "Sam knows that he and his friend Lloyd made a colossal mistake when they accepted the ride home. They have ended up in a dark mansion in the middle of nowhere with a man who means to harm them. But Sam doesn't know how to get them out. They were trapped, then separated. Now they are alone. Will either of them get out alive?"

Interview with Savita Welcome to Jess Hearts Books Savita! Hi Jess, thanks so much for inviting me here today! Your review of The Long Weekend was amazing, and I’ve been looking forward to this interview!

1.) How did you come up with the idea for The Long Weekend?

The idea came from something that almost happened – a flyer went round the local schools in my area warning that a large silver Merc or BMW had been seen cruising outside schools at pick up and drop off times. It made me wonder how easy it was for a predator to abduct a child, and I realised that it’s not so easy, but we all know that in real life it does happen. A scenario came to my mind where it happens with frightening ease. 2.) The Long Weekend is an intense read, were any parts hard for you to write? Yes it is intense, and yes some parts were very difficult to write! The writing came easy, it was the effect it had on me that was hard. Some scenes made me cry, others made me angry and there were some that gave me nightmares. Whatever Sam was feeling, I felt too. I did wonder how far I would be able to go in terms of writing about Lloyd and what he goes through, but in the end I realised I didn’t have to describe it all in detail in order to convey to the reader exactly what happens to him. 3.) Why did you decide to write about two 11 year old boys opposed to just one boy? Or for that matter a girl was it a conscious decision? No it wasn’t a conscious decision on my part. When the idea for the story came to me, my characters arrived at the same time – particularly Sam. His voice was there right from the very beginning of the book. 4.) Did you do any kind of research before or during writing The Long Weekend? No, I didn’t do any research at all. It was one of those books that didn’t require any research. I have met survivors of abuse and heard their stories. That was enough. 5.) Why do you write for teens above all other genres? I love writing teen/YA fiction partly because I love reading the genre myself! I’m an avid reader and I always have been since I was a very young child. As I was growing up and moved from the children’s library to reading books from the adult library, I ended up reading pretty much everything in both libraries. I didn’t feel that there was anything missing at the time until much more recently. There is now a teen/YA section in all libraries and bookshops, which have a huge variety of books that cross all genres, and that’s something that wasn’t there when I was growing up. I think it’s great that it was finally recognised that there was a huge gap in the market and that there were readers who needed and wanted books that bridged the gap between childhood and adulthood. I’m really happy to be playing a part in that. Besides I think teen/YA literature has some of the best reads out there no matter what your age! 6.) You’re a UK based author, is The Long Weekend available in other countries besides the UK? If not are there any plans to go global? At the moment The Long Weekend is only available on Amazon as a book and as an eBook, but the Book Depository ships the book anywhere in the world for free, so that’s pretty good. It can also be bought through Random House as Andersen Press, my publishers, are affiliated with them. But I am hopeful that one day The Long Weekend will go into translation and be available everywhere. 7.) Are you working on anything at the moment? If so can you tell us a little bit about it? At the moment I’m working on a psychological thriller about a 14 year old boy who wakes up in a hospital bed with no recollection of how he got there or who he is. I’m almost at the end of it, so I won’t say any more about it yet... You can get regular updates at my website, http://www.savitakalhan.com/ where you can have a look around, and even leave me a message on my message board! Or on twitter http://twitter.com/savitakalhan Or on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Long-Weekend-Savita-Kalhan/117223691628538 8.) Describe The Long Weekend in 3 words. Pretty damn terrifying! It was great talking to you Jess!

Thank you for doing this interview for us Savita! To find out more about Savita Kalhan or The Long Weekend stop by the links mentioned in the interview or read my review for The Long Weekend here.

Covers So Lovely We'd Lick Them! (9)

The new feature co-created and co-hosted by LadyViolet and Jess hearts books where we show off a book cover which we find so damn scrumptious that we'd actually be willing to lick it! Every week we each pick a different cover so be sure to check both blogs!

My Pick for this Week

Supernaturally by Kiersten White

So I’ve decided to be totally unoriginal this week and pick Supernaturally, the cover’s just been released and everybody’s posting about it, but I’ve only just read and loved Paranormalcy and with my review up on Monday I decided to stick to the same Evie loving theme this week. I LOVE the colours for this cover the pretty oranges, reds and burnt out browns aren’t hugely popular colour choices compared to the purple and black and whites of most paranormal books so I love that Supernaturally is different. Once again I want Evie’s beautiful dress and OMG that girl’s hair! Blonde bombshell anyone? I love Evie so much and unlike a lot of models on the front of book covers I can actually see this girl as my beloved book bff. For me this cover doesn’t disappoint at all and can certainly stand proud next to the beauty of the first book, and if Paranormalcy is anything to go by I bet what’s inside will be just as gorgeous as the cover. If you haven’t checked out the amazing Paranormalcy yet I highly suggest that you do and if you need any more convincing you can check out my Evie Rocks review here. So that’s my cover for this week. Feel free to leave me comments letting me know what you think of this week’s pick and if you ever get insane lust over a book cover, does a lovely cover influence you buying the book? Let me know and don’t forget to stop by Rachel’s blog to find out what cover she’d like to Lick this week!

Waiting On Wednesday (5)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is: The Goddess Test by Aimée Carter Publication Date: April 19th 2011 From Goodreads It's always been just Kate and her mom--and now her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall. Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld--and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests. Kate is sure he's crazy--until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride, and a goddess. If she fails... I love love love the sound of this book! Greek Mythology seems to be the new thing this year in YA fiction and it’s a subject that has always interested me. The covers gorgeous and it has praise from Cassandra Clare, I’m pining on this book so hard right now and although Aprils not long it still seems like such a wait. So excited for this one! What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Review for Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

"Sixteen-year-old Evie has always taken comfort in the fact that she is normal, even though her best friend is a mermaid and her ex-boyfriend is a lunatic – and a faery. In a world where paranormals are monitored and controlled, Evie works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency because of her unique ability to see through glamours. But someone – or something – starts killing vampires, werewolves and other paranormals, and Evie must figure out what’s happening before they all disappear." Paranormalcy was everything I hoped it would be and more. It met all of my expectations and then some and completely surprised me. I picked up this book expecting a good paranormal romance and whilst Paranormalcy certainly delivers that it also has so much more to offer. Kiersten White entwines light and dark perfectly, some parts of the book were action packed and full of mystery and other parts were funny and light-hearted. Most young adult paranormal stories are about a normal, plain girl who gets thrown into this paranormal world. Kiersten White offers up something original with our main character Evie already being in the middle of crazy paranormal goings on and all she wants is to be a normal teenager. Paranormalcy is very much a breath of fresh air in the YA Paranormal market bringing to the table plenty of new themes and originality. Evie’s well aware of the popularity of Vampires and things that go bump in the night and the book kicks off to a fantastically funny start when a vampire is stunned by Evie’s nonchalance towards him when- like most girls would be- she isn’t sucked into his charm because under his glamour as this hot guy she can see the aged, dried out, corpse that he really is. Evie’s awareness of the modern world makes her feel incredibly real making her immediately relatable to the reader. Kiersten White does a fantastic job of mixing legends and magic with modern technology and weapons, like Evie’s uber awesome, pink, rhinestone studded, supernatural zapper Tasey, making Paranormalcy feel very updated and cool. What made Paranormalcy positively shine for me were the characters. I love Evie. I love her so much that she’s actually become my second favourite character EVER. Picture Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, now give her brains a sassy, snarky personality to boot, and some pink but very lethal weapons to kick some paranormal butt and you have Evie. She’s a bad ass, smart, total girly girl with a heart of gold (in some cases quite literally!) who has a love for all things pink and trashy TV. She’s so different to any other young adult heroines out there. I love her more than cake and want to live inside this book forever so we can be BFF’s. All of the characters are strong and exciting to read about. I loved Lend Evie’s love interest and Lish her best friend who’s a freakin’ mermaid guys! *squee* the characters were so well developed and I enjoyed my time with every single one of them. I loved everything about Paranormalcy, the mythology and detail behind each paranormal creature was so well thought out and fascinating to read about. Although this book deals with all kinds of paranormals it has quite a lot of faerie action. Now I’m not usually a fan of books about faeries but the ones in Paranormalcy actually scared the bejesus out of me and I found them really captivating, interesting creatures. You can tell Kiersten’s spent a lot of time building this world up and it totally pays off. Kiersten White is a very welcome addiction to the parnormal romance genre. Her writings funny, dark and sassy and I already can’t wait to get my next Evie fix. If you’re bored of paranormal books and are looking for something to rekindle your love of the genre this fresh new take on things is for you. Recommended to anyone looking for an original, fun, paranormal read. My Rating 5/5 stars ***** Synopsis taken from Amazon Thanks go to Harper Collins for sending me this book to review