Cold Burn of Magic

Title: Cold Burn of Magic

Author: Jennifer Estep

Series: Black Blade #1

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Magic, Swords, Romance

Source: Kindle

Pages: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Available at:

Amazon(.ca) • Goodreads • Amazon(.com)

Blurb: (via Goodreads)

There Be Monsters Here. . .

It's not as great as you'd think, living in a tourist town that's known as "the most magical place in America." Same boring high school, just twice as many monsters under the bridges and rival Families killing each other for power.

I try to keep out of it. I've got my mom's bloodiron sword and my slightly illegal home in the basement of the municipal library. And a couple of Talents I try to keep quiet, including very light fingers and a way with a lock pick.

But then some nasty characters bring their Family feud into my friend's pawn shop, and I have to make a call--get involved, or watch a cute guy die because I didn't. I guess I made the wrong choice, because now I'm stuck putting everything on the line for Devon Sinclair. My mom was murdered because of the Families, and it looks like I'm going to end up just like her. . 

My Review:

This book had been nagging me to read it for a while now. My Kindle knows that I love Jennifer Estep, so it just kept on recommending it to me. So, even though my TBR list is ridiculously long and has several books ahead of it, I finally caved and read Cold Burn of Magic.

Have y’all read Estep’s Elemental Assassin series? Because if you have, reading Cold Burn of Magic might feel like a bit of a déjà vu. You have the badass female lead with a secret heart of gold that has rare and powerful magical abilities combined with her natural bad ass fighting skills. After her mothers murder, she is driven to destroy her murder while being cared for by a surrogate father figure. The antagonist for the overall series is basically the equally powerful badass mob boss who killed her mother. Sounds familiar right? All that has REALLY changed is the age of our heroine and the magical word she was thrust in… and the lack of a smart assed best friend/ partner in crime (which we MIGHT have here, but we will have to wait until book two to figure it out).

Now, saying that, you don’t fix what ain’t broke. There is a reason this has worked for Estep for so long, because it is awesome and it works! So, I can’t give points for originality here, but what we can’t give there is made up in so many other areas. Such as our characters! Character wise we hit everywhere on the spectrum. We have our resident badass, a no nonsense mother, a bleeding heart love interest, a motor mouth, a cocky SOB, a crooked father figure, star-crossed lovers…. You get where I am going with this, right? With some authors, this could be a bad thing. Characters could get blended together, or some may be left under developed because of page length constraints. I am so happy to say that is definitely not the case with Cold Burn of Magic. Despite there being numerous main, and secondary characters, everyone comes out clearly defined, unique, and properly developed given how much they appear in this first novel of the series.

Looking at the plot, you can’t go wrong here. Information was given at a even, subtle pace and I never felt as though information was being thrown at me. You can tell that Estep plans out her plot lines thoroughly because minor details in the beginning of the book that appear to be unimportant, become back later on to further the plot along. And not only is she plotting out this book, but she is setting up the plot lines for future books. I have absolutely nothing to complain about here. Of course, Estep never had a problem with her writing. While this novel is targeted at a slightly younger audience, Estep maintains her mature writing skills throughout the novel.

Overall, this really was a great start to a series. It didn’t feel as though too much time was spent on developing the world, the characters were developed nicely, and I was very pleased at the younger target audience. This books only real fault is that it is basically just a recycled version of Elemental Assassin.

Depravity by M.J. Haag

Title: Depravity: A Beauty and the Beast Novel

Author: M. J. Haag

Series: The Beastly Tales #1

Genre: New Adult/ Adult, Fantasy, Fairy Tale, Romance, Magic

Source: ARC

Pages: 148

Rating: 5 stars

Available at:

Amazon(.ca) • Goodreads • Amazon(.com)

Blurb: (via Goodreads)

A classic fairy tale with a new twist, the Beauty and the Beast saga begins with Depravity... 

Sixteen year old Benella is concerned with two things–avoiding the two village boys who torment her and scrounging for food to help feed her family. Unfortunately, the best wild fruit and vegetables are near the walls of the estate, a dark misty place inhabited by an unforgiving beast.

When her tormentors lock her behind the massive gates, Benella knows her fate is sealed. Yet, the fate isn’t one she expects. Her encounter with the beast starts a bizarre cycle of bargaining for her freedom, a freedom the beast seems determined to see her lose.

Note: Intended for mature readers due to sexual situations, violence (attempted rape), and moderate language

My Review:

Let me start by saying that I received this book in exchange for an honest review. This was Melissa’s first go around at publishing a more mature novel, which is just a polite way of saying that this book contains some more explicit nature and sexual content. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel going from the more teenage writing you see in Touch or her Judgment of Six Series, to a book that describes some pretty sexual acts, but Melissa has done a fantastic job retelling the classic and iconic story of Beauty and the Beast. This short book was just part 1 of a 3 part series, with each book being released within a month of each other.

Now let’s get to the good stuff, the characters. Here, Melissa really did her research. Depravity was the perfect blend of the classic French tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and the iconic retelling by Disney. One of my favourite characters was the Baker, who reminded me a lot of Gaston and yet was a very minor character in the scheme of things. (spoiler) He was a bit of a creep, but a harmless creep. All bark and no bite. While he wants Benella, he never does anything to physically obtain her despite having the opportunity to. (end spoiler). I also loved how Melissa brought back Benella’s (who you might know as Belle, or the Beauty) two extremely selfish and vain sisters. Unlike Cinderella, these sisters are her blood, which makes they way they treat her so much worse. Benella herself was the Belle we all know and love. A sweet girl who loves two things unconditionally: books, and her father. Her loyalty to her family, even the sisters that mistreat her, was beautiful. We didn’t get to see too much of the Beast in part 1 of the series, but what we do see of him is fantastic. He is the grumpy, short-tempered beast we all know and love, but you get to see glimpses of his softer side… even if they are interrupted by his growling temper. All of the characters, no matter how minor or major, are excellently well written. You really grow to love some while hating others. Part 1 was mostly spent rounded out each character and really setting up what is to come in part 2.

As for the writing… well, Melissa never did a problem with her writing. She can articulate a vast variety of emotions and feeling to her readers within a short paragraph. This fact has not changed when she switched over to a different target audience. Within a very short span (only 150 pages!) she really sets up the plot for the next 2 instalments without the reader ever getting bored. Every sentence was interesting, every character was fascinating, and every little tidbit Melissa added to the widely known tale was captivating. I was completely absorbed inside this novel the entire time reading it, and when it was finished, I was left desperate for more.

I think you are picking up what I am laying down here. This book was fantastic. I would recommend it to anyone I felt was mature enough to handle the sexual content described. Let me tell you, if you love Beauty and the Beast, you will LOVE Depravity. An extremely easy 5 stars to give! This book comes out on June 16, 2015, and the second part, Deceit, is already out on amazon for preorder and will be released on July 21, 2015.

If you want to know more about Melissa Haag’s more Young Adult writing you can look at my reviews for Touch, or the books in her Judgment of Six series/ Companion Novels: Hope(less)/ Clay’s Hope, (Mis)fortune, (Un)wise, (Un)bidden)

Talon by Julie Kagawa

Title: Talon

Author: Julie Kagawa

Series: Talon #1

Genre: fantasy, YA, dragons, romance

Source: Kindle

Pages: 461

Rating: 3 stars

Available at:

Amazon(.ca) • Goodreads • Amazon(.com)

Blurb: (via Goodreads)

Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser.

Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. As Ember struggles to accept her future, she and her brother are hunted by the Order of St. George.

Soldier Garret Xavier Sebastian has a mission to seek and destroy all dragons, and Talon's newest recruits in particular. But he cannot kill unless he is certain he has found his prey: and nothing is certain about Ember Hill. Faced with Ember's bravery, confidence and all-too-human desires, Garret begins to question everything that the Order has ingrained in him: and what he might be willing to give up to find the truth about dragons.

My Review:

I put off reading this book for a while. I bought it when it was being promoted for $0.99, and I was excited about it, until I read some of the very mixed reviews on the book. So, I put it off!... and off… and off.. until this week when I decided enough was enough and I finally needed to read this book and make my own opinions.

First let me note that I completely understand the mixed reviews. I found that the writing itself was pretty good, standard for a YA author. There were no major incidents where I felt the writing was awkward or broke the stories flow because I had to go back and reread a sentence a few times to get what the author was trying to convey. As for the plot… where that’s where I ran into a few issues. For a book that was just over 450 pages, I felt like it was quite rushed. The beginning was great until the first POV change… then everything just kind of when down hill from there mainly where the characters and their development was involved.

My first major pet peeve of this book is the fact that Ember and Dante are supposed to be these twins… yet they do almost nothing together. They rarely hang out together, they don’t train together, and they barely exchange dialogue unless it was to display Ember’s rebellious thoughts and feelings and to contrast that to Dante’s loyalty. Not very twin like at all.

My second issue was with the romantic aspects of the novel. When Garrett is introduced to Ember, he falls for her pretty damned fast, which I can almost justify because he as been secretly spying on her for weeks and has gotten to know her from afar. However, the rate that Ember falls for Garrett was ridiculous, especially because there were other possible love interests that could have been explored (i.e. her BFF’s brother or one of the other guys in their friend group), but never were. So, it wasn’t like Garrett wasn’t the first guy to give her some attention. And the attempt to create a love triangle was feeble at best. Cobalt/ Riley should have either been more present, or his POV should have been more frequent in earlier chapters for the love triangle to develop nicely with a gradual flow. The way it was done in the book felt forced. A successful love triangle doesn’t just rip the main characters heart in two directions, it should also rip the readers heart in two directions simultaneously as well (see the Clockwork Trilogy by Cassandra Clare for an excellent example of this). Riley/ Cobalt is introduced very briefly at the beginning, then randomly in the middle before we see his point of view later on and understand he is suppose to be the rival love interest.

Both issue that I had with the book (I felt) heavily impacted the development of the relationships and the characters that were involved, which I found to be a little disappointing because I feel that with a little fine tuning, this book could have really been great. Now, while I did have some major issues with the book, I feel I should also mention that the plot line was laid out quite well despite being a little clichéd. The pace was a little fast in my opinion, but despite that I felt that certain characters (i.e. Lilith/ aka Scary Dragon Lady) were portrayed perfectly and kept the pace from feeling to rushed. I have a certain soft spot for villainous characters, because it takes a lot of creativity, imagination, and skill to make them believable and wonderfully evil.

Lilith is basically the main reason that this book is getting a half point more than I think it has earned, but the skeleton of the plot was actually pretty interesting as well. Seeing as it is the first book of the series, and a lot needed to get established before the plot can really flourish, I am going to give the book the benefit of the doubt and give it 3.5 stars. I truly hope that book two gives me more confidence in the series!

Everywhere It's You by CB Salem

Title: Everywhere It’s You

Author: CB Salem

Series: Everywhere It’s You #1?

Genre: Sci-fy, Romance, New Adult, future

Source: ARC

Pages: 145 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Available at:

Goodreads • Amazon(.com)

Blurb: (via Goodreads)

In a city where you can never trust anything to be as it appears, legal investigator Kristina Andersen finds the truth. So when she has a sexy encounter with enigmatic billionaire Landon Tatum while working undercover at a birthday party hosted in a seedy strip club, her first instinct is to dig deeper. 

The next morning he's missing, and the firm tells her she needs to either find him in the next forty-eight hours or lose her job. But as she begins her investigation, she quickly realizes that whoever is after Tatum has a surprise for her too: she's been drugged so that every man she sees looks like the man she's searching for.

The man who sets her heart racing, even after years of keeping that part of herself locked up.

Someone is warning her to back off. But even if her intuition says this is bigger than she can handle, she can't turn away. And as she falls deeper into a world of illusion and deceit, she realizes she’s fighting for more than just her job.

She’s fighting for her life.

My Review:

I received this book in exchange for an honest review. Despite Science fiction not being my usual genre to read, especially futuristic romances, but I thought that I would give Everywhere It’s You a chance because its blurb intrigued me.

There was very little I disliked about this book. I did feel that it was a little difficult to get into only because it looked like it was going to be a little cliché and I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. However, I just kept on going and actually ended up really enjoying it. There is a fantastic blend of characters. I found Kristina, our main character, quite relatable which attests to the writing. Given the situations she was put in, the emotions she gave off seemed genuine and never forced or awkward. Out love interest is still a little bit of a mystery, and I would have liked to learn more about him, but given the constraints of the length of the novel, I can understand why we didn’t get to see more of him.

Again, given the length, the plot went at a fast, but understandable pace. It did feel a little rushed, and I really wish that the author would have extended the novel’s length just a little bit more just for the plot’s sake, but I still enjoyed it regardless.

Overall, the book was pretty good. I do wish it was a bit longer (maybe 50 pages or so) because I would have loved to see more development in both the plot and characters that a short novella length book just can’t satisfy. However, what was there was fast and easy to read and was very well written. I will definitely keep an eye out for book two! 4 stars for Everywhere It’s You!