Air Awakens by Elise Kova

Title: Air Awakens

Author: Elise Kova

Series: Air Awakens #1

Genre: Fantasy, YA, Elemental, Magic, Romance, Swords, Medieval

Source: Kindle

Pages: 377

Rating: 5 stars

Available at:

Amazon (CA) • Goodreads • Amazon (US)

Blurb:

A library apprentice, a sorcerer prince, and an unbreakable magic bond...

The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.

Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.

Review:

Wow. Just wow.

This book first caught my eye while I was browsing Amazon for some new kindle books because of its cover art. I don’t tend to see a ton of drawn cover art, or maybe I have and I just haven’t really realized it, but regardless, this cover art was so beautiful that I had to click the link and find out what it was about. I read the blurb (which you can see above) and I was already drawn in. I loved the concept, I loved the main character’s name, and I loved that the main character was a book lover (aka library apprentice). So, I gave it a shot. And boy am I glad I did.

First looking at the writing, it was beautiful. It was eloquent, it was mature, and it really drew you into the story. I find sometimes that bad writing can really distract me from the story itself, but Elise Kova’s writing was a siren that called me to keep reading until it was 2am and my exhaustion came second only to my desire to read more and learn what happened next. Partnered with her fabulous writing is her intriguing plot. I think we have all read the story where the book loving, low born girl falls in love with a hard headed prince, but Kova made it her own! The world she creates in this album was a piece of art, and everything in it had the distinct purpose of driving the plot and the character’s development forward. It sounds simple, but so many authors fall into the trap of writing fluff that is entertaining, but doesn’t do much for the story other than entertain the audience.

And speaking of character development, another point goes to Elise Kova! While this was the first novel of the series, and not a ton of development is expected coming out of the starting gate, Kova surprised me by the amount of development we do see in Vhalla (our main character), and the dark and mysterious heir to the throne, Aldrik. Within the 350+ pages, we get a good first glimpse of who these characters might become as the story goes forward. Aldrik is desperate to let someone in, and by some twist of fate, Vhalla is put in a position where she can, and does. The author conveys so much emotion in these characters with so little effort, it is really something to behold. I expect more to come in the next instalment of the series, Fire Falling, and I can’t wait to see how not only the characters grow, but how the relationships between the characters grow as well. I am also excited to see how some of minor character’s in book 1 might grow to become more central!

I absolutely love this kind of love story, the ones that start off with a not so pleasant relationship, but slowly turn into something more. Aldrik is such an arrogant jerk, and every girl loves the bad boy deep down. It’s always fascinating to see how those layers get exposed, and learning who the man is behind the arrogant exterior. We get a taste of that in Air Awakens, and I think it’s safe to say we can expect more as the series will move on.

Overall, this was a great read. It was intriguing, enthralling, and it was excellently written. This is one of those cases where you really can judge a book by its cover! 5 stars for Air Awakens, and I encourage every YA fantasy reader to give Elise Kova’s debut novel a shot!  

Charcoal Tears by Jane Washington

Title: Charcoal Tears

Author: Jane Washington

Series: Seraph Black Series #1

Genre: YA, Supernatural, Romance, Magic Powers, Suspense, Crime (sort of)

Source: ARC

Pages: 268

Rating: 4.5

Available at:

Amazon (CA) • Goodreads • Amazon (US)

Blurb:

“You see, there is safety in simplicity… in a life of simple peace, where the electricity doesn’t dance across the backs of my eyelids, and the sparks don’t slither over my consciousness. Only asinine peace, where my paintings don’t seem to paint themselves, leaving me with terrible feelings of premonition and a chill beneath my fingernails.”

Seraph Black used to think that she was prepared for anything. She could last days without eating, and she always walked away from the violent altercations with her father relatively unharmed. She even survived working at the club, surrounded by the dregs of society, all staring into their bottles instead of noticing the unravelling lives that trailed behind them.

She had thought that she could survive anything, but she wasn’t prepared for Noah and Cabe to come bulldozing into her life, careless of the precious secrets they picked apart in their quest to take over her world. She was even less prepared for the mysterious Miro and Silas, but most of all…
Most of all… it was the stalker that threatened her talent for surviving. She wasn’t ready for the photos, and the messages. The warnings. The threats.

Seraph’s life of surviving in the shadows was over, because the searchlight had found her, and there was nowhere that she could hide

Review:

This is the second book I have received in exchange for a review by Jane Washington (the first being Hereditary which you can read HERE). I said it for Hereditary, and I will say it again, the book was fantastic! The ideas were outstanding and unique, the writing was intriguing and well versed, the plot had all the right ingredients for perfection, and the execution? Well, it wavered for me in some areas, but overall, a HUGE step up from Hereditary.

Starting off with the characters, we have a very relatable main character that narrates her story for the reader. She is a girl whose mother has died, her father is abusive, she is responsible for not only herself, but her little brother, and she feels like she is alone in the world. So, when two mysterious strangers come into her life and want to be her friends, it’s a huge deal because she no longer feels like such a freak. Washington does a fantastic job of writing Seraph as a character. She doesn’t develop too much, only slightly by the end of the book, but we do get to see some major character development from Silas, one of the love interests in the novel. And if I am being honest, it was a good move on the authors part. It was so much more interesting to see his development than Seraph’s, and the way Seraph is developing (slowly but surely) matches who her character is.

I can’t complain terribly about the writing. I did see a few errors, but then again I did receive an ARC copy so I am not shocked by them and they didn’t sway my opinion on the books rating. What I did have a bit of a hard time with was that the novel is set in Seattle, which is in America, and yet the jargon (slang/ lingo) is clearly British. Luckily, I am currently living in Ireland and I have caught on to a lot of the slang here so I didn’t have that big of a problem with reading it, but it was distracting for me nonetheless. It would have been one thing if it was set in the UK, but with it being set in America, I felt that there needed to be an effort toward straying away from the British slang and adapting toward the American version, and/or change the setting of the novel to the UK… Unless there is a Seattle in the UK that I don’t know about that is? Of course, other than this, the novel is VERY well written, and having reread Hereditary before starting this novel, I can already see the massive improvement not only in Jane Washington’s writing, but also her ability to craft a plot.

Jane Washington has always been good with a good love triangle, or a love rectangle, plus one, whatever that is (anyone catch the One Tree Hill reference there? I couldn’t resist <3), but in this novel, she really brings it to new heights and I was incredibly impressed. It didn’t feel forced, and it didn’t feel awkward, or like Seraph was being torn in different directions, or that her heart was suffering, it actually felt very natural. One of my biggest complaints about Hereditary was that the connections the main character made to new characters (i.e. new friends at a new school) felt very rushed. She trusted these people right away and they were all BFF’s with a snap of the finger and it didn’t feel developed or natural at all. In this case, you get a flavor of that, Seraph trusts the guys almost immediately, but there is a whole supernatural explanation for it that justifies the inexplicable connection. Even then, she admits to herself (and the reader) that she isn’t 100% sure she does trust them, but she tries her best to. So, I have to give a huge round of applause for finding a creative work around for a previous plot problem.

Plot wise, I was kind of disappointed that we didn’t find out how Seraph’s mother died… there was definitely the opportunity for it, but it never presented itself. Also, the Seraph alludes to being sexually abused, but that is never really elaborated on either. However, she definitely acts like a victim of sexual abuse, especially in the beginning in the novel. I do feel like there is a HUGE gap where her past is concerned, and that was a problem for me in this book. Saying that, there are two more books in the series, so it might get answered for me. Speaking of more books in the series, did you know that the second book is out? Yeah, I already bought it. And I’m going to read it 10 seconds after I post this. Goodbye sleep, I didn’t need you anyways! That cliff hanger is too much for me to wait!!

Anyways, overall, great book, I loved it, you will love it, but it, read it, and tell all your friends about it J Now, I have to go, Watercolour Smile is calling my name!

Shadows at Sunset by Tonya Royston

Title: Shadows at Sunset

Author: Tonya Royston

Series: Sunset Trilogy #1

Genre: YA, Romance, Mystical, ????

Source: ARC for honest Review

Pages: 304 pages

Rating: 2.5 stars

Available at:

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

Blurb: (via Goodreads)

She never thought her ability to communicate with wild animals was anything more than a unique gift. But this gift is tied to a long history of secrets that threaten to shatter her one chance at true love…


Laken Sumner isn’t your average teenager. Ever since she realized that wild animals could hear her thoughts, she’s spent more time in the woods with them than with other children. Even her wolf is a better friend to her than most people. She trusts him—so much so that she follows him out into the wilderness in the middle of the night to find a lost little boy. But the boy’s disappearance is only the beginning.


The one bright spot in her life is Noah Lawson, the handsome new town deputy. Charming and mature, he almost seems too good to be true. Then she meets Xander Payne, the new boy at school, who seems to know something about her. But how could that be possible?


As strange things begin to happen in her sleepy New England town, Laken wonders if Xander has something to do with it. Or is it just a coincidence that danger targets her soon after he arrives? 

My Review:

I have never felt more conflicted about a book before. I actually liked this book, I liked the characters the premise, but there also a lot of things that needed work. So bare with me as I try and work this out.

Let's start with the fact that this is not a series, it's a serial. For those who don't know the difference, a series is one large plot that encompasses the entire series, with subplots for each novel that act as a driving force for that overarching plot. Now, that's a rough definition, it varies a bit with longer series that exceed 4 novels, but at the end of each novel, something is resolved, even if there is a cliff hanger at the end. A serial is made up of several parts that when put together make one long novel (a great example of this is the Beastly Tales by MJ Haag). Serials don’t have to resolve anything, they can stop at any point in the larger story. At the end of this novel there was no resolution, there was no explanation to the events of the novel thus far, it just suddenly ends... So it's a serial. This was slightly frustrating to me because I was anticipating a novel and I found myself extremely frustrated that there was no explaining going on. I'm still not sure if this is a werewolf book, or what the mystical element to the novel is. If I had one major problem with this part of the serial, it's that I gained nothing from the book other than learning who the characters were. I don't even know what the conflict is yet. This was a major problem for me.

My other issue was that I strongly felt that the novel needed to go through some kind of beta reader or editor. While I found no grammatical issues, the writing was over descriptive and the dialogue was forced in a lot of areas, especially in the beginning. There was a lot more telling than there was showing, and I felt that the author needed to have a little more confidence in the reader being able to paint images on their own without descriptions and explanations being shoved down their throat. It was hard to get into the book, and if I weren’t reading this book in exchange for a review, I would have just put it down. I'm glad I didn't, I'm glad I pushed through it, because there is actually a story in there that has so much potential.

The only thing this novel did was really introduced the characters and beginning of the rising action of the story. Even here I was a little disappointed because even though she used the whole book for this purpose (304 pages people), a lot of the characters are really static. The only developed character is the main character Laken, Xavier was slightly more developed than the rest too. The reason this happened is because the author kept cutting off scenes! She would introduce a scene, like when Noah comes over to the Summer’s house for dinner for the first time, and she starts the scene, introduces some cute dialogue, then ends it after a cute moment. You don’t actually get to see what happens at dinner, and that would have been a great moment to get to know not only Noah more, but Laken’s parents more as well. This is just one example, but this was a common pattern all throughout the novel.

Okay, I know I have criticism for all of the major points of a novel (Plot, writing, character development), but hear me out. There was so much potential for this book. Despite everything that was lacking in this book… and a lot is lacking… I still kind of liked it! Keep in mind that I am under no obligation to say this. I received this book for an honest review, and I have never held back when I have read a book for an author that was terrible, but this book wasn’t terrible. Do I think that this book needed to go through some kind of secondary reader before being published? Yes. Does it need tons of work? Yes. But under all of that there is a story worth telling. I got to scratch the surface of that in the first part of the serial, but there is much more hiding under there. If you are willing to take a chance and read this book, try to see what I see, then I suggest you go for it. Maybe wait until the second part (is out in February though so you can connect the two and you can maybe discover what the plot of this novel is really about. Also, Twenty-five cents for every printed and ebook copy sold will be donated to the Ian Somerhalder Foundation. So, you know, another reason to chance it!

So my final thoughts? This book wasn’t ready to be published, but with some alteration, it could be something really amazing. It has such a cool premise, who doesn’t love a girl who can communicate with animals? But everything around that premise needs some serious work.