Black-Eyed Susans

Title: Black-Eyed Susans
Author: Julia Heaberlin
Publisher: Penguin Group
Publication Year: 2015
Genre: Crime | Mystery | Thriller
Rating: 3

That was my grandfather’s one survival tip if I ever found myself trapped in a fairy tale. Keep your promises. Bad things happen if you don’t.

I read the blurb for this on Amazon and I instantly fell in love with the plot. There was just something about Tessa thinking that she was safe, but then the murderer starts leaving her flowers and that really intrigued me. I wanted to see how she reacted and where the murderer was going to attack again. However, when I started reading the book was not what I expected at all. For starters the plot wasn’t about the murderer returning in modern time, as I was expecting, but was more about the trial resolving around the man who was originally convicted as the Black-Eyed Susans’ murderer. At first I was a little disappointed but I quickly became invested in the plot when everything began to unfold.

Another thing that I wasn’t a fan of was the alternating point of views. Heaberlin worked it really well to introduce shocking things in one point of view that quickly produced a parallel in the other. They worked really well and it was a great technique by Heaberlin but personally I still didn’t like it. It was irritating and quickly became annoying as the book developed. Young Tessa’s point of view quickly became uninteresting and her character was too stuck up for my liking. All she seemed to want to do was disrupt the trial and she didn’t seem that impacted by her situation, which seems pretty improbable.

Some of the characters were really interesting. Older Tessa was such a great character for me. It was easy to see how much she worried about her little girl and the lengths she went through to defend her girl were admirable. Effie was such a great character as well, although I felt like she was a bit useless. She didn’t have a huge role in the novel other than as a supporting character. In young Tessie’s life, I was really intrigued by Lydia’s character. She was so dynamic and different and she was so loyal to Tessa! Although the ending ruined that a little.

Speaking of the ending, I don’t know about anyone else but the ending/cliffhangers were really predictable as far as I was concerned. I felt that young Tessa’s twist was much more interesting and definitely the most predictable of the two, however there were a lot of hints dropped throughout the novel.

In my opinion this book is quite good. It’s not as bad as I make out, I assure you of that! I just had quite a few faults with it. I would definitely suggest giving it a read!

Ruin & Rising

Title: Ruin and Rising (The Grisha #3)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Indigo
Publication Year: 2014
Genre: Fantasy | YA | Romance
Rating: 2.5

Yuyeh sesh. Despise your heart. Ni weh sesh. I have no heart.

I don’t know how I feel about this.

Personally I liked it. But also I didn’t like it at the same time.

I just- I can’t decide how I felt on a whole (and it was so hard to come up with a rating) so I’m just going to spew a few opinions and hope it all makes sense at the end.

So first up is Mal. Glorious Mal who I loved in the first book, hated in the second and just sort of tolerated in this one. I wanted to love him again in the last book. I didn’t want to close the novel despising him, but I just couldn’t help myself because he really was nothing but a pesky bug. I think what frustrated me the most about Mal was the fact that I knew exactly where the book was going to go right from the beginning. He was the ideal warrior, a solid best friend and I still couldn’t find it in my heart to like him. His only use was to play yet another love interest for Alina, or at least that’s how he felt for me, because any of the others probably could have taken up his role. Especially in the second book. Also, maybe it was because I’d read them all in such a short time, but I had pretty much guessed that there had to be something more to Mal. So when things came out I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. I could also tell exactly how Bardugo wanted her novel to end and it was not the ending that I would have chosen.

Which brings us to the Darkling. Who is this impostor or what exactly did Bardugo do to the Darkling? In the first book I loved his character. He was so, well, dark, then in the second book he disappeared for a while (a long while) and every time we saw him was pretty moot. I wanted to see more of him, I wanted to see more happen for him! I had hopes, high hopes, for his return in the last book. He would wreak havoc and live up to his name (and history) and everything would be gloomy and spectacular. But it wasn’t. He didn’t. Not really anyway. There was one scene really where he was terribly bad but other than that it was just more flirting and the development of his new power that I still don’t entirely understand. How did Alina ‘give him’ this power? I understand what it is and everything but how did Alina suddenly unlock it for him?

Speaking of powers, I love how Alina manipulated hers towards the end of this. Finally some development that I wanted to see! The etherealki were pretty great too when they started to create new uses for their abilities, and David (*sighs*). David is one of my favourite, underappreciated characters. He was just so smart and it was always so much fun reading about his various inventions! Especially when you added it to his doziness and utter lack of communication!

Nickolai was also one of my favourites and this book was so heartbreaking for me just because of his plot. I think I may have driven Charlie mental with all of my Nickolai messages. I just have a serious attachment to this sassy fox and his lines are without a doubt the best in the entire series. He has so many awesome one-liners and you just can’t help but love him for them!

And Alina. Well, yet again, Alina fell flat for me. I mean, seriously, how many times can the girl contemplate the colour of her kefta. She decided way back in book one that she would wear blue but still she keeps talking about gold and black keftas as if choosing the colour is the most important thing. She also has an obsession with comparing herself to other girls. I understand that it’s a natural thing to do for most girls, but seriously there should be more important things on her plate than worrying that the pretty brunette is talking to Mal again. What I wanted was for her to set Mal aside, to stop worrying about her pretty boy and start worrying about the more serous things but she just doesn’t seem able to.

I just felt like plot-wise, this failed for me. Ending-wise, this was also a fail for me. Characters, well there were some good characters. But I don’t think they were enough to save this series from it’s downward spiral. I’m just going to crawl back into my bed and reread Six of Crows.

So I wasn’t a fan unfortunately (sorry Charlie!). I would love to hear everyone else’s opinions though.

Siege & Storm

Title: Siege & Storm (The Grisha #2)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Indigo
Publication Year: 2013
Genre: Fantasy | YA | Romance
Rating: 3

You are right about one thing, Summoner. The Darkling is a powerul enemy. You might want to think about making some powerful friends.

• Shadow & Bone (The Grisha #1) review

I don’t. Like. Mal. Any more?

Well, I don’t like the Mal only seems to care about Alina and nothing but Alina. What happened to Mal from the first book who loved his friends and had a passion for tracking and defending Ravka? All he seems to focus on now is being jealous of anyone who even lays eyes on Alina, fighting to get over Alina and doing whatever he can to make himself look better to Alina. It irked me so much and I found him so annoying! In the first book I was seriously enjoying him and his relationship with Alina and in this one they just need to sit down and work things out. But instead all they appear to be doing is butting heads and arguing and not doing anything remotely helpful!  I can only hope that they fix it so that Mal can crawl back into my good favour in the next book because I found him seriously annoying in this one.

In fact, I might go as far as to say that I didn’t really enjoy this book? Okay, that’s a lie. At the beginning I adored the book. It had a serious Six of Crows vibe and while I adored that book, this one quickly fell from the high level that I had placed SoC on. When the Darkling was involved, everything was dangerous and exciting. Then came the vagabond Sturmhond and I adored him. I couldn’t help it! I have a thing for swaggering pirates with an abundance of charm and a smirk to boot. He caught me in seconds and I was in love with him long before I found out who he really was. My only issue was that, after that, Siege & Storm really started to seriously lack any sort of interesting plot. The novel spirals back into that of the first, leaving us in the mind-numbingly boring world of the social elites. Once again Alina’s thoughts turn to beauty and her romance rather than the real impending situation that she should be dealing with.Basically, it felt like it was dragging it’s feet for the majority of the middle of the novel before finally escalating into something interesting in the final quarter.

AND THOSE FINAL FEW CHAPTERS. AAAH.

But moving swiftly on, the one big issue for me in this was the Darkling was MIA for most of it. After the first part, he disappears only to reappear briefly now and then. I found the way that Bardugo did this incredible and I can’t wait to read the explanation for his random appearances in the final instalment! There’s so much about the Darkling’s newfound abilities that I don’t understand and I can’t wait to discover just what has happened to him! Especially considering he’s so much stronger than Alina when she’s got her amplifier. It’s so intriguing and I can’t wait to see how it all develops and if Alina will ever really be strong enough to defeat him!

Hopefully with the aid of our Steampunk!Pirate Privateer Alina will be able to do some damage to his ego! I need to read book 3 like now, to see how this all works out!

The Sky is Everywhere

Title: The Sky is Everywhere
Author: Jandy Nelson
Publisher: Walkers Books
Publication Year: 2013
Genre: YA | Romance
Rating: 3

“Doesn’t matter what anyone else would call it, Len,” he says. “This is our story to tell.”

What I would give to be able to remove a few parts of this story and tweak it ever so slightly to be able to make it better. The best thing about reading Jandy Nelson book sis that Nelso has a way with words that I’ve always admired. She writes and it’s raw feelings that get printed onto the page, I’m sure of it! Then every feeling that you read gets soaked up inside of you and you’re suddenly experiencing them yourself. Every quiver of excitement or drag of doubt. Every burst of love and even the harsh waves of inner turmoil. Nelson just has a way of inspiring emotions. It makes sense that her writing is so beautiful when you realise that Nelson is a published poet!

But once I got over Nelson’s beautiful beautiful writing and this gorgeous book (I’m not kidding, this book is seriously gorgeous! Before every chapter they have a lovely quote photograph and it just looks so good), I just couldn’t get into the story. One of the issues is that it has a lot of instalove. The moment that Lennie meets Joe she finds him hot and from there it’s just a straight leap to love. There’s no inbetween reall. But the one thing I couldn’t stand was that she didn’t just love Joe, she also had a thing with her sister’s boyfriend. That’s the thing irked me the most. Nelson tried to explain it but I just couldn’t see it as anything but wrong. It was so wrong. Especially as the novel developed and more things happened; I just couldn’t stand it. Perhaps it was okay at first but when her relationship with Joe began to develop I assumed it would stop. There were so many times when I was mentally-screaming “Lennie no!” only for things to get worse.

Despite that, there were moments of this book that had me laughing out loud. Gram was definitely one of the best characters. She brought so much comic relief to the story, sending me into the loudest laughs after everything had just been sad. Her family is just a ton of crazy weirdos and I loved everything single one of them. From her green-thumb Gram with aphrodisiac roses to her love drunk Uncle, who is believed to benefit from these magic roses (in the sense that he has had a lot of relationships!). This loveable family makes light of a terrible situation in their own way, fighting back against the sadness of losing someone close to them.

Then there’s the way death was handled. Those final chapters were so emotional! I swear it went from a regular story to just suddenly ripping at your heart-string and leaving you sobbing. It was terribly emotional and this is why it’s gotten as many stars as it did. 1 for the writing, 1 for the characters and 1 for the way that Nelson closed it all. It was so good.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this one but I know that a lot of people love it. I would definitely suggest giving it a go. I would love to hear what you all think of it~

Throne of Glass

Title: Throne of Glass
Author: Sarah J Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication Year:2012
Genre: Fantasy | Romance | YA
Rating: 3

Still the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lonely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.

I feel like I always read books in the wrong order. I’ll finish one book and I’ll be gushing about it to someone and they’ll just go “yeah but have you read their other series?” and I just sort of blanch. Most of the time I end up reading other series before an author’s most famous and this happened to me again with Throne of Glass. I fell in love with the ACOTAR series and then discovered that Maas had an entirely different series, with a badass assassin as a main character and I was over the moon. Naturally I ordered them all instantly. Now I’m not so sure I should have rushed into things as quickly as I did. It’s not that I hated this book, I just think I expected more than it gave me.

Going into this book I was ensured that she was as epic as Frodo and that the book was reminiscent of Game of Thrones and those are some big names to live up to. Needless to say I was prepared for awesomeness and at the start I got it. It was hard not to like Celeana at the start. She was smart and bitchy and acted exactly like I would have expected an A grade assassin to act after being stuck in the prison. She bigged herself up and given her attitude, I could totally believe the reputation. Perhaps, if she’d stayed that way for the entire novel I would have enjoyed Throne of Glass a lot more. As it happens, she began to slip for me for countless reasons.

One the attitude stayed. There were many times when we were heard about how amazing Celeana was but it wasn’t showcased until towards the end of the trials. Furthermore she’s obsessed with books! I’ve got nothing against books, I love books and bookworm characters. But when a tough hard-ass assassin who is training for a life or death competition the next day chooses to stay up all night reading instead, I can’t help but feel a little disbelief. Not to mention the fact that she appears to sleep through almost every time someone enters her bedroom. She even slept through the Crown Prince (who I imagine can’t be the quietest) sneaking into her room to leave a pile of chocolate and sweets on her bed. What sort of assassin wouldn’t wake up to that? Surely the greatest assassin in the world wouldn’t sleep through what could have been a potential murder attempt, especially with everything that was going on. There’s also the fact that most of the time she is complaining about her clothes, about the fact that she wasn’t invited to balls and, most importantly, the fact that the guy didn’t joke with her like someone else, so he must find her unattractive. After spending a year trapped in a salt mine, I assumed she would have had more important things to worry about like the impending competition and trials that she had to complete to in order to ensure she didn’t get sent back there?

Then there was a love triangle. Love triangles are the bane of my existence, and it was just my luck that there was one in Throne of Glass as well. Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan of this one either. Chaol I don’t mind. Chaol was calm, respectable and their relationship seemed a lot more realistic. From the get go he was suspicious and careful around her as one should be with the most feared assassin the Crown Prince takes an entirely different route. Chaol and Celeana’s relationship is a slow build but for me Dorian and Celeana’s seemed to much like instalove. From the get go they are flirting and she’s batting her eyelashes and getting things out of him. Not to mention all of the eye glances. And don’t mention the ending of all this to me because we all know what’s going to happen next.

Also what the hell is up with the glass castle? It was barely touched upon at all, it was just a random castle made out of glass thrown in there. Not to mention that the book is named Throne of Glass but even at this point I have no idea why? I’m assuming it has something to do with the glass castle but I’m not sure.

My main issue was that this book seemed more romance and playing princess that it actually did fantasy. When we got to the actual plot though (Maas glosses over a fair bit of the competition in my opinion) I really enjoyed it. The bits of the competition I read were entertaining (although perhaps a little benign considering who was competing and what they were competing for) and the fantasy parts may be the reason that I actually continue reading this! I liked reading about the Wyrdmarks and Wyrdgates and I was intrigued by the dark creatures.

Nehemia was also a shining star for me in this one. As a POC character in what I assume was a world of white characters aside from her guards, I was already rooting for her. I love POC characters and while I would prefer more than one as an MC I could handle it. Nehemia was a curious characters. She arrives randomly, without a proper explanation, and instantly befriends Celeana over the assassin’s knowledge of her native language. After that a friendship blooms and it’s one that I enjoyed reading about. The scenes with Nehemia may be some of my favourite and I can’t wait to see what happens with her in later novels.

All in all I’m a bit sceptical about continuing to the rest of the series but I’ve heard those books are better. But I might take a break before I do it. Also, by any chance, (potential spoiler but I don’t know because it’s a guess)

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Title: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Author: Ransom Riggs
Publisher: Quirk Books
Publication Year: 2011
Genre: Fantasy | YA | Romance
Rating: 3

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.

I- Er- Well. Where to start?

First I’d like to point out that I knew this wasn’t a horror book. I had heard so many great reviews about this one and gosh it looked amazing with all of the old-fashioned photography and I really wanted to read it! But I was worried as well. Because some of those photos (okay most of them) were dark and I don’t do horror. Horror is a strict no for me. But, after questioning some bookstagrammers, I safely started this novel and the start was really good.

When I first started I was convinced that this would be a 5* novel. The first few chapters were just great. Well, Jacob was a little annoying and I rapidly got bored of the workplace but after the twist I was hooked. Or at least for a couple of chapters anyway. After that I started to realise just how much I disliked Jacob. Jacob isn’t nice. He isn’t a good main character and boy is he annoying. He’s constantly complaining about his life without truly realising just how good he has it and he definitely doesn’t appreciate the people that he has left in it, despite the family tragedy that he just went through!

Furthermore none of the other characters really spoke to me either. They were the biggest issue that I had with this book. None of the characters were really developed and, considering how old they were, the children still seemed essentially childish. There powers were cool and all but there wasn’t really as much of a focus on them as I really wanted. Also the photographs were ruined here. Everyone seemed to have one just tucked into their back pocket and they were constantly just pulling them out for no reason other than to showcase them? They were awesome photos but it was just like they were put in there for the sake of it. They didn’t really serve the plot at all.

The twist themselves were predictable and the writing wasn’t anything special. Having just read the Raven Boys, I was so prepared for some glorious ghosty writing but instead I got this. It just seemed so simple in comparison and it really fell short for me.

I don’t even want to mention the romance because, really, how does that class as a romance plot? I- Just- No. Cersei and Jaime were a better love story than this and the incest was a lot less- shudders. No. I was not a fan of this relationship, regardless of how much Riggs wanted us to be.

Altogether this book could have been great. It had a great premise but it really wasn’t executed well. I don’t know if I’ll be picking up the next one.

The Girl on the Train

Title: The Girl on the Train
Author: Paula Hawkins
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Year: 2015
Genre: Mystery | Thriller
Rating: 2

Now look. Now look what you made me do.

What I was expecting going into this novel was a fast-paced psychological thriller but what I actually got were the jealous ramblings of a drunk woman and the obsession with being someone deemed worthy, but they can only be defined by their relationship. Paige also read The Girl on the Train and while she devoured and loved this novel (review here), I didn’t find it half as spectacular as it promised to be.

The opening pages were incredible. I was hooked on page one and two and then the plot (and the drinking) started and my motivation slowly started to dwindle. There were good points to this book, such as her black spots. The idea of her blacking out and forgetting things were reminiscent of Before I Go to Sleep – a book that I adored – and it really created a sense of mystery that I couldn’t get enough of. But that was the only good thing about her drinking problem. For the rest of her time her constant consumption of alcohol was repetitive and frustrating.

Except for when it proved functional! Like showing the differences between the characters. I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that I’m not a fan in changing POV’s but in situations like this it was seriously damaging for my opinion on the book. There were chapters where I couldn’t differentiate between chapters until Rachel started drinking. Not to mention the fact that there were time-skips between chapters that made the entire seriously more confusing!

I guess this entire novel would have been better if I hadn’t guessed the murderer halfway through the novel, as well. When it came to the big reveal towards the end, some people may have found it thrilling but I just couldn’t wait for it to move on to them getting taken away because I’d already figured it out so many chapters earlier! Maybe I read too many books, but this was so predictable.

This should have been a good book. The characters were dark with so many mysteries intertwined in their past and were perfect for any thriller with their psychological problems. But it was ruined for me by the things I listed above. But please be aware that this was my personal opinion. Many of you could love this like Paige did.

You should definitely let us know which one of us  you agree with~

Enrule

Title: Enrule
Author: Holly Sparks
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Year: 2015
Genre: Fantasy | Dystiopian | YA
Rating: 3

What little we have will soon be gone… and then what?

This sounds like just my sort of book! Anyone who knows me, knows that I adore zombie fiction. I seriously snatch them up and devour them all as if I was one of those human-munching monsters myself. So when I spotted a gorgeous picture of this one on Instagram, I just had to give it a go!

It didn’t let me down either. Firstly what a beautiful cover! I mean look at this gorgeous thing. Although I have no idea who the character is as this girl has white hair, while the main character is meant to have blonde. It’s still gorgeous though, but they definitely should have stuck the sword through a letter all Castle-esque. The blood-stained sword looks very majestic though and definitely alludes to all of the fighting that goes on in this. Because, let me tell you, this book is chock-a-block  full of action and all of the good stuff that you could possibly want in a zombie fic, feat many knives and the occasional saucepan!  There is an abundance of fight scenes though that sometimes feel a little bit repetitive, and does Ella have to kick everyone between the legs? But then that would make sense considering every guy, other than the few she decides to befriend, seem to be desperate to get into her pants. Like seriously, every guy?

In addition to that I also got a strong ‘the chosen one’ theme running through this. For starters she’s the only girl put into a room with all boys. Then she’s given private training by the second top fighter in the camp and she’s hand-picked by Kira out of everyone there. The romance is also a little meh for me. They meet eyes once and suddenly everyone is telling her how this guy has eyes for her? I’m just not a fan of the whole love at first sight thing – I prefer reading the chemistry and watching the relationship build naturally.

Following on from that, the relationships didn’t seem that believable to me. The characters too – they were a little 2D. I would have loved more of a backstory and more of a build of their friendship. Zoe, for instance, agrees to go with Ella despite the fact that she says there are people randomly walking around and killing people. Surely she would be a bit more sceptical of someone?

There were quite a few things that didn’t match up with me in this book, but it was an okay read. As it happens, I’m quite eager to see what happens next and see where the story leads after the cliffhanger we were gifted with at the end of the book. Good going Sparks! You’ve got me wanting to read more.

 

The Vow

Title: The Vow
Author: Felicity Goodrich
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Year: 2016
Genre: Women’s Fiction | General Fiction (adult) | Historical Fiction
Rating: 3

“She hated them for the things they had done, and yet she was envious of their small, petty sins.”

I don’t know what first drew my attention to this novel but as I was scrolling through Netgalley searching for something to read, something about this novel jumped out at me. After I read the blurb, I wasn’t totally convinced that this novel would be for me due to it’s religious aspects but the historical part of the novel made me want to give it a chance.

Now I’ve finished the novel, I am glad I gave it a chance. I’m a big fan of novels relating to World War 2 anyway, but I think what really topped it off was the religious element to it. I thought reading about a priest would be quite boring, but if anything it made the whole novel more tense.

Although I enjoyed the novel, I did think parts of it were a little slow but I think it was to be expected – after all it never claimed to be an action or thriller. I’m a little torn when it comes to talking about the pace of the novel as I know in order for us to understand the backstory we needed to be told this information, but some of the chapters just dragged. Saying this, I would have probably liked to have been given a little more information about Anna and Szymon as when the novel started there was already a developed relationship between the two so I would have loved to hear more about their past together. I think if we had this insight, it would have been easier to picture in our heads too. I mean, the relationship was well written and convincing but personally I found it hard because of Anna’s age. When the novel begins she is sixteen, there is obviously a relationship between the two even if it hasn’t developed into anything yet, but Szymon is older than her. I know age gaps were more common back then but as we are shown there is already something between them in the first chapter, that makes me think they have been close for a while before the novel began which means she would have been younger than sixteen. I’m probably making it into a bigger deal than it is but personally it bothered me.

If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t rave about the novel. It was a good a read, but I wouldn’t say I was excited over it. At times the novel really struck me. It was a little emotional at times, however in hindsight I wonder if that was because of my own empathy for those stuck in these events in real life, rather than the actual author’s description of them.

I’d like to thank Lake Union Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book to review. This has not affected my review in any way.

Never Forgotten

Title: Never Forgotten
Author: Kelly Risser
Publisher: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication Year: 2014
Genre: Science Fantasy | Ficton | YA | Romance
Rating: 3

She looked happy. Content. I wanted to remember her that way forever.

At the start I was hooked. The plot was interesting and the writing was good enough to keep me captivated. I wanted to learn more about Meara’s family; I wanted to know why her father had ditched and if her mother would survive and all about these grandparents that she hadn’t seen in years. But then I did that. I got to the main part of the story and everything sort of fell flat.

I couldn’t get into her relationship with Evan. At all. It was too much of an insta-relationship for me with Evan picking Meara out almost instantly when he had all of these other girl flocking for his attention. Their relationship was perfect and that was probably the main problem – it was too perfect. Everything just seemed to go so well for them both, even when they barely knew anything about each other. The other thing that bugged me was how little the author focused on Maera and her mother in comparison to Maera and Evan. Towards the middle of the story, Maera and Evan seemed to take the main stage while Maera and her family took the back seat. Some of their scenes really didn’t work for me and there were times when she acted much to childishly for me.

When the story did focus on her family it was incredibly interesting! It was fun for me to try to guess what sort of ‘species’ (for lack of a better word) that Maera belonged to and the moment they moved back to the sea I was  instantly thinking mermaid. Especially considering the beautiful cover of the novel. I love mermaid novels and I was so excited for this one and then it got even better. Selkies. Selkies! I rarely ever read stories about selkies so I was overjoyed when I discovered that that was what this fantasy novel was about. However the constant I’ll tell you later, I’ll tell you later from her father bored me. It just went on and on and it felt like it dragged too much.

As interesting as I found all of the selkie facts, I really wasn’t a fan of Maera, in fact I may have enjoyed the book more if Ula was the MC. I couldn’t connect with Maera much at all. Not to mention that there were parts that I thought were unnecessary, such as the scene with Kieran, because they were never brought up again. Nor did they further the story at all. The ending was cliché and boring as well. The ending was totally predictable and I’m not sure I’d be interested in reading the next but this book was an okay read. I think if Kelly had built up Maera a little better then I might have enjoyed this more.