A Book Addict's YA Palace: blog tour

Review Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond

Time for another review, Addicts. This one is for GIRL IN THE SHADOWS by Gwenda Bond.
Read on to see where this one fell on the Addiction Scales :)

Girl in the Shadows
Gwenda Bond
(Girl on a Wire #2)
Published by: Skyscape
Publication date: July 5th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Eighteen-year-old Moira Mitchell grew up in the shadows of Vegas’s stage lights while her father’s career as a magician soared. More than anything, Moira wants to be a magician too, but her father is dead set against her pursuing magic.

When an invitation to join the Cirque American mistakenly falls into Moira’s possession, she takes action. Instead of giving the highly coveted invitation to its intended recipient, Raleigh, her father’s handsome and worldly former apprentice, Moira takes off to join the Cirque. If she can perform alongside its world-famous acts, she knows she’ll be able to convince her dad that magic is her future.

But when Moira arrives, things take on an intensity she can’t control as her stage magic suddenly feels like…real magic. To further distract her, Raleigh shows up none too pleased at Moira’s presence, all while the Cirque’s cocky and intriguing knife thrower, Dez, seems to have it out for her. As tensions mount and Moira’s abilities come into question, she must decide what’s real and what’s an illusion. If she doesn’t sort it out in time, she may forever remain a girl in the shadows.

Goodreads Amazon

MY REVIEW:
Thanks to Gwenda and Xpresso Book Tours for letting me join in on this blog tour and for gifting me a copy of GIRL IN THE SHADOWS in exchange for my honest opinion.
GIRL IN THE SHADOWS is the prequel to Gwenda's GIRL ON A WIRE book, so you don't have to have read the first to appreciate this one. And appreciate it I did.
Overall this was a good read, quick and interesting and I really enjoyed the idea of the world of traveling circuses and magic.
Moira was an interesting heroine, kinda annoying at time, but many YA girls are. I liked that she wanted something and went for it, though her parental issues need to be worked out more. This book had a slower, much less action and adventure pace and feel that made it hard to keep on reading at certain points, but I am glad that I did finish this. The ending was a decent one.
My real problem was, that as cool as the magic/circus world was, it wasn't fully developed. Same with all the characters, even the heros and supporting ones. I think if those things had been much stronger, this book would have been a fantastic read.
In my own opinion, if a book isn't going to be packed with action, adventure or untypical drama, then there needs to be another really unique, attention grabbing element that hold a reader and makes the story really sparkle. This totally cool cover does a good job of drawing people in, but the story just didn't follow through.
Overall, not bad; I will recommend this, and I will, most likely, pick up the other book in this series at some point.
-DynoMoon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels Lois Lane: Fallout and Girl on a Wire, among others. Lois Lane: Double Down and Girl in the Shadows, a companion novel to Girl on a Wire set in the Cirque American, are next up in 2016. She’s also hard at work on some secret projects you don’t know about yet.

Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe. There are rumors she escaped from a screwball comedy, and she might have a journalism degree because of her childhood love of Lois Lane. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on Twitter.

WEBSITE GOODREADS TWITTER

3:30 AM
0 Comments

Review The Midnight Society by Rhonda Sermon

3.5 star

Hello Addicts, long time no book chat ;P I have a new review today THE MIDNIGHT SOCIETY by Rhonda Sermon! I apologize to Rhonda for not getting this posted sooner, but none the less, read on to see where the first book in relaunched Sci-fi series fell on the addiction scale.

The Midnight Society (The Midnight Chronicles #1) by Rhonda Sermon

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Release Date: May 15th 2016

Summary from Goodreads:

Witness protection has a protocol for dealing with every situation—except magic. Fifteen-year-old Cate's life has been monitored since her new identity was created five years ago. She's spent countless hours learning how to deal with potential threats and dangerous situations. None of which is any use when everyone around her is suddenly frozen like statues at the bus stop. As Cate attempts to make sense of the frightening scene, a mysterious group of teenagers appear out of thin air. They are intrigued she’s not affected, but focus on completing their deadly mission, using baffling powers before they vanish again. When the group seeks her out the next day, Cate is drawn into a world filled with sorcery and time travel. After she accidentally brings a cheerleader back from the dead, her incredible powers are revealed. Cate is shocked to discover she has a pivotal role to play in a centuries-old battle between two mortal enemies which threatens to destroy her entire world.With the distinction between good and evil blurred, she’s faced with the excruciating choice ofwhich side to join. Cate can save her family or protect thousands of people from death. She can't do both. Will she risk destroying innocent lives to save the ones she loves?The Midnight Society is the first book in The Midnight Chronicles series of young adult urban fantasy novels. If you like original butt-kicking heroines, fast-paced urban fantasy action, and unpredictable time travel twists, then you’ll love Rhonda Sermon’s refreshing, entertaining series starter. The Midnight Society was originally released as Timesurfers. This book has a new name, new cover and additional content.

Buy Links:

Amazon

MY REVIEW:

The Midnight Society by Rhonda Sermon…………………….I’ve got a few things to say about this Sci-fi goodie! Overall I found this to be a good start to a new series that I can see really becoming something special as the series goes forward.

The plot was nicely pace, tons of actions that kept me interested. Maybe things happened a tad too fast though? While entertaining, I felt like several situations could have benefited from being slowed down a little and getting a chance to flourish a bit more. Despite that opinion, the plot twists, touches of humor and overall fun of THE MIDNIGHT SOCIETY made this a very enjoyable book, even if it’s not one I’ll reread three or four times like other books I love. The time travel aspect of this one was nice, if not maybe a little too convenient? But major points to Rhonda for making a hard thing like time travel easy to understand, work out well for the book and feel pretty possible! But then again, when an author gets the chance to go back and retouch up stories, a lot of great things are possible

Cate and Austin are our heroes---along with a nice supporting cast of characters that definitely had unique enough personalities that it was easy to keep them straight in my head---who were overall easy to relate to and root for. Cate is most certainly one tough cookie, though she did have moments that digressed into whiny and made me want to hit her. Austin was a fun hero, but I didn’t buy the insta romance between them or the chemistry at all. (This also goes back to wanting the plot to slow down, just a tad, in a few places to give things the benefit of growing and becoming more flushed out, as I said above)

Because of the clear emphasis put on making the story flow and keep moving and changing at a dynamic pace, I felt like the author put too much importance on that and not enough on really fleshing out her world and characters. But then again, she clearly had a lot to set up for the series to get a foot hold so…….I can get past it.

Rhonda has a great voice and writing style, paired with a really nice, unique and well thought out sci-fi concept that makes me want to read the next book in this series to see how this world continues to grow.

-DynoMoon-

About the Author

Rhonda Sermon lives in the mostly sunny Perth, Western Australia with her husband and two children. Her debut young adult urban fantasy novel Timesurfers was a finalist in the Young Adult category and overall runner up in the The Strongest Start 2012 Contest hosted by TheNextBigWriter.com. On the good days, she adores writing, on the challenging days, it's still awesome. Her two ragdoll cats can often be found helpfully walking over her keyboard, chasing her mouse or generally complaining loudly about the lack of priority their needs are being given. She's a big Harry Potter fan, loves everything the talented Cassie Clare writes and her fav Aussie author is Jessica Shirvington. Her 11 and 13 year old children read ALL the time so she is always on the lookout for new and exciting books.

a Rafflecopter giveaway