The Soul of the Witch by Dana Michelle Burnett

Published Date: July 19, 2014
Page Length: 246 pages
Available in: Print and Ebook
Available at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million


Do two halves really make a whole?
Two families joined together by a single moment in history, separated for over four hundred years. Both families being watched over by employees of a hypercritical woman, for generations upon generations and why? Because they possess a gift that she wants to extinguish. 
Mystery, revenge, anger, and confusion possess these two families for over four hundred years and threaten to continue. That is, until Devan and Janesa become best friends in high school. That is when weird events become apart of their lives. Clueless to what is going on Janesa and Devan are imparted upon the knowledge of their past, by the very man who during this generation is supposed to find them and eliminate them before they reproduce any more heirs to their gift. Nick, though hired to follow and eliminate these two girls, wonders if they are really as bad as all the files he has been given from the past four hundred years states. Going against his employer Nick hands over the files to Devan to help her understand what has been happening to her and her best friend and maybe even why.
Told from the present with Janesa and Devan ,as well as letters from the file from over the past decades their story unfolds in front of your eyes. Leaving you to wondering as to why these two families are followed so thoroughly and make your own decisions as to what is good and evil. 
A great story for those of you whom love a mystery, witches, and suspense. A must read

Disclousure: I received this book free for my honest review

Indexing by Seanan McGuire

Publication Date: May 21, 2o13
Page Length: 420 pages
Publisher: 47North
Available as: Print and Ebook
Available at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million
Read the First Chapter: http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/05/indexing-excerpt


Are fairy tales real? If so, how dangerous can they really be?

Seanan McGuire helps the readers explores a new way of looking at fairy tales, through the eyes of a field team employed by a secret government agency to stop these fairy tales from surfacing in the real world."...most important, thing you need to know about fairy tales: once a story starts, it won’t stop on its own. There’s too much narrative weight behind a moving story, and it wants to happen too badly. It won’t stop, unless somebody stops it."

Told from the point of view of the agencies top field team leader, Agent Henrietta Marchen (an adverted Snow White), you walk through different fairy tale stories trying to stop them from coming into the real world. The rest of the field team includes a wicked step sister, an elf from the Elves in the Shoemaker, a non story agent and a Pied Piper. Not only do you follow a fairy tale story through each chapter but you also are walked through the bigger fairy tale going on in the background oblivious to all.

This story was sometimes hard to follow, and though you were in a different fairy tale each chapter it was repetitive in some descriptions and slow to get to the main plot of the story. Finding this to be the only real down fall to the story, the new way of looking at fairy tales as a whole was enlightening. Being a huge fan of urban fairy tale stories, fairy tales told in different ways, I have not found one that I have read yet that views them this way. It makes you see the common fairy tale characters in a new light.

I was though, a little disappointed in the fact that there weren't all fairy tales introduced in this story, they introduced Mother Goose and  Alice in Wonderland which are not fairy tales. I also felt that a different title would have suited the book better.

The Catch by Taylor Stevens

Goodreads Synopsis:
Vanessa Michael Munroe, the informationist, chameleon, and hunter who has built her life on a reputation for getting things done—often dangerous and not-quite-legal things—returns in this new novel from the New York Times bestselling series by Taylor Stevens.
   In the wake of going head-to-head with international sex traffickers in The Doll, Munroe has retreated to Djibouti, where, while passing as a man, she finds work as an interpreter for a small, private, maritime security company. Pressed into duty at sea by her boss, Leo, Munroe discovers she is part of a gunrunning operation and she wants no part in protecting the crew or cargo. When the ship is attacked by pirates off the Somali coast, Munroe escapes and takes the unconscious captain with her to get answers. Leo's wife, Amber Marie, the only person Munroe has cared about since she arrived in Africa, is desperate when Leo goes missing along with the rest of the hijacked crew, so Munroe agrees to try to find him for Amber Marie's sake. She soon realizes it's not the cargo or the ship or the crew that the hijackers were after: they want the captain. On the run, wounded, without connections or resources, and with the life of the captain as bait and bartering chip, Munroe believes that the only way to save Leo, assuming he's still alive, is to hijack the ship back.
Review:
I am finding it really hard to review this book, since I have not read the other three stories in this series. I had not released when requesting this book that it was apart of a series.

That being said I had a hard time understanding where everyone was coming from and who they were. Though I found it slow for this first hundred pages or so I found this book to very interesting and captivating.

The Angry Woman Suite by Lee Fullbright

I can not say this better then the reviewers at Kirkus Reviews

KIRKUS REVIEW

Secrets and lies suffuse generations of one Pennsylvania family, creating a vicious cycle of cruelty in this historical novel that spans the early 1900s to the 1960s.

Raised in a crumbling New England mansion by four women with personalities as split as a cracked mirror, young Francis Grayson has an obsessive need to fix them all. There’s his mother, distant and beautiful Magdalene; his disfigured, suffocating Aunt Stella; his odious grandmother; and the bane of his existence, his abusive and delusional Aunt Lothian. For years, Francis plays a tricky game of duck and cover with the women, turning to music to stay sane. He finds a friend and mentor in Aidan Madsen, schoolmaster, local Revolutionary War historian, musician and keeper of the Grayson women’s darkest secrets. In a skillful move by Fullbright, those secrets are revealed through the viewpoints of three different people—Aidan, Francis and Francis’ stepdaughter, Elyse—adding layers of eloquent complexity to a story as powerful as it is troubling. While Francis realizes his dream of forming his own big band in the 1940s, his success is tempered by the inner monster of his childhood, one that roars to life when he marries Elyse’s mother. Elyse becomes her stepfather’s favorite target, and her bitterness becomes entwined with a desire to know the real Francis Grayson. For Aidan’s part, his involvement with the Grayson family only deepens, and secrets carried for a lifetime begin to coalesce as he seeks to enlighten Francis—and subsequently Elyse—of why the events of so many years ago matter now. The ugliness of deceit, betrayal and resentment permeates the narrative, yet there are shining moments of hope, especially in the relationship between Elyse and her grandfather. Ultimately, as more of the past filters into the present, the question becomes: What is the truth, and whose version of the truth is correct? Fullbright never untangles this conundrum, and it only adds to the richness of this exemplary novel.

A superb debut that exposes the consequences of the choices we make and legacy’s sometimes excruciating embrace.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lee-fullbright/the-angry-woman-suite/

September 2014 Review List

I thought I would give you all a preview of the books I have listed to read this month for Reviews:

The Angry Woman Suite by Lee Fullbright

Currently Reading 

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 2012

2012 DISCOVERY AWARD WINNER, FIRST PLACE, LITERARY FICTION
SAN DIEGO BOOK AWARD, "BEST MYSTERY"
2012 GEISEL AWARD FOR "BEST OF THE BEST," SAN DIEGO BOOK AWARDS
2013 READERS' FAVORITE INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS GOLD MEDAL, "HISTORICAL MYSTERY"
KIRKUS CRITICS' PICK
More from Kirkus Reviews:

"Raised in a crumbling New England mansion by four women with personalities as split as a cracked mirror, young Francis Grayson has an obsessive need to fix them all. There's his mother, distant and beautiful Magdalene; his disfigured, suffocating Aunt Stella; his odious grandmother; and the bane of his existence, his abusive and delusional Aunt Lothian. For years, Francis plays a tricky game of duck and cover with the women, turning to music to stay sane. He finds a friend and mentor in Aidan Madsen, schoolmaster, local Revolutionary War historian, musician and keeper of the Grayson women's darkest secrets. In a skillful move by Fullbright, those secrets are revealed through the viewpoints of three different people--Aidan, Francis and Francis'stepdaughter, Elyse--adding layers of eloquent complexity to a story as powerful as it is troubling. While Francis realizes his dream of forming his own big band in the 1940s, his success is tempered by the inner monster of his childhood, one that roars to life when he marries Elyse's mother. Elyse becomes her stepfather's favorite target, and her bitterness becomes entwined with a desire to know the real Francis Grayson. For Aidan's part, his involvement with the Grayson family only deepens, and secrets carried for a lifetime begin to coalesce as he seeks to enlighten Francis--and subsequently Elyse--of why the events of so many years ago matter now. The ugliness of deceit, betrayal and resentment permeates the narrative, yet there are shining moments of hope, especially in the relationship between Elyse and her grandfather. Ultimately, as more of the past filters into the present, the question becomes: What is the truth, and whose version of the truth is correct? Fullbright never untangles this conundrum, and it only adds to the richness of this exemplary novel."  Kirkus Reviews

The Soul of the Witch by Dana Michelle Burnett

Received free for my review from Librarything.com

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2014

From the author of the haunting Spiritus Series, comes an epic, mesmerizing novel of witchcraft and revenge.
Once again, she sweeps readers away with her spellbinding storytelling and the crafting of legend. Dana Michelle Burnett creates a reality of seductive witches, murder, revenge, and an ancient secret going back four centuries.
In a small Indiana town, alone in the dark, a man watches and waits...waiting to see if the stories are true about The Soul of the Witch.

It begins with two girls, the very best of friends with an amazing psychic bond. As children they were lonely outsiders, but now as adults, Devan and Janesa’s powers are growing stronger and more difficult to control. When a mysterious stranger comes to town offering to tell them a dark and magical secret about their past, they are thrown into an old battle they didn’t start, but one that threatens to claim their very lives.

Jealousy and suspicion threaten their lifelong bond as they set out to solve the mystery of their past and their budding supernatural powers. The novel moves from past to present from the small town of New Albany, to nineteenth century England, to the witch hunts in Ireland, and back again. A complex tale of seduction and evil unfolds--starting on a fateful night in the sixteenth century because of a forbidden love and a curse . . . A curse meant to punish and torment throughout the following centuries.

Can they trust this stranger? Can they trust themselves as the dark secrets they learn threaten to tear them apart? Will the curse at last claim The Soul of the Witch? 

Received free from Edelweiss Reviews for my Review

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2014

“Intelligent writing, masterful pacing, and tense and fluid action scenes that feel ready-made for the cinema." —Associated Press
 
   Vanessa Michael Munroe, chameleon and information hunter, has a reputation for getting things done—often dangerous and not quite legal things.    The adrenaline-fueled work has left her with blood on her hands and a soul stained with guilt. Having borne the burden of one death too many, Munroe has fled to Djibouti, Africa. There, where her only responsibility is greasing the wheels of commerce for a small maritime security company, she finds stillness—until her boss pressures her to join his team as an armed transit guard on a ship bound for Kenya. 
   Days into the voyage, Munroe discovers the security contract is merely cover for a gunrunning operation of which she wants no part. The ship is invaded off the Somali coast and in a moment of impulse while fighting her way out, she drags the unconscious captain with her. But nothing about the hijacking is what it seems. 
   The pirates were never after the ship; they’d come for the captain. In chasing him, they make their one mistake: targeting Munroe raises the killer’s instinct she’s tried so hard to bury. Wounded and on the run, Vanessa Michael Munroe will use the life of her catch as bait and bartering chip to manipulate every player with a stake in the ship’s outcome, and find a way to wash her conscience clean.

Received at a reduced price from Amazon Kindle First~ Release date October 1,2014

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2014

Some mysteries are better left unsolved.
It’s been fifteen years since Mandy Reasoner was murdered—a crime for which her boyfriend, Duke, was convicted. But when high school students and best friends Betty and June discover that Mandy was June’s long-forgotten aunt, they decide to pursue the mystery. Galvanized by the growing community who doubts the evidence against Duke and is rallying to free him, the two girls start on a path that will bring them not only to Duke himself but smack into Nickel, a canny, tough-as-nails teenage P.I. attempting to keep his own life together. They make a good team, but Nickel is on his own mission of revenge, and the web of lies surrounding Mandy’s murder is growing ever thicker.
The closer they get to the truth, the less clear the path becomes. Will they survive the fight to bring Mandy’s killer to justice?
Award-winning author Aric Davis brings back his captivating anti-hero, Nickel, in Tunnel Vision, a work of edgy noir about unlikely friendship and long-overdue justice.