Rhea Jensen series!

Rhea Jensen Series – 5 out of 5 stars!

Can I say how much I love this series?  This is one of my all-time favorite series. 

The series primarily follows the point of view of Rhea who is a private investigator.  It follows her conversion to the church and what this means for her participation in the PI/criminal world.  Each book follows a case (except for the Avenues, there the “case” is Rhea herself) as well as give further details about Rhea’s personal life.  Other main characters include Kathryn (Kay) a somewhat cutthroat reporter who balances out Rhea rather well.  Rhea’s love interests are all so different and can I say how much I love Ty?  This is why I found the Avenues so particularly enjoyable, it follows the Point of View of Ty in between books 1 and 2. 

I’m super excited for the release of UnPleasant Grove later this year!

My current recommended reading order of the books:

1. City of Angels
2. Welcome to Stalk Lake City
3. The Avenues
4. City Limits
5. Kay's Ville

Star Wars: Apocalypse (Fate of the Jedi)

 Star Wars: Apocalypse (Fate of the Jedi) by Troy Denning 4 out of 5 stars.

I have a long history with Star Wars.  It’s easily one of my top movie franchise choices and I grew up watching the movies.  In fact one of my most vivid memories of our Point West house (our second home in Madera, California; the absolute oldest I could have been at the time was eight), consisted of watching Return of the Jedi.

My brothers and I liked to go “camping”, which in this case meant that we would set up a tent in one of the bedrooms to sleep in.  This time around we dragged our “big” TV so that it would fit in the tent’s opening and we proceeded to watch Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.  The scene that stuck-out the most to me was Luke and Leia talking on the bridge after leaving the Ewok celebration.  I just remember watching that and wondering what it would be like to be in that sort of situation.

My parents bred a healthy respect and love for the films.  I just took it to the next level.  It started with the Young Jedi Knights series, a book series that followed the adventures of Han’s and Leia’s twins, Jacen and Jaina Solo.  That started my “affair” of sorts with the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Something that most people don’t immediately realize is that there is an entire Star Wars Books Universe, with hundreds of books.  You can find a somewhat outdated, but still accurate list here if you’re interested: Stars Wars Book Timeline! I’ve read over fifty of the post Episode VI books with plans to read plenty more books in the other eras.  Now this book in particular, Apocalypse, was the final addition to the Fate of the Jedi series which takes place approximately 43 years after Episode IV: A New Hope.  The following does contain spoilers for the story, but let’s just say that in short I really liked it and I loved certain parts of the ending, though I did not quite like how it was so obviously set up for a new series… I thought it was missing some of that feeling of closure.

I had mixed feelings about this one.  Going into it, I was so afraid that this would be the book that would mark the end of Luke Skywalker’s life and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say goodbye.  That didn’t turn out to be the case, but I can’t help but note that the original three are getting old.  Even though 63 is not really that old in the Star Wars universe (in my opinion it is like the equivalent of 40 in our life-expectancy rates; it’s more common than not that a human passes the hundred year mark there), I know that they will eventually end their story arcs.  I can already see this happening as the younger generation receives more “facetime” with each passing book.  Even though I love some of the new characters, I am very attached to Luke, Leia, and Han.

I loved the fact that Jaina and Jag get married!  Jaina has always been one of my favorite characters.  I know not everyone is a large fan of her, but because I started reading Star Wars with the Young Jedi Knights, I quickly grew to love her.  And I’ve always had a fondness for Jagged Fel, perhaps because I can relate to him rather well. 

I do not like this whole Abeloth situation.  I must admit I wasn’t surprised with Vestara went to go off and be a Sith Lord, particularly since in some of the other recent books you know that there is already another serious Sith threat completely unrelated to the Vestara’s Sith Tribe.  I have a feeling that she’s going to go join them.  But what I mean is that this Abeloth situation seems to make things a bit too muddled. 

But I will leave off this review (really just some impressions of the book) with this bit I loved at the end: 

“The darkness was eternal, all-powerful, unchangeable.
She had stared into it for too many years, alone and unblinking, determined that it would not take her.
Now it never would.
Now she was lighting a candle.” 

Daughter of the Centaurs, Cinder and Ella, and The Butterfly Box Series

Daughter of the Centaurs – 2 out of 5 stars.

I felt like this book created more mysteries than it solved.  Honestly, it lost all credibility with me with one line about half way through the book.  To understand why this comment irked me, you need to know that this book takes place some point in the distant future.  The author goes on to list the “classic” love stories such a Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre, and Pride and Prejudice.  She then goes on to include Twilight.  I thought that this was entirely presumptuous.  Don’t get me wrong, I do have a certain fondness for Twilight, but to say that it rivals Pride and Prejudice?  Are you kidding me?  It doesn’t have any depth!  Given that Twilight has become immensely popular, and there is the faintest chance that it could be considered among this category in the future, I think that it is far too early to make such assumptions. That one sentence completely changed what I thought of the book and immediately placed it in a more negative light, and a trivial sentence such as that, should not have that major of an impact on my perception on the entire story.  Other than that I thought it was a somewhat interesting concept (future society were Centaurs are now the dominant species and humans are pretty much extinct) with a few too many bland characters (plenty of Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu types here) that had potential.  Let’s just say that at this point, I don’t think I’ll be picking up the sequel.

Cinder and Ella – 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Cinderella is not the story about one girls who rose from the ashes to become a princess, but is instead the story of two sisters, Cinder and Ella.  For something that is supposed to be the “true” story of Cinderella, it really had little in common with the original tale.  I thought it was alright, but it was obviously intended for a much younger audience.

The Butterfly Box Series (overall average of 3.33 out of 5 stars)

At first I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed when I realized that the different books had different narrators, but I eventually realized that made the most sense with the direction the author took the series.

The first book, A Modest Proposal, was my favorite of the bunch.  I would give this one 4 out of 5 stars.  For me it was the most believable and since I have a certain fascination with fashion and design.  Hometown Girl on the other hand only earned a 3.  I figured out what the big “reveal” would be back in Book 1 and that in and of itself is a tough issue to write to an LDS audience and I thought Bell did rather well.  What I did not like was how who Jocelyn was eventually paired with.  I like his personality, but I did not agree with the “necessity” of his famous background.  The entire series took a cheesy turn with Book 3 and the TV dating show.  Now I did love how the book took me through my various memories of when I traveled to Hawaii in the past, but this is when it became hard to suspend my belief. 

So in short, I found this series cheesy, but enjoyable.  I love to read fluffy romance as much as the average woman and this was perfectly fit that bill.  They were cute and clean reads and I did thoroughly enjoy them for that fact.  For those of you who are not LDS – the church is not really the focus of the books, but rather it is clear that many of the main characters follow certain Christian ideals.

New in Writing!

Writing always provides an interesting sort of release for me.  It's not that I need an escape from reality, but rather it's something that makes me consistently happy.

Lately my time has been pretty much consumed by two separate projects: editing and writing. Editing Ambassador and writing Fugitive.  If neither of these sound familiar, Ambassador is my first "real" novel I finished and Fugitive is its sequel.  There was a rather poor first novel that I gave up about half-way through when I realized just how horrible it was so that's why Ambassador is my first "real" novel.

This second book has been a completely different experience for me.  It is almost as if since I already know that I could write a novel this one has been coming out much faster and much easier than the first one.  It has been just over a month since I first started and I'm just short of the halfway point.  For comparison's sake it took me about two and a half years to write my first book.

I've also been reading a lot, for both research and entertainment.  I have a little project in regards to this here: Books of 2012!  I'm actually in the process of reviewing the next set of books so you can look for an update there fairly soon.

My question for you my readers, is there anything else that you would like to learn about me?  Can be anything from personal history to writing techniques.  Until next time!

Tales of Brierley

Anita Stansfield is a LDS fiction writer who specializes in LDS romances.  What makes this series different is that it is in a period setting, starting in the U.K. (England and Scotland) and moving on to the U.S. as the main characters join the Church and head west.  My least favorite of the series was the last book, In the Valley of the Mountains, mainly because I had issues relating to the main character – she was just too blind to the truth and too judgmental for my tastes, but I honestly adored Jamie.  

Towers of Brierley was the first book written and I think is my favorite of the bunch with an original plot (though I did figure out the big reveal before the half-way point of the book, I still found the journey enjoyable).

Shadows of Brierley are as series of sequels following the children of some of the main characters from Towers.  

If you are a fan of Anita Stansfield, I would definitely recommend these.  If you want some clean romance, go for it!

Tuesdays at the Castle

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George 4 out of 5 stars

I first came across Jessica Day George browsing through the BYU Bookstore's selection.  It was a common pastime of mine.  I've been visiting the BYU Bookstore for pretty much as long as I can remember and once I was actually attending BYU for school, I made sure to go at least once a month, just to see the new selection available.  The thing about the BYU bookstore - it has a great selection of fiction books written by LDS authors.

Now, you might be thinking, what does that have to do with anything?  Well, as a aspiring LDS fiction author, the answer becomes evident.

 BYU used to have the Teen Fiction/Youth section by the Twilight Zone and it was then that I noticed there was a particular shelf that seemed to be designated to primarily to LDS authors.    It was then that I noticed a certain book.  This book didn't seem like much, but the cover featured a young woman dressed in a beautiful ball gown.  One thing that most people don't readily know about me is that I have a certain fascination for ball gowns and gowns in general.  And this one instantly stuck out in my mind.  Without even reading the inside flap, I bought the book.  Since it was titled "Princess at the Midnight Ball" I couldn't help but think, "I love the ballgown and I like fairy tales and books to do with Princesses, so, why not?"

This began my journey with Jessica Day George.  Once I read this one book, I had to find every other book I can written by the author.

Tuesdays at the Castle just so happens to be the most recent work by Jessica Day George.

This book was written for a younger audience, but I still found it rather enjoyable.  It's a short little thing, only 237 pages on my Nook and I whipped through it in just a few hours.  Celie is the youngest princess living at Castle Glower, a magical castle that changes every Tuesday.  Celie is the only one to take an active interest in the changes within and tries to map everything out in her atlas.

Life goes on as normal until her parents are ambushed and its unknown whether they are dead or alive.  Celie along with her brother and her sister must defend the castle from their neighboring countries while everyone is out to prove that they are unfit to rule the kingdom.  With plots to take over the throne in abundance, Celie and her siblings must take a stand.  And why shouldn't they win, with Castle Glower on their side?

High Heel Mysteries, One for the Money and Wolf Legend

High Heel Mysteries – (Spying in High Heels, Killer in High Heels, Undercover in High Heels, Alibi in High Heels, Mayhem in High Heels, and Fearless in High Heels)  by Gemma Halliday. 1 out of 5 stars.

I’ll admit that I read this entire series, though I wouldn’t recommend them (I had just gotten the entire series for less than $15 which is the only reason why I had all of the books in the first place).  I prefer reading clean literature – without anything overly sexual or with strong language but this had both.  I honestly skipped over many scenes.  On a positive note, I will say that it was particularly funny at times, even if Maddie could be a total airhead.  For me to truly enjoy a book I like not being able to predict the “villain” but in these I always knew shortly after the start of the books.  Simply light reading that doesn’t require much thought.   

The books follow Maddie Springer who is thrown into a crime investigation when she finds her boyfriend missing and wanted for murder.  Maddie is insistent that he’s innocent and will do anything to prove that.  Throw in a hot homicide detective, a tabloid reporter, starving actress friend, Maddie’s mother and her psychic friend, and “Faux” Dad who Maddie is 80% sure is not gay and you have the main cast throughout the entire series.  

One for the Money – Janet Evanovich. 1 out of 5 stars.

Similar to the High Heel Mysteries, except the heroine is more intelligent.  Stephanie Plum is recently divorced and unemployed so she decides to take a stab at the bounty hunter business, particularly since it involves getting back at Joe Morelli, an old high school “acquaintance.”  Throw in Ranger  and the love “triangle” is complete.

I wasn’t super impressed.  Similar to the High Heel Mysteries it was filled with sexual innuendos, except this book included frequent use of strong language.   I wasn’t super impressed, though it did have its moments.

Wolf Legend by Jennette Brown. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Jennette is an acquaintance of mine and she is rather enthralled with the concept of werewolves and this book is definite proof of that.  I found this to be an average book.  I’ll admit that there were more grammatical mistakes than I would prefer (but then I almost always notice a few in each book I read) but I thought she had an interesting view on what it means to be a werewolf.  Some of the characters are one-dimensional and some ideas are rather cliche, but these are balanced by the new perceptions in regards to werewolves.  If you are into the supernatural, I would say give this a shot, if not then definitely pass it by.

Wolf Legend tells the story Andrew, a werewolf who thought he had found a comfortable place in the human world, until he meets Rabeka, the woman who utterly fascinates him.   Throw in the mob and another angry werewolf and you have the basics of the plot.