The Ryn by Serena Chase

I have to confess that I almost missed out on this book! But I also have to confess that I have always loved the cover! I put off getting the book because I thought for sure I wouldn't like the genre(a bit of fantasy). But after glowing reviews from other bloggers I just had to try it. I was NOT disappointed!! I loved it! I recommend it! And most of all I am so glad that I have the next one in the series THE REMEDY on my Kindle and ready to read!

THE RYN is set in a kingdom with Knights(one very handsome one in particular), a Princess(who at first does not know she is a Princess), and Story-Tellers(who can show their stories as they are being told). Add to those: secrets, curses, romance and magic and  you have yourself the perfect story!

Serena knows how to weave a perfect fairytale and keep the reader entranced by her writing and the story being told. I've already read the first page of THE REMEDY and am hooked!

Here is a description of THE RYN from Serena's website. You can also check out the Cover Reveal post for THE REMEDY on the post below this one.

I purchased my copy of THE RYN from Amazon and was not required to give a review.

The Secret Tree by Natalie Standiford

Minty and her best friend Paz are keeping themselves busy during summer vacation. Changes are about to occur. They will be entering middle school when summer is over. But even before that their friendship is tested by change.

Minty has always desired to be in the Roller Derby. She imagines her name to be Minty Fresh with Paz being named Pax A. Punch. But Paz begins hanging out with another group of girls and is no longer interested in Minty's Roller Derby dream.

Minty catches a strange boy hiding and taking pictures of the neighborhood. She soon becomes friends with Raymond. They find a tree in the woods that seems to call to them. The legend is that if you put your secrets in the hole of the tree they will disappear. Minty and Raymond decide to match the secrets with the neighbors around them.

Who's secret is "I put a curse on my enemy. And it's working" and who's secret is "I'm betraying my best friend in a terrible way." Minty and Raymond set out to spy on their neighbors to find out their secrets.

The Secret Tree is a sweet story that I enjoyed very much. I liked the way that Minty and Raymond didn't want to use the secrets to bribe people or hold against people, but actually wanted to help the people in the neighborhood. The secrets helped them to understand the behavior of the people around them. It was funny to read about Minty and Paz trying to bring their older sisters back together after they get in a fight over a boy. Minty and Paz decide to bring them together by being "pesky younger sisters" they figure that is the best way to get the sisters talking by being able to commiserate with each other about their pesky younger sisters. A cute-heart-warming read.

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

Nora, her best friend Chris, his girlfriend Adriane and Chris' best friend and roommate Max all  are working on a translation project for a professor. Nora is assigned to translating letters written by Elizabeth Weston over 400 years before. What she discovers is a recipe for a machine that is believed to open up channels to God.

This discovery leads to murder, secret brotherhoods and betrayal. When Chris is found murdered in his home, Adriane catatonic by his side in a pool of blood and Max the last person seen leaving the house, Nora is determined to prove Max's innocence in the murder and to put together the puzzle pieces of where Elizabeth hid the parts of the machine(Lumen Dei).

When Max contacts Nora she and Adriane sneak away from a class trip and head to Prague to meet Max. They are followed by Chris' cousin Eli who has family connections in Prague and also has family secrets he is unwilling to share with Nora. From the time they reach Prague they are faced with those trying to protect the Lumen Dei and others that are trying to find it for their own purposes. Nora soon finds that she doesn't know her friends as well as she thinks she does. Hers and Elizabeth's lives seem to mirror each others and betrayal is around the corner for her just as it was for Elizabeth.

My Thoughts:

I found myself comparing this book to a cross between The DaVinci Code and an Indiana Jones movie. It reminded me of The DaVinci Code with the secret sects protecting a spiritual being/object along with lots of supposedly spiritual connotations. It reminded me of Indiana Jones in the fact that once the object was acquired the greedy person seeking the power suffered a grizzly demise of supernatural dimensions. Not to say that being compared to these is a bad thing, but the fact that this is marketed as a Young Adult book had me scratching my head. The writing was fairly technical and also at times hard for me to slog through. If I had a hard time keeping my attention on the text I cannot imagine a teenager staying with it through to it's ending. I have to say though that I did become invested in the characters and continued to read on just to find out what happened at the end.

Pet Peeve:
Like I said, The Book of Blood and Shadow is marketed for 12 and up. I started seeing very early in the book that the author was peppering the story with words that were not common for most adults not to mention middle school grades or high schoolers. This was frustrating for me, but I began to write down each word that I either didn't know the meaning of or knew from the sentence what the author meant, but wasn't quite sure that a YA student would know the word. I then looked these words up after I finished the book. I probably should have looked them up while reading, but seriously, what Young Adult would stop reading during a story to look up a word? So here is my list of words:

Ameliorated-heard of it, but don't use it!

Iterations-never heard of it

Ensorcelled-huh?

Egalitarian-heard of

Disingenuous-heard of

Caesura-never heard

Karass-couldn't even find it when I looked it up

Vertiginous-heard of

Soporific-heard of

Ethos-heard of

Matrices-plural of matrix!

Defenestration-never heard

Inchoate-never heard

Those are just the words that stood out to me. There were other words such as detritus that I knew the meaning of, but is not really a common word. I understand an author wanting to enlighten and improve our vocabulary, but if I had to stop and look up every word then that to me would detract from the story.  And once again this is a Young Adult book, stick with what they know because the unfamiliar will lose them just as it almost lost me.

I received my copy as an ARC from ALA in January 2012. The Book of Blood and Shadow will be published and available for sale in April 2012.

Skeleton Creek: The Raven by Patrick Carman

Still trying to uncover the secret of the Crossbones Sarah and Ryan embark on another leg of the mystery. This time Sarah is heading back home from LA. On the way she will make several side trips looking for clues that The Apostle has left in various places.

Ryan is at home in Skeleton Creek fending off reporters trying to interview him about the discovery of the lost Thomas Jefferson books. The mayor of Skeleton Creek is encouraging him to answer as many questions as possible in order to keep Skeleton Creek in the news and on the map.

Between working in his fathers fishing store and returning reporters calls Ryan is unravelling the map that the Ghost of Old Joe Bush had given him. Between he and Sarah they unravel a mystery about Edgar Allen Poe that the Crossbones have been protecting for years. As things unfold the torch is passed to a new generation of Crossbones protectors.

I have enjoyed every book in the Skeleton Creek series. They are great mysteries and the video's that go along throughout the story help maintain the suspense of the mystery.

Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo

Emma Grant's life seems to be falling apart. She found her husband in a compromising situation(on their dining room table) with her Teacher's Assistant. She was asked to leave the University she was teaching at for being accused of plagiarizing a paper. She has sold everything she has in order to buy a ticket to London to pursue lost letters of Jane Austen that may or may not exist. When she arrives she finds that she is not alone in the flat she is borrowing from her cousin. Her former best friend Adam is also staying there. Adam had tried to tell Emma that the man she was going to marry was no good. Unfortunately they had a falling out and have not seen each other for years.

Emma goes to see Mrs. Parrot once she arrives in London. Mrs. Parrot is part of a secret group called the Formidables. They have been entrusted to keep Jane Austen's letters secret. She sends Emma on different "tasks" to prove her worthiness to view the real letters. Emma immediately decides that once she gets hold of these letters she will be able to reinstate her status as a professor.

While trying to keep secret what she is doing for Mrs. Parrot, Emma becomes suspicious of Adam. He seems to be turning up wherever she goes. Anyone who gets hold of these letters would become famous. Throughout the story Emma is fighting her attraction to Adam. After all she believes that life does not hold Happily Ever After endings for her.

This was such a fast, fun read. I want to read Beth Patillo's Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart  as I am sure it will be just as fun.

Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu

Lucy's mom is a hoarder. Lucy can never bring anyone over to her home because she is too embarrassed to let anyone see the inside of her house.  Her older sister and older brother have both moved out of the house. Lucy has a year and a half before she graduates from high school and goes to college. With so much stuff crammed in every room, a kitchen that has not been used for years, bathrooms that barely work Lucy spends a lot of time at her best friends home. She lives in fear that her friend will someday see the inside of her home and be so freaked out about it that she will not be her friend anymore.

When the unexpected happens how far will Lucy go to protect her family from being exposed?

Dirty Little Secrets gives a person a glimpse of what a hoarders life is like. And the affects that it can have on the whole family. I thought the story was well written. I felt for Lucy as her mother was always blaming her for the mess that their house was always in. I felt for her also as she struggled to keep the secret of her mother's sickness from her friends and community.