When Blood Calls by J. K. Beck (Book It Forward Tours)

Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Bantam (August 31, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 044024577X
ISBN-13: 978-0440245773

Sara Constantine is one of the country’s most tenacious prosecuting attorneys—and she’s just secured a well-earned promotion. At first she’s thrilled. Then she finds out her new job involves prosecuting vampires and werewolves. And nothing prepares Sara for the shock she receives when she meets the first defendant she’ll be trying to put away: Lucius Dragos, the sexy stranger with whom she recently shared an explosive night of ecstasy.

When Lucius Dragos kisses the beautiful woman sitting next to him at the bar, he’s only hoping to blend into the crowd and avoid the perceptive gaze of the man he’s following…and planning to kill. But what starts as a simple kiss to secure his cover ignites into a fierce hunger that leads to an all-consuming passion. Charged with murder, Luke knows Sara will do whatever it takes to see him locked away—unless he can convince her that he’s not the monster she thinks he is. And that might mean making the greatest sacrifice a vampire can make.

Review:

After winning a grueling case against a serial killer, prosecutor Sara Constantine had only planned to celebrate with a drink at the local bar; not expecting a one-night-stand with a delicious hunk of a stranger. And when she gets to work the next day, she definitely did not expect that same stranger to be defendant in her new high profile case, or the fact that he has the daemon in him and is a vampyre. Lucious (Luke) Dragos is the last of his lineage, and undoubtedly the only suspect in the murder of a Division 6 judge. He knows this of course, and that is why he has to convince Sara to believe in him and his reasons behind the murder and it's motive.

When Blood Calls is an action-packed, beautifully written debut of the new Shadow Keepers series. With strong-willed, justice-believer Sara Constantine, it seems from the very beginning that Luke doesn't stand a chance in court. However, being born in 122, Luke knows that things are never black and white; and it doesn't hurt that he has friends working inside the system.In When Blood Calls, you get to see from almost all the co-characters perspectives which only adds to the slight suspense that builds towards the end of it. While reading, I kept speculating who might have been behind the master plan in the end, even when everyone pretty much had a solid idea on who it was. However, never did it lose the intensity to keep the reader interested in every little detail that could possibly change the outcome. The different creatures/characters in this book have remarkable powers, especially the vampires that are not like any others. Instead of having no soul at all, what creates a vampyre in When Blood Calls is actually activating the darker side of your soon and fighting against it for control that brings out all their ugly.

I recommend this to whoever likes some of sexual content with an intricate plot full with on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense. I can't restrict this to a specific age because some people would be a bit hypocritical if they knew mine. :)

Grade: A

Also check out:

When Pleasure Rules (September)
When Wicked Craves (October)

LiLi

Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien (Book It Forward Tours)

Reading level: Young Adult

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (March 30, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596435690
ISBN-13: 978-1596435698

 After climate change, on the north shore of Unlake Superior, a dystopian world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone, who live outside. It’s Gaia’s job to “advance” a quota of infants from poverty into the walled Enclave, until the night one agonized mother objects, and Gaia’s parents are arrested.
Badly scarred since childhood, Gaia is a strong, resourceful loner who begins to question her society. As Gaia’s efforts to save her parents take her within the wall, she herself is arrested and imprisoned.
Fraught with difficult moral choices and rich with intricate layers of codes, BIRTHMARKED explores a colorful, cruel, eerily familiar world where one girl can make all the difference, and a real hero makes her own moral code.

Review:

Being a loyal midwife to the walled city known as the Enclave is all Gaia has ever known. Following in her mother's footsteps of fulfilling the quota of delivering three babies per month, Birthmarked opens with Gaia's first unassisted delivery. Gaia has always believed the Enclave to be a dream place and feels satisfied to serve it. When Gaia goes home to find that both of her parents have been arrested in question of a secret baby record, a record that Gaia is clueless about, she soon too is questioned and imprisoned. Through frightening twists and stumbling turns in her plan to escape and free her parents, Gaia must make adjustments here and there that accommodate bizarre encounters.

I want to believe that Birthmarked was epic in a dystopian perspective, but for me it was just sad. Don't get me wrong, it isn't without it's merits but at different points in time I really thought that Gaia was stupid. I blame this in part because of the secrets her parents hid from her. Now, I don't really find when the main character has some mystery to solve and secrets to uncover a bad quality in the book--it really just makes it more intriguing, to say the least--but the way Gaia is kept so out of the lope (and is constantly reminded of it) is unsettling. There were some dull spots where inaction was frequent. The parts that I really liked and admired were the intricacy laid into the importance of the "advanced" individuals in the Enclave, and how brave Gaia was to go through it all and not think about giving up with all those obstacles thrown at her. I just wasn't pleased with the over-the-top descriptions about every other thing that happened to her. At first I really didn't think I was going to have a favorite character, but after learning more and more about Sergeant Grey/Leon's identity, I found out the motives for his actions and underlying pain he hides about his adoptive family. His interaction with Gaia is rocky at first, but by the end your pleading that he stays by her side. Now that I mention it, the ending itself was sad and dissatisfying.

Grade: C

LiLi

For Keeps by Natasha Friend (Book It Forward Tours)

Published: April 6th 2010 by Penguin Group USA

Hardcover, 272 pages

ISBN: 0670011908

ISBN13: 9780670011902

 

For sixteen years, Josie Gardner and her mom, Kate, have been a team. It’s been the Gardner Girls against the world, and that’s how Josie likes it. Until one day, in the pet food aisle of Shop-Co, they run into the parents of Paul Tucci, Kate’s high school boyfriend—the father Josie has never met. If Mr. and Mrs. Tucci are back in town, it’s only a matter of time until Paul shows up. Suddenly Josie’s mature, capable mother regresses to the heartbroken teenager she was when Paul moved away. Meanwhile, Josie’s on the verge of having her first real boyfriend, while her free-loving best friend, Liv, begins yet another no-strings-attached fling. When Josie learns some surprising truths about Paul Tucci, she finds herself questioning what she’s always believed about her parents—and about herself. In FOR KEEPS, Natasha Friend tells a fresh, funny, smart story about what happens when a girl gets the guy she always wanted and the dad she never knew she needed. 

Review:

While I agree with others that For Keeps has a big similarity with the fun mother-daughter relationship between the young teen mother and quirky daughter in Gilmore Girls, the similarities stop there. Josie is a stronger character than Rorie--the daughter in Gilmore Girls, she is also more outgoing. I can say the opposite goes for Katie, Josie's mother. She likes to shy away from things more, however, she still makes people feel better about themselves when she feels like crap. When the parent's of Paul Tucci--the boy (now man) that got Katie pregnant--come into town, they think they're son won't be far behind. Josie goes with what she's been told and speculates on sight what the return of her father might mean. With a hard-cold-truth of a friend, Josie faces the secrets and differentiates the half-truths that she's believed her whole life from what really happened sixteen years ago between her mother and father. What happens when the truth and nothing but is revealed for Josie to hear?

Plus, while the romance relationship between Matt "Riggs" Rigby and Josie was nice to see grow continuously, it did not take on a dominant role in the story line; however, I still loved how the author was able to incorporate that into the story. This did not in any means take away from For Keeps enjoyable, fantastically well-written points. The author made all of the conflicts that was caused by Josie's flickering rage, be understandable and, as a reader should feel, sympathetic. Through her writing, the author tried to make the instability caused by Josie's mother's new relationship into something you'd see--and for others, experience--in real life daily.

I have to say that my favorite character was Big Nick. Mostly because I liked the way he kind of went behind his wife's back just to visit a bakery for some sweets. A lot of others have been saying that Liz was their favorite. While I believe she was an admirable character, not say she was my favorite by the way she always got into Josie's very personal business. I know they're best friends but still. Anyway, besides that quality her straight-forward attitude definitely resembles that ones of some friends I have myself in school. Natasha Friend did a great job in making For Keeps a touching, perceptively influencing read.

Recommended for anyone of YA fan-dom that wants a book that's insightful and so pleasant that you'll be done in just a few hours wanting to know how it ends.

Grade: B-

LiLi