Book Review #628 - Nevermore (Supernatural #1) by Keith R.A. DeCandido

My Rating: 3/5


Source: Bought


Goodreads











Twenty years ago they lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. In the years after, their father, John, taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America...and he taught them how to kill it. 

Sam and Dean have hit New York City to check out a local rocker's haunted house. But before they can figure out why a lovesick banshee in an '80s heavy-metal T-shirt is wailing in the bedroom, a far more macabre crime catches their attention. Not far from the house, two university students were beaten to death by a strange assailant. A murder that's bizarre even by New York City standards, it's the latest in a line of killings that the brothers soon suspect are based on the creepy stories of legendary writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Their investigation leads them to the center of one of Poe's horror classics, face-to-face with their most terrifying foe yet. And if Sam and Dean don't rewrite the ending of this chilling tale, a grisly serial killer will end their lives forevermore.

I had relatively low expectations for this book. The fact that this is not a novelisation of an episode, but an original Supernatural story set between episodes gave me hope though.

The book starts off very promising with two college guys getting murdered. It soon becomes very commercialised.

The main issue I had with this book was the amount of depth put into things that didn't influence anything. There was so much description of the music that Dean liked which I found incredibly boring.

I wouldn't say that Sam and Dean were perfectly portrayed, they were kind of one dimensional versions of themselves.

There were two separate stories going on. One with a banshee at a friend of a friends house and then someone trying to resurrect Edgar Allan Poe.

I liked both of these stories, but I felt like they didn't go that well together and made the plot seem rather messy.

I loved the setting of the Bronx as it is obviously an area that the author loves and knows well.

Book Review #627 - Balthazar (Evernight #5) by Claudia Gray

My Rating: 3/5


Source: Bought


Goodreads











For hundreds of years, the vampire Balthazar has been alone-without allies, without love.

When Balthazar agrees to help Skye Tierney, a human girl who once attended Evernight Academy, he has no idea how dangerous it will be. Skye's newfound psychic powers have caught the attention of Redgrave, the cruel, seductive master vampire responsible for murdering Balthazar and his family four centuries ago. Now Redgrave plans to use Skye's powers for his own evil purposes.

Balthazar will do whatever it takes to stop Redgrave and exact his long-awaited revenge against his killer. As Skye and Balthazar stand together to fight him, they grow closer-first unwillingly, then undeniably. Balthazar realizes his lonely world could finally be changed by her. . . .  

This is the fifth and final book in the Evernight series and is the sequel to Evernight, Stargazer, Hourglass and Afterlife.

As I didn't particularly like Afterlife, I was a little hesitant to read this book as I thought that I may have become tired of this series (as I did read them all back to back).

However, I found the change in narration refreshing. Balthazar is a character that I have felt was underused throughout the series so I loved that he was one of the narrators in this book - it showed a completely different side to him plus more detail of his history.

The series has shown before what life is like for a vampire to fight what they are, but what is different in Balthazar's case is that he has been doing that for centuries.

The other narrator was Skye who was introduced in one of the previous books. I didn't really care for her before but as a narrator she was also really refreshing as I didn't find her as annoying or whiny as Bianca.

I found the whole idea of Skye's blood being able to make vampire relive their memories of human life really intriguing, but once again I felt like this really interesting idea got shoved to the background to make way for the romance, and in the case of this book - the angst.

Skye likes Balthazar, Balthazar likes Skye - but Balthazar is reluctant to break his century long rule of never getting involved with humans. I just felt like this whole concept has been done countless times in YA literature and it just overall came across as immature.

I loved that Charity was back as she is one of my favourite characters. Her relationship with her brother Balthazar is more deeply explored and her hatred of him is validated.

The ending was wrapped up nicely and leaves the door open for potential sequels.