Book Review: Unknown, by Melissa Pearl

Unkown
Melissa Pearl

Initial Thoughts: Solid fantasy story

My Rating: 4 Stars!

Summary:
Darkness is covering the land. As the city of Mezrah grows with power and greed, the rest of the world can only stand by and wait for their inevitable destruction. The only hope against this growing power is an ancient prophecy that people have stopped believing in.

Then a star begins to fall.

Princess Kyla of Taramon stopped believing in the power of light the day her father died. Trapped in a city she does not care for, under the watchful glare of her mother, the queen, she struggles to accept her fate.

Then a star begins to fall.

Jethro has loved Kyla for as long as he can remember. Learning that she was to marry his cousin drove a wedge between him and the feisty princess. Watching her from a distance is a torture he is unable to free himself from.

Then a star begins to fall, sparking an ember of hope and sending two seekers on a treacherous journey into the unknown.

My Thoughts:

This was a solid story with solid characters and motivations. Kyla is definitely scarred, and Jethro is the poor sod who pines after her from a distance, since Kyla has been engaged to his cousin.

So in this story the players have to fulfill the prophecy to save world from utter darkness, and in this prophecy they have to find the 4 elements. The interesting twist is *how* those elements are portrayed, but I won't give that secret away until you read it.

Kyla is strong and feisty, while her mother is suffocating, which makes her blind to what's going on in the kingdom. The bad guys are deliciously bad, and a character I thought for sure was good turned out to be naughty indeed. It's a great twist and setting up the characters for a huge betrayal.

The plot unwound like a chess game, with the players moving across the board like pawns. It was very well done.

I'm not sure of Kyla's feelings toward her fiance, whether she really loves him or just thinks she loves him because he's going to be her husband. For a such a strong character, this aspect seemed a little weak to me. I would think Kyla would know her own mind alot better. And as for Jethro? The girl has to be utterly blind to not see how he feels. But then again, she's only 16 so she could just be naive. Or maybe she's so comfortable in her role as 'friend' it would never occur to her that he feels anything differently.

Overall, really enjoyed this one. A great fantasy read.

Book Review: Onyx, by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Onyx
Jennifer L. Armentrout

 Initial Thoughts: Hot chemistry and a riveting ending!

My Rating: 5 Stars

Summary:
Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…

Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.

Something worse than the Arum has come to town…

The Department of Defense are here. If they ever find out what Daemon can do and that we're linked, I’m a goner. So is he. And there's this new boy in school who’s got a secret of his own. He knows what’s happened to me and he can help, but to do so, I have to lie to Daemon and stay away from him. Like that's possible. Against all common sense, I'm falling for Daemon. Hard.

But then everything changes…

I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?

No one is who they seem. And not everyone will survive the lies…

My Thoughts:

Okay, even though Katy was dumber than dirt in this novel, I still had to love it. My frustration level with the girl knew no bounds, but rather making me want to throw the book across the room, it made me want to read on to see what Daemon would do.

I will say one thing about Ms. Armentrout: the girl can write chemistry. Holy palapalooza! Katy and Daemon are smokin'! I felt a range of emotions when reading this book: anger, frustration, sadness, heat (yeah, that's code for lust). The book made me feel, and care about the characters.

Did I peg all the villains? Yeah, kind of. I wasn't exactly sure until the end, but everyone who I thought was twisted was. And there is some gray area in there, one of those good people can do bad things. I love good people who do bad things...but not nearly as much as I love bad people who do good things. (wink)

I wondered if the 2nd book in the Lux series would keep the momentum, and it did. It introduced new characters and new plot twists that kept things interesting without getting all weird. And the ending has me jonesing hard for book 3.