Review - Lifer by Beck Nicholas

Lifer by Beck Nicholas
Published: December 2014 by Month9Books, LLC
Source: eARC
Rating: 5+ Stars

Asher is a Lifer, a slave aboard the spaceship Pelican. A member of the lowest rung of society, she must serve the ship’s Officials and Astronauts as punishment for her grandparents' crimes back on Earth. The one thing that made life bearable was her illicit relationship with Samuai, a Fishie boy, but he died alongside her brother in a freak training accident. 

Still grieving for the loss of her loved ones, Asher is summoned to the upper levels to wait on Lady, the head Official’s wife and Samuai’s mother. It is the perfect opportunity to gather intel for the Lifer’s brewing rebellion. There’s just one problem - the last girl who went to the upper levels never came back.

On the other side of the universe, an alien attack has left Earth in shambles and a group called The Company has taken control. Blank wakes up in a pond completely naked and with no memory, not even his real name. So when a hot girl named Megs invites him to a black-market gaming warehouse where winning means information, he doesn’t think twice about playing. 

But sometimes the past is better left buried. As Asher and Blank’s worlds collide, the truth comes out - everyone has been lied to...

This was a novel that crushed the depths of my soul and I'm still trying to glue it back together. Asher is our main character, a strong young woman who is in a forbidden love affair with Samuai, a boy born of a higher social class. Samuai loves Asher despite her social status and even wants to help bring down the walls of oppression that the Lifers have lived behind for many years. Everything changes when Asher's brother and Samuai are pronounced dead. Asher is quickly summoned to be the Lady's servant. Lady is the equivalent of say... the first lady of the United States, power-wise anyway. Lady also just happens to be Samuai's mother. While trying her best to do as she's told without sarcasm (which still slips every once in a while), Asher mentally maps out every detail she can remember to relay back to her mother, who is in charge of an upcoming rebellion against the upper class, AKA the Fishies. 

Then there's Blank. He's named Blank because he woke up on a planet and has no recollection of who he is. He quickly learns about The Company, an organization who recruits and brainwashes people to join their cause. Blank may be well... literally blank when it comes to the details of his past, but he still knows the difference between good and evil. He rather quickly sides with the people who are against The Company and does whatever he can to help the cause. 

Asher and Blank's worlds collide in way that leaves you dizzy. I truly cannot wait to read the next novel in this series. 

Review - The Cage by Megan Shepherd

The Cage by Megan Shepherd
Published: May 2015 by Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins
Source: Purchased
Rating: 4 Stars

When Cora Mason wakes in a desert, she doesn't know where she is or who put her there. As she explores, she finds an impossible mix of environments - tundra next to desert, farm next to jungle, and a strangely empty town cobbled together from different cultures - all watched over by eerie black windows. And she isn't alone.

Four other teenagers have also been taken: a beautiful model, a tattooed smuggler, a secretive genius, and an army brat who seems to know too much about Cora's past. None of them have a clue as to what happened, and all of them have secrets. As the unlikely group struggles for leadership, they slowly start to trust each other. But when their mysterious jailer - a handsome young guard called Cassian - appears, they realize that their captivity is more terrifying than they could ever imagine: Their captors aren't from Earth. And they have taken the five teenagers for an otherworldly zoo - where the exhibits are humans.

As a forbidden attraction develops between Cora and Cassian, she realizes that her best chance of escape might be in the arms of her own jailer - though that would mean leaving the others behind. Can Cora manage to save herself and her companions? And if so... what world lies beyond the walls of their cage?

I fell in love with this book just reading the summary, so you can imagine how thrilled I was when the book followed through. Cora was constantly on the go - both mentally and physically. She never let her guard down, even when everyone else pressured her to just give in. When your entire life has been altered drastically and everything you know is gone, wouldn't you feel the need to fit in with those around you who are in the exact same situation? Cora will not be told what to do or what to think, even by a powerful, slightly intimidating alien named Cassian. 

Cassian may be another species who does as he's told and follows orders, but he still has some underlying human traits. I found him to be quite the mystery in the beginning. I clung to the hope of the author diving deeper into his personality and was definitely rewarded. This is a must have novel for anyone who enjoys science fiction with a few drops of mystery.

Review - The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich

The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich 
Published: January 2016 by Doubleday
Source: eARC
Rating: 4 Stars

A scathing and exhilarating thriller that begins with a husband’s obsession with the seemingly vacant house next door.

It’s wintertime in the Hamptons, where Scott and his wife, Elise, have come to be with her terminally ill father, Victor, to await the inevitable. As weeks turn to months, their daily routine - Elise at the hospital with her father, Scott pretending to work and drinking Victor’s booze - only highlights their growing resentment and dissatisfaction with the usual litany of unhappy marriages: work, love, passion, each other. But then Scott notices something simple, even innocuous. Every night at precisely eleven, the lights in the neighbor’s bedroom turn off. It’s clearly a timer…but in the dead of winter with no one else around, there’s something about that light he can’t let go of. So one day while Elise is at the hospital, he breaks in. And he feels a jolt of excitement he hasn’t felt in a long time. Soon, it’s not hard to enlist his wife as a partner in crime and see if they can’t restart the passion.

Their one simple transgression quickly sends husband and wife down a deliriously wicked spiral of bad decisions, infidelities, escalating violence, and absolutely shocking revelations.
This was an amazingly mind-blowing slap to the face that left you wondering where you even where. You've read the summary... you think, "Ahh, another thriller with a little mystery." HA! Not a chance! This book has so many twists and turns that your head will spin - in a good way. 

So the bedroom light comes on every night at the same time in the house next door - who cares, right? Scott was bored enough to care and it's amazing how one little light can change so many lives. This may be one of my most vague book reviews yet, but I don't care. I'm not spoiling one single detail. I'm not even really into the mystery/thriller genre, but I tore through this book like a bull in a china shop. And yes... there are still broken pieces that need to be picked up.

Review - These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly
Published: October 2015 by Random House Delacorte
Source: eARC
Rating: 4 Stars

Jo Montfort is beautiful and rich, and soon - like all the girls in her class - she’ll graduate from finishing school and be married off to a wealthy bachelor. Which is the last thing she wants. Jo secretly dreams of becoming a writer - a newspaper reporter like the trailblazing Nellie Bly.

Wild aspirations aside, Jo’s life seems perfect until tragedy strikes: her father is found dead. Charles Montfort accidentally shot himself while cleaning his revolver. One of New York City’s wealthiest men, he owned a newspaper and was partner in a massive shipping firm, and Jo knows he was far too smart to clean a loaded gun.

The more Jo uncovers about her father’s death, the more her suspicions grow. There are too many secrets. And they all seem to be buried in plain sight. Then she meets Eddie - a young, brash, infuriatingly handsome reporter at her father’s newspaper - and it becomes all too clear how much she stands to lose if she keeps searching for the truth. Only now it might be too late to stop.

The past never stays buried forever. Life is dirtier than Jo Montfort could ever have imagined, and the truth is the dirtiest part of all.

Another historical fiction book that furthered my love for the genre. Jo Montfort is a young lady in waiting when her father dies. She immediately doubts her father's death was a suicide and starts to lead a double life. One where she walks the streets at night investigating the possible murder of her father and another where she acknowledges her social status and acts accordingly - like a young lady who looks pretty, has a delicate mind, and is well-mannered. 

Eddie, a man she meets at the newspaper her father used to own, becomes her partner in the investigation of her father and her father's company secrets. Jo ends up doing and seeing things that rich young ladies of that time period would be shunned and cast out for if her actions were exposed. Jo throws caution to the wind, deciding the truth is worth any consequence. 

I loved following Jo's journey and her perseverance throughout was incredible. She could have her entire future ruined every single time she snuck out at night and yet she still risked it. She was a true journalist during a time when woman were thought of as small-minded and weak. 

If you're looking for a good historical fiction with a large dose of mystery, this one is for you. 

Review - Brother by Ania Ahlborn

Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Published: September 2015 by Gallery Books
Source: eARC
Rating: 5+ Stars

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows’ backyard.

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place...

It comes as no surprise that I'm a die hard Ahlborn fan, but REALLY?!? She did it again. She has written another relentlessly appalling, yet magnetic book that I adored. 

The Morrow family is the stuff of an old school horror family - all the sadistic tendencies included. One day the baby boy of the family, Rebel, decided he wanted something... kind of like when a kid wants a pet. Except Rebel saw a boy outside. Michael was taken from his front yard at a young age and was raised as a Morrow.

The inner dynamics of the Morrow family are soul-crushing. I'm not talking about Lifetime movie qualities here - more like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family or one of those messed up stories you glanced at on your social media feed and you thought, "Wow. These things really happen?" That's how this book sucks you in. Just like reading that one sentence news line that catches your eye so you'll click on the link to read the full article. If this book had links, I'd have arthritis from so much clicking. 

This book has a story to tell and I  promise it is one you'll want to hear.

Review - Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
Published: January 2016 by Disney-Hyperion
Source: eARC
Rating: 4 Stars

passage, n.
i. A brief section of music composed of a series of notes and flourishes.
ii. A journey by water; a voyage.iii. The transition from one place to another, across space and time.

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods - a powerful family in the colonies - and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them - whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home... forever.

The plot of this book was made of gold and the author spun a web of treasure with it. Etta Spencer is thrown into a new way of life that she never could even imagine was possible. She is strong-willed and determined, but she still has the same emotions and reactions that any of us would have.

After literally being pushed into a different time period, Etta meets the handsome and smart Nicholas Carter. Nicholas has been saving up to buy his own ship and has done everything in his power to stay away from the family who used to own him as a slave.

These two characters take us on an amazing journey through different time periods and different countries. Each unique place was described perfectly for me to imagine without going overboard with details and information about the time period. I followed their journey right along with them. 

There is so much to tel, but such a journey needs to be walked by an individual and not just be told. There were many times I just had to put the book down to sleep. I truly believe everyone will love this book, not just young adults or science fiction readers.