Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things by Martina McAtee (Review)

Title: Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
Series: Dead Things #1
Author: Martina McAtee
Release Date: August 2015
Format: Personal Purchase
Pages: 510 per Goodreads

17 year old Ember Denning has made an art of isolating herself. She prefers the dead. She spends her days skipping school in old cemeteries and her nights hiding from her alcoholic father at the funeral home where she works. When her own father dies, Ember learns her whole life is a lie. Standing in the cemetery that’s been her sanctuary, she’s threatened by the most beautiful boy she’s ever seen and rescued by two people who claim to be her family. They say she’s special, that she has a supernatural gift like them…they just don’t know exactly what it is. 

They take her to a small Florida town, where Ember’s life takes a turn for the weird. She’s living with her reaper cousins, an orphaned werewolf pack, a faery and a human genius. Ember’s powers are growing stronger, morphing into something bigger than anything anybody anticipated. Ember has questions but nobody has answers. Nobody knows what she is. They only know her mysterious magical gift is trying to kill them and that beautiful dangerous boy from the cemetery may be the only thing standing between her and death. 

As Ember’s talents are revealed so are the secrets her father hid and those in power who would seek to destroy her. What’s worse, saving Ember has put her cousins in danger and turned her friend’s lives upside down. Ember must learn to embrace her magic or risk losing the family she’s pieced together.

I got this book on Amazon during some promotion when it was free.  I am so glad that I did, because I absolutely loved it.  Loved it enough that I’ve already purchased and started reading book two.  Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things is a bit over 500 pages, and for this urban fantasy, I think that is perfect.  It gave the book enough space to really explore everything that happens, and not just gloss over it.  This is kind of a YA book, although it doesn’t feel like it.  The main characters are 17, but they definitely aren’t dealing with normal 17 year old issues.

Piece by Piece by Elisabeth Staab (Review)

Title: Piece by Piece
Series: Evergreen Grove #4
Author: Elisabeth Staab
Release Date: September 20, 2016
Pages: 280 per Goodreads
Format: Ebook received for review

ETHAN’S HIT A ROUGH SPOT

So I caught my dad in bed with my ex-girlfriend.

My best friend cancelled our plans to celebrate my birthday. 

Decided to drink away the betrayal.

Made out with a cardboard cutout of a celebrity in front of my new roommates.

Got in a bar fight.

Hooked up with that pretty bartender whose sad smile I’ve secretly been painting pictures of since forever, but she shoved me out the door without a word.

Did I mention the tattoo I don’t exactly remember getting?

And that’s only Saturday.

Now I need to pick up the pieces of my messed-up life.

LEEANNE’S HAD A TOUGH LIFE

What do you do when you’ve lived in the same small town your whole life and you feel as if you’ll always be stuck in the same rut, like a piece of busted wagon wheel? Well, maybe you start by hooking up with the first decent guy who walks into your bar.

Maybe once you do, it’s hard to get him out of your head even though you try. And maybe, just maybe, you find out he makes you laugh even more than he makes you want to shout his name.

If you’re me, you don’t even know what to do with a guy like him. A little piece of happiness…that feels downright dangerous.

If I have said it once, I've said it a thousand times - I love this series.  Book four and I am not bored yet.  Elisabeth Staab is delivering book after book and each time I am anxious to meet more people from Evergreen Grove. This time around it's Ethan and Leeanne.

Extended Leave and now I'm.... back?

So... It looks like I took the summer off.  Really - I had to.  I was suffering a huge case of blogger burnout.  You know how it goes, if you're a blogger.  Sometimes life has to take a front seat, and blogging just had to take the back seat.

Ok, more like I shoved it in the trunk.  June 7.  That's the date of my last post. Now it's almost 4 months later.  Time flies, eh?

I'm sorry.  I know I don't have a huge following, but I do (or did) have some readers out there.  I've been reading all summer, and I have lots of reviews to write up.  I'm hoping I can get back into it.  In fact, right after I post this, I'm going to post a review for Elisabeth Staab's newest Evergreen Grove book (loved it, btw)

I'm not taking on review requests at the moment, unless  I have previously worked with you.  I've been trying to catch up on what I already have to do.

So to make a long story short, I hope you can find your way back to reading what I have to say, and I'll find my way back to saying it.

*Liz