Alone

(The Girl in the Box #1)

by 

Robert J. Crane

Sienna Nealon was a 17-year-old girl who had been held a prisoner in her own house by her mother for twelve years. Then one day her mother vanished, and Sienna woke up to find two strange men in her home. On the run, unsure of who to turn to and discovering she possesses mysterious powers, Sienna finds herself pursued by a shadowy agency known as the Directorate and hunted by a vicious, bloodthirsty psychopath named Wolfe, each of which is determined to capture her for their own purposes...

Intriguing ***** Contain Spoilers******

Alone is an intriguing story of a girl raised by her mother locked inside her own house. For twelve years Sienna lived isolated in her own house without permission to leave or even get a glimpse of outside. 
It’s a coming of age kind of story and I’m interested in finding out what’s to come to Sienna’s life in the future. 


SPOILERS

Sienna’s mother actions could have been perceived as an act of love and protection but I don’t think it was. She never prepared Sienna for anything in life. No plan B for if she would never come home. She taught about fights and weapons but that was it. No preparedness for any eventuality. Loving parents always prepare their kids even if they don’t tell them all the truth.

Spellcaster by Claudia Grey

I really enjoyed this book. I like Claudia Gray writing style and the characters are not idiots. They came out as true teenagers: inexperient but smart. I saw some of the reviews for this book and I was surprised by the low score but then I realized that the book doesn't have whining teenagers and the problems they go through could be real. There are even some interactions with the parents in this book. And That's great.

So, I will pick up the rest of the trilogy. 
And Thank you, Claudia Gray, for giving us a teenage protagonist that is real and doesn't become an idiot every time she sees a hot guy. 

Khristine Hvam was delightfull as a narrator. I didn't care much for her voice for the boy. Everything else was very good.

I'm going through a little of a book slump and I've been trying all kinds of different authors to see if I can finish a book. Claudia Gray was a good choice. Let's see if I can pick up all the others I started reading but can't seem to be able to finish.

July Wrap Up

July was a good reading month even though I fell into a bit of reading slump by the end of the month.
I've read 20 books and 3 graphic novels.

Here are the ratings:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

01-American Witch by Thea Harrison
02-Chosen by Benedict Jacka
03-An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard
04-Hidden by Benedict Jacka
05-Veiled by Benedict Jacka
06-Accidental Mage by Jamie Davis
07-Rivers of London Vol. 1 Body Work by Benedict Jacka
08-Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen
09-Herding Cats by Sara Andersen
10-Saga Vol.3 by Brian K. Vaughan

⭐⭐⭐⭐

01-Someone To Watch Over Me by Lisa Kleypas
02-Saga Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan
03-Bind The Soul by Annette Marie
04-Shopping For A Billionaire #1 by Julia Kent
05-Shopping For A Billionaire #2 by Julia Kent
06-Shopping For A Billionaire #3 by Julia Kent
07-Shopping For A Billionaire #4 by Julia Kent
08-Christmas Shopping For A Billionaire by Julia Kent
09- Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison

⭐⭐⭐

01-The Highfire Crown by JT Lawrence & MJ Kraus
02-Tapping The Billionaire by Max Monroe
03-Chase The Dark by Annette Marie
04-Switching Hour by Robyn Peterman

⭐⭐ 0

⭐ 0

June Reads

 Here is a summary of what I've read this month of June. 27 books in total. Most of the books were in Audiobook format and I can read and do whatever is needed to be done. 

June was a great reading month. I just loved this month selection. I'm a mood reader but I decided to tackle some books on my TBR list. Some of those were there for some time and some were what became available from my hold list in the Library.  

Dawn Arrives by Michael Anderle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Better finale

*******. Spoiler Alert******




This volume was a much better finale than Life Goes On.
But I still have some issues with the way things were handled.
Michael Anderle spent a lot of time with Giles and what about Sabine? She and Demon disappeared after Bethany Anne arrived. I see so many missed opportunities here. Sabine was mentioned once in the warehouse in China when they collected the ship parts and was never mentioned again. She just faded in the background.
Reading this book we are able to see some of the missing chunks from Life Goes On but still is not enough.
I think Michael Anderle is stretched out thin with so many spin-off books. He lost his focus in the main story and neglected the continuity of the main plot. I didn’t see this in early books. His later books could not stand alone or be read out of order. I read them in order and got confused with so many tangent lines.
The subplots were not resolved in a satisfying way and left me feeling like something was missing or either hoping that something else was going to happen.
I’m struggling to decide if I’ll continue with the next phase of the story.
Maybe in the future, but right now, I don’t think I want to be that disappointed after investing so much time and emotions into a series.

View all my reviews

Tinker by Wes Spencer

I have so many problems with this book that every time I think about it I feel like taking away a star.

In the first quarter of the book, Tinker seems to be OK as a person. She goes through a fight for her life. She saves somebody's life. It seems to me then, that she would be a well put together character. I was so wrong.

By the second quarter of the book, Tinker demonstrates such immaturity for a person living by herself for 5 years. She owns and runs her own business and is considered a genius inventor but her actions are totally in disagreement with what the author told us. I would expect her to be naïve in certain aspects but she was plain dumb.

She doesn't know the elven culture or their language very well but she accepts a gift without understanding the meaning of the gift and is too stupid to ask. So she ends up married to an elf. Later on, she unknowingly consents in being transformed into an elf because she can't freaking speak the language but doesn't ask the elf to speak in English and explain to her what he wants to do. He's performing a magic ritual but she's only worried about having sex.

WTF?

That's when I started to fear this the future of this book. I just knew I was going to have problems with the story.

Tinker is an elf now and returns to her house after her transformation. She's not freaked out or mad or confused. She has no emotions about any of this. And then she's almost raped by her friend and again she shows no emotion or trauma. Nothing. She just continues with her day. Right after all of this Ricky, her new employee shows up and has a fit when he sees that she's now an elf and she doesn't see anything wrong with it and trusts him enough to listen to his suggestion to get away from her bodyguard. Tinker let herself be influenced by somebody she's just met and that reacted really bad to her being transformed to an elf. Why?

WTF, Tinker?

And then, She's the pivot! hahahahaha! She's a freaking chosen one! Destined!

I had to stop this book and read something else. Actually, several "something else" before I could come back. I felt like DNFing this book so many times but I'm trying to give more chances to the book.

Those are only my problems with Tinker. The plot could be so much better. The general idea has a lot of promise but the execution didn't work for me. Especially because there was a lot of racism in the book. She brings the Japanese Pantheon as the Bad guys but in this book they are Chinese. So we have the Oni, the Kitsune and the Tengu that infiltrated the Chinese government and they are all bad. A whole race of bad and cruel people. All of them are bad. In this system, the Oni are the ones in power and the Kitsune and the Tengu are their subjects. They suffer from the cruelty of the Oni but it's OK because they are bad too. Nobody revolts or try to fight this system. They want to eliminate to Elves and take over their land and possessions and bring all of their people from their dimension to earth.

Xenophobia and World Domination.

I could go on and on about the things I didn't like about this book but I would be here all week.

I'm not continuing with this series. I'm done.

Life Goes On by Michael Anderle

Good finale!

First of all this was a good book. Michael Anderle’s writing style is captivating and engaging. 

That being said I have some problems with this book. 

1- The Gott Verdammt expression that drives me mad. In this book, it showed up four times once used by Lance Reynolds and the other three by BA.

2- There are some scenes that are so cheesy it made me cringe but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good. Who says cheesy can’t be good? It can and sometimes it IS.

3 - There is a big chunk of the story missing! From chapter 25 to chapter 26, there is a black hole in the middle. Bethany Ann and Michael are getting ready for a date in Japan and on chapter 26 they’re in San Francisco meeting up with the characters from the spin-off series. And some mention of some rescue of the Elite guard. WTF?

I went back to read chapter 25 thinking that I had skipped something. But, no. It just didn’t make any sense. I soldiered on reading but not happy with the development of the story. Because they were on Earth and then suddenly they were back in Devon/High Tortuga.

That’s why it was 3 stars for me.