Library Loot (August 29th–September 4th)

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

 

Soooooo, it has been an awfully long time since I took part in Library Loot, I’ve picked up a couple of books since I last participated, but I’ve been trying to reduce the number of books I’ve had on loan from the library. Literally I gave up hope and took two of them back un-read because I never thought I’d read them. It always makes me sad when I do that, but hopefully at some point in the future, I’ll take them out again.

For my Library Loot, I’ve only picked up one book. A classic. Now I don’t usually tend to enjoy Classics, but I’ve heard lots and lots of positive opinions on this book. So that and it being part of the “Gothic” literature genre, which is creeping up to be one I’m liking more and more, I just had to pick the book up.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”,

With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house’s current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim’s first wife the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.

I got this one a while ago from the library, but I’ve never had the opportunity to highlight it. I love Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter’s series and Nick always makes a quirky and interesting character, so I’m looking forward to the take on his own story. Whilst I’m still making my way through the Dark-Hunter series, I thought it might be enjoyable to take a look at it from a different angle for the moment to keep some refreshment in the series.

Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.
But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn’t hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

Waiting on Wednesday (9)

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This meme highlights some of the books whose releases bloggers are most anticipating this year.

This week I’m hotly anticipating…

Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson

Expected Publication: September 24th 2012 by Little, Brown and Company

James Patterson returns to the genre that made him famous with a thrilling teen detective series about the mysterious and magnificently wealthy Angel family . . . and the dark secrets they’re keeping from one another.

On the night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, Tandy Angel knows just three things: 1) She was the last person to see her parents alive. 2) The police have no suspects besides Tandy and her three siblings. 3) She can’t trust anyone–maybe not even herself. Having grown up under Malcolm and Maud’s intense perfectionist demands, no child comes away undamaged. Tandy decides that she will have to clear the family name, but digging deeper into her powerful parents’ affairs is a dangerous-and revealing-game. Who knows what the Angels are truly capable of?

Goodreads

What’s your WoW?

The Winter King

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell

Genre: Historical-fiction, Adult

Series: The Warlord Chronicles #1

Published: 1996 by Penguin Books Ltd

The tale begins in Dark Age Britain, a land where Arthur has been banished and Merlin has disappeared, where a child-king sits unprotected on the throne, where religion vies with magic for the souls of the people. It is to this desperate land that Arthur returns, a man at once utterly human and truly heroic: a man of honor, loyalty, and amazing valor; a man who loves Guinevere more passionately than he should; a man whose life is at once tragic and triumphant.

As Arthur fights to keep a flicker of civilization alive in a barbaric world, Bernard Cornwell makes a familiar tale into a legend all over again.

My Review:

This book my friend has bugged and pestered me to read for absolute months, along with a tonne of other books so she can finally find somebody to discuss books with and because I read a little bit of everything and I’m unable to say no, I finally got around to picking this one up. I’m only glad for the extra encouragment and can safely say I wasn’t tossing this book aside as something I wanted to forget. It was also entertaining to read this book as part of a read along, which pushed me to read this book and not leave it lying around for a few weeks. For the book may be engaging, but I felt like at times there was the greatest possibility that I could put the book down and come back to it. It just didn’t hold the push throughout the whole novel to keep reading all the time. However, at around 500 pages that would be a pretty mean feat for Cornwell to achieve.

Arthurian legends are certainly one of my favourite genres encompassed within the historical fiction genre. There are lots of different interpretations and questions surrounding Arthur and whether he was even real and once again, Bernard Cornwell brought a fresh view from the previous Arthurian legend books I’ve read.

It certainly stands out as different and unique, with a prose told from the perspective of old Derfel looking back unto his youth with his experience of being born a Saxon boy, who’s thrown into a death pit and survives. Then he rises against the odds to become one of Arthur’s men, and this is just the very beginning.  We go on to accompany Derfel through a maze of twists and turns, deceits and upheaval on his quest to serve Arthur. Following the perspective of Derfel really broadens the understanding of the kingdom’s workings and looking through Derfel’s eyes allows us to connect with other characters that we may not have necessary seen from the view of Arthur and witness events in the kingdom that may go unseen by the eyes of “royalty.

“Derfel Cadarn: The narrator, born a Saxon, ward of Merlin and one of Arthur’s warriors”

Cornwell introduces us to a lot of characters very quickly and all the Saxon names and positions can definitely become confusing, but the character glossary at the start of the novel really helps to ease the confusion of the numerous characters and their positions so you can draw the connecting lines to family connections.

The novel is split into five different parts and there are no chapter titles or labels as such, the chapters are incredibly long stretching from 20 to 50 pages. So I’d suggest if you plan to read this novel, make sure you have plenty of time on your hands because it’s difficult to slip from the storyline mid-chapter without falling out of the story. Nevertheless I felt this was a highlight of the novel because you became so immersed in the tale that you didn’t want to put it down and generally I found myself reading a least a whole part which was generally made up of two chapters.

The secondary characters that fall behind Derfel all have a strongly built history and characterisation to their person, which makes them equally entertaining. Merlin, Arthur and Nimue were three of my favourites and Arthur and Nimue become a central part of Derfel’s life and their relationships are certainly entertaining. Merlin didn’t appear much in the story for the “ancient magician” but his appearances served to prove humerous. He was to put it bluntly a “batty old man” and for those of you that might have watched the BBC’s production of Merlin, he reminded me of the old man that Merlin transforms himself into.

“The cat!’ Merlin explained. ‘I can’t abandon the cat! Don’t be absurd!’

‘For the Gods’ sake, Lord!’ I yelled at him, but Merlin was scrabbling under the table to retrieve the frightened grey cat that he cradled in his arms…”

Merlin wasn’t the only point of humour and whilst much of Cornwell’s time might have been spent discussing tactics, betrayals and quests and the gruesome gore of battle, he did have time to inflect some humour into his story. Humour is definitely a point of appreciation for me, so seeing elements of it brought into Cromwell’s historical fiction pleased me, not quite enough to astound me, but it made it thoroughly enjoyable.

“Arthur, despite Uther’s denial at Levum, was the son of the High King, though there was small advantage to be gained from that patronage for Uther fathered as many bastards as a tom cat makes kittens.”

If you’re worried that you might not like this book because it doesn’t have enough Arthur, fear not, we get plenty of him in all his glory and it’s nice to admire him from afar, but I think viewing the book from Derfel’s perspective dampened my connection to him as a character because it was overshadowed by his relationship with Derfel. Despite this, the book is definitely not a romance tale of Arthur’s love for Guinevere or Derfel’s adventures, most of all it documents the events of this time of Arthur rising to take control of the kingdom.

This book leaves the tale of Arthur far from finished and whilst we aren’t held on a particular cliff-hanger, I definitely want to know what the future holds in store and where Cornwell will be taking us on in the next instalment of this series. If you like historical fiction then this book is definitely for you, but if you’re looking for a swoony romantic tale of Arthur, then this book is probably not for you.

More stalking available here:

• Goodreads
• Author’s Website

Let me know what you think!

Stacking the Shelves (11)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Here it’s chance to share the books you’ve acquired this week and what you’re excited about. So it will be a weekly Sunday occurrence to see what we’re ‘Stacking the Shelves’ with!

Received for Review.

I’m soooo excited for this too. Well, more Eve and Adam than Crewel, but don’t they both look so pretty? I have to thank NetGalley for the chance to read these. I saw Eve and Adam a while back and immediately added it to my wishlist, thinking I had an awful long time until it was published, but when I got accepted, I had to do a happy little dance.

I also got this baby of NetGalley, I’ve heard lots of hype, so I’ll be looking forward to reading Stormdancer. And yet again, it’s a novel with such a beautiful cover! And then The Lost Prince, which I’ll probably regret since I haven’t read the other Iron Fey and this is a carry on/spin off, but I couldn’t resist Kagawa.

                            

I’ve got Guardian of the Moon Pendant as part of a blog tour, so I’ll be hosting the tour on September the 9th if you want to stop by. Then Secrets of Ghosts was a review request, which also looks equally brilliant and seems to have some great reviews!

A bit of a busier week and I have lots of catch up on, ASAP. Happy reading!

What did you guys get this week?

The Book of Tomorrow

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern

Genre: Chick-Lit, Adult

Published: 2010 by HarperCollins

This is a story about how tomorrow can change what happens today…

Tamara Goodwin has everything she ever wanted and she never has to think about tomorrow. But suddenly her world is turned upside down and she has to leave her glamorous city life for a new one in the country. However, Tamara is soon lonely and longing to return home.

Then a travelling library arrives in the village, bringing with it a mysterious leather-bound book locked with a gold clasp and padlock. What Tamara discovers within its pages takes her breath away and everything starts to change in the most unexpected of ways…

My Review:

Let’s say this was the second time I attempted to read this book and I only made it through because I was reading along with somebody else. Otherwise, I probably would have marked this book as a DNF. As it was, it got a second star only for the last 10% which had a little more, action, but still did not redeem any of the characters or the story. This is my first Cecelia Ahern book and it’s not giving me a great impression, so I believe it will also be my last.

Let’s start with the main character Tamara Goodwin. The name Goodwin is incredibly ironic because there is nothing “good” about this girl, she is spoilt, selfish, downright mean and pretty stupid at times. Whilst the story is narrated from Tamara’s perspective, she is a more changed and mature person. However because most of the time we fall into the Tamara of the present you can’t really see this “new” Tamara and even by the end connecting the narrator and Tamara herself is an impossibility. The two do not form any resemblance and Tamara shows little change as a character that makes it impossible for me to like her. Not at any point in the story did I like her, and the fact that she seemed to garner several love interests for an incredibly horrible girl is absolutely abhorrent. What is so attractive about this girl?!

“Yes, Tamara. Now that’s enough questions. You know curiosity killed the cat.’ She smiled briefly before leaving the kitchen.

‘Boredom killed the fucking cat.’ I shouted at the closed door.”

What kind of person talks to their aunt like this? She never changes and whilst her aunt was neither a likeable character or sane, it still didn’t mean she had to be treated this way. Her aunt reminded me of a Meerkat a lot, because she seemed to scurry around and she was always looking out for something. She was suspicious and she certainly wasn’t a likeable person. Along with most of the characters in the story, none of them seemed to be likeable.

There was only one who I actually liked and that was Sister Ignatius who had a more developed character than Arthur who I liked at times, but lacked any real personality or characterisation to his character.

Sister Ignatius was friendly and a little strange, but she was kind and true and she never lied. Out of all the bundle of the characters she was the only person that remotely had redeemable qualities as a person and she brought a touch of humour to the book. She probably is the reason this story even gets a rating.

“Write what’s up there,’ Sister Ignatius pointed at her temple, ‘and what’s in there,’ she pointed at her heart. ‘As a great man once called it, “a secret garden.” We’ve all got one of those.’

‘Jesus?’

‘No, Bruce Springsteen.’

Besides disliking the characters, the plot was slow and dull. We get such a focus on this book from the title and the synopsis and then really it takes very little action in the whole story. I felt that as a whole the plot would have developed from more of the book and if Ahern had taken a stronger hold of this idea and really allowed it to drive the book. This was what I was expecting and totally what I didn’t get, which really annoyed me!

Not only was the plot slow and cumbersome, but there were numerous plot holes and loops that just didn’t make sense and it became really annoying to follow and spot them out. When reading this as a read-along I think these plot holes became more obvious and only served to damper the little enjoyment I got from this book.

To me, reading this book was certainly more of a chore than an enjoyment and it was not my book. I don’t read a lot of chick-lit as it is, but this has really pushed me away from the genre. Personally, I’ll be steering clear of this book and Ahern in future and would be happy to drop this book down at the charity shop and see the back of it.

More stalking available here:

• Goodreads
• Author’s Website

Let me know what you think!

The Tale of Despereaux

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Genre: Fantasy, Young-Adult

Publication: September 9th 2008 by Candlewick Press

Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other’s lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

Review:

This book is cute, shorty and snappy. It’s really not my usual type of book and I’m definitely not the age group this book is directed at! Still, it was enjoyable nevertheless. And how can you not love this cute little mouse…?

“He was ridiculously small. His ears were obscenely large. He had been born with his eyes open. And he was sickly. He coughed and sneezed so often that he carried a handkerchief in one paw at all times. He ran temperatures. He fainted at loud noises. Most alarming of all, he showed no interest in the things a mouse should show interest in.”

I haven’t actually watched the film, but reading the book makes me want to definitely pick up the film.

The book is hard to sum up in words. There are lots of cure pictures dotted through the book to keep your interested engaged, and I’d say it would be nice to sit down with young children and read to them or have them read so their interest can be maintained by the pictures. I have to say, it’s been a very long time since I read a book that had pictures in and it was a pleasant experience.

The book is broken down into four parts, for the last part and the first part, this book probably borders more of the five star rating, whilst the middle two parts were more of a three to two stars. I just didn’t enjoy them as much.

Book The First

A Mouse is Born

The first part and the last part follow Despereaux more and I find him so inexplicably cute that I couldn’t help but smile. And I felt like part four had a much more action packed scene with the drawing to the close of this tale which engaged my attention enough.

Book the Fourth

Recalled to the Light

Part Three I abhorred the most.

Book The Third

Gor!

The Tale of Miggery Sow

I was incredibly sick of hearing about Miggery and her personality and character really just annoyed me. She was stupid and I really couldn’t feel hardly any sympathy for her even though she’d had a bad life, I just didn’t find her to be a likeable character. That would probably be my only part of the tale that I didn’t enjoy and couldn’t stomach it.

Overall, I found the novel to be enjoyable and cute. It’s a quick read at around 200 pages with pictures and I think if you like animals and children’s fantasy then you’ll probably like this book!

Waiting on Wednesday (8)

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This meme highlights some of the books whose releases bloggers are most anticipating this year.

This week I’m hotly anticipating…

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George

Expected Publication: September 4th 2012 by Viking Juvenile

Whidbey Island may be only a ferry ride from Seattle, but it’s a world apart. When Becca King arrives there, she doesn’t suspect the island will become her home for the next four years. Put at risk by her ability to hear “whispers”–the thoughts of others–Becca is on the run from her stepfather, whose criminal activities she has discovered. Stranded and alone, Becca is soon befriended by Derric, a Ugandon orphan adopted by a local family; Seth, a kindhearted musician and high school dropout; Debbie, a recovering alcoholic who takes her in; and Diana, with whom Becca shares a mysterious psychic connection.

This compelling coming-of-age story, the first of an ongoing sequence of books set on Whidbey Island, has elements of mystery, the paranormal, and romance. Elizabeth George, bestselling author of the Inspector Lynley crime novels, brings her elegant style, intricate plotting, incisive characterization, and top-notch storytelling to her first book for teens.

Goodreads

This week I’m showing a book that we won’t have long to wait because every time I see a book on WoW it seems to be months or even years away before it’s being published and I’m just eager to get the book now. This actually sounds thoroughly exciting and I can’t wait to get my hands on this one!

What’s your WoW?

Top Ten Tuesday (5)

Top Ten Tuesday is an weekly meme created and hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s TTT prompt is to list your 10 favourite books during your blog’s lifespan. Well my blog lifespan isn’t all that long, I’ve been going since April and I haven’t read that many books to pick from, but I have read some great books. I can’t say this top ten are in any particular order of favourites, just some of my favourite reads.

1. Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

I’m not usually a contemporary fan in the young-adult genre and I’d seen a lot of hype surrounding this book, but I literally devoured it. I stayed up late to read and could not stop myself from wanting to read just one more chapter.

The romance was fast paced and engaging. Echo and Noah dance around with insults and then finally make a compromise to work together and across the way find a budding romance through their hardship. They are really two fantastic characters and show a depth and reality with their faults.

This book might not be perfect, but it’s a page turner!

My Review.

2. Frankenstein by Marry Shelley

I’ve always been wary of the Classics and I picked up this one wondering how I’d fair with enjoyment. However, I whipped my way through this one. It’s not too long and I found the plot engaging and interesting so that we switched around to lots of different places.

Frankenstein himself I despised and I felt incredibly sorry for the monster, which led me to believe that today we could certainly draw a moral message from the story. Nevertheless, this didn’t reduce my enjoyment of the novel.

Definitely a classic I’d give the time of day to again.

My Review.

3. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

From the moment this came through the post I was bouncing about enough to post a picture to my Facebook in squealy excitement.

Then I started reading. At first I didn’t think this book was going in the direction for me, since the main character seemed a little week. Then we got more into the book and we really got to know her and wow! I adored her kick-ass strength and she was just jump up and down awesome.

And then there was Kanin… What a man! Seriously, he was only in the book for a short time, but I am most definitely in love.

My Review.

4. Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh

Definitely my all time favourite of the Psy-Changeling series. I just couldn’t get enough of this one. It was one I’d be anticipating when I’d read the blurb and now I’m anticipating Kiss of Snow with equal vigour. When I get that far into the series.

Here we have two Changelings from different packs and they really catch fire together. A wolf and a cat. Get your fan now because these two turn the heat right up!

Not only that, but we have a fantastic plot that follows through this story that leads on to more. It really is a wonderful enticing book and by far the best in the series for me so far.

My Review.

5. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Another young-adult book to my list that is truly phenomenal. If you haven’t read this one, I urge you with all my heart to go pick it up and make sure you have a box of tissues. Not just one, a box because it’s heart wrenchingly beautiful and sad.

I connected so quickly with the two protagonists of the story and there is mystery, deception and lots of twists to the plot that make it ever exciting.

Then we reach the end and everything starts to unravel and fall into place which makes it so heart wrenching. A definite must-read of 2012.

My Review.

6. Naked in Death by J.D. Robb

What can I say?! I’ve just started reading book 17 in this series and I’m still as much in love as I was from the very first moment. Everything about these books just makes me jump about in excitement.

The series might sound daunting, but don’t be put off because the books are just incredibly well-written.

We have romance, crime and just a little bit of everything. The books are set in the future, but it’s not so unrealistic that you can’t believe everything won’t happen.

These books have to be one my favourite series at the moment!

My Review.

7. Lover Mine by J.R. Ward

Yet another yummy paranormal-romance series I love. Whilst I have reviews for quite a few of the books in this series, I had to pick this one because it was definitely one I’d been anticipating for quite a while.

John Matthews is the one we all wanted to know about and see having a happy ending.

It was exactly what I wanted and more. Actually, I probably didn’t expect any of what happened in this book, but I got what I wanted from it and it was just as yummy as ever. J.R. Ward has definitely got to be one of my favourite authors and if you haven’t checked out the Black Dagger Brotherhood series yet, you need to!

My Review.

8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

It’s Philosopher’s not Sorceror’s. That’s where we’ll start. This was a review prompted by a re-read of the book and as ever I was still very much in love with it.

J.K. Rowling is an author I’ve grown up through my childhood and the books have been published all through my childhood and the films. Today, it’s been over a year since we had a film and far too long since we had a book from J.K. Rowling. That though alone makes me sad.

However J.K. Rowling is bringing out her new book in September. *Squeee giggles*.

Still, the Harry Potter series will not be forgotten.

My Review.

I could probably add a few more books to my list with The Hunger Games and more J.R. Ward books, but I felt like this was the adequate number and enough books to sum up my top ten for this week. I really adore all the books on this list and it feels like the perfect moment to end the list…

What’s your TTT?

Stacking the Shelves (10)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.

Here it’s chance to share the books you’ve acquired this week and what you’re excited about. So it will be a weekly Sunday occurrence to see what we’re ‘Stacking the Shelves’ with!

Received for Review:

Doppelganger

Borrowed from the library:

The Winter King

Gifted for my birthday:

The Killing Moon

I’ve had a little bit of a quiet week on the book front after two massive hauls the past two weeks, I have tonnes of books to catch up on reading for review and library books to read and then all those I own myself. I’ve just had a very hectic week.

What did you get this week?

Lover Eternal

Lover Eternal by J.R. Ward

Genre: Paranormal-Romance, Adult

Series: Black Dagger Brotherhood #2

Publication: 2010 by Piatkus

In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly war raging between vampires and their slayers. And there exists a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Possessed by a deadly beast, Rhage is the most dangerous of the Black Dagger Brotherhood…

Within the brotherhood, Rhage is the vampire with the strongest appetite. He’s the best fighter, the quickest to act on his impulses, and the most voracious lover-for inside him burns a ferocious curse cast by the Scribe Virgin.

Possessed by this dark side, Rhage fears the times when his inner dragon is unleashed, making him a danger to everyone around him. When Mary Luce is unwittingly thrown into the vampire world, she must rely on Rhage’s protection. Knowing that Mary feels the same intense animal attraction, Rhage must make her his alone…

My Review:

Prepare for my gushy-ness over this novel. Okay, it might not be perfect, but it’s from my favourite author, J.R. Ward and it’s my favourite character from the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Rhage. He’s just so dreamy and sexy and ooooh, which is why I love this book so much! So I can’t get much happier when it comes to the re-reading of this novel. To be truthful, the only reason I started a re-read was to re-read this novel. That’s how bad I am!

Nevertheless, I think we’re developing much more on the series from the last novel, Dark Lover and if you didn’t like Dark Lover, I’d still suggest moving onto this one because I think we have a deeper emotional connection and a much more developed plot and the world building continues to be great. The story lines just seem to get better. Whilst I could have done with less of the Lessers again, they really do add to the whole “air” of the novel.

Do you want to know why I love Rhage so much? I honestly cannot summarise him with actual words because he leaves me with none, but I’ve picked my favourite quotes of him to show you!

“Oh, Mary. Will you let me pleasure you? Will you let me take that sweet arousal of yours where it wants to go?”

Yes, he is a man all about pleasing a lady and he’s so suave.

“What you had is nothing compared to what I want to do to you. I want my head between your legs so I can lick you until you scream my name. Then I want to mount you like an animal and look into your eyes as I come inside of you. And after that? I want to take you every way there is.”

Can the room get much hotter? Rhage is all around just a sex machine. However, that is not the soul reason I love him. He’s so incredibly kind and caring and sensitive. He’s been cursed and it dominants his life, but every moment he lives in fear of hurting one of his brothers and then when Mary comes into his life he’s terrified off hurting her. Over this novel we really watch Rhage grow as a person and he comes into his own. I think this is why by far he’s my favourite character because he makes such a monumental change. He may seem like the bad-boy who is hard-core at fighting and has lots of women, but there is a real emotional and tender side to Rhage that Mary reaches out to and soothes.

“He softened his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you. But you don’t belong here, and I want to know who you are.”

Her throat undulated under his hand, as if she was swallowing.”

Not only that, but Ward’s descriptions of everything are so vivid and the words she uses are fancy whilst really working to drag you into the forefront of the setting and really visualise everything. It’s one of the reason’s I really love reading her books so much. One of my friends on Goodreads said to me after I’ve been through a bout of “bad books” don’t I have a few “sure thing” authors who I know will be good, and J.R. Ward was certainly one of them for me to say, yes!

Mary is by far one of the greatest women I’ve read about! She struggles through so much with cancer, losing her mum and yet she always manages to put other people before herself and stay up-beat and strong. I couldn’t pick anybody better for Rhage and not only does she help Rhage, but as you progress through the series, you really see her blossom as a character who reaches out silently to others and really tries to help. It’s a truly beautiful quality in a person and I think to top of my love for Rhage, the two beautiful personalities of their characters mesh well and make for a fantastic book!

“Sometimes, pretending to be normal was the very best antidote to weirdness. Fake-it-until-you-make-it was more than psychobabble bullshit.”

And with that, I shall end my rather short, gushing review of Lover Eternal. This is certainly a love romance to pick up this tissues with and one I should probably have added to my top ten romances I’d think would make it in the real world because Rhage and Mary are so beautifully perfect and this novel has a very touching emotional element to it!

My Rating:

More stalking available here:

• Goodreads
• Author’s Website

Let me know what you think!