Blog Tour: Here

Title:  Here        

Author: Denise Grover Swank

Publisher:  CreateSpace

Publish Date:  11 November 2011

Pages: 350

ISBN:  978-1466394575

Source:  from author for book tour

Genre:  Young Adult, alien, romance

Series:  On the Otherside

Other books in series:  There (November 2012)

Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before.

Classmate Evan Whittaker paid Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he’s volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can't ignore that his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he wears a pendant she’s been drawing for months. When the police show up one night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he’s really from.

How would it make you feel knowing that you were driving the car that killed your best friend?  That is what happened to Julia Phillips.  Her best friend, Monica, was in the car when they got into an accident and she died.  Julia doesn’t remember what happened in the accident.  She has doubts as to who caused it.  This has haunted Julia, not allowing her to do things.  Her reaction to Monica dying has caused her to shut everything out.  This causes a major rift in her family and makes things difficult for them.   

As if things aren’t bad enough for Julia, her counselor at school threatens to send her to an alternative school if she doesn’t bring her grades up and turn herself around.  She has to have a tutor to make up all the work that she has missed since Monica’s death.  She never expected who the tutor would be - Evan Whittaker.  He is acting strange towards her.  Normally, he wouldn’t give her the time of day, but now he is all concerned about her and not caring about things that were previously important to him.  Then there is Reece, the new kid who just came back from the alternative school.

Strange things are happening in Julia’s life that she doesn’t understand.  Like where did the bracelet come from?  After the accident, she mysteriously was found wearing a bracelet that said “Love endures forever.”  Why has she been doodling Evan’s name ever since the accident?  What is this strange connection to Reece and why is Evan being nice to her?

When I first started reading this book, I wasn’t too sure that I would like it.  I was wrong.  I liked how this book kept you in suspense.  I never really knew what was going to happen next.  It surprised me to the end.

 

On the Cover is a girl in a white dress standing in a pond in the woods.  You can see two figures off in the distance.  The color scheme of the cover is black and white.  I liked the cover. It was initially what drew me to review this book.

•Julia Phillips.  Her reaction to the death of her friend is like that of anyone in her circumstance would be.  She doesn’t understand what happened and why she was the one to survive and not Monica.  She tries to be better in the book and starts interacting with her family more.

•Evan Whittaker.  The new Evan.  The one that is nice to Julia and tutors her.  Yes, it is strange that he changed, but I like the changes.

• Reece.  You get to know a little about Reece in the story and find out that he is a funny guy. He came back from the alternative school before Julia finds out that she is being sent there.  He gives Julia some pointers.

•Julia’s family.  Okay, this isn’t really a “not like,” but I didn’t know where else to put this.  I can realize what the driving force is behind some of the decisions that her mom and father make, I just don’t understand them. 

• Some of the other people in the town.  I don’t want to say too much and give the story away, but I did not like them.

• Sarah Chapman.  She is the popular girl in school.

The Immortal Rules

Title: The Immortal Rules

Author: Julie Kagawa

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Publish Date:  24 April 2012

Pages: 485

ISBN:  978-0-373-21051-0

Source:  netgalley

Genre:  Young Adult, romance, vampire

Series:  Blood of Eden

Other books in series:  unknown

In a future world, Vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

What would you do if you were given a choice between death and becoming something that you hate? Allison Sekemoto lives in The Fringe of New Covington in Sector 4. New Covington is one of the vampire cities that has formed sixty years after a deadly virus, the Red Lung, has killed off most of the population. Allison aka Allie is an unregistered. This means that she doesn't have to go and donate blood to the vampires. This also means that she isn't taken care of and doesn't get food on a regular basis. She lives with Stick, Lucas and Rat. They are in her gang. They help each other survive.

After watching the hanging of unregistereds in the city, Allie decides that she needs to go elsewhere to scavenge for food. She goes to the ruins. This is outside the city walls of New Covington. She has been there before and found some good food. When she goes there, she knows that she has to return before nightfall because that is when the rabids come out. They were created when they did experiments on vampire blood and the red lung virus. What she finds in the ruins is a basement full of food. She is excited because this will last her and her gang a few months. She returns to her home by way of the tunnels that she took out of the city and come across some mole men and a vampire. Luckily, she arrives home the next morning.

After telling her gang about the basement of food, they decide to go after it because the thought of having food is too good to pass up. The leader, Lucas, tells everyone to get ready and they cross the wall of New Covington into the ruins. Things don't go as planned and Allie finds herself fighting against rabids in the middle of a storm. That is when she meets Kanin and he gives her a choice - live or die. Allie chooses to live, so Kanin transforms her into one of the things that she loathes - a vampire.

Kanin teaches her how to be a vampire. Throughout this whole ordeal, Allie learns that there are some things that Kanin is hiding from her and that culmonates in her almost dying and Kanin being captured. Now Allie is on her own and has left New Covington. When she is wandering around, she meets Ezekial Crosse aka Zeke and his group who are trying to get to Eden, where there are no rabids or vampires. They have been trying to find this place for years under the leadership of Jebbadiah Crosse. Allie blends in the group easily and everyone thinks that she is human. What will happen when they find out that what Allie is? What secrets is Jeb hiding from the group and why are the raiders after him? What happened to Kanin?

I have always heard what a great author that Julie Kagawa was and have never before read anything that she has written. Not for any reason other than having SO many books to read and forgetting about hers. When this book appeared on Netgalley, I put my mind to reading it and finding out what type of author Kagawa really is. I wasn't disappointed. Kagawa's writing is so easy to follow and she never misses an opportunity to let you in on what the character is feeling. Immortal Rules has a lot of information to absorb, but it doesn't make your head hurt with it all. She writes it so you can not only understand it, but remember it as well. I am very excited to read the forthcoming books in this series and am anxious to read other works by this great author.

On the cover, you see a woman, whom I presume to be Allie. She has red eyes and is crying blood. This goes along with the description of what they say Allie looks like. In one altercation with a gang member, she is described as a "sweet little Asian doll." The crying blood also goes along with the story as Allie has said before that when she cries, it is in blood. I like the serious look that she has on her face and the contrast between the black and red.

 

•Allie. She is the main character and the one who takes care of other people. She would do anything for her gang members and when she is turned into a vampire, loses that sense of family that she had as a member of the Fringe. She is stubborn and doesn't accept things for what people tell her they are, but have to figure things out on her own.

•Zeke. He is nice boy. He finds the good in everyone. Even though other people in his group were telling him that Allie was bad, he always thought the best of her. Allie is concerned that he is too naive. His spirit and faith are inspiring.

•Caleb, Ruth, Jake, Teresa, Silas, Dorothy, Darren. They are the other members of Zeke's group. Some of them have accepted Allie and other didn't. They still helped her and let her join them for a while.

•Kanin. He is Allie's "father" so to speak. He turned Allie into a vampire and taught her the ways of vampirism.

 

•Jeb. Hypocrisy at its finest. Some of the things that happened concerning Jeb made me have the same reaction that Allie had.

•Jackal. From the get-go, he doesn't seem like a friendly person. He is the self-proclaimed "vampire raider king."