Hemlock

Title:  Hemlock

Author: Kathleen Peacock

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Publish Date:  8 May 2012

Pages: 416

ISBN:  978-0062048653

Source:  Bought

Genre:  YA, romance, werewolves

Series:  Hemlock

Other books in series:  tbd

Rating: Liked

Mackenzie and Amy were best friends.

Since then, Mac's life has been turned upside down. She is being haunted by Amy in her dreams, and an extremist group called the Trackers has come to Mac's hometown of Hemlock to hunt down Amy's killer:

A white werewolf.

Lupine syndrome--also known as the werewolf virus--is on the rise across the country. Many of the infected try to hide their symptoms, but bloodlust is not easy to control.

Wanting desperately to put an end to her nightmares, Mac decides to investigate Amy's murder herself. She discovers secrets lurking in the shadows of Hemlock, secrets about Amy's boy-friend, Jason, her good pal Kyle, and especially her late best friend. Mac is thrown into a maelstrom of violence and betrayal that puts her life at risk.

Kathleen Peacock's thrilling novel is the first in the Hemlock trilogy, a spell-binding urban fantasy series filled with provocative questions about prejudice, trust, lies, and love.

What would you do if your best friend was killed by a werewolf attack?  That is what happened to Mackenzie.  The Lupine Syndrome virus has been on the rise recently.  Mackenzie tries to do things as normal after the death of Amy, but she is haunted by dreams of her.  These make her want to try to solve Amy’s murder.

Amy’s grandfather, Senator John Walsh, however, has other plans.  He invited a group of Trackers into the area to help find the wolf responsible.  Trackers are militant killers whose specialty is werewolves.  Weird things start happening after the Trackers come into town.  Mac’s two best friends, Kyle and Jason, start acting different. 

Regs for Werewolves, RfW, who are werewolf right activists, set up a “peaceful protest” when the Trackers have their recruitment meeting.  That is when Mac discovers that Jason is intending to join the Trackers.  He was Amy’s boyfriend and her murder has spurred him on to hating the werewolves.  Mac wants to help Jason, but that is proving to be more difficult than she had anticipated.  Kyle is suddenly acting different around Mac.  There is also the other girl in school who he seems to scare him at times.  

Then kids are being pulled out of school by the trackers, thinking that they are werewolves.  This can be violent at times.  Is this what Hemlock needs to get over the tragedy of Amy’s death?  Will the Mackenzie finally be able to solve Amy’s murder?  What is going on with Kyle and Jason? 

When I first heard about this book, I don’t know what it was about it, but I wanted to read it.  Maybe it was the cover.  Maybe it was because it has to do with werewolves.  I was hoping that this book would be different than the other werewolf books I’ve read and it was.  I liked the way Peacock wrote the characters in this book.  There are characters you want to like and those that you don’t.  It is just cut and dry.  My opinion about the characters changed while reading this book.   

Even though this book is about a paranormal subject - werewolves, it doesn't seem like that much of a "fairy tale."  I could see why some of the events happened in the book.  It also wouldn't be too far of a stretch for me to imagine something like that happening today.  I cannot wait until June 2013 until the next book in this series comes out.  I will be watching for it.

Fearless

Title:  Fearless

Author: Brigid Kemmerer

Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp

Publish Date:  31 July 2012

Pages: 59

ISBN:  9780758285522

Source:  bought

Genre:  YA, paranormal

Series:  Elemental

Other books in series:  Elemental, Storm, Spark, Spirit (2013)

Rating: liked

Being a force of nature doesn’t keep you safe.

Hunter Garrity is used to watching his back. The kids at school sense something different about him. And they’re right.

Hunter has powers that have nothing to do with how hard he can throw a punch.

Maybe that’s what Clare Kasten is picking up. She’s shy, quiet, and intense, but she’s sought him out. There’s no telling what she wants from him.

But Hunter knows enough to sense a secret when it’s close. And getting close to Clare is a danger he’s ready to face…

What is it that makes Hunter who he is?  In this novella, you find out a little bit of Hunter’s history.  It starts out like other books in the Elemental series, with tales of Hunter being bullied.  He is walking home from school, hears someone following him and it reminds him of the other times he was picked on during school.  Only, this time, it isn’t who he thinks it is. 

The person that is following him is Clare Kasten.  She says that she wanted to talk to him about a presentation he made in class about guns.  She continues to ask him about and if he knows how to use them.  She eventually talks Hunter into showing them to her.  That is when Hunter’s uncle walks in.  He isn’t happy is what he sees and reminds Hunter of what their ability is and how it will affect them.  What does Clare really want from Hunter?  Why is it that Hunter’s uncle and father warn him away from Clare? 

After reading Storm, I was very interested to learn more about Hunter Garrity.  You don’t get to learn a lot about him in Storm, just that he is unsual in the world of elementals.  I liked this novella.  It gave you some background into why Hunter says, does and acts the way he does.  Fearless is book 1.5 in the Elemental series and I’m very interested to learn more about the Merricks in Spark.

Storm

Title:  Storm

Author:  Brigid Kemmerer

Publisher:  Kensington Publishing Corp

Publish Date:  24 April 2012

Pages: 353

ISBN:  9780758272812

Source:  bought

Genre:  YA, supernatural, romance

Series:  Elementals

Other books in series:  Elemental, Spark, Fearless, Spirit (2013)

Rating: Liked

Ever since her ex-boyfriend spread those lies about her, Becca Chandler is suddenly getting all the guys—all the ones she doesn't want. Then she saves Chris Merrick from a beating in the school parking lot. Chris is different. Way different: he can control water—just like his brothers can control fire, wind, and earth. They’re powerful. Dangerous. Marked for death.

And now that she knows the truth, so is Becca.

Secrets are hard to keep when your life’s at stake. When Hunter, the mysterious new kid around school, turns up with a talent for being in the wrong place at the right time, Becca thinks she can trust him. But then Hunter goes head-to-head with Chris, and Becca wonders who’s hiding the most dangerous truth of all.

The storm is coming . . .

What is it about Chris Merrick that would cause Becca to help him?  That is how this story started.  Chris was getting beat up by some guys outside of school and Becca rushes to help him.  She eventually gets him away from them and takes Chris home.  If she thought she was in the clear, she was wrong.  The Merricks include Chris, Michael and twins Nick and Gabriel.  Nick and Gabriel both go to her school and they are “hot” according to Becca.  When she brings Chris home unconscious from the beating, the Merricks instantly think something is wrong with what Becca tells them that happened.  Michael scares her and she leaves. 

There is something different about the Merricks.  They are elementals.  They can control the elements.  Chris’ element is water, so when Becca gave him water during the fight, it revived him.  Becca doesn’t know this when she brings him home.  Michael Merrick thinks that she does and that is why she gave him the water.  It is also suspicious that Becca doesn’t want to tell them who exactly she is.  The reason for that is because her ex-boyfriend spread nasty rumors about her and now everyone wants to “date” her.

There have been threats for a long time that the Guides would be called in on the Merricks.  The guides are the people who monitor elementals.  They are the “judge, jury and executioner.”  There are symbols that are used to indicate they were called.  The problem is that it was painted on Becca’s garage and she isn’t an elemental.

Then, there is this new kid who shows up in school, Hunter.  Becca isn’t sure about him in the beginning.  She kinda wants to see him, but he is snarky.  Who is Hunter and why has he shown up at school?  What is up with his white hair?  What is going to happen between the Merricks and the guides?  Will Becca be involved in that and how?

I was looking forward to this book ever since I read Elemental.  I was instantly fascinated by the Merricks and elementals in general.  I love how each of the Merricks have a different ability.  Something that is not usual.  At first, Becca is afraid of them, not because they are elementals, but because they are big, burly guys who are threatening.  I liked that after she got to know them, they tolerated her a little better.  Michael, the eldest, is always looking out for his brothers, sometimes a little too much.  The younger Merricks needed a brother as much as a parental figure.  After reading Fearless, Spark is next on my list to read about the Merrick brothers.

Nightshifted

Title: Nightshifted

Author: Cassie Alexander

Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks         

Publish Date:  22 May 2012

Pages: 352

ISBN:  978-0312553395

Source:  Bought

Genre:  YA, paranormal, vampires, werewolves

Series:  Edie Spence

Other books in series:  Moonshifted (27 November 2012)

Rating: Loved

From debut author Cassie Alexander comes a spectacular new urban fantasy series where working the nightshift can be a real nightmare.

Nursing school prepared Edie Spence for a lot of things. Burn victims? No problem. Severed limbs? Piece of cake. Vampires? No way in hell. But as the newest nurse on Y4, the secret ward hidden in the bowels of County Hospital, Edie has her hands full with every paranormal patient you can imagine—from vamps and were-things to zombies and beyond...

Edie’s just trying to learn the ropes so she can get through her latest shift unscathed.  But when a vampire servant turns to dust under her watch, all hell breaks loose. Now she’s haunted by the man’s dying words—Save Anna—and before she knows it, she’s on a mission to rescue some poor girl from the undead. Which involves crashing a vampire den, falling for a zombie, and fighting for her soul. Grey’s Anatomy was never like this.

Who takes care of the paranormal when they get sick?  Edie Spence is a nurse on Y4, the unit that takes care of them.  It is a secret floor in County Hospital that not too many people know about.  Edie is just trying to survive and learn the ropes, when “Mr. November” turns to dust before her eyes.  His last words were “save Anna.”  Now, it is up to Edie to figure out (1) who Anna is, (2) what she needs saving from and (3) how to save her.

Feeling guilty over the death of Mr. November, Edie sets out to figure out who he was (Mr. November was his alias because they couldn’t identify him) and his connection to Anna.  This is more challenging than what Edie has first anticipated.  Meanwhile, she has her brother calling her for money.  Her brother, who is the reason she is working on Y4 for less pay than she was making before.  What Edie doesn’t realize is that while she is digging into the identity of both Mr. November and Anna, this will involve her in the paranormal world like she has never known, or wanted.

What will happen to Edie Spence?  Will she rescue Anna?  Will she get into trouble for her involvement in her release?

I didn’t have to stick around to give the report to day shift. There’s no report to give when your patient’s become dead.

When I first heard that this was centered on a nurse who took care of paranormal patients, I was excited to read this.  Being a nurse, I had hoped that it wouldn’t be like the TV shows that depict nursing as something that it is clearly not.  I wasn’t disappointed in this book.  There were moments of hilarity in it with quotes that I showed to my co-workers.  Edie Spence is a well-written character.  I like the way that Alexander has written her.  I don’t like medical dramas or stories very often because they sugarcoat what the profession is about.  In Nightshifted, you don’t get that.  That is what made it appealing to me.

Now that I spoke on the nursing aspect, the paranormal stuff in the book was just as good.  There were dragons, vampires, ghosts, and more.  I liked that things were different in this book.  You don’t often hear about paranormal beings getting sick or having diseases, so this was a refreshing take on a genre that is popular and sometimes repetitive.  I’m anxious to read Moonshifted, which is centered around werewolves, when it comes out in November.

…anything that fell on the floor anywhere in the hospital was always suspect. Somedays there wasn’t enough hand sanitizer in the world to chase after a dropped pen.

Nurses are natural kleptos.You don’t want to be in a room without enough supplies, so every time you walk past the med-cart you pocket another saline flush. By the end of the shift you can look like a chipmunk if you’re not careful. Some days it’s hard to remember that the gum at the end of the grocery checkout aisle isn’t there just for you.