Basia's Bookshelf Book Reviews — Book reviews for the romantic, slightly snarky nerds in all of us

Sixteenth Summer

May 2, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 2 Comments

By Michelle Dalton

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: May 3, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Source: Publisher

Anna is dreading another tourist-filled summer on Dune Island that follows the same routine: beach, ice cream, friends, repeat. That is, until she locks eyes with Will, the gorgeous and sweet guy visiting from New York. Soon, her summer is filled with flirtatious fun as Anna falls head over heels in love.But with every perfect afternoon, sweet kiss, and walk on the beach, Anna can’t ignore that the days are quickly growing shorter, and Will has to leave at the end of August. Anna’s never felt anything like this before, but when forever isn’t even a possibility, one summer doesn’t feel worth the promise of her heart breaking…

Goodreads Summary

Summers at the Dune follow a predictable routine: the same crowd that’s lived there forever sticks together and does the same thing every year, eats at the same places, hangs out at the same haunts and generally stays away from anything having to do with the “shoobies” – the tourists who pour onto the island and hit all the shiny spots. The summer is set to officially kick off with a big annual bonfire and while normally Anna would be hanging out with her friends, this year she’s the third wheel – Sam and Caroline are now a couple and even though they’re trying to still hang out together, things aren’t the same. Indulging in a little self-pity for always being the odd person out of a couple, Anna separates from the group at the bonfire and sees a guy down the beach, alone – they don’t have more than a chance to lock eyes a few times, but it’s enough for her to feel excited about him.

Anna finally sees him again when he comes into the ice cream store her family owns and she finds out he’s from New York, visiting for the summer. After a few false starts when Will tries to take Anna to dates on the shoobie side of town, the two settle into a deep summer fling, with Anna showing him her side of the Dune and fully embracing him into her life. When Caroline and Sam start to have problems and when Will’s brother Owen says something that reminds Anna that they’ll be leaving soon though, Anna starts to question whether all the time she’s spending with Will is something she’ll cherish or if it’s just leading her up to bigger heartbreak when he leaves. She wonders if ending it before it goes any further will be better than getting any more attached than she already is.

I completely loved Anna. She’s nice, imperfect girl who gets along with her parents and two sisters, follows curfew and comes up with new ice cream flavors when she’s stressed out. Dalton fills the pages with all of the little things that bring Anna to life – the special trinkets she keeps in her dressing table drawer, the details of the beach wrap she uses all summer that’ll get changed next year, the candy that Anna likes and most of all, all the flavors of ice cream that weave in and out of the story. She was a beautiful narrator – even to the end, between her pain and confusion about Will and her love for her family and the Dune, I wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

Unfortunately, the depth of Anna’s character left Will feeling flat to me. He was at Dune Island with his mother and brother because of a family issue that should have lent his character some depth, but it really only felt a little tacked on to me. I didn’t like Owen and his mother’s sudden, convenient, “forgotten” tie to the Dune was an eye-roller. I don’t want to say that Will wasn’t a sweet guy – he was nice, romantic and there were a lot of emotional moments – but most were really due to Anna’s part in them.

I don’t really know if this is a positive or negative – something neutral really – but this would be what I’d consider a G-rated book. There’s no profanity and only references to kissing.

My Summary: The narrator of this story was so beautifully written she felt like she could step right off the page. Unfortunately, the secondary characters were eclipsed by her and the plot felt like something I’ve read many times before. While it was a joy to read Anna, take her away and there wasn’t anything new.

My Rating: C+

Filed Under: *C Rating, Contemporary/Romance, Reviews, Young Adult Tagged With: Michelle Dalton

On My Wishlist (12)

April 30, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 5 Comments

On My Wishlist is hosted by the wonderful Book Chick City (follow her on Twitter if you don’t, she’s wonderful), a Saturday meme where I get to list any books that I’m dreaming about adding to my collection. Or any book with cover art that I’m drooling over and need an excuse to stare at a little bit more. I’m easy that way. This week I picked a book that’s the second book in a series – the first got terrific reviews and as a result, has been collecting dust on my Kindle since it came out. Hopefully I’ll get around to reading it before this one is released. Sigh.

Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2)

By Kate Elliot
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: September 26, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy/Steampunk

Cat and her cousin are key players in a drama of dragons and politics. Everyone wants something from them – including the warlord who’s conquering all Europa and the Cold Mages who dare defy him. But the Master of the Wild Hunt is most dangerous of all. He will command Cat’s loyalty using what she holds most dear.

In a world where science and magic are at war, one girl must save those she loves, or lose everything.

Goodreads Summary

I’d comment on how much I loved the first one and can’t wait to continue the story, but…. ;)

So what’s on your wishlist this week?

Filed Under: On My Wishlist

Shift (Shade #2)

April 30, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 4 Comments

By Jeri Smith-Ready

Publication Date: May 3, 2011
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Source: Publisher

Aura’s life is anything but easy. Her boyfriend, Logan, died, and his slides between ghost and shade have left her reeling. Aura knows he needs her now more than ever. She loves Logan, but she can’t deny her connection with the totally supportive, totally gorgeous Zachary. And she’s not sure that she wants to.Logan and Zachary will fight to be the one by her side, but Aura needs them both to uncover the mystery of her past—the mystery of the Shift.

As Aura’s search uncovers new truths, she must decide whom to trust with her secrets…and her heart.

Goodreads Summary

There are going to be some necessary spoilers here for the first book, Shade.

At the end of lawsuit between his parents and the record reps that supplied the cocaine that killed him, Logan promised that he’d be at peace and let his spirit pass, but the opposite happened – his darker emotions overcame him and he turned Shade, a ghost doomed to only walk in the shadows unseen by anyone ever again. Aura was devastated – she’d spent the time between his death and that moment easing both of them towards his ultimate passing. Even knowing contact with a Shade is physically painful for Post-Shifters, Aura tries to get Logan to contact her for three months. When he finally makes contact, he’s confused, afraid of being a Shade and still in love with her. Being with her brings back – first as a ghost, that is unprecedented enough, but then for seventeen precious minutes, as flesh and blood.

Logan’s return comes not only as Aura and Zach have finally started to move forward with their relationship, but as their investigation into what started the Shift is leading to some answers. Aura’s working so closely with Zach sets off Logan’s jealousy and Logan’s reappearance reminds Zach that Aura may not really be over him – and it all leaves Aura in an angry muddle in the middle, leading to one night of complete stupidity that threatens to tear apart entire families.

Their search for the truth about the Shift might be even more dangerous when it sends Zach and Aura on the run for their lives.

Dum da dum… Seriously, good action stuff follows! I know I sound like a dork for this book, just like I did for Shade, but I loved these books so much it was more difficult than usual to write these reviews.

This was also harder to rate than Shade because it had a completely different purpose to it. Shade was emotionally driven, softer – this was full of action, turbulent emotion and there were some important relationship developments outside of the main couple/s. Much more is learned about the origins of the Shift and Aura and Zach’s connection to it. The way the information came out managed to tie up so many threads, make so much sense and yet leave enough to be explored in the next book was brilliant.

There were just a couple of problems for me. Midway through the story there was definite lull. Zach and Aura went back and forth about their relationship, Aura and Logan went back and forth about how they could only be friends and the most interesting thing going on was whom Zach was going to take to prom. Unfortunately right after that, there were so many TSTL moments, my hand got sore from hitting my head. It helped to remind myself that these were high-schoolers, but even then, I had trouble believing Zach and Aura would do the things they did. I hate to be a tease, so I’m going to give a couple of sentences about what they did behind the colored text – spoil at your own risk:

Zach was angry at Aura because she rejected him at prom, and later that night he decided to have sex with his date – who had deliberately called Aura first, then left the cell phone open on the table so Aura could hear everything. He stopped and was horrified when he realized she could hear him, but angry and hurt, she retaliated by getting intimate with her date – Logan’s brother Dylan (they ultimately never had sex though).

The action picked back up from there when Zach and Aura’s investigation started to pay off. It was a little surreal, but I think it made a nice transition from a simple paranormal ghost story to a more paranormal action/mystery/romance story.

My Summary: This is only the second book in the series and I’m already biased about it. I love how smart the characters are (usually) and how the author manages to weave the emotional story so flawlessly into the action in this book. This ended in a place that may have resolution for one character but leaves some questions about Zach and Aura and the Shift and where it all started. Anyone who doesn’t want to continue the series won’t feel like they’ve been left on the edge of a cliff though. I’m going to be one of the people begging the author to write faster – it’s just been announced that the title for the next book is Shine, but it won’t be out until the summer of 2012!

My Rating: A-

Filed Under: *A Rating, Paranormal, Reviews, Young Adult Tagged With: Jeri Smith-Ready

Shade (Shade #1)

April 29, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 7 Comments

By Jeri Smith-Ready

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: May 4, 2010
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Source: Publisher

Love ties them together. Death can’t tear them apart.

Best. Birthday. Ever. At least, it was supposed to be. With Logan’s band playing a critical gig and Aura’s plans for an intimate after-party, Aura knows it will be the most memorable night of her boyfriend’s life. She never thought it would be his last.

Logan’s sudden death leaves Aura devastated. He’s gone.

Well, sort of.

Like everyone born after the Shift, Aura can see and hear ghosts. This mysterious ability has always been annoying, and Aura had wanted nothing more than to figure out why the Shift happened so she can undo it. But not with Logan’s violet-hued spirit still hanging around. Because dead Logan is almost as real as ever. Almost.

It doesn’t help that Aura’s new friend Zachary is so understanding—and so very alive. His support means more to Aura than she cares to admit.

As Aura’s relationships with the dead and the living grow ever complicated, so do her feelings for Logan and Zachary. Each holds a piece of Aura’s heart…and clues to the secret of the Shift.

Goodreads Summary

It was the best night of Logan Keeley’s life – a perfect performance from his band, two offers from record companies and finally, his relationship with his girlfriend Aura was going to go all the way. Instead, too much to drink plus a little something slipped to him by one of the record scouts left him dead.

Aura is a Post-Shifter. Something happened sixteen years ago and everyone born after that day can see and communicate with ghosts before they pass on and it’s not a gift that’s welcome anymore. Post-Shifters have found that ghosts don’t like colors, so they wear red. They can’t materialize around obsidian, so they put it in rooms that they call Black Boxes. Aura makes limited use of her gift though, working as an interpreter for the dead in her aunt’s law firm, helping them get a form of legal justice that helps them move on. She doesn’t hide from the ghosts the way most of the other Post-Shifters do, she just sort of works her days around them.

When Logan dies and comes back to her as a ghost, she knows the right thing to do is to help him pass, but what she wants is to keep him with her for just a while, especially since he doesn’t seem able to let go of her either. Aura’s also been spending a lot of time with Zachary, a Pre-Shifter from school that’s working on a project with her, one that she hopes will bring her closer to finding out what caused the Shift. The more time she spends with Zach, the more she knows she needs to move on from Logan – but the more she slips away from him, the more Logan threatens to go Shade, a dark ghost that’s condemned to always stay trapped on earth in the shadows, unseen by anyone.

I know the first thing that’ll come to mind – not another love triangle with a ghost. Seriously, this one is different and I’ve read enough of the blasted things lately that I really should know. Aura knows Logan isn’t coming back and while she loves him, it’s a love for what should have been. He’s still comforting to be with and even though it’s selfish of her, when he doesn’t seem ready to go, she doesn’t push him to. She knows when it’s time for him to stop being her “boyfriend” though, but does Logan? She’s terrified of him becoming Shade, but she deserves a life now that he’s gone.

Logan is everything you’d expect someone who died on the best night of his life to be. He’s full of guilt for the pain he’s caused his family and Aura, anger for missing out on the rest of his life and shame because he killed himself with his stupidity. He’s left so many things unfinished with Aura and he can’t figure out how to fix it. It was easier to like him than I thought it would be – he had so much regret because he lived so much differently than he felt and now that he was dead, all he wanted to do was say it all. He knew it was wrong to stay around Aura’s neck like a millstone though, but how much of his own burden could he unload?

Zachary was the mystery ingredient. He appeared at school seemingly out of nowhere and suddenly was assigned to help Aura on her project that was a cover for her investigation into what caused the Shift. She was instantly charmed and attracted to him, but each time they got close, something Logan did would come between them and he’d pull back.

On paper, all three of these characters sound fairly annoying, but in the story they’re all amazing and rich and I was tearing through the book to read about them. There’s so much going on in the story it would take me forever to even begin to write any kind of detailed synopsis for it – Logan’s family is a huge part of the story and every member is unique and plays a different, important role. Aura’s aunt is the same – she’s a key piece in the relationship between Logan, Aura and Zach. There are villains who are after the same information about the origins of the Shift that Aura is and villains who are trying to lock up any ghosts that Shade. The relationships between Logan and Aura and Zach and Aura are all sweet and painful and never fall into that, “who will she choose?” love triangle garbage.

My Summary: This isn’t the paranormal ghostly love triangle story you might be expecting. I loved every single character, the whole concept of the story and was left speechless by the ending. The only thing that saved my cuticles from being chewed was that I happened to have the next book, Shift, ready to read right away.

My Rating: A

Filed Under: *A Rating, Paranormal, Reviews, Young Adult Tagged With: Jeri Smith-Ready

Hotter than Wildfire (Protectors #2)

April 27, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 4 Comments

By Lisa Marie Rice

Publisher: Harper Collins Canada
Publication Date: April 5, 2011
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Purchased

The world knows her only as Eve. . . .Though her songs have sold millions she is an enigma, a bewitching mystery. But to former Delta Force operator Harry Bolt, she is an angel whose sultry, smoky voice brought him back to life after the nightmare of Afghanistan. Nothing else matters.

And now a scared, helpless beauty has walked through the door of his San Diego private security firm, running from something secret, something deadly . . . and Harry knows immediately that this is the woman who saved him. He is the last hope for this intoxicating siren without a past—not even in his hottest dreams did he imagine that the lady Eve could be so tempting, so achingly desirable. But though she burns to lose herself in Harry’s powerful arms, Eve is wary of trusting this tough, haunted ex-soldier who promises to protect her. Surrender could mean sweet ecstasy or certain doom. Can she open her heart, even if it means risking her life?

Goodreads Summary

Ellen Palmer was just a normal woman living a normal life as a CPA for Gerald Montez, owner of Bearclaw, a security-for-hire company with ties to the government. When she was approached at a holiday party by a drunken colleague with a not-so crazy story about money stolen out from under the government’s nose in Iraq – a colleague who ended up dead the next day – she knew it was time to run before Montez could find out that she’d been digging into his finances for a while already.

After Harry Bolt witnessed the horrific deaths of his mother and sister at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend when he was a child, his family became first the foster care system, then his brothers in the military. Those brothers were just one part in saving him when he came back from the war, his body torn apart – the rest was repaired by the peace given to him by the soothing voice of the mysterious singer Eve. Now healed, he and his brothers have formed RBK Security with a secret service dedicated to helping women in abusive or troubled situations find safe places.

Fate and the increasingly tightening noose of Montez brings Ellen to Harry’s office carrying the special card given to her by another one of the women RBK helped find shelter. When she starts revealing her story to Harry she also tells another secret – she’s Eve, which only deepens the attraction he felt when she first walked in. When she reveals the name of her former boss and his company and Harry and his partner react, she assumes the worst and runs – right into Montez’ goons’ hands. One bloody rescue later, Harry has Ellen on the run to an RBK safe house.

Well, in general there’s not a huge amount different here in the general structure from the rest of LMR’s other stories. For anyone who hasn’t read any of them, here’s the breakdown. Characters: A very alpha male who is always some sort of ex-military figure; a very feminine and insanely beautiful woman (she has varying degrees of intellect); a evil villain whose motive is nearly always related to money, war and the government and there usually is at least one good friend of the female/male lead who may be disposable or will be sequel bait. Plot: The female character is usually in some sort of trouble because she’s stumbled across something she doesn’t know she has or at least doesn’t understand how important it is. She’s constantly getting into deeper trouble because she’s headstrong and does ill-advised things in an effort to protect either the hero or her friend/s. The male character is almost instantly in love/lust with the female character and tells her and acts upon it quickly. He is alpha to the point of being painful, but the heroine generally goes along with it. The Sex: It’s usually pretty early in the book, happens a lot, happens for a long, long time, is sweaty and wet and very bluntly explicit. Expect large equipment.

Does any of this sameness keep me from buying book after book written by LMR? Uh, no, not really, although I have to say after the last one I read, Dangerous Lover, I was tempted to toss in the towel. What can I say, it’s an addiction.

This did have some big differences that made me much happier here. Ellen was a much smarter woman than a lot of LMR’s heroines, even if she did do a few boneheaded moves which were necessary at plot points. She was pretty clear-headed and didn’t spend a lot of time whining about her situation – she had time on her hands and she wanted to help, not sit and moan about her fate. I really liked that she kept reminding Harry that she was Ellen not Eve – that was something he kept calling her and it bugged me so much.

Harry was mostly standard LMR, although he was very angsty. His childhood was nasty and he had some serious protective instincts that were a little over the top. I give him high points for being one of the few heroes in her books who wandered around aroused all the time but didn’t do anything about it for quite awhile. He was a nice guy behind all the machismo and it was sort of cute how he’d keep tripping over his toes in awe from time to time when he’d realize he was with The Woman Who Was Eve (caps intended). When they did get around to having sex, it was pretty sweetly realistic at first before all the usual stuff took over.

What dropped my rating yet again was this insistence on increasing the amount of time the book spends in the villain’s head. It’s yet again a boring place to be, like something out of a really, really bad Al Pacino movie this time. It’s also become revoltingly gory – there’s a scene where Montez and his goons are torturing someone and it’s so over the top for this kind of book that it really made me wonder what the author and her editor were thinking when they included it.

Yeah, the ending was a little cheesy in a cinematic sort of way, but considering all the guns and craziness that came before it and the usual ways LMR’s books end, I think the story probably deserved it.

My Summary: This had a likable hero and heroine, something that’s been missing from the last few books I’ve read by this author, so I was quite happy with it, even with the sort of similar plot that I’ve come to expect. It looks like there’s a new pattern developing however, one with more time in the villain’s head and more gore. While I agree that a harder suspense line works for these books, going that far made that part of the story less enjoyable for me.

My Rating: B-

Filed Under: *B Rating, Contemporary/Romance, Reviews Tagged With: Lisa Marie Rice

Hoppy Easter Eggstravaganza Blog Hop Winner

April 26, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf Leave a Comment

Congratulations to Elaina W.from Elaina Reads who won the Amazon gift certificate in the Hoppy Easter blog hop. Thank you so much to everyone who participated. I’m looking forward to several more giveaways later this year!