Book Review- Cold Stone Seduction

Title: Cold Stone Seduction
Release Date: 09/05/2011
Source: Netgallery
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Author: Jess Macallan

(Book pitch from Netgallery) When a regular night of Robin Hood-ery results in the manifestation of some, um, unusual paranormal abilities, perfume-maker Elleodora Fredricks realizes the normal world she lives in isn’t quite… normal. And neither is she, thanks to her father, king of the shadow elves. Not only is he evil incarnate and the reason Elle moonlights as a burglar—someone has to take care of all his victims—he’s stolen her memories.

And only reading her fate can fix that.

Good thing she’s got a trio of hotties willing to help her find said fate, but only if she gives them something in return. Saving her oracle BFF’s fiance, falling in love with the gargoyle, and making up for breaking the phoenix’s heart ought to be a piece of cake for the princess of the shadow elves.

If only the king didn’t want his daughter dead…

So I guess this is one of those things I've seen on other blogs where the post title is usually something like In My Mailbox. But I'm just gonna call it a review as I would do with normal books. I have signed up with a website called Netgallery where you can request to read and review books before they are out. And because I'm suppose to get the review for the books out before they're actually published, I'm going to post my reviews for these requested books first before I get to my regular books. Anyways....

So the title is kinda sketch I know, but it's an adult book. Yes, I, a teenager, read adult books. One of the reasons I picked up this book was that it's fantasy and has elves and the like in it. I'm interested in pretty much anything that has elves in it. 

Writing: I enjoyed the writing style in this book. I thought it was good and I saw a few words here and there I had to look up because I wasn't sure what they meant. The story's PoV is in first person, present tense, which I enjoy reading. I have seen a lot of books in first person but not a lot of them are in present tense. I also thought that Macallan keeps up the tense well throughout the rest of the book. 

Plot: While romance is certainly a strong theme in this book, as is the much overused love triangle, I enjoyed that Macallan didn't make it the center of the book. I enjoyed following Elle in her quest to retrieve her fate. I thought that there was enough tension and a sense of urgency to keep me reading and guessing. There were bits of mystery in this story that made it exciting. And the plot twists were great too, I never saw most of them coming. 

Characters: I thought that all of the characters were very good. Elle was a character that I think people can relate to and she was interesting. Although she was good as the Main Character, I thought that she could be too stubborn and she didn't really ever trust anyone (although she has good reason not too). Jax was an interesting character, but I thought that he was way overprotective. Sometimes it was annoying and kinda creepy. 


MacLean I thought was sweet. I felt bad for him when he realized that Elle doesn't remember him at all. Although as we go through the story, we see her slowly remembering who he is. As for Elle's father and Luke, I hated them. They were evil characters just as Elle said so. Macallan certainly did a good job portraying them as evil. I thought that her best friend, Teryl, was a good friend too. He was kinda funny and interesting. 

What I liked: I enjoyed the creativity in this book. I was happy to not only find out that there was no vampire and werewolves in this novel, but I also enjoyed Macallan's take on gargoyles and phoenixes. This is one of those moments were I think "why didn't I think of that!". While I'm sure I've seen gargoyles in humanoid forms before, I've certainly never come across phoenixes in human shape before. So I thought it was cool that Elle could "shift" both. And how gargoyles were bound to serve shadow elves and phoenixes were bound to serve light elves. I thought that the world building in this story was very good as was the mythology and lore put into it. I also loved the powers that Elle developed.


What I didn't like: As I said before, this is an adult novel so it has some..adult parts in it. And lets just say I skipped over them because I really didn't want to read those parts. That being said, I thought that Elle's relationship with Jax (cool name by the way) was too soon. I've seen this in other novels where the character has met a love interest and suddenly they're in love. I mean, how realistic is that? 


I think Elle's relationship with Jax was based more on lust and desire than it was on love. I think that her relationship with MacLean is based more on love even though she doesn't really remember him. And the whole part about Jax being made for her I think is complete rubbish even though his fate says so. It just bugged me. Elle has only known him for two months and all of the sudden they're in love and crap. 


Overall: I really liked this book and I thought it was good! I'd recommend it for it's certainly very nicely done. The only real problem I had with it was the relationship between Elle and Jax. 

On Goodreads: Stone Cold Seduction

So, have you ever done anything like Netgallery? If you're a teenager, how do you feel about reading adult books?

Sincerely,

Peony

Book Review- Wings

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

I've seen this book for a while and I've heard lots about it. I saw an interview of Aprilynne Pike on Inkpop and I saw that she said her Faeries were different from other ones. She said that she thought that she was the only one to make Faeries into pure plants. Well I remember thinking that she was wrong because I made Faeries like that in one of my own books...only they are not fully plants like hers. 

What I liked: I loved her idea of Faeries and how they are pure plant like creatures. While the idea is kinda orginal, I've seen it in other books but it just wasn't as explained as this book. You could tell that she did her research and I thought that was really cool. 

All the characters were very good, although at times David seemed the Mr. Perfect we've seen one too many times. And sometimes Laurel seemed like she wasn't a girl who could take care of herself. I found myself partly crying when we found out that Laurel's dad may not make it and when her mom was about to sell their old house. But then I was really glad when that Jamison guy came and gave her stuff to help her out. The only part I didn't like that him was that I have no idea who he actually is! He seems like he must be some kind of gate keeper to me.

I thought that while I like Tamani (his name is cool too) was cute and stuff, I thought it was kinda creepy the way he likes her. It seems to me that he's more of a stalker-ish guy who doesn't really like her for who she is but just wants her body or whatever. David was cute, I really hope Laurel ends up with David. 

The plot was good, I enjoyed how Laurel knew that there wasn't something right about the guy who wanted to buy their old house and how in the end she kinda helped fight then trolls off. I hope that in the next couple of books we'll see more of Avalon or whatever it was called and I hope that we learn even more about faeries. 

One of the things about this book that I didn't like was that I thought that the book took a while to get to the action and that it started out really slowly.  Overall I really liked this book and I hope to read the next two books. Hopefully, they will be even more exciting. 

So have you ever read a book where the author took a different look at something that's been done lots of times before? Did you like it or not?

Sincerely,

Peony

Interesting Facts- Incas are More Alike Us than We Realize (part 2)

So Sunday I posted a long post about Aztecs (Read it here), and today I'm forcing you all to learn about Incas now. Unfortantly, I won't have a post about the Mayans because I haven't done enough research on them. But one day I will!

Anyways, the Incas were interesting people. They believed that the original Incas started out as children of gods who came out of this cave. And according to this legend, they then went on to conquer other native peoples. The people who became part of the Inca's empire weren't actually called Incas (just like how the Aztecs called themselves Mexicas). The only person who was called Inca, was the Emperor and the actual noble people. The emperor was actually called the Sapa Inca  or just the Inca. While the other nobles were called that, only they could be called Incas if they were descended from the first Incas.

Like the Mayans and the Aztecs, the Incas had the concept of zero too. In fact, their system of goverment was based off of numbers. You see, every 10 households was governed by a head figure. These leaders of ten, reported then to the heads of fifty households, and then they all reported to heads who governed prefects of 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, and then finally, 10,000 households! Those those who governed over households larger than fifty, their postion happened to be hereditary.


Unlike us, the Incas did not have money. Instead everything was bought through time. This was called the Mit'a which means that it was a tax placed on the people. To pay for this tax you had to spend a certain amount of time doing something. For example, you could spend a year in the army, or repairing roads. In exchange, the government provided everything the people needed, kinda like a welfare system.

Every town or city had storage houses where things like rations went to the widowed, orphans, or disabled people every day, and food and stuff went to everyone else during times of strife or during a catastrophe, like if there was a earthquake. And for the army, there was a storage house where things like armor and weapons were held in towns so that where ever the army was, they were well equiped. They also even had runners to bring messages, much like our pony express.

Not only did the government provide this, but for every marriaged couple, the government gave them enough land to support themselves and any extended family memebers they may have. But before they could work on their own land, the general people had to work on the land of the Emperor and the nobles before they could work on their own. The Emperor even began the planting season by breaking the ground with a golden plow, although after that, he never really did anything to grow food.

Common people also owed a certain amount of cloth to the government because cloth was very valuable. Interestingly enough, even though the government provided for them, people who were disabled or had issues could only marry people who had the same problem as them. For example. only blind people could marry other blind people.


One of the most interesting things about the Incas is that they had a special group of women called Chosen Women. An Acllacuna was the school where girls (ten years old) were selected from all over the Inca empire to be trained as Chosen Women. They were selected based on beauty and social rank. Being trained by older Chosen Women, the girls learned things such as dyeing, weaving, singing and dancing, they preformed religious rites, and they had to make clothes for the emperor. After a certain amount of time (usually three years) they were sent to Cuzco to the Festival of the Sun where the Emperor would decide what happened to them.

 If they weren't selected as a concubine they could be married off to a nobleman or "married" to a diety. If a man spent time with a Chosen Woman both partners could be killed and the village from where the Chosen Woman came from destoryed. But if the Emperor spent a night with one, a temple guard would be sent to the Emperor and ask him if he had indeed spent time with a Chosen Woman. If he said yes then all would be forgiven.

An Acllahuasi was the house where Chosen Women stayed. And a Mamaconas was a Chosen Woman who had been selected by the Emperor as either a concubine or a priestess. Chosen women were expected to be publically moral and lead a good example for other women. They were treated as queens and ladies, leading great and fantastic lives which were filled with pleasure and amusement. the people and lords loved them and they were very esteemed and highly regarded. So much were they respected that commoners would never look them in the eyes.

The Incas are famous for their writing system, known as the quipu. The quipu is a system of strings and knots that represent something. These strings could only be read by the person who created them. Because of this, scribes were very powerful people since they could lie about their quipus. And with this great power, the Sapa Inca had investigators who came around to make sure that the quipu makers didn't lie about what they "wrote" about. And because only the person who made a quipu could understand what it said, people today have no idea what the which still exist mean. There is some ideas going around but no one is really sure.

The Incas were great builders. One of their most famous cities is Machu Picchu. Anyways, the Incas buildings were so well put together that they could withstand earthquakes and a knife couldn't even be put between the stones. The stones were uncut and fitted together naturally so that if there was an earthquake, the stones would rumble together and not fall apart. When looking at one building built by the Incas, the researchers discovered that each stone had a small indent or mark so that they would fit together like a puzzle.

Resources:
Aztecs: Reign of Blood and Splendor by Time-Life Books and Dale M. Brown
Incas Lords of Gold and Glory by Time-Life Books and Dale. M. Brown

So, did you learn anything? Do you think the Incas are interesting?

Sincerely,
Peony

The Poetry of Epicness

When you think of epic poetry two poems probably come to mind: the 
Odyssey and the Iliad. Epic poems were at first always told by oral traditions. They could be in a sense, the ancient people's form of listening books and entertainment. Often the stories could be acted out.


Epic poems are long, serious, and narrative. They pertain to the heroic acts that significantly effects a nation or culture. Usually the heroes are mythological figures and they struggle on some kind of journey or quest.


Epic poems usually have seven different ways you have tell them apart from other forms of literature.

1. It starts in the middle of the story, usually with flashbacks to explain what happened before.
2. The setting occurs in many different places.
3. It begins with an invocation to a muse (called the epic invocation)
4. It includes th use of epithets.
5. Features long and formal speeches. 
6. Usually has gods and goddesses or some kind of divine force interacting with human affairs.
7. The protagonist (the hero) usually embodies the characteristics of the civilization.

And after going on this long quest and having faced many enemies, the hero usually returns significantly changed since the beginning of the story.

I remember learning about epic poems in literature class during my freshman year of  high school. We studied the Odyssey for a couple months. We listed the good/bad traits of Odysseus, talked about epic poems, and as the stupid freshmen we were, we made goofed off during class. I think I was the only one who actually payed attention.

Resources
Wikipedia- Epic Poetry
Epic Poetry

So, what are your favorite epic poems? Have you ever tried writing one or do you know of someone who has?

Sincerely,
Peony