Kendra Leigh Castle - Dark Awakening

Title : Dark Awakening
Series : Dark Dynasties #1
Release date : June 28, 2011
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
Genre : Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance

Tynan MacGillivray is a cait sith, a vampire who can shape shift into a big cat. But among the different classes of the vampire’s society, the cait sith are considered one of the lowest of their kind. Now the highest class, the Ptolemy is under attack and their Queen needs Tynan for his hunting skills. She needs a human Seer to help them discover the identity of their enemy and she needs the human fast, before their race is gone for good.

Lily Quinn’s parents died when she was very young and this Hollywood couple adopted her. But when her adopted mother became pregnant, Lily knew her childhood wouldn’t be the same again. It was in that time that she discovered her unusual powers and tries to hide them from the rest of the world. When she meets Tynan after one of her “ghost hunters event”, she is immediately attracted to him and knows that he’s the danger type.

Not soon after that she’ll discover she is right about Tynan, because an attack on her life and being kidnapped in the same night isn’t her normal life.

Dark Awakening by Kendra Leigh Castle is the first novel in her Dark Dynasties Series and a great beginning.

The first moment Tynan sees Lily, he is attracted to her without knowing she is the one he’s looking for. The attraction is mutual and you can see sparkles coming from the pages, but Tynan cannot give in to this attraction. The entire vampire race is on the line when he does, because Lily will loose her Seer powers the moment any vampire bites her.

During their journey to see this queen of the Ptolemy race, they discover that there is more going on that the queen told Tynan. His best buddy Jaden is now an outcast and is hunted, and other vampire groups are fighting each other. It’s up to Lily and Tynan to find the solution to keep the peace and also to find the traitor who’s responsible for all those deaths.

I’m a total sucker for vampire stories, so I couldn’t resist this book and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to see this new world with fabulous characters. Tynan is not really the hero you expect him to be, he’s stubborn to see how the world around him is changing and that people around him can be deceiving. But Lily is the fabulous heroine who straight things up for him. She’ll definitely balance him back to the good side and together they will be a strong couple that could be on the top of the chain.

I believe second character Jaden’s book is next and I cannot wait for his book. He’s a fabulous character and I’m curious to see who his heroine is going to be, because it has to be a strong person to tame this vampire cat.

Cara Lynn Schultz - Spellbound

Title : Spellbound
Release date : June 28, 2011
Publisher : Harlequin Teens
Genre : Young Adult Romance

Sixteen-year old Emma Connor’s life has been rough, her father left them when she was young, her twin-brother died when she was fourteen and now her mother passed away, only a year after her brother. She was left behind in the care of her abusive, alcoholic stepfather and he almost killed them in a car accident, which has left her with some physical scars on her arm. Now she has moved to New York to live with her aunt and hope to finish Vincent Academy quietly by staying in the background.

Every school has their bullies and soon Emma has her differences with the popular mean girl Kristin and popular boy Anthony, who doesn’t seem to understand the word “no”. But luckily for Emma she’s find some friends soon, who will watch her back and among them is green-eyed hottie Brendan.

Spellbound by Cara Lynn Schultz is a fabulous young adult novel, mixing paranormal with young true love.

Emma Connor is a normal young woman, who has seem enough tragic in her life, first her father leaving and then the dead of her twin-brother and mother soon after each other. To forget that she is a tragic magnet, she moves to New York to live with her aunt. She hopes to finish school in quiet, but almost immediately she draws the attention of the popular bullies of the school.

From the first day at school she is attracted to handsome green-eyed boy Brendan and the attraction seem to be mutual, but for some reason Brendan stays far away from her. Then the weird dreams are coming and light start burning out whenever she is around, it seems everything has to do with her charm necklace, which her twin-brother Ethan gave her before he died and Brendan also seems to know more.

So she turns to the only one who can help her figure out this situation, her new friend Angelique, and the witch of the school.

The second characters Angelique, cousin Ashley and Cisco are all fabulous. They all accept Emma in their circle from the very beginning, even if they know the true about her background. I really hope to see more of Angelique and her witchcraft.

The popular couple and bullies Kristen and Anthony are a real piece of work. She is the jealous type and will do almost everything to get what she wants, without caring is she hurts others in the process. Anthony is the real scumbag of the book, what he did to Emma at the end of the book was unacceptable. I really hope that he gets what he deserves, if there will be another book.

Spellbound was great and definitely worth to read, I found myself reading and reading because I wanted to know what the end was going to be. Emma and Brendan were so right for each other and the further you got in the book, the more you understood why everything happened the way it did.

I’ll definitely keep my eye on this author and see what she has in store for us next.

Jennifer Rardin - The Deadliest Bite

Title : The deadliest bite
Series : Jaz Parks # 8
Release date : June 2nd, 2011
Publisher : Orbit Publisher
Genre : Urban Fantasy

Jaz Parks has been living with Brude inside her head for a while now and she is sick and tired that he is slowly killing her from the inside out. Brude has one goal; if he cannot have Jaz then now one will. On their last journey to Morocco they found the tools to carve his name in the gates of Hell, but the only thing left to do is find the right spot and that is not so easy as it seems. There are some people who don’t want Jaz and her companions to succeed.

But that is not all Jaz has to worry about, someone almost succeed in killing her lover Vayl and she is forbidden to teach this young man a lesson. It seems fate has a wicked way of telling them that this young man is important to Vayl in a very surprising way.

The Deadliest Bite by Jennifer Rardin is the last novel in her Jaz Parks Series and I have to say it’s fabulous. I loved this series from the first book and Miss Rardin never let me down after reading that first book. It was a shock to hear about her passing, but I have to compliment her for closing this series the way she did.

We all know that Jaz Parks is one hell of an assassin, who doesn’t blink when she has to take some lives. Along her journey through life she meets assassin and vampire Vayl and they get really close, even though they have a hectic life and are from different species. There isn’t a thing they would do for each other, but also for the group they working with.

I was happy to see that most of my questions were answered in this final instalment, we get to see how Vayl and Jaz will end up, also what fate has in store for Cole especially after what happened to him in the previous book and most important if Vayl finally finds the spirits of his two sons.

The Deadliest Bite is a book full of danger, companionship and most of all justice. It was the book I expected to see to end this fabulous series. All though I’m a little sad to see the end of this series, I’m happy to see all the characters in the place where they belong. The journey they all took was long, dangerous and difficult, but being together and have each other’s back was worth it.

I can honestly say that this series is one of the best I even read. These books will be on my shelves for a very long time and I’m definitely going to re-read them in the future.