Mark of the Mage by RK Ryals-3.5*

Books never die, but they can be forbidden.

Medeisia is a country in turmoil ruled by a blood thirsty king who has outlawed the use of magic and anything pertaining to knowledge. Magery and scribery are forbidden. All who practice are marked with a tattoo branded onto their wrists, their futures precarious.

Sixteen year-old Drastona Consta-Mayria lives secluded, spending her spare time in the Archives of her father’s manor surrounded by scribes. She wants nothing more than to become one of them, but when the scribes are royally disbanded, she is thrust into a harsh world where the marked must survive or die.

My thoughts before I read the book: – Okay so this is just another one of those books where the heroine is professed to save the world. I am sure she’ll be spineless and weak but hey since I haven’t found good written material for a while I’ll take a chance on this book.

10% into the book:- The heroine isn’t spineless or weak or a fuckin bleeding heart.

25% into the book:- The direction that the book is going into is one that I like.

45% into the book:- The hero isn’t an asshole and the heroine is not afraid to be full of rage

60% into the book:- Ha! I knew that was gonna happen.

85% into the book:- This is….interesting

After reading the book:- Damn! I like it!

So Drastona is an illegitimate girl born to a nobleman by a dragon rider with healing powers and powers of a mage. She can talk to the trees and the animals and she can influence the weather. She is also not a martyr type or weak type.

This was a surprise because not every writer-especially a YA-writes a strong and determined protagonist.

Kye…..well, Kye is Kye. He is the bastard son of the slimy-monkey-ball-sucking King. He is also a strong male character without arrogance or cockiness. I would like to know him more.

Now, since I liked the book why give it a 3.5*?

Well that is because I don’t like where the author is going with Kye and Stone’s relationship. The two of them don’t seem right for each other.

In my eyes a fucking-after-battle-buddies is a more appropriate relationship for them.

Regardless, I am going to read the next book.

And there were dragons!!!!

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin

Right now, I’m 70% into one of the most deliciously built worlds ever.

I realized somewhere between 20-30% that I should have waited till I was at least 24 to read this, but eh, I read my first BDSM book by Sylvia day or Shayla Black (I don’t remember) about Logan and Cherry when I was twelve.

The first thing I am going to say is:-

This book is so fucking long you could fit three Order of the Phoenix into it.

The second thing I am going to say is (well, its more of an ask):-

Can someone please do me a favor and kill the spineless motherfucking bitch Sansa?

Third thing:-

Can we please have more Arya in the next book?

Fourth thing (more of a confession really):-

I only picked up this book after I read on JMomoa’s wiki that he was Khal Drogo. I am in love with his body, so help me god.

Okay long story, you really should take my word on this, short:-
It’s all about the Iron Throne.

There, I said it.

It’s all about the throne. So far I have figured Lannisters, the queen’s family for those of you who are not in the know, or inbreeding bastards as I fondly call them, deserve to die in the most brutal way possible. Starks are either too good or too spineless for their own good and Jaime Lannister is a snake.

King Robert was a spineless bastard who cared way too much about his throne and too little about his people.

Sansa….I don’t even have words for to describe my hatred for the little bitch.

Arya is my favorite female character. Odd isn’t it? The only female in the whole book who I love is an eight year old girl?

Catelyn is a…well, she is…..pathetic really. No other word for it.

Eddard Stark, what kind of a name is that anyway, is the one male who could, notice I don’t say should but could, sit on the throne and manage it but alas, like always, the just have never wanted the throne.

Danerys (Mighta gotten the spelling wrong there) is a child. She is childish, immature but, and thank god for this, not a bitch.

I am not even going to talk about Viserys (Mighta gotten this one wrong too) and my contempt where he is concerned. All I am going to say is, he makes Dudley look like Pooh.

I don’t know whether I loved this book because I am not sure the word can apply over here. The title is truly justified though. Because this is all about that fugly Throne. It has too much, and I mean too much creepy sex between creepy brother and sister.

The Dothraki, ironically, are the most normal people in the whole book. I would said that I could get behind them had it not been for Khal Drogo’s monologue about crossing the sea and raping and plundering the King’s Lands and people. I can’t get behind that sorta shit. No matter what. Not to mention that I was seriously creeped out by the stallion’s heart thing.

But eh, we, the proud readers of supernatural fiction, have a stomach of steel. If we didn’t, well, we’d have puked a thousand times by now.

I liked Bran though. If that counts. And Jon Snow. I don’t know why I am still reading this book but there it is, this book has hooked me in.

I tell myself:-
Rika, you’re going to pick up a regency romance after this and forget all about the Iron Throne.
But I am lying to myself.

As soon as I finish this book I am going to pick up its sequel and jump into it.

BTW, is anyone else as excited as I am to see where Arya lands?

I haven’t reached there yet.

I will update the review when I finish the fuckin too long book.

King Hall by Scarlett Dawn

I have waited a long while to write this review. I discovered King Hall around December last year and, I exaggerate not, it was just as good the fifteenth time I read it as it was the first.

Meet our prodigies:-

Lily Ruckler

Ezra Zeller

Pearl Cooper

Jack Collins

Okay so to say that I was shocked would be an understatement.

I had recently reread all of the Shelly Laurenston and her altego GA Aiken books and I was hooked into the concept of alpha female. I have discovered it is my favorite genre since then but all ranting aside….

Holy lord and his mother….

This book was amazing. I went into it thinking it was going to be another one of those not bad but not good books but it took me by surprise and smirked at me while I was down on the ground and reeling from the sheer awesomeness that is Scarlett Dawn.

Lily Ruckler is a hybrid child, vamp and shifter, but in no way did she hog the book like the Ember from Darkness did. This book had a plot and that plot was good. SD let us get acquainted with all of her characters in this first book and didn’t make the heroine virgin.

Thank the holy lord for that.

Not to mention, after the tragic incident in which Lily lost her mate, she didn’t pull a Bella. She went out there on a….ahem….spree of fucking.

And oh my god that scene where she confesses that she had sex with a bird shifter and had bird for dinner after it?

Hilarious!

Lily was just an NA with all the new adult problems and no solution for them. But she grew up and owned the shit when it was clear that she was going to be the next Queen Shifter.

The bonds of friendship that this book demonstrates are to perfection. All of them love each other like family and all of them are open about it. All of them have a space of their own in the book and all of them get a voice.

And thank god that there were no miscommunication problems.

There were some spectacularly common scenes like the Graduation and then there were some spectacularly cool scenes like the building of the dome of water.

There were fights, babysittings, action, tears, hot daddies (read:Antonio and Cahal), backstabbing bitches, fangs, hot men and their hotter than shit bodies and thank god, not much drama. This book had everything, every little step of the transition that Lily made from being a Sophomore to a badass (know what I mean? huh?huh?huh?) Prodigy Shifter.

My favorite thing about this book is that it’s heroine is not a helpless and spineless little bitch with too many hot men pining after her and her blushing virtue.

Cuz Lily had no virtue to speak of.

She has a sexual life, a Queenly life, a behind-the-walls life and she kept it all balanced with her focus on being queen, and she got the degree.

Speaking of degrees….

Was I the only one who wet my panties at Lily’s and Ezra’s dance or what?

And OMG all those embarrassing scenes with King Kincaid and King Venclaire catching Lily and Ezra together?

Ridiculously hilarious!

I can go on and on about my love of this book and Ezra and I do love him. Why would I not? He’s perfect.

None of the heroes are assholes. There are no communication problems. Through it all, they know that the three people they can depend on are the other three of their Quartet.

That scene when all of them are charged with changing diapers?
And then when all of them fall asleep in the limo on the way to Washington DC?
Oh and when they wake up on top of each other, with more than a few wandering digits, while they are camping?

I have laughed, cried, held my breath and cursed more times than I can count while reading this book and I can honestly say that this book will stay with me throughout my adulthood like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson remained with me throughout my childhood.

I am going to read this book again and again and again and hope to god that I never run out of books like this.

Twice Bitten-Chloe Niell

So…on the quest to find books that were as stimulating as the Forever Evermore I stumbled across Chloe Neill and started the Chicagoland Vampires series.

And while Merit doesn’t even come close to Lily Ruckler or Caro Jules, she has a spine, she can dance, she is good with a sword, she has pride and doesn’t chase guys who have made it explicitly clear that they don’t want her.

On the other hand her romanticism of Ethan Sullivan is not something that I can take easily. He keeps hurting her and like a naive little girl she keeps falling for him.

Ethan Sullivan…he fits your typical paranormal hero to a T. Asshole, pretty, standoffish, strong, ‘Master’, revered, ex-gf issues……you get it. While you could debate originality in Merit’s character, Ethan is not at all original and quite frankly, a disappointment. Scarlett Dawn puts effort into making her characters different and she succeeds. But Neill has followed the same line as countless other urban-fantasy authors and, while the book was good, it’s nowhere near best.

The plot was also easy to follow without much suspense or much stimulation coming from any of the characters. The sex scene was written like in one of the YA books. I have to say, Scarlett Dawn and Ilona Andrews do it much better.

This book therefore has a 2* rating from me.