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Title: Love Me, Love Me Not
Author: Alyxandra Harvey
Publication: February 22nd 2016 by Entangled: Crave
Genre: Young Adult ~ Paranormal
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Kobo
Rating: 3/5
Dating isn’t easy when you’re in the middle of a blood feud.
Anastasia Vila’s family can turn into swans, but just once she’d like them to turn into responsible adults.
After hundreds of years, they still cling to the blood feud with the Renard family. No one remembers how it started in the first place—but foxes and swans just don’t get along.
Vilas can only transform into their swan shape after they have fallen in love for the first time, but between balancing schoolwork, family obligations, and the escalating blood feud, Ana’s got no time for love. The only thing keeping her sane is her best friend, Pierce Kent.
But when Pierce kisses Ana, everything changes.
Is what Pierce feels for her real, or a byproduct of her magic? Can she risk everything for her best friend? And when the family feud spirals out of control, Ana must stop the fight before it takes away everything she loves.
Including, maybe...Pierce.
This Entangled Teen Crave book contains language, violence, and lots of kissing. Warning: it might induce strong feelings of undeniable attraction for your best friend.
Anastasia 'Ana' Vila comes from a family that can turn into swans. Before a Vila can turn into a swan they have to fall in love first, which is Ana's main problem. Between school, obligations to her family and the feud they have with the Renard family, how can she find the time to fall in love? Luckily Ana's best friend Pierce is around. Only Pierce is in love with her, which she has been pretty much blind to, until Pierce kisses her and everything changes.
I really did like Love Me, Love Me Not. As I said before the characters were all great. The main characters especially were great to read about. Pierce was my favorite, mainly because he's a big reader and I liked that for a change, the guy was in love with the girl and not the other way around.
This story is a Romeo and Juliet retelling. There are lots of hints to Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare and what not. So I had expected Pierce to be from the Renard family, except he wasn't. So, I don't know... maybe that's part of the reason why I didn't fully connect to the story. Also, the whole magic and swans things confused me a little and was glossed over too fast. I also wanted to learn more about the Renards.
Luckily, I've always liked Alyxandra Harvey's books. She has real talent to write strong characters, especially the females. I've also always liked how she writes her male characters as well. So it's not surprising that it was the same with this book.
Love Me, Love Me Not was definitely a story that I liked. The characters were my favorite thing in it — they were all really great. I just couldn't feel a real connection to the story in general.
About the Author:
Alyxandra Harvey lives in a stone Victorian house in Ontario, Canada with a few resident ghosts who are allowed to stay as long as they keep company manners. She loves medieval dresses, used to be able to recite all of The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson, and has been accused, more than once, of being born in the wrong century. She believes this to be mostly true except for the fact that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice cream.
Among her favourite books are ‘The Wood Wife’ by Terri Windling, ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte, and of course, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen. Elizabeth Bennet is her hero because she’s smart and sassy, and Mr. Darcy is, well, yum.
Aside from the ghosts, she also lives with husband and their dogs. She likes cinnamon lattes, tattoos and books.
Title: House of Bathory
Author: Linda Lafferty
Publication: January 7th 2014
Genre: Historical Fiction
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Cover Rating: 3/5
Overall Rating: 5/5
Review copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review.
In the early 1600s, Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, ruled Čachtice Castle in the hinterlands of Slovakia. During bizarre nightly rites, she tortured and killed the young women she had taken on as servants. A devil, a demon, the terror of Royal Hungary—she bathed in their blood to preserve her own youth.
400 years later, echoes of the Countess’s legendary brutality reach Aspen, Colorado. Betsy Path, a psychoanalyst of uncommon intuition, has a breakthrough with sullen teenager Daisy Hart. Together, they are haunted by the past, as they struggle to understand its imprint upon the present. Betsy and her troubled but perceptive patient learn the truth: the curse of the House of Bathory lives still and has the power to do evil even now.
The story, brimming with palace intrigue, memorable characters intimately realized, and a wealth of evocative detail, travels back and forth between the familiar, modern world and a seventeenth-century Eastern Europe brought startlingly to life.
Inspired by the actual crimes of Elizabeth Báthory, The House of Bathory is another thrilling historical fiction from Linda Lafferty (The Bloodletter’s Daughter and The Drowning Guard). The novel carries readers along with suspense and the sweep of historical events both repellent and fascinating.
House of Bathory was absolutely an amazing read. I flew through it in no time because my eyes were glued to the screen of my Kindle. It was that good! I didn't know what I expected starting it but it turned out even better than I had hoped.
I've always been intrigued by the story of Elizabeth Bathory. I love history and I've seen documentaries and movies about her so I was pretty excited to read this book. I'm so glad I got accepted for it via NetGalley.
This book is my first Linda Lafferty book and I'm so excited to have found a new historical fiction author that I can see myself wanting to read all the books from. Her writing was compelling, never got boring and it was fast-paced. Also it didn't shy away from the horror that Countess Bathory inflicted on so many innocent people.
The story also was just amazing and dark. And very exciting, not knowing what was going to happen next or if my favorite characters would survive...
I loved how it jumped from the 1600's to 2010 and how everything fit together. I just love books like that.
There were a lot of POVs that may be a little distracting to some. Even I must admit that at first I had to get used to it but I soon got used to it and now I think it was perfectly done that way.
Another thing I loved was how Carl Jung was a big part of this book. In the last year I've come to be a little intrigued also by Jungian psychology. Coincidence. Or not?
Overall, House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty was a fantastic read. I loved the writing and how the author could suck me right into the story, especially the 1600's chapters. It was like I was there. So amazing!
Favorite Quote:
The most frightening terror in the world was not ghosts, or monsters, not vampires, or any of that nonsense. The most terrifying creature in the world is a madman.
About The Author:
The daughter of a naval commander, Linda Lafferty attended fourteen different schools growing up, ultimately graduating from the University of Colorado with a master's degree and a PhD in education. Her peripatetic childhood nourished a lifelong love of travel, and she studied abroad in England, France, Mexico, and Spain. Her uncle introduced her to the sport of polo when she was just ten years old, and she enjoys playing to this day. She also competed on the Lancaster University Riding Team in England in stadium jumping, cross country, and dressage. A veteran school educator, she is the author of The Bloodletter's Daughter and The Drowning Guard. She lives in Colorado.
