Trilogy Review / Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Nastasya has spent the last century living as a spoiled, drugged-out party girl. She feels nothing and cares for no one. But when she witnesses her best friend, a Dark Immortal, torture a human, she realizes something's got to change. She seeks refuge at a rehab for wayward immortals, where she meets the gorgeous, undeniably sexy Reyn, who seems inexplicably linked to her past.

Nastasya finally begins to deal with life, and even feels safe--until the night she learns that someone wants her dead.

Published:     2012
Publisher:  Little Brown
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Books 1 to 3, Immortal Beloved
Source:  Owned Copies
 

MY REVIEW

This is one of those trilogies that I have read the first two books but never got around to reading the last book.  I have made it my mission this year to try and get to and finish some of those series that I have started but not finished and this trilogy was on the top of my list.  

Having read and LOVED the Sweep series by this author I already know that I love the writing style.  I always know I have found an author that I get on well with and enjoy when I can delve into their books easily and absorb myself in the story even quicker!  Even though it has been quite a while since I read the first two books, starting from the beginning again I was surprised at how much I remembered the story (which also shows how great this author is at story telling).  

What could you want more in a story  like this.  You have a bunch of immortals who seemingly are set in their ways and then you have Nastasya who 'breaks free' and goes into hiding from her immortal friends and finds a 'retreat' for people similar to her.  What she doesn't know is that she is more powerful than she realises and also that the people that she meet in this retreat are more than what she realises or bargains for!  

Very predicable but fun to read.  I would definitely re-read this series in the future.   

Series Review / Balefire Series by Cate Tiernan

After seventeen-year-old Thais Allard loses her widowed father in a tragic car accident, she is forced to leave the only home she's ever known to live with a total stranger in New Orleans. New Orleans greets Thais with many secrets and mysteries, but none as unbelievable as the moment she comes face to face with the impossible — an identical twin, Clio.

Thais soon learns that she and the twin she never knew come from a family of witches, that she possesses astonishing powers, and that she, along with Clio, has a key role in Balefire, the coven she was born into.
Fiery Clio is less than thrilled to have to share the spotlight, but the twins must learn to combine their powers in order to complete a rite that will transform their lives and the coven forever.




Published:     2005-2010
Publisher:  Speak
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Books 1 to 4 - Balefire Series
Source: Owned Copy

MY REVIEW

What I liked about this series...  This book has been on my bookshelf for years.  Its always been one that I say I will pick up one day but never got around to it.  So, now I decided to get on with it and read it!  Cate Tiernan's Sweep series is one of my favourite series of all times, so I was very excited to be reading another series by her.  What I loved about this series was the history.  You have Thais and Clio who discover that they are twins and that there's a lot more to their family history than meets the eye.  They are witches, which is my favourite kind of 'supernatural' story to pick up.  You have goodies and baddies throughout and it was fun to try and figure out who was who. 

What I didn't like about this series...   Although I did enjoy reading this series, there were one or two things that bothered me.  Firstly, you have a massive case of insta-love/lust going on.  Both Clio and Thais seem to fall head over heels in a matter of seconds and I found that very unrealistic.  Mix that with a really weird love triangle that got me confused for part of the book, I didn't really get on with that side of the story.  Without giving too much away, I also found the ending to be very confusing.  You have a particular character I thought would bring a massive explosion type of story line to the story but it never really happened, or certainly didn't appear to for me. 

Book Review / A Chalice of Wind by Cate Tiernan

Separated since birth, 17-year-old twins Thais and Clio unexpectedly meet in New Orleans where they seem to be pursued by a coven of witches who want to harness the twins' magical powers for its own ends.

Published:     18th August 2005
Publisher:  Razorbill
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Book 1, Balefire
Source:  Owned

MY REVIEW

What I loved about this book...  This bind-up has been on my shelf for absolutely ages.  I think I may have bought it when it was published but I can't say for certain because that is how long it has been sitting on my shelf!  With four books in the series, each only being 200ish pages long I thought I would finally give this a go!

Let's start with the parts that I liked, Cate Tiernan is the author of one of my favourite young adult series - the Sweep series so I was really excited to be getting back into her writing and seeing what she came up with as this series was written after the Sweep series finished.  What I liked the most was the history and mystery.  Right from the beginning of this book I had a real sense of the history of the world.  A feeling that there is a lot more to the story than what meets the eye and I definitely wasn't wrong with that one.  There is so much to learn about the people around Thais and Clio (and even Thais and Clio themselves have a lot to reveal, some of which they didn't even know themselves!)   There are a lot of secrets here and I was very intrigued to find out how this one played out.

What I didn't like about this book...  Honestly, despite the above I felt the story dragged a bit and was very slow moving.  For me if the story had been faster paced I might have only taken a few hours to finish it rather than nearly a week.  I think the pace was partly to do with it but if I am being honest I simply wasn't feeling the story.  This is definitely a book that I am going to pick up again at a later point to see how I feel about it and I am definitely going to give the second book in this series a try but I hope that I can get into it a lot more. 

Series Review / Sweep Series by Cate Tiernan

Morgan Rowlands never thought she was anything other than a typical sixteen-year-old girl. But when she meets Cal, a captivatingly handsome coven leader, she makes a discover that turns her whole world upside down: she is a witch, descended from an ancient and powerful line. And so is Cal. Their connection is immediate and unbreakable; Cal teases out Morgan's power, her love, her magick. But Morgan discovers too soon that her powers are strong-- almost too powerful to control. And she begins to suspect that Cal may be keeping secrets from her . . . secrets that could destroy them both.


Published:    Originall Published in 2003
Publisher:  Originally published by Puffin
Goodreads :  Click here
Series:  Books 1 to 15, Sweep
Source:  Bought

Review:   10 out of 10


My Review

Book Review: Book of Shadows by Cate Tiernan (Wicca (Sweep) Book 1)

Something is happening to me that I don't understand.

I see things, feel things in a new way. I can do things normal people can't do. Powerful things. Magickal things. It scares me.

I never chose to learn witchcraft. But I'm starting to wonder if witchcraft is choosing me.


Published:  29th January 2001
Publisher:  Speak 
Goodreads Link:   Click here
Source:  Bought


My Review     10 out of 10

OK, so I have had this series on my shelf for at least a year now and I thought it was about time that I picked it up and read it.  I love everything witchy so this book is definitely right up my street.  

Let's talk about the story.  I have deliberately not put the blurb from the book at the top of this post as when I read that I thought great this story sounds amazing but as I was reading it I realised that in the blurb was everything that happened in book 1.  I was a little disappointed that there was nothing extra but that was it.  I absolutely loved the story and its predictability.  You have Morgan who is the main character and who is learning all about witchcraft and how it affects here, you have Cal who moves into the place were Morgan lives and befriends her and others, enticing them to a mysterious party.  Morgan also has a best friend in this story, Bree who also gets swept up in all the action.  Immediately we are sunk into a 'love triangle' type of situation (which I love) between Morgan, Cal and Bree, which I really enjoyed following and finding out what happens next. 

Turning to the characters in the story, I adored Morgan and her inquisitive nature in wanting to find out more.  She tends to move by instinct and I always find that type of character interesting.  Cal is a mysterious character in this first book.  He moves into the place where Morgan lives, arrives at school, makes friends with near enough everyone and then asks people to join a mysterious party.  I get the feeling that there is more to Cal's story that we will find out in later books.

What I liked the most about this book is the descriptions of places, people and magic.  All through this book I very much felt that this was was an introduction to places, people and magic and I loved that about it.  After reading this book, I feel like I really know the characters, places etc and am ready to take on the rest of the series...  I can't wait to start the next one now!

Best wishes

Debs

 

Joint Book Review - Immortal Beloved and Darkness Falls by Cate Tiernan (Book 1 and 2, Immortal Beloved)

New name, new town, new life. Nastasya has done it too often to count. And there's no end in sight. Nothing ever really ends ...when you're immortal. 

 But now, after centuries of feeding from the lives of the innocents around her, of living with little care for others, Nastasya is ready to turn towards the light. 'After some of the events I've witnessed I felt like I was a shell with nothing alive left in me. I hadn't been going around killing people, but people were hurt -- the memories just kept trickling in like rivulets of fresh acid dripping into my brain until I wanted to scream. It was in my blood, I knew. A darkness. The darkness. I had inherited it, along with my immortality and my black eyes.

Immortal Beloved Release Date:  6th January 2011
Darkness Falls Release Date: 13th September 2012
Goodreads Links :  Immortal Beloved /  Darkness Falls
Publisher:  Hodder & Stoughton
Source:  Review Copies from Publisher


My Review - 10 out of 10   

For every post I do, I always try to choose the actual cover of the book I read.  In this case, I had two different types of cover for each of these books.  Being honest, I have to say that I prefer the Immortal Beloved cover better than the Darkness Falls cover.

Ok, so onto the review.  I absolutely love this series so far.  After reading the blurb, I thought this sounded like a pretty weird book as the blurb does not really give much away but this story has so much goodness in it I really did not want to put it down.  There are two aspects to the story that I enjoyed the most:

Environment  - As we follow Natasya through the story, I slowly became aware of the life that she was living in, in the present, and the life that she would come to know.  I liked how the two different lives were introduced slowly and not just as a massive 'bang' and then trying to have to pick up the pieces afterwards.  The introduction of the new live that Natasya would come to know came slowly in the novel and introduced new pieces of information a bit at a time, which allowed me time to digest each and every one and truly appreciate the beauty of the situation that Natasya was in.

Characters - For me, this book was definitely very character driven.  You have a group of characters at the beginning that you get to know and start to form an opinion over and when Natashya moves on to her new life there is a whole bunch of new characters that you get to know and start to form an opinion on.  As the story goes through Immortal Beloved and Darkness Falls, those opinions get tested on many occasions as one thing you may have thought about a character turns out not to be true and I definitely had to rethink my opinions on many characters in this story.

I absolutely loved this story so far and can't wait to pick up the next book in the series, hopefully very soon...  

Best wishes

Debs