Tag: paranormal

Book Review: The Mask Falling

March 19, 2021

Title: The Mask Falling (Book 4 of The Bone Season Series)
Author: Samantha Shannon
Genre: Paranormal Sci-fi
Year Published: 2021

Date finished: February 7, 2021

The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon is the fourth book in the paranormal sci-fi, The Bone Season Series. After her recovery, Paige Mahoney finds herself working for a new group of people in what is known as the Domino Program. In her quest to learn more about the events to come, she takes the chance and goes against the group’s directives. Chaos ensues both in her choices and events she wasn’t aware of. The story ends in a cliffhanger.

I enjoyed this book. I also really liked that Warden was in the background. Initially, I wanted more of him, but I think Ms. Shannon sprinkled enough of him that it didn’t feel too overpowering or not enough. It was perfectly done. There were quite a few new characters thrown in that really helped move the story along. There were also characters from the previous books that I was happy to see again.

Who should read this book: Anyone who’s into paranormal sci-fi/fantasy, romance, action, dystopian societies. It’s a great book to escape to with excellent world building and unique characters. Even if you’re not into paranormal, I think you’ll find this book enjoyable.

Book Review: The Dawn Chorus

September 8, 2020

Title: The Dawn Chorus
Author: Samantha Shannon
Genre: Sci-fi, Paranormal, New Adult
Year Published: 2020

The Dawn Chorus is a novella between The Song Rising (the 3rd book in the Bone Season series), and the upcoming 4th book, The Mask Falling. The novella doesn’t give anything away from the main story. It basically delves into Paige’s pain and suffering from the last book. It also gives us a glimpse more into Paige and Warden’s relationship.

It’s been awhile since I read The Song Rising so I really don’t remember exactly what happened. I do remember that Paige escaped to Paris and that she wasn’t doing well. If you are interested in how Paige heals and how she gains the strength to fight back, then give this novella a go, otherwise, it’s totally fine to just wait for The Mask Falling.

Book Review: The Pale Dreamer

June 12, 2020

Title: The Pale Dreamer
Author: Samantha Shannon
Genre: Sci-fi, paranormal, new adult
Year Published: 2016

The Pale Dreamer by Samantha Shannon is a prequel novella to The Bone Season series. It gives us a taste of Paige Mahoney’s first job with mime-lord, Jaxon Hall. The story takes place when Paige is sixteen, three years before The Bone Season.

In this story, Paige is given the opportunity to use her ability as a dreamwalker to prove to the mime-lord and her cohorts that she is worthy of working with them. The job was to track down a poltergeist as a team. It turns out, Paige did a lot more than what she thought she could do and what the others thought she was capable of. This gets Jaxon’s attention and he makes her an offer she can’t refuse.

I read The Bone Season series up to book three (The Song Rising). Book four is not out yet but should be later this year. The Pale Dreamer was a free download from the publisher on Instagram. I had plans to read this novella but kept forgetting and new books kept being added to my TBR list pushing this one even further back. I’m glad that I came across the ad. It was worth it to know how Paige joined Jaxon’s team of clairvoyants and how she became his most important member.

Book Review: The Song Rising

March 26, 2017

The Song Rising
Author: Samantha Shannon
Genre: Fiction, Sci-fi, Paranormal, Post-apocalyptic

“We like to think we’re brave, but in the end, we’re only human.”

The Song Rising is the third book in The Bone Season series. It begins right after The Mime Order ends. If you haven’t read the first two books, the third book would be a bit confusing. This series is dependent on each other.

In this story, the MC (main character), Paige, learns of a weapon that could detect clairvoyants and destroy them. Her goal was to locate the source of this weapon but she finds that it’s harder than it sounds. She’d have to make a decision that could lead to her death.

“The only way to survive is to believe you always will.”

I found this book to be more interesting than the second book. The second book was mainly about creating the Mime order, a collaboration between a clairvoyant group and some Ranthens, in order to defeat the Rephaite sovereign. It also felt a bit slow moving. This book was pretty fast paced. A lot happened and we blow through quite a bit of flashback/history. I’m glad for that because it adds to the world building and characters development, setting the story for what’s to come. It was done nicely. There was a lot going on in this book. The characters were more defined and Warden played a bigger role. I happen to really enjoy his character and every part he’s in. I’m fascinated by his kind, pretty much. We learn of a hidden world underground. We also learn a little more about Paige’s old boss, the mime-lord, Jaxon Hall and his role with the Rephaite sovereign.

The only downside for me was that there wasn’t much said about the Emite (aka buzzers). At first I got the feeling that these creatures were going to destroy the world if not controlled. It appeared as though the Rephaim had kept them under control but somehow, through a portal of sort, some escaped. I thought Warden was spending all his time tracking the escaped. In the end of the story when Warden was to leave Britain, it didn’t make sense. Who was going to do the work of keeping the Emite away? I hope to learn more about this part of the story in the next few books only because in the first book, when Warden was training Paige, the Emite seemed to have been the focus. I thought she was going to have some part in their demise or at least in keeping them from escaping.

Overall, I enjoyed it. It was one of those books where I had to almost read straight through because it’s that good.

“The wonderful thing about living in a morally bankrupt world is that every human being can be bought in one way or another. Everyone accepts a currency. Money, mercy, the illusion of power – there are always ways to purchase loyalty.”

Book Reviews

February 29, 2016

I finished 5 books within the last half of the month:

Title: Drop Dead Gorgeous
Author: Elizabeth Lenhard
Genre: Children, fantasy, paranormal

DropDeadGorgeousThis book is about a girl, Rachel, who becomes friends with a girl who just moved into her town.  The girl who moved in is a zombie.  Rachel learns to accept the zombie girl as they go through trials and tribulations.

Read this with my 8-year-old.  I found the story line a bit boring.  My daughter wasn’t too into it as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Zeroes
Author: Chuck Wendig
Genre: Sci-fi, suspense, thriller, paranormal

ZeroesThis book is about the government kidnapping some hackers to eventually overtake a computer-human liquid robot who tried to overtake them.

It started out promising but then went all over the place about halfway.  Too many characters were thrown in in the beginning.  Each with their semi-detailed specialty.  I didn’t mind that so much because I liked how a chapter was given to a character.  Eventually though it just became a big mess of people.  I believe there was supposed to be a transition from computer hackers to paranormal computer activity but it didn’t happen the right way.  I was set on believing that it had something to do with hackers hacking some huge powerful database, and that if they didn’t hack into it, the data would fall into the hands of someone who would use it to destroy the world or something.  But it turned out that whatever they were supposed to hack into was obsolete and that some lady (she entered the story about halfway in) who was a very intelligent person decided to hook herself up to some strange machine that allowed her to upload data and become this liquid human machine thingy.  Her reason for it was because she had heart problems and the only way to keep her going completely dead was to hook up to a machine.  Aside from not wanting to be dead, it was quite unclear what her motives were.  Yeah, very confusing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: The Nightingale
Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction

TheNightingaleThis book is about two sisters who survived the Nazi invasion of France during WWII.  The sisters are a decade apart in age and very different in personality.  This is a story about war and everything that war creates.

This was a well written story.  It was a truly amazing experience reading this.  I had no idea that the Nazi’s invaded France and that the French leader surrendered.  And, it made me wonder if there were really good and kind Nazi soldiers who only did their job because they had no choice or that they didn’t realize what they were doing until it was too late.  The ending got me good.  There was a twist that I had no idea was coming.  I guess if I paid closer attention I would have caught it.

This is a story everyone should read.  It really pulls at your heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Zombie Dog
Author: Clare Hutton
Genre: Children, fantasy, paranormal

ZombieDogThis book is about a family who moved next door to a vacant home.  The family’s daughter learns that there is a zombie dog living in the vacant home and sets out to figure out why.  In the process she learns the story of the family who lived in the home and finds a way to send the zombie away.

This was a cute story I read with my 8-year-old daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Author: Philip K. Dick
Genre: Sci-fi, Post-apocalyptic, paranormal

DoAndroidsThe movie, “Blade Runner,” was based on this book.  I haven’t seen the movie yet but I will soon.

This book is about a bounty hunter who’s job is to track down and destroy human-like androids.  For each android he kills he gets a good sum of money.  For three androids he’d get enough money to buy a real animal.  In that post-apocalyptic time, it is rare to see a real animal, or own one.  To own one is a status symbol.  The androids are supposed to only live on Mars with their human owner and work for them but some find their way back to earth.  They are hunted down because they are harmful to humans.  There is really no way to differentiate a human from an android except for an empathy test because androids apparently have no empathy.

This was a very intriguing story.  I’m amazed that this book was written in 1966 about the far future…aka, January 3, 2021.  A lot of things were outdated but overall I got the feel for that bleak and dusty radioactive world they lived in.  There were parts of the story that didn’t make a lot of sense to me like the godly-like man, Mercer, Mercerism if you believe in him.  Or the double world in which the bounty hunter found himself in.  Overall though, I enjoyed it.

Blood Memory Book Review

February 12, 2016

Title: Blood Memory
Author: Perrin Briar
Genre: Post-apocalyptic, paranormal

BloodMemoryEP1This book is about a group of people out at sea who’ve survived a zombie apocalypse but realize that they are running out of food and need a new alternator for their boat.  They see a ferry in the distance and decide to see if they can take the alternator from it knowing that there could still be living zombies on that ferry.

This was an okay story.  It was easy to read and had some enjoyable action scenes.  World building wasn’t so bad.  It was basically around the sea and the boat but I got a good feel for it.  What it lacked was pacing and character development.  The story moved from one thing to another pretty fast and moved in steps which was unrealistic and predictable.  Character development was minimal.  Right up front we learn their names and age and a sentence or two of their characteristics but aside from that there was hardly any personality or depth.  Dialogue was a bit cheesy and didn’t really add to the characters.

Overall, I’d say read this book if you want a taste of zombie apocalypse.  It’s a short read and as mentioned earlier moves along at a pretty fast pace.

Note: This book was given to me to read and review by the author’s publicist.

Two Books I’m Awaiting to Read

May 13, 2014

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon was a book I read based on good reviews on Goodreads.com.  I really had no idea what I was getting myself into because it was my first sci-fi dystopian fantasy with paranormal, but I ended up loving it.  There’s something about Samantha’s writing that draws me to the characters and everything else.  I’m also really thrilled that this book will be turned into a movie and will be out sometime in 2018 (got this info from Ms. Shannon’s blog).  I learned of the next book, The Mime Order, through an e-mail from Barnes & Noble.  I knew it was in the works but didn’t know when it would be out so you can just imagine my excitement to learn that it’s this year!  I cannot wait to read it!  It will be available October 21st.

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Another book I’m awaiting is the third book in the Lightbringer series, The Broken Eye, by Brent Weeks.  The first book of the series, The Black Prism, started out a bit slow and I debated whether I should read the second book, The Blinding Knife, but I’m glad I did because now I’m beyond intrigued and have to read the third book.  This book will be out August 26th.

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