Review: Lottery by Patricia Wood

4 stars for Lottery by Patricia Wood.

In the midst of watching and rewatching Chinese drama series, I decide that I still want to do some reading. Deep down I know my reading progess will be slow but it does not bother me so long as I know I am still reading. I have no idea what I want to read, so I just randomly scroll to a collection on my kindle and click on it. I laugh out loud when I saw that the book I have so randomly chosen is one titled Lottery.

Initially, I wasn't sure if Lottery will make a good company, but it turns out that my worries are extras. The book makes an excellent lunch time buddy as the characters - Perry, Keith, Gary, Cherry, Gram, Gramp and even those so called cousin-brothers - come alive and leap out of the pages to accompany me on a great many lunches. Perry and his first person narratives never fail to perk up my lunch break. Gradually, his voice and his simple outlook to life turned into a kind of quiet strength for me.

As days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, I start to worry if I will ever finish reading this book. Yes, it does feel as if I am taking forever to read this book since I read mostly during weekdays lunch time. Now I have my answer and I know it can be done because reading is just, well, reading. The story will come to an end some day, even if it takes me as long as three months.

Lottery is both a happy and sad story. The protagonist, Perry, is a simple man. And because he is a simple man, everything he sees and does is processed in a different way. And because of that, life becomes so much simpler. And happier. I would say, Perry in Lottery is the thinking cap to a happy life. And oh yes, I learn a new word from him in this book. Perry likes the word "echt" and it keeps popping up throughout the book - it means real, genuine, authentic.

Lottery is a great story. This is echt. This is true.

Review: A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson

Did Not Finish A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson.

I did not expect this, but the fact is, at 40%, this book has joined my limited repertoire of Did Not Finish. Still, I will like to say something, hence posting this short review.

This Young Adult fantasy novel is remarkable in its originality. I am lulled into reading the book on the promise that it involves art-based magic, romance, and murder.

True to its word, there is the combination of all three in the aforementioned, and then some. The protagonist, 18-year-old Myra Whitlock, possesses the unique ability to alter reality with her painting. She does portrait painting with a wondrous touch of magic healing. Because of this rare ability, she is offered a highly challenging job, one of its kind. To accomplish what she is tasked to do, Myra needs to unravel a mystery. And in seeking the truth, romance happens in its most unexpected form.

In truth, I have nothing against this book, the characters and the story. I know for sure, if I am to read this book at a different stage in life, I will have latched on to the story and not let go. It is a beautiful enchanting story where there is a hero and there is a heroine.

I like to think it is a matter of time and space that I am unable to finish reading the book. Still, this is a good story and one that I will recommend to read.

Review: Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1) by Nalini Singh

Did Not Finish Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter book 1) by Nalini Singh.

While deep in the throes of urban fantasy novels involving vampires and lycanthropes, I decide to try the Guild Hunter series. This series has fifteen books written to date and if I am not wrong, is still an ongoing series. So, if the story is my cup of tea, I will have no worries on books to read, at least for a long while.

The protagonist is this book is a 28-year-old vampire hunter Elena Deveraux. The unusual thing about the vampires here is that, they are not the exotic powerful sexy vampires protrayed in most books, but rather, they are slaves to angels, the price paid for exchanging their mortality for servitude. Elena is tasked with an odd job this time, instead of a vampire, she is to track an Archangel..

I can't say much more about the story and the writing as I give up reading at the 15% mark. I can only say that the story is not my cup of tea. It is sad because there goes my fifteen potential reads. I hope this is not a sign that I have grown too jaded to enjoy a murder mystery amidst steamy sexual tension in urban fantasy novels.

Review: Blood Enemy (Underworld #2) by Greg Cox

2 stars for Blood Enemy (Underworld book 2) by Greg Cox.

Having enjoyed Underworld thoroughly, I move on to the next instalment in the series almost immediately after the concluding chapter in book 1.

Blood enemy is still very much a story about the shadow war fought by immortal creatures of the night, vampires versus werewolves. But the focus is different. It is a story before Underworld and bulk of it is about Lucian's love interest, Sonja. It is the reason for the rise of the lycans against their vampire masters. For countless generations, the vampires oppressed the lycans, condemning the wolf kind to never-ending servitude. This book sheds light on why the household lycans defect from the vampire's castle and flock to join Lucian and his army to oppose the coven.

Sad to say, I did not enjoy reading Lucian and Sonja's love story. While the writing is good, the story gets stale after a while.

Still, credit is given to the author for connecting this book back to the main story, where there arises the search to find a way to match the staggering power of the vampires Elders, the search for some secret, hidden away in the very origins of the two races - vampire and lycan. In closing, we are given a sneak preview as to how the ultraviolet ammunition - the glowing blue cartridge that seems to be infused with encapsulated sunlight - that we see in book 1 comes about.

Review: Underworld (Underworld #1) by Greg Cox

5 stars for Underworld (Underworld book 1) by Greg Cox.

Never once in my life have I ever thought that there will come a day where four yet-to-be-written reviews stare right in my face. Initially it is just one, then it becomes two. And then, it doubles up and becomes four. The more I procrastinate, the higher the number. It just doesn't get better, does it? Somehow, I feel the need to explain what happened, at least for my own sake. So.. well.. drama CLJ happened. For those who know me well, I am never into soap opera or what you call drama chasing. But this time, I have it bad. I am hooked. Suddenly, all my free time seems to disappear into thin air. I have time for nothing else. Though I will say drama chasing is similar to staying up late to read a really good book, it is also in a way different. Drama chasing is more tiring, it zaps not only my time, but my energy as well. The worst is, I am not done swooning over it yet - I am rewatching this drama TV series. Action speaks louder than words. It goes to show how much I adore this particular drama. To add on, I am also spending a tremendous amount of time - hours on end - doing finger exercises on its OST piano collection. I don't know how much more time I will be investing on drama CLJ and/or anything related to it. But I know it is only a matter of time I will get over this drama thing, in fact, any good drama given sufficient time. And when that day comes, I will go back to reading. Always. Without fail. For now, I just want to get the four reviews out of the way, so I can go back to swoon in peace over the characters, the settings, the songs and whatnots in this newfound favourite drama of mine.

Underworld. This is a rare one where I watch the movie first, then read the book.

Having watched the Underworld movie years ago, I feel a surge of excitement as I am about to embark on my journey to relive Underworld - in my mind's eyes this time - all over again, to meet Selene, Michael and all the rest of the wolfish and vampiric characters. In fact, I mentally prepare myself that the book is going to be very different from the movie version as movie script writers are known to dramatize.

To my surprise, the Underworld movie followed closely to the book, right up to the scenes, the settings and even the speeches. It is unexpected. As I read the book, I stop intermittently to rewatch the movie. Suddenly I find myself catching a lot more of the story details than my first viewing of the movie. For example, when I first watched the movie, I am only aware that the characters are fighting and running around in the scenes. With the book reading, I see all the finer details amidst the fighting and so much more. The book is well written and helps bring everything together in vibrant clarity.

Set in the ancient city of Budapest, the Hungarian capital, a human is caught in the middle of a covert war that has been raging for the better part of a thousand years… a blood feud between vampires and lycans. Older, more powerful lycans such as Lucian, the most feared and ruthless leader of the lycan horde, are now able to change form at will, no longer tied to the moon. They are becoming a greater threat to the vampires and the Death Dealers. (Death Dealers are an elite squad of vampire warriors that hunt down the surviving man-beasts and kill them off)

Towards the end of my reading, I find it strange that almost all the conversations in the book echo the words spoken out loud in the movie, so much so that it seems as if it is the book that takes after the movie, not the other way round. Finally, I decide to consult Google and have my suspicions confirmed.

Underworld is a 384-page novelization of the movie of the same name written by Greg Cox and released by Pocket Star on September 1, 2003. The book contains scenes that were changed during filming, or which were never included at all. I also discover that this was actually mentioned on the book cover which I have never bothered to take a good look at.

P/S: Novelizations are, in essence, book-length descriptions of movies, typically written not by the author of the screenplay. They are the complete opposite of the more familiar practice of turning a book into a movie.

For those who have never watched or read the Underworld series, I will recommend reading the book first then the movie. Because no matter how one feels about it, there is this major flaw on watching the movie before reading - the reader's imagination is compromised.

Review: Freaks: Alive, on the Inside! by Annette Curtis-Klause

2 stars for Freaks: Alive, on the Inside! by Annette Curtis-Klause.

This review is overdue. I should have posted it two weeks ago, but I didn't look forward to writing it, so I keep procrastinating until I am almost done with my current book and can wait no longer.

Not only does it seem to take forever for me to sit down and write this review, I feel like it is also taking me forever to read the book. Truth is, I did not like the story much.

This book is about a group of performers who use their unusual physical difference to trade for a means of livelihood. It is also a story of these human oddities trying to find their self-esteem and worth in the midst of their search for identity and a sense of belonging.

While I have all the respect for unusual people who against the odds, fight and create lives for themselves, make the best of what they can to earn a living, have family and children, sorry to say, I find it difficult to like this fantasy of a story weaved with these people as a focal point.

Review: The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis-Klause

4 stars for The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis-Klause.

This is a story about family, friendship and dealing with life-changing events. The main characters are Zoe, a 17-year-old girl whose mother is stricken with cancer, and Simon, a 300-year-old vampire who, turned at the age of nineteen, still looks like a young adult.

The first half of the story is slow moving, uneventful and overly filled with repetitive thoughts of loneliness and how Zoe feels about her family and facing off death that I almost wanted to stop reading for good. I am glad that I did not give up as the second half of the story is where the plot thickens and there is even an unexpected twist.

To put it simply, Silver Kiss is a story about the dying, the undead and the living. I was all ready to give it a 3-star rating until the plot twist and ending change my mind. The bittersweet end to the story is just so right.

Review: Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis-Klause

5 stars for Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis-Klause.

I have finally read this Young Adult Fantasy novel - Blood and Chocolate. Some of you may find the title kind of weird, but not for me, simply because the book has been on my reading list for more than fifteen years. I never get down to reading it for the reason that the hard copy cannot be found in the library in those early pre-ebook days. I can still feel the frustration I felt then when I could see that the book was showing as available in the library system, yet it was nowhere on the shelf where it was supposed to be. In the blink of an eye, years passed, but the book has never been forgotten.

Blood and Chocolate is a story about identity, family ties and friendship. Though written in third person point of view, the story focuses mainly on 16-year-old Vivian Gandillon who feels torn between two worlds - the wolf part and the human part of her. The sweet courtship between Vivian, the werewolf girl and Aiden, the human boy, reminds me of how it feels to be young all over again.

This standalone novel with supernatural elements and forebiddden romance is a highly addictive story. The world building is fantastic and the story well paced. Not only that, the author uses imagery to create lyrical emotions such that the pain of hiding one's true identity from a different world is as heart wrenching as is revealing it. Then there is the suspicion, mistrust and discord in the pack that keeps me on the toes. There are also more than a few heart stopping moments which I do not foresee coming from a book written in the 90s.

A human boy and a werewolf girl. Homo Sapiens against Homo Lupus. To the werewolves, the human is considered an incomplete creature who has only one form, yet the shifters have to learn to live with them - to quote "Homo Sapiens is everywhere, they outnumber us, and Homo Lupus must live beside them. As much as we might crave to, we cannot kill them." - and at the same time, fear for their lives. To quote "Homo Sapiens can be very attractive. The need to dominate is bred into us, and they are easy to dominate. It’s seductive, this power over them. And they’re so fragile, there are those you almost want to protect. But they’re dangerous. They’re desperately afraid of things they can’t understand, and there’s more of them than us. They can’t fight us fairly so they gang up on us with fire and blades, or betray us from the shadows with silver bullets."

Can there be good ending between a werewolf and a human? Is it possible? Read the book and find out for yourself.

Just so you know, this wolf-kind of story is my cup of tea.