Broken Butterflies by Shadow Stehens

When I read the synopsis I was rather pleased, I thought I had received something a bit different from the norm. I thought the idea that everyone has a guardian angel and that they could turn into butterflies was definitely a new take.

Unfortunately for me that was all I liked about this book. All the way through, no matter what happened and how terrible things got, Ilisha wasn't fazed by anything, not the death of her grandma, not the train wreck she was in on the way home for the funeral nor finding out about Angels. When she does find out its like water of a ducks back. Finding out that Bram has lied to her and tricked her into believing he's her soulmate, that she's being stalked by a Death Maker, that she's really married to Damon and she used to be an Angel, I still got nothing from her. She's just so blasé about everything. And the fact that this all took place within a short period of time was also rather far-fetched.

When Damon tells her the whole truth about who and what she is, she still doesn't get upset. When he tells her she can become a full Angel again just by drinking his blood, she takes a second to think about it and then does it. It doesn't take long for her to sleep with Bram when she meets him and she thinks she's in love with him until she meets Damon and then realises that she's in love with him instead. She gets angry for a few minutes when she realises what Bram did and when she's told demons are trying to kill her and then she's fine. Again!

I really did want to like this book but found that instead of not wanting to put it down, I just wanted it to end

Silencing Breath by Joanne Brothwell.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to this book despite my slight problem with Stealing Breath. I was hoping for a cleaner, sharper read.

This book continues with Sarah and Evans' story. It's now four years since they got away from Stefano, their life has changed drastically. Sarah is doing great at school and Evan has just proposed. Life is good. Then it's not.

And this is where my problem starts again, the story is great. We know who the good guys are. We know who the bad guys are, we've a good idea as to what's going to happen. What we get is Sarah not calling the police when Evan goes missing, leading her friends and a few guys they know into a dangerous situation and not telling them until the last minute. She then gallops from one dire situation to another, costing the lives of two people who were there to help her in the process.

I found myself starting to dislike her, she was annoying to the point of distraction. When she had the opportunity to escape, she didn't take it.

Now, she's in hiding again with Stefano, but they've got Evan and his mother Gina trapped in the basement, waiting for her to heal them.

It was the same again, the book starts of good then when the action starts, it's too much crammed together and doesn't flow. I had to reread several sections just to get my bearings.

I would give this three moons, it would be four if it flowed smoothly.

Saying that, I still want to read the next book, just because I'm now invested in Sarah and needing to know what's going to happen.

Stealing Breath by Joanne Brothwell

I received this book free from the author with the intention to read and give an honest review of this book.

This seemed to me to be a tale of two halves.

To begin with I was intrigued by the story, I thought Sarah and her abilities were fascinating. I liked Evan right from the get-go, he seemed perfect for Sarah but I could have done without all the references to him looking sculpted and resembling a Greek God. Amber and Kate were a strange pair, it was as if they knew what she could do better than Sarah herself, even though they had no clue what she could do.

I loved the Native American Indians, Paulette, Noreen and Ernie. I thought they brought more to the story than Amber and Kate. I was rather tearful at the end. No spoilers, hate it when others do that.

Now the bad thing, and I really didn't want a bad thing. The plot is great, it runs along at quite a good pace, the story starts to build and then..... Car wreck. There was so much information thrown at Sarah and she just absorbs it, isn't fazed by it at all.

Then there's the final sequence, so many things happen in such a short space of time, she's attacked and ends up in hospital, attacked at the hospital and manages to escape, only to be attacked again, within minutes of getting to Evans house. It seems like the ending was rushed and not in the "it's so good, I can't wait to see how it ends" way.

But I am curious to see what happens next in Sarah and Evans' story and I'll be reading Silencing Breath very soon.

Nearly Departed in Deadwood by Ann Charles

This book made me chuckle, Violets kids are both endearing and frustrating, but that is what you get with twins. Violet herself is a bit of a ditz but she does try really hard at everything she does.

Her relationships are non-existent and when she does start to date someone, well she picks the wrong guy. He seems ideal to begin with, good-looking, self-employed and needing to sell his house, which she's hoping to do for him. What she doesn't realise is that he's a kidnapper and murderer.

As she tries to find out who keeps sending her flowers and keeping her kids, especially her daughter safe, she's also trying to find out who took the other girls and what happened to them. Her list of suspects are dwindling and it's not until near the end of the book that she finds out who the real criminal is.

With the help of a few of her realty clients, she finds out who's the culprit is, they also end up saving her from him.

Onto book two, I hope it's as good as the first.

Trickster by Jeff Somers

What to say about this book.  I loved the characters and the story line, I thought the method of creating magic by using blood, or gassing as Jeff wrote it, was clever.  It made a change to have a different method to create the magic. 

I was shocked at the lengths some people would go to to live forever, all those girls that had been marked and snatched and prepared for a big ritual.  The idea that over the centuries, wars and sacrifice's had been done to create major magic.  

The friendship between Lem and Mags is....unique.  I don't know many guys that would take care of each other as they do.  Lem's morals are kind of strict too.  The way he refuses to do any magic that has been gassed by someone else's blood, only taking what he thought was reasonable when he and Mags' worked a charm.  Then falling for a girl who has been marked for a ritual and doing everything he can to save her.  Even though he says he's not a nice guy, he really is.

I don't want to say too much about the plot of this book, I'm very tempted but I will bite my tongue, or in this case not type anything.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone who is looking for something a bit different.

I'm fairly certain that this is the first in a series and I shall be buying the next as soon as it becomes available.

  

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Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason

** spoiler alert ** What can I say about Three Graves Full. It's an unusual take on a murder/crime book, that's for sure.

Jason Getty has lived for nearly two years with a dead body in his back garden, one he planted there himself. Living with that knowledge isn't easy for Jason as he is, in a word, a Wimp. He is the epitome of the word Wimp. He's got no back-bone, he doesn't know how to stand up for himself and the one time that he really does lose it, he kills someone. To be fair he was pushed and bullied but murder is murder and now he has to live with it.

After planting the body he tries to get on with life but there's that voice at the back of his head that keeps nattering at him. It wakes him up at night, gasping for air. It has him looking in the mirror to see if he's changed. But he hasn't, he's still a Wimp.

Deciding that he should at least tidy up the front garden so the neighbours don't complain, well it's been nearly two years since he did anything, seems like an easy task especially as he gets a contractor to do it. The knock on the door and the conversation with the gardener telling him they've found something isn't. Neither is the phone call and the following interviews with Detective Bayard. It would seem that Jason wasn't the only person to commit murder in the property. There's two graves at the front of the property and he had been none the wiser.

Leah knew that Reid was a cheat, she always knew and he always came back. When he ran away a few weeks before their wedding, three years ago, she knew something had happened but not what. Now she has been told where he's been all these years, she just wants to see, to get some closure. What she gets is nearly killed. Some things should be left alone.

Boyd just wants to get away, now that the bodies of his wife and her lover have been discovered. After pretending to be his dead twin Bart for a couple of years he thought he'd just get a slap on the wrist for cashing his welfare cheques so when the police try to arrest him he does a runner. His first stop is his old house to see if his old neighbour can help him.

The three of them converge on Jason's back garden that night and a strange evening of events occur. Jason's trying to dig up his body in the back yard before Bayard can get the cadaver dogs, Leah is drawn to the lights that he's using and ends up getting her head bashed with a shovel when all she wanted to do was say goodbye to Reid and Bart was drawn to the mewling sound coming from the rotten smelling tarp.

From there its a mad, crazy night for all of them. Poor Jason hasn't got a clue what to do now, his window for moving the body and making a getaway are closing, Bart thinks he's killed a police officer who has shown up to make sure Leah is ok and Leah is just joining the dots and getting Jason to help her to save the police office.

Jamie Mason has written Jason Getty so well that you can just picture a bland and boring human being with doormat written all over him. His efforts to stand up for himself and the ensuing chaos are morbidly funny and the fact that Leah helps him out at the end, by tying up all the loose ends into a conceivable story, are just as much a part of his inability to think for himself and to stand up for himself.

I shall definitely be on the look-out for more of Jamie Mason's books and I would definitely recommend it to anyone, no matter what genre they like to read.