The Reckoning-Kelley Armstrong

I love this book series: Darkest Powers. I love the whole kids-with-powers-on-the-run-from-evil-scientist theme. I recommend this to anyone who loves supernatural fiction and a good ghost story or horror flick.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Chloe Saunders is a 15-year-old necromancer. She's on the run with her friends from an evil corporation know as the Edison Group. They meet up with Andrew, an old friend of Simon's dad. They are staying in a big house with his that used to be owned b the founder of the resistance against the Group. Andrew brings in a few Supernaturals who can help train them. Margaret is a necromancer that could pass for Chloe's grandmother (since Chloe temporarily dyed her hair black in the last book). Gwen is a witch who is very nice and young looking. Russel's a shaman who knows quite a bit about werewolves. After Margaret bring Chloe to a cemetery for training and asks Chloe to summon, Chloe accidentally opens a hole in the ground and the dead begin to rise. She realizes the Chloe is much more of a threat than they thought.
Chloe has feelings for Derek and Simon's a bit jealous. Chloe help Derek through his complete change into a wolf and they are attacked by Ramon and Liam.
After going though Margaret's deleted files, Tori finds out something very important. Andrew and Margaret are in on the whole thing. Andrew's trying to send Derek to the Pack. No one can be trusted and Tori looks through Andrew's files before they all decide to escape. The escape plan fail when a few other Supernatural show up. Chloe tries to create a diversion and find out that there are men securing the area. Back in the house, Margaret kills Gwen and then Chloe witnesses her killing Andrew. Chloe and Tori wind up back at the labs and Chloe calls a demi-demon to help rescue her Aunt and her friends. Later Tori's mom is killed and raised, instructed to kill Dr. Davidoff by Chloe. Kit (Simon's dad) shows up. They all go on the run again. The end!


Poplit Journal:

How would you feel if you were a genetically altered supernatural being on the run from evil scientists who want you dead so they can correct their mistake of ever making you? Chloe Saunders is afraid. She can’t trust anyone except Derek, Simon and Tori who are a werewolf, a sorcerer and a witch. Chloe’s a necromancer who’s been altered to be much more powerful than any necro has ever been. At any second she can accidentally raise the dead just by summoning. Most necromancers have to have special herbs just to summon a ghost, but Chloe apparently doesn’t need any of that. According to a ghost, her glow is very bright so she attracts ghosts easily. The only thing keeping her glow down to a normal necro’s glow is the amulet her mom gave her when she was little, but sadly, is doesn’t stop her from accidentally bringing dead animal back into their carcasses when she gets jumpy and nervous.

Tori is a witch and probably half sorcerer too. She’s Simon’s half sister, though she doesn’t know it. She’s very brave, bold and sarcastic. She can hack a computer as well as kick butt. She can do spells without any practice or cantations. All she has to do is see a spell caster do a spell and she can mimic it. She can do binding spells, energy balls and a few other helpful things so far, but she’s learning fast.

Derek is a werewolf and the brother that Chloe truly likes. He’s extremely protective and a bit anti-social. He’s strong and fast and he finally completes his change into a black wolf in this book. He used to be very bitey and rude, mean to Chloe, but only for her own protection. He’s also very smart. He’s good at math and science and he’s always logical. I’m a bit confused why Chloe likes him so much, but I guess once he turned into a wolf and she realized that he wasn’t a monster, but just an alpha kind of guy, she realized that she did love him. He brought heat to her heart.

Simon who’s Derek’s “brother” is a sorcerer. He’s not very powerful like the others, but maybe that’s because he wasn’t part of the experiments. He’s just a normal, young sorcerer. He’s very nice to Chloe and he has a crush on her too, so he was jealous when he realized that Chloe liked Derek. He’s half Korean and likes to draw comics, which I think is cool. He and Chloe were working on a graphic novel of their adventures. Simon is diabetic and a feel sorry for him that he’s on the run with them and has to check his blood sugar all the time. It just seems very inconvenient, but he’ll be fine.

~*Haley*

Beautiful Creatures-Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

This book is about a guy named Ethan Wate who lives in Gatlin, South Carolina, a small town that was part of the Civil War. Ethan meets Lena Duchannes (pronounced Du-chain) who is Macon Ravenwood's niece. Macon's the town shut-out, so they all think that Lena is crazy like him. Lena accidentally breaks the window in their English class and the cheerleader start bs-ing that she broke it with something and that she's violent and that they were hurt by it. Ethan and Lena has a psychic connection and they came telepathically communicate. Ethan goes to Ravenwood manor and finds Lena. The find a locket that sends them vision of the past. Ethan sees Macon for the first time and he's pretty cool, but when they have dinner he seems to have strange powers too. Ethan finds out that Lena's a Caster, which is sorta like a witch. He finds out that on her sixteenth birthday she could turn Dark and forget about him. They spend their days before Feb 11th figuring out how to stop her Claiming.

There's a ton more that happens in this book. I'll tell you about the characters beside Ethan and Lena and Macon. Link, whose mom is head of the DAR (like a pta), is Ethan's best friend. Emily, a cheerleader who hates Ethan, Savannah Snow, who he dated once. . Amma is Ethan's house keeper who does Voo-doo. Ethan's dad is a writer, and his wife, Ethan's mom, Lila died so he's a bit crazy and a shut-in now. There's the Sisters, Ethan's crazy great aunts. Lena's family's even crazier: Ridley's a Dark Caster and a Siren. Reece is a Light Caster and a Sybil. Ryan's....a healer? Larkin's a shifter, and Aunt Del can see through time. Boo Radley's Macon's wolf-dog. That's about it. I enjoyed it and wonder is there's a sequel. Have fun! Go read!

~*Haley*

Old Magic-Marianne Curley

Kate Warren knows that Jarrod Thornton has something supernatural about him and she's right because about ten minutes later he's in a catatonic trance as a storm blows though the classroom. Jarrod isn't convinced and he thinks Kate is crazy.

Kate takes him to meet her grandmother, Jillian and Jarrod brings over his family's book of ancestors. Kate discovers that Jarrod's family has been cursed for centuries. Jillian figures out a way to send them back in time with her magic. They go back to when the sorcerer who created the curse was alive. Jarrod must kill Rhauk. Jarrod and Kate meet Jarrod's ancestors and claim to be the Lord's oldest brother's younger son and the son's wife. Kate is kidnapped by Rhauk later and she decides to stay for Jarrod's own good and Jarrod trains to defeat Rhauk. Will he get Kate back and break the curse? Find out!

This book is set in Australia at first and then they travel back to medieval England. It's was a good book, but vocab can get confusing in it.

~*Haley*

Nightschool Manga Series by Sveltlana Chmakova

This is now officially one of my favorite Manga series. It's published by Yen Press like the Maximum Ride manga were. There's witches, vampire and shifters in it, as well as other creatures. I'm not sure if the 2nd volume has come out yet, but I'll check at Borders probably. The main character is a Weirn witch girl named Alex. She's on the cover, see? I'm not going to do a summary because I've only read the 1st volume, so read it for yourself!

~*Haley*

Witch & Wizard-James Patterson

Witch & Wizard by James Patterson, who is also the author of Maximum Ride and Daniel X, is a very funny and exciting book about a brother named Whit and sister named Wisty. It's a very magical novel. I loved Wisty the most because she reminds me of Max a bit because she feisty and sarcastic smart aleck. This is much better that Harry Potter, trust me. This series has action, adventure, magic, comedy, everything. I'm serious. I can't wait another 11 months for the next book! At least Fang comes out soon.
Wisty and Whit are taken from their homes and put into prison accused of being a witch and a wizard by the New Order. The One Who is the One decrees it, and the One Who Judges sentences them to death by hanging. They get put in a mental hospital/prison. They use their magic to escape with the help of Whit's Half-Light girlfriend, Celia, into the Shadowlands. The end up hiding out with a bunch of other kids in the Freeland department store with a really weird name. They want to find their parents and they end up helping other kids escape from the prison they were first put it.
That's my summary. Hope it doesn't spoil it too much. Please check this book out, all you JP fans out there!

~*Haley*

Ignor the box with an x cuz I can't delete it! :(

Once A Witch-Carolyn MacCullough

Once a Witch is an amazing fantasy novel full of magical Talents and wonderful characters. Tamsin Greene is a seventeen-year-old girl from New York and from a family of witches. She different from them, though. She's Talentless. She doesn't have any abilities, or so she thinks. I won't spoil what that ability is. It was fun figuring it out on my own and finding out I was close to being right. Tamsin's friend Agatha goes to boarding school with her, and Tamsin's sister, Rowena, is engaged to another witch named James. Tamsin doesn't like her sister. Rowena has the ability to persuade people, which is an important fact in the book. During the first chapter, Tamsin is working at her grandmother's book store, which is where she meet Alistair Callum, a professor of art history at NYU. He asks her to find a clock, supposedly a family heirloom that was lost long ago. He think that Tamsin is Rowena and can find it for him, but Tamsin gets Gabriel's help. Gabriel, the love interest, can find anything and can travel through time to find objects. They find the clock in the late 1800's. The clock is Domani. It's where the power of the Knight's witches is stored. It's always kept in a time-piece. The Keeper protects it. Alistair is not who he seems, but I don't want to spoil anything else. I'll just leave you with the information I've already typed. Just know that it's a good book, slightly different from most with-themed books. If you're a fantasy person, give it a chance. You'll love it and will be dying for more!

~*Haley*