Leviathan-Thomas E. Sniegoski

18-year-old Aaron Corbet, his dog Gabriel and an angel name Camael are on the road to save Aaron's foster brother, Stevie. Camael thinks that they will find Aerie, a haven for fallen angels. They end up in a small town after an attack by Orishas. They find a vet for Gabriel who was bitten. Camael kind of disappears. Aaron ends up staying in town a few day, rooming at a old lady's house and working for the vet's office like he did back in Lynn.

This town has some really strange things going on, like mutated animals and people. It's because of Leviathan, an ancient chaos being. Aaron must fight it, he saves the angel Gabriel and he discovers that he's a messenger of God.

I like this series, they also had a shorter series in 4 part on ABC Family, and at Red Box rentals. I like the dog Gabriel because since Aaron can speak to animals, he can understand Gabriel. Gabriel's become more intelligent since Aaron healed him in the 1st book.

~*Haley*

Early to Death, Early to Rise-Kim Harrison

This is the 2^nd Madison Avery book, sequel to Once Dead, Twice Shy. Madison is the Dark Timekeeper, but she doesn’t believe in fate. Madison is given a scything of guy who’s going to put a computer virus in a hospital’s computer system, causing 3 people to die. She ends up finding the mark (marked to be scythed) at the mall working in a fast food place. It’s either Ace or Shoe. She thinks it’s Ace, Barnabas thinks it’s Shoe. Nakita goes with Madison and Ace. They find out that Ace is a graffiti artist, the one who made album covers for the illegally downloaded music that Shoe would hack. Ace is foul tempered. They end up going after Shoe, the techie one. Along the way, they’re trying to keep this all from the Light Timekeeper, Ron (Chronis) and his apprentice, Paul. After a flash forward, they have to hurry before Ron finds out. They follow Shoe to the school where he’s planning the virus-prank to shut down school for a day. They end up telling him too much, trying to stop him, but he already did it. Madison figures out it’s really Ace, so Madison comes up with a plan in order to get Shoe to patch up the hospital’s system. Madison plays dead-she already is dead! With a great confrontation and conflict that I will not spoil, I suggest you read this book for yourself!

It was really good. I love the reapers-angels theme. It’s pretty sweet! A fast read!

~*Haley*

Meridian-Amber Kizer

Meridian Sozu has had many things die around her. On here sixteenth birthday, when a car crash happens in front of her house, her parents send her off to her great-aunt's house in Revelation, Colorado. He Auntie is her name sake and also a Fenestra like Meridian finds out that she is. A Fenestra is partially angel and they a windows to heaven, being that can lead people to other side very comfortably. Auntie trains Meridian with the help of a teenage guy that lives there named Tens. Tens is very mean to Meridian at first, but she falls in love with him. There's a very charismatic and movie-star looking reverend in town and he's turning everyone against Auntie, calling her a witch. They think he's a Aternocti, one that leads souls to the Destroyer rather than the Creator. They're been getting strange calls and dead animals on their door step. Meridian isn't very safe.

Auntie is 106 years old (because that's how long all Fenestras live) and going to die soon. Meridian is learning how to escort souls and she must be able to do so for her Auntie when she passes. Meridian help Auntie's dead lover, Charles to the other side. She does so for Auntie on New Years Eve, and then some believers and Aternoctis burn down the house. Tens and Meridian narrowly escape through a secret passage. They make it to the cave that Charles souped up a long time ago and Tens improved it. Tens was poisoned by the reverend when Meridian was leading souls at the train wreak. Meridian's got to stop Reverend Perimo before it's too late.

This book was so good, can't wait till the next. I read it in 2 days.

~*Haley*

Fallen-Lauren Kate

In this book, Luce Price is the main character. Her parents sent her to Sword & Cross reform school. Sword & Cross is more like a prison than a school. Some student even have to wear wristband with tracking chips in them. Luce has seen shadows all her life and back at her old prep school they caused something to happen to a boy she was alone with. Luce is on parole now for a crime she didn't commit. Luce meets Daniel. He ignores her and tries to avoid her as much as possible, but she eventually confronts him. Cam is nothing but nice to Luce. He even buys her a necklace, but Luce can't stop thinking about Daniel. It turns out that throughout her past lives she has always met him. Daniel is a damned Angel. He will live for ever only to see Luce die every seventeen or so years. Luce has a hard time believing this stuff but realizes that it's true later. Cam is evil and Daniel wants to save her. I can't go on anymore without spoiling the whole plot. The book's 452 pages long and I read it in 3 days. It's really good. It reminds me of the last book I read, Devil's Kiss because there's watchers (Grigoris) in it. It also reminds me of the Immortals series because Ever was killed over and over in her past lives too.


Pop Lit Journal:

This book had topics in common with other books I’ve read recently. Before this book I read Devil’s Kiss by Sarwat Chadda. It had a fallen angel in it too. A Watcher, or a Grigori. In that book they were evil, dark angels. Billi started falling for the Angel of Death because she was being deceived into trusting him. In Fallen, there are also some bad fallen angels. Luce is deceived into trusting Cam and Mrs. Sophia. Both basically had fallen angels in them. In Fallen the fallen angels were condemned to Earth for loving a human or something more than God. They didn’t elaborate, but it was pretty much what’s in the bible. Hush, Hush by Becca FitzPatrick also was about fallen angels. It was more like this book than any of the other ones I will mention. Nora, like Luce, falls for a fallen angel guy and end up in the middle of a great heavenly war.

There was also the concept of past lives in this book. Luce always died not long after she met Daniel every seventeen years. This reminded me of Alyson Noë l’s Immortals series where Ever was killed by Drina after she and Damon fell in love in each of her past lives. Since Daniel was condemned, he will live for ever only to see Luce show up in his life, fall in love with him and die every seventeen or so years.

She would sometimes die when they kissed because he is an angel, and it could shock her somehow. Sometimes she’d die from an information overload or by being killed somehow. She thought it sounded a bit romantic at first, like they were star-crossed lovers, but then it hit her that could die soon. She didn’t want to believe it though. She thought it sounded crazy, but her seeing shadow seemed crazier to her. Daniel said she never was able to see the shadows in her past lives. It’s almost like she has some kind of psychic ability now, like Ever had after becoming immortal, but not really. Maybe her soul’s evolving or something.

I want to mention the setting. A lot of books have boarding schools in them, but I haven’t read many with reform schools in them. Sword & Cross is a reform high school for young felons, insane teens and juvenile delinquents. Luce was pretty sane, though she didn’t believe it. She thought she might have killed Trevor and she deserved to be there. She became friends with the only sane person there, Penn. There were also other fallen angels hiding among them as students: Arriane, Roland, Cam, and Gabbe.

~*Haley*

Devil's Kiss-Sarwat Chadda

Devil's Kiss is about a squire of the Knights Templar named Billi (Bilqis) SanGreal. She just completed her Ordeal and is now part of the knights, but she doesn't really like her warrior's life. She wants a normal life. Kay comes back from Jerusalem, but she doesn't really want him to be part of her life now that he's an Oracle. Billi meets Mike after he saves her from some jerks on the train. He later turns out to be the dark angel Micheal and he's come to release all the other dark angels from the cursed mirror. He wants to unleash the tenth plague on London, killing every first born child. They have to stop him and the only way to do that is to use the Silver Sword, but Satan tells Billi she must kill her father that she pretty much "hates" in order to get it from him. Will she be able to do it or will she find another way to stop Micheal? This book was pretty awesome. It only took me three days to read. I read the second half of the book today. I'm really interested in reading the next book called Dark Goddess that comes out this year. This book is in 3rd person and it has a lot of British words in it. I had a hard time imagining the character with British accents, but I still loved it.

Read it! :)

~*Haley*