The Tear Collector-Patrick Jones

Cassandra Grey and her family feeds off of human sorrow, not causing it directly. She's basically like a vampire that thirts for tears instead of blood. She's a heart breaker, breaking up with boys such as Cody and making them cry. She volunteers and a hospital and is a peer concealer. She's always a shoulder to cry on.

When her best friend commits suicide, she comfort her friend's family. She also tries to make friends with a goth girl, Samantha and she's becoming the girlfriend of Samantha ex, Scott. She's starting to have feelings for Scott and that's not her nature. She shouldn't be able to fall in love.

At the family reunion, Alexei, her promised mate, is there. He's evil and picks up Cass's cell when Scott calls and tells him lies.

Later on he kidnaps Scott and tortures him like he did to many little boys. Cass tells Samantha what she is and they go rescue Scott. Scott is near death and Cass will risk everything, even exile, to save him. She's falling in love and she just might become human.

This book was pretty good! I live vampire book, the only problem with this one it that Cass was pretty fake, always trying to make people let out their tears and wiping them with a handkerchief.

~*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*

Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception-Maggie Stiefvater

Deirdre Monaghan, a teen harpist, meets Luke Dillon at a music competition. Luke was the guy from her dream and it's weird to meet him in real life. Dee best friend's name is James and he plays bag pipes. He tells her that he's psychic later on. Luke's pretty cryptic and Dee falls in love with him over the next few summer day after her birthday. She's starts to get mixed up in the faerie world as she runs into fey creature and a freckle face faerie man. Dee's Granna gave her an iron ring, and Luke gave her an iron key for protection. It's mentioned many times that Deirdre is incredibly talented in music as well as in her newly found telekinetic ability. She's a cloverhand after all (and she always find four leaf clovers, but doesn't really need them anymore. She can see faeries all by herself). There's a lot of twists and turn I don't want to spoil or maybe I'm just too lazy to type them.

I liked this book though I couldn't pay much attention to it. It took me only 2 days to read and it's 325 pages long. There is a sequel called Ballad. I better look out for that.

~*Haley*

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*

Betrayals-Lili St. Crow

This is the second book in the Strange Angels series.
Dru Anderson is sent to the Schola for her own protection after she finds out about her djamphir (half vampire) heritage. The Schola is an all-boys training facility which makes Dru feel like an outsider. She's not allowed outside of the school, but she does escape a few times. Christophe come back, which makes her feel a bit better, but then she finds out that there's a traitor in the Order and Christophe is a suspect. Graves (the Goth-Boy turned skin changer) is making friends with werwulfen.
The schola is attacked twice, the second time a Burner sets it on fire. Dru, Graves, Christophe and a few other werwulfen escape and set of for another safe place. Dru's in danger and no one can be trusted.

I recommend this series to fans of Vampire Academy or Maximum Ride. But, beware of the small text on each page. It's not very easy to read, but I got through it and still like the characters. Dru is a cool, tough character.



Pop Lit Journal:

Dru and Graves and even Christophe have their own saying or “catch phrases”. Things they seem to say repeatedly that make it easy to distinguish who’s saying what when dialog doesn’t include “I said” or “he said.” Dru has her saying in her thought too, of course, because this novel is written in first person. Since Dru grew up in Florida, she has some very southern saying that she picked up from her Gran or dad. She swears a lot, but I won’t go into that. Whenever she’s desperate she thinks “oh, God” or “Jesus.” Whenever something seems too make sense, she thinks, “go figure.” Twice in the same paragraph she described how male werwulfen and male djamphirs will change at “the drop of a hat.” Her father or Gran’s voice would always come to her mind with advice or their own little sayings they used to say to Dru. She also has a lot of thoughts about how she doesn’t like being told what to do or thoughts how she doesn’t want to ruin her tough-girl image. Out of all the books I’ve read, this series has had the most italicized thoughts from the main character I’ve ever seen. Some of the things she says a lot sarcastically are “gee, thanks” and “peachy.” She’s a very stubborn and sarcastic character.
Graves (Goth Boy turned Skin-changer) has his own little phrases. “First one’s free,” is like his motto or something. In Strange Angels he said it like twenty -something times, in this book only about three times. He’s very generous, especially to Dru. He obviously likes her even though she kind of ruined the life he had before they came to the Schola. He said he liked the Schola better, anyways. At least they feed him there. He’s a really nice, smart guy even though he smokes and he’s Goth. He is pretty much Dru’s best friend now, and has potential to be her boyfriend too. Whenever something’s wrong he says, “Christ” or even “Jesus.”
Christophe has the tendency to say things in what I think is Russian. I seriously wish the author put a glossary in the back of this book so I knew what Christophe was calling Dru half the time. He calls Dru his “little bird” in English and possibly in Russian. Since Christophe is older than he looks since he is half vampire, I was able to tell his age from the way he spoke. He sounded like he must be about a hundred years old since he spoke like an old man or like an old-time romantic. Dru didn’t realize he was so old, but I thought it was sort of obvious. How would a teen know so much about her mother?

~*Haley*

P.S. I HAD TO RETYPE THIS DARN THING BECAUSE MY INTERNET FAILED LAST NIGHT!!! I HATE COMCAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!