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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Review: Darkfever (Fever #1) by Karen Marie Moning #fever

Title: Darkfever (Fever #1)
Author: Karen Marie Moning
Published: 28 August 2007
Publisher: Dell
Source: Book Depository
Reviewed: Sapphired Dragon
Rating: ****

 My Review:

This book and indeed this series came highly recommended to me so I was excited to finally get a chance to sit down and read it.  Stories about the Fae are always either hit or miss with me, I either love it or I hate it. And this one I loved!

I liked the pace of the story and I flew through it pretty easily and I liked Ms Moning idea of the Fae being incredibly dangerous even the "light' ones and it had a very Buffy the vampire slayer feel at times "the one sidhe-seer in all the world" and all that with the main character being a young blonde who doesn't take life too seriously till everything changes with her sister's murder.

That being said, I did like the main character Mac, for all that she spent the book describing how shallow she had once been, she still has a lot of family loyalty and strength.  I am eager to find out more about the mysterious Jericho Barrons, and V'lane and the part the Seelie are playing in all this.

As far as first books in a series go, this was definitely the kind of book that makes you want to continue on with the series, want to find out more about Mac Sidhe-seer abilities, find out more about the fae and what they have planned for the human world and find out who killed Mac's sister.  Though given that in the prologue, Mac tells us she is a Sidhe-seer, I did then find it a little frustrating to have to spent the better part of the first half of the book having Mac slowly find out and then more slowly accept that Hey yeah she is sidhe-seer despite all the denial. That small foible and the distracting habit of the author to randomly have a future mac flash back on the scene ( ie I don't know what i was thinking that day or if i had known then the danger I faced...) were probably the only two real problems i had with the book and why i am not giving the story a 5 star rating.

That being said however  I am already planning to buy book two later this week as well as reserving at the library in case i don't get a chance to make it to the book shop :-)
I give this book a very solid 4 stars


Sapphired Dragon xx


About The Book


Darkfever (Fever #1) by Karen Marie Moning






"My name is MacKayla, Mac for short. I'm a sidhe-seer, one who sees the Fae, a fact I accepted only recently and very reluctantly. My philosophy is pretty simple - any day nobody's trying to kill me is a good day in my book. I haven't had many good days lately. Not since the walls between Man and Fae came down. But then, there's not a sidhe-seer alive who's had a good day since then." When MacKayla's sister was murdered, she left a single clue to her death, a cryptic message on Mac's cel phone. Journeying to Ireland in search of answers, Mac is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to master a power she had no idea she possessed - a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae. As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister's death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho...while at the same time, the ruthless V'lane - an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women - closes in on her. As the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac's true mission becomes clear: to find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book - because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control both worlds in their hands..



Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Review: Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7) by P. C. Cast

Title: Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7)
Author: P. C. Cast
Published: 7 December 2010
Publisher: Hachette AU
Source: Dymocks
Reviewed: Sapphired Dragon
Rating: *** 1/2

 My Review:

I read the first 6 books of this series about 3 or 4 years ago and I remember really enjoying it. So I was really excited to read this, the seventh and last book in the series. I think though , I may have been remembering them better than they were because whilst I did still enjoy it, it wasn't quite as good as I was hoping.

The story flows well from beginning to end and I breezed through it pretty quickly and there is a lot of humour in this book, particularly in the dialogue and I found myself laughing out loud at times and there may have been a snort of laughter or 2 (though I am not admitting anything. I did find that some of jokes were a little bit on the repetitive side so while it was funny the first couple of times, it was used a little too much so instead just got annoying. Others were pretty much funny every time. Pickles anyone?

 I mostly liked the main character Isabel but at times I struggled with the way Arthur and Guinevere were depicted, especially Guinevere. At times, her actions, which I think were supposed to mark her as very young just made her character look somewhat inconsistent and at times confusing.

I think as well because there have been a lot of stories about the Arthur legend, including time traveller stories such as a Yankee in King Arthur's court by Mark Twain, the stick with which I was measuring the story was a little higher so the story was relatively fun and simple, I think certain elements of the story such as Mordred were over simplified to make the story work.

Overall, it mostly gave me the warm and fuzzy feelings I had been hoping for and expecting from it though I wasn't as satisfied with the ending as I wanted to be. So for these reasons I give this story 3 1/2 stars

Sapphired Dragon xx


About The Book


Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7) by P. C. Cast



The new Goddess Summoning novel from the author of the multimillion- selling House of Night phenomenon. 

After her car plummets off a bridge, Isabel, a world-weary photojournalist, struggles between life and death when she's saved by the Water Goddess-with one tiny caveat: Isabel must travel to another time to seduce the legendary Lancelot du Lac away from Queen Guinevere. 

The handsome knight is a dream for any woman in any century. But Isabel is the one who's seduced by King Arthur. For Isabel, a deal is a deal. Now, the King watches as fate takes from him the mysterious beauty he has come to worship, knowing all too well that any interference on his part could destroy the kingdom he loves.


Monday, July 18, 2016

Teaser Tuesday #1: Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7) by P. C Cast





Welcome to Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

4. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


My current read is Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7) by P. C. Cast and my two lines are from page 150


Isabel slipped her hand from out of Arthur's. They all were stunned silent for a moment before Gwen found her voice.



Goddess of Legend (Goddess Summoning #7) by P. C. Cast


The new Goddess Summoning novel from the author of the multimillion- selling House of Night phenomenon. 

After her car plummets off a bridge, Isabel, a world-weary photojournalist, struggles between life and death when she's saved by the Water Goddess-with one tiny caveat: Isabel must travel to another time to seduce the legendary Lancelot du Lac away from Queen Guinevere. 

The handsome knight is a dream for any woman in any century. But Isabel is the one who's seduced by King Arthur. For Isabel, a deal is a deal. Now, the King watches as fate takes from him the mysterious beauty he has come to worship, knowing all too well that any interference on his part could destroy the kingdom he loves.






PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your ‘teasers’ in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks!

Friday, July 15, 2016

Stacking the Shelves #1


Welcome to Stacking The Shelves! Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga Reviews and is a meme to share those books, both print and e-book, that have been added to your shelves in the last week/s.


Welcome to my first stacking the shelves on this blog : Sapphired Reads.  I started it to review more adult books than I usually feature on my more YA themed blog Realm of the Sapphired Dragon

In the last couple of weeks I have started a few new paranormal series so these are mostly what is featured in this week Stacking the shelves.  I also start a series reading and review challenge this week so these reviews will also appear here.
Have a great week!

 

 

 

Purchased - Print Books

It's been a good week for book mail this week and I have also made a couple of nice purchases in my local library sale


Purchased From Library sale:






Other Purchases: 

Bay of Sighs (The Guardians Trilogy) by Nora Roberts  Purchased K-Mart
Darkfever (Fever #1) by Karen Marie Moning  Purchased: Book Depository

 

 

Borrowed - Library

Quite a few books borrowed from the library this week.  Mostly to do with a couple of challenges i am participating in  in Goodreads at the moment.  One is the Wobble which is a team reading challenge run by Nothing But Reading Challenges with 5 different big events each with their set og events and reading challenges to complete along the way such as Battleship and we a currently in week 2 of a 3 week Olympics Games event. There is also the Super Series, another team challenge run by The Challenge Factory which is the challenge where teams roll a dice to move along a board and which ever number they land on need to read an review a book from a series with the same number as they landed on i.e. if you land on 7 you need to read book 7 in a series and review it within a week or if you land on a 12, you need to read and review  book 1 or book 2 or book 12.  I love team reading challenges as you get to meet new people and discover all sorts of awesome new books to read and add to your TBR as well as reading outside your comfort zone and discovering more books again :-)







So what did you add to your shelves this week?