I am a big fan of Anne Rice, and going into this book I was hoping it was as good as her Vampire Chronicle books. After reading over nine hundred pages, it was well worth the time it took to read and maybe as good as the Vampire Chronicles. The story takes place with a family in New Orleans, the Mayfairs. They are rich beyond imagination and have been for countless generations. This is because of a mysterious man that hangs around their mansion in the garden district of New Orleans. Their history is then told by a secret organization, the Talamasca, whose sole purpose is to learn and watch the mysterious things all over the world. They have countless files on the Mayfairs and share them with the two main characters of the book, Michael and Rowan. Rowan was born into the Mayfair family but was sent away from the madness that occurred regularly. Michael grew up in the area but on the poor side of town. These two meet in California where Rowan saves Michael’s life, pulling him out of the ocean and reviving him. This is where the story takes off and the two characters really start to know each other and begin to learn about the Mayfair legacy. This was a really good book. Even though it is incredibly long I could not seem to stop reading it whenever I got a chance. If you are a fan of Anne Rice then you will not be disappointed.

This is the second book of the Nicholas Flamel series and I was not disappointed.  The twins, Sophie and Josh, are still being hunted by Dr. John Dee and are still trying to awaken Josh’s hidden powers.  They are now in Paris trying to find any type of help they can while trying to keep the remaining two pages of the codex out of the hands of the Dark Elders.  They are constantly on the lookout for evil gods and monsters while questioning Nicholas Flamels motives, and searching for Nicholas’s wife Perenelle.  This is a really great series.  I love how the author draws popular characters out of the different mythologies and legends of the world.

Sophie and Josh Newman are twins who work down the same street for their summer jobs. Sophie works at the coffee shop while Josh works at the book store owned by Nicholas Flamel. Everything is going smoothly until a Dr. John Dee shows up and starts to destroy the book store looking for a lost codex that Nicholas is in possession of. This is when Josh and Sophie’s world is turned upside down, learning that magic is real, the mythologies of the world are real, and they are mentioned in the book as the twins that can either save the world or destroy it. This leads the twins in an adventure were they encounter mythical beasts and people that were only thought of as stories, while trying to avoid Dr. John Dee who is serving the Dark Elders set on destroying the world. This was a really, really good book. I am a big fan of mythology and did not know that this book would even have the different gods of mythology, so it made it that much better. Anyone who likes Percy Jackson or similar titles is sure to enjoy this book.

This book I actually bought instead of picking it up from the library and I was not disappointed afterwards. I was looking for a Percy Jackson type and this fits pretty good with the Greek god adventure books. The story follows two main characters, Charlotte and Zach. They happen to be cousins. Charlotte is from the United States and Zach is from London were every summer he visits with his Grandmother Winter. Grandmother Winter happens to see flashes of the future and knows that she will die soon and that her grandchild Zach will be in danger. After Grandmother Winter’s death Zach starts to notice that most of his friends start to get sick. Although there are no medical answers for what appears to be healthy kids, they are unable to get out of bed. This follows Zach even when he goes back to London. He eventually is sent to America to live with his cousin Charlotte, but it seems to have followed him there as well. After reading this book it wasn’t as action packed as Percy Jackson but I still enjoyed reading it.

Jane Vows Vengeance is the third book of the series and has not let me down compared to the past two. The storyline was quite a bit different from the previous two. Jane and her fiancé, Walter, are finally getting married. There is one problem, though: Walter has no idea that Jane is a vampire or that his mother is a vampire hunter. Jane and Walter, along with his mother and their friends, travel to Europe for Jane and Walter’s wedding, thinking it will be fun and uneventful. As the book goes on, though, you know that this will not be the case, along with worrying about “Our Gloomy Friend”. Jane also runs into some ghosts; and learned about a mysterious artifact that could very well return her human soul causing her to become human again; which would mean not having to tell Walter that she is a vampire. This is a very quick read for anyone who likes vampire novels.

After being a fan of Anne Rice for a long time, I just finished one of her newer novels that just came out, The Wolf Gift. I really enjoyed this book; this was one of the best werewolf novels that I have ever read and loved everything from the storyline to the characters. The main character is Reuben. Rueben is on assignment for his newspaper to write an article about the Nideck House. This mansion is on the edge of a cliff and its previous owner has mysteriously been missing for the past twenty years. The owner is now Marchent, who is the niece of the missing owner. Reuben meets Marchent and immediately they take a liking to each other. Rueben stays the night so that he can see everything for his report. When awakening hours later from a noise, he finds Marchent’s brothers attacking her and then him. He is then stabbed but is saved by some beast that kills both brothers and bites Reuben. This is the start of the journey that leads Reuben to discover that he now has the wolf gift and must keep it a secret and learn how to live with it. If you enjoyed any other of Anne Rice’s novels then you’re sure to love this one.

In the second book of the Kane Chronicles, Carter and Sadie are still following the path of the gods and teaching these ways to other young magicians.  Learning that Apophis, the chaos snake god, is about to escape his prison they must go and try to revive the once powerful sun god Ra.  They have to go through many challenges to reach Ra, while finding help along the way like the Egyptian dwarf god Babi.  I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who likes Riordan’s previous work like the Percy Jackson series.

This is the second book I have read by this author, the first being The Space Between, which was really good. After reading The Replacement I was not let down by the author. This book was set in the town of Gentry and featured a boy named Mackie. Mackie is not like everyone else; he can’t touch metal, he freaks when he sees or smells blood, and he can’t walk on sacred ground. Mackie is not the child that his parents had, he is a replacement. He was left in the place of the real Malcolm Doyle, and now he is slowly dying. He must find out where he came from and if there is some way to stop himself from slowly dying. I really enjoyed the author’s writing. This is Yovanoff’s first book and I love everything about it – the characters and the storyline. The whole book has grittiness to it that I really enjoyed.

Rick Riordan is also the author of the popular series Percy Jackson that follows the Greek gods.  The Red Pyramid, however, follows the Egyptian gods and has two heroes, brother and sister Carter and Sadie Kane.  After reading The Red Pyramid I was surprised that I liked this series better.  It starts by explaining the different lives of Carter and Sadie.  Carter travels the world with his dad, who is an Egyptologist, while his sister Sadie lives in England with her grandparents.  Carter and Sadie only see each other once or twice a year.  This time when they meet, though, their dad is acting strange, looking over his shoulder watching for people.  Their dad takes them to a museum were he then looks at the Rosetta stone.  Through some weird occurrence the stone explodes and their dad is suddenly missing.  Now Carter and Sadie have no idea what is going on and must find out what has happened to their dad, and why all this other weird stuff is occurring.  Overall I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read the next one of the series.

This was an interesting book, one that I might wait a long while before i pick it up again. The way “Abby” wakes up with no memory,  and the journey she takes to find the truth is captivating. It show how things can go from looking like Paradise to a reality of Hell with in a short time. Painting a picture of a person being innocent, and free and showing a person being held captive by the choices she makes.