Reading all summer

I've spent the majority of my summer break reading for pleasure. Books are probably my all time favorite past time, and I'm a fairly fast reader. So far this summer I've read (though not in this specific order):

The Hollows Series by Kim Harrison I absolutely loved this series and would strongly recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy based books. These books are about witch with an attitude named Rachel Morgan. After choosing to quit her job (a job that quitting comes with a death sentence) she decides to open her own PI Office with her living vampire friend Ivy and trusty pixie side kick, Jenks. Life is rocky for this trio until Rachel's blood reveals the secret to her history, opening up a whole new set of magical possibilities and a whole new can of worms. I can't wait for the next book in this series to come out!

The Chicagoland Vampire Series by Chloe Neill I enjoyed reading these books, and definitely plan to read any future books that come out in this series. Author Chloe Neill paints a portrait of organized vampire politics in the Chicagoland Vampire Series. These books take place in a modern day Chicago after vampires have announced their existence to the world. There are various "houses" of vampires, not too unlike frat houses, and our Heroine, Merit, becomes a member of the Cadogan House. Not having chosen to become a vampire, as is the standard practice, Merit holds a grudge against her new life but soon learns to accept who she has become. Meanwhile, she finds herself falling in love with the head vamp of Cadogan House, Ethan Sullivan, even though he gets under her skin.

The Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews In a world where magic and technology battle each other, each coming and going in waves, mercenary Kate Daniels must work hard to hide her secrets and to keep herself emotionally separated from everyone around her because to have friends carries the equivalent to sentencing them to death. Perhaps what is the most fascinating in this series is the uniqueness of the magic/tech dichotomy and the nature of vampires that Ilona Andrews has come up with. When a technology wave hits, magic stops working, during a magic wave technology stops working. The return of the magic to the world has slowly disintegrated the buildings and has revived or empowered magical entities such as shape shifters, trolls and vampires. Vampires, however, are shriveled human corpses with no will and no mind of their own save the uncontrolled blood lust. A special sect of Necromancers known as "The People" use the vampires through remote psychic control, navigating their bodies, using them as messengers or as soldiers when needed. Should the Necromancer controlling a vampire loose control, the vampire would revert to it's animalistic blood lust rampage, killing everything in sight. I will definitely be looking for more books in this series.

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins These books have become quite famous, and a movie about the first book was recently released although I have not seen it yet. In a post apocalypse-esque setting, a young girl is faced with the decision of leaving her family to care for themselves even though she is the primary provider, so that she might take her little sisters place in the Games, or watching her sister go instead, knowing that whichever of them goes, they will likely die a horrible death for no other real purpose than to entertain the sick upper-class citizens of The Capital. Katniss Everdeen makes the choice that we would all like to believe we would make, and took the place of her sister, Primrose Everdeen, in the Games. This is a horrifying tale of what humanity could become, revolution and courage. I would definitely recommend these books.

The latest two books in The Immortals Series by Alyson Nöel I would not strongly recommend these books, but I definitely wouldn't discourage anyone from reading them either. I found them to be just interesting enough that I continued to read them. I first started this series in 2009 when the first book came out, and have read each of the books as they've been released if not right away then eventually. In these books a high school girl named Ever, who has miraculously survived a car accident that killed everyone else in her family, meets and falls for the new guy at school, Damen. At first he seems to like her as well, but then his behavior changes and she isn't so certain. Shortly she learns that the boy is much older than anyone could imagine, and has been kept alive and young by drinking an Elixir that was created with the Philosopher's Stone. She learns that even though it is beyond her ability to remember, she and Damen have been locked in a tragic cycle through many of her lives. They meet, fall in love and before they can consummate the relationship she is tragically killed only to be reincarnated and have the cycle begin anew when the immortal Damen finds her once more.

The first and half of the second book of The Fifty Shades Trilogy by E L James As popular as these books have swiftly become, I definitely do not recommend them. I struggled through the first book and managed to read part of the second book before I finally could take no more. These books definitely fall into the erotica category, which is a category I often do enjoy, but the authors writing style mixed with the pathetic personality of the lead female role were just too much for me to handle. For many others though, the books are hot stuff. In these books a young woman, Anastasia "Ana" Steele finds herself falling for an incredibly wealthy, incredibly well-known and incredibly handsome man named Christian Grey. She quickly learns that Christian wants her to agree to sign a contract in which she will willingly submit herself to act as a submissive to his dominant, engaging in whatever sexual acts and disciplinary acts he deems fit with the exception of those outlined in the contract as being "Hard Rules" (off-limits). Even though it baffles the overly jealous Christian, he finds himself developing feelings for the naive and sexually innocent Anastasia. I can't tell you how the story ends, because honestly I don't know. The plot was unappealing to me, and the sex scenes weren't even that erotic.

The latest book in The Werecats Series by Rachel Vincent As with the Immortals series, I've read this series bit by bit as it has come out. I enjoyed this series and will read any further books that come out from this series. These books are not at the top of my recommend list, but they are definitely on it somewhere. Faythe Sanders is a werecat, females (Tabbies) are apparently very rare and coveted among her people but instead of marrying herself off and making babies as most Tabbies are expected (and gladly do), Faythe decided to leave her families compound and her Alpha (who happens to be her father) and go to college among the humans instead. When trouble begins to stir for all werecats, Faythe is called upon to return home where she soon finds herself trapped in a problematic love triangle between herself, her ex-boyfriend and a long time family friend. A story unfolds over several books, of Faythe's struggle for independence, love and inevitably taking over the job of Alpha that her father has been grooming her for (even though females are not normally Alphas and Faythe is not without brothers).

The latest book in The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini These books were quite popular when the first three were out, but have lost some popularity due to the amount of time it took the author to complete and release the fourth book. In a fantasy world where dragons and elves are the stuff of legends, a young man named Eragon stumbles upon a strange blue egg-like rock. Feeling drawn to it, he takes it with him only to find out that it is no rock at all when it hatches a beautiful, sparkling blue baby dragon. The dragon establishes a telepathic link with Eragon, binding herself to him for life. When an Elven woman comes looking for the egg, as it was her duty to protect it (she apparently attempted to send the egg to a safe location using magic when she felt it was endangered, but the egg through destiny made it's way to Eragon instead), she is shocked to find that the egg has not only hatched but has hatched for this human untrained human man. It being her duty to protect the young dragon, and now the dragon's rider (Eragon) she escorts them to the land of the elves so that they can be properly trained. Eragon and the dragon, Saphira, learn of the dangers that face them and the rest of the world and come to understand that the world relies on them to save it from the threats. These are excellent books, and I definitely would recommend them.

The latest book in The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris These books quickly became some of my most favorites, and I impatiently anticipate the release of the next book in the series. For those of you who haven't heard of the books, you might better recognize the name of the HBO original series based off of these books: True Blood. There are many books to this series so it's hard to sum them up in a paragraph, but I'll try to get the basics. A telepathic barmaid from Bon Temps Louisiana falls in love with a vampire named Bill Compton. Vampires are common knowledge these days, as they have "come out of the coffin", that is publicly announced their presence, after the creation of a synthetic blood that was created by the Japanese for medical purposes was realized to support a vampires nutritional needs. That doesn't mean, of course, that the vampires don't prefer to drink from humans but publicly they drink the synthetic blood. Finding herself swiftly immersed in Vampire politics, Sookie Stackhouse is forced to use her telepathic abilities (which only work fully on humans, somewhat on shapeshifters but not at all on vampires) to solve mysteries for the Vampires. Soon she learns that Vampires are not the only supernatural beings out there, by far. Shapeshifters and Fairies play predominant roles in these books, but demons and elves play lesser parts as well. Sookie finds herself trying to balance her normal human day life and her vampire loving night life in these semi-erotic, totally addictive books.



I am currently reading:
The Edge Series by Ilona Andrews I'm currently on the second book of this series and although I wasn't too sure about the books when I first started the series, they quickly grew on me and I am thoroughly enjoying them. This series is about two mirrored worlds, and the place that they overlap. In The Broken there is no magic whatsoever, and those with magic experience severe pain (if not death) and a loss of magic if they cross over into The Broken. The Weird is where magic thrives, to be in the Weird is to either have the ability to use magic very strongly or to simply be magical such as are the "Changelings" (most books would call them shapeshifters, people born with the ability to change into an animal). The place where the two worlds overlap is called The Edge. In The Edge there is no real government, no ruling class, it's a free for all society in which those who have some magic struggle to eek out a living. Most people who live in The Weird have no knowledge of The Broken and minimal if any knowledge of The Edge, those who live in The Broken live their lives likewise. Those that live in The Edge know of both and in most cases are able to pass back and forth between the worlds. So far the two books have not shared the same main characters, though the main Hero of the second book was a secondary character in the first book. It is this story line connection, and The Edge that bring the two books together. They are definitely interesting and I'm looking forward to the third book as I am nearing the end of the second. So far, I would recommend these books.