Review: Rogue (Talon #2), by Julie Kagawa

Title: Rogue (Talon #2)
Author: Julie Kagawa
Format: ebook
Source: NetGalley

From Goodreads: "Ember Hill left the dragon organization Talon to take her chances with rebel dragon Cobalt and his crew of rogues. But Ember can't forget the sacrifice made for her by the human boy who could have killed her—Garret Xavier Sebastian, a soldier of the dragonslaying Order of St. George, the boy who saved her from a Talon assassin, knowing that by doing so, he'd signed his own death warrant. 

Determined to save Garret from execution, Ember must convince Cobalt to help her break into the Order's headquarters. With assassins after them and Ember's own brother helping Talon with the hunt, the rogues find an unexpected ally in Garret and a new perspective on the underground battle between Talon and St. George. 

A reckoning is brewing and the secrets hidden by both sides are shocking and deadly. Soon Ember must decide: Should she retreat to fight another day…or start an all-out war?"

My Opinion: I received a copy of this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am in total awe of the amazing Ms. Kagawa, as I've mentioned before, but even I wondered how she was going to take dragons and assimilate them into the everyday contemporary world as sleeper agents, even if they had learned how to look, talk and act human. The catch is, dragons can mimic humans, but they don't have the emotions to back up the feelings. Until Ember Hill, that is. She embraces life 100%, both her dragon side and her human side, and finds the constraints of the dragon hierarchy in Talon (the group of dragons all over the world who work together to prevent the extinction of their race), too much to accept. At the end of the first book, Talon, she goes rogue with the very sexy dragon Cobalt, human name Riley, and vows to break her human boyfriend, Garrett, out of the worst place a dragon can go: into the belly of the beast, which in this case is a compound crawling with soldiers from the Order of St. George, an order put in place hundreds of years ago with the sole purpose of eradicating all dragons from the face of the earth. As Garrett got to know and love Ember, he realized that the Order had been lying to him all of his life about how all dragons were evil, even hatchlings, and had to be killed, and as Ember learned more about Talon from Riley, she realized that they were doing the same thing, only with humans. Because Garrett helped Ember, Riley and two young hatchlings escape from a much older dragon, Lilith, who was a Viper, which is a dragon assassin sent out to hunt and kill rogue dragons, he was caught by his own Order, and scheduled to be put to death by firing squad because he maintained that the soldiers were wrong about all dragons, which was considered treason. And while Riley would love nothing more than to get rid of the annoying human who had feelings for his Ember, he goes with her to break Garrett out before he is executed,  Yes, people, this is exciting stuff!!!

I haven't even mentioned Ember's twin, Dante, who is team Talon through and through, and who turned Ember in when she was leaving to go rogue and asked him to join her, but in his defense, he doesn't see Talon for what it is and honestly believed that Lilith would bring Ember back alive and he would be able to make her see the light and drink the Koolaid and join Talon 100%. But you guessed it, that doesn't go down quite as planned and he ends up scrambling to save face and come up with a new plan to bring her back. He is determined to become one of the executives of Talon eventually, and maybe even run the organization one day, but will he sacrifice Ember to do it? 

Once again, Ms. Kagawa has proven that she is a master storyteller by weaving romance, both between two dragons and an unheard of human and dragon, intrigue, action, and much, much more. I already love this series and can't wait to read more. I give this book a very, very enthusiastic 5 stars!!!!!

Review: Everneath (Everneath #1), by Brodi Ashton

Title: Everneath (Everneath #1)
Author: Brodi Ashton
Format: Hard cover
Source: I own it

From Goodreads: "Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she's returned--to her old life, her family, her boyfriend--before she's banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance--and the one person she loves more than anything. But there's just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's queen."

My Opinion: When Nikki Bennetth wakes up after a hundred years "in the tunnels" with immortal Cole, who has been feeding off of her emotions during those hundred years, she is given a reprieve of six months to say her good byes before she returns to the tunnels forever. She left home after seeing her boyfriend in a compromising situation and feels a great deal of guilt at the way she left things with her family and friends and she really wants to make things right before she disappears again. When she returns she finds out that she has been missing for only six months, but even so, she has a lot of work ahead of her to fix the damage that she has done, starting with her father and brother. When her mother was killed by a drunk driver she had a really hard time dealing with that, and her relationship with her father never quite recovered. She also has to try to distance herself from her boyfriend, Jack, when she realizes that he was actually the person most affected by her disappearance since she knows that she is going to have to go away again and she wants to make it as easy on him as possible. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done when all of her old feelings for him resurface and she just can't imagine never seeing him again. The biggest problem she has, though, is Cole, who wants her to return to the Everneath with him as the queen of the underworld, and she is definitely not on board with that! 

Jack and Cole are very well defined as the bad boy and the knight in shining armor respectively, but as you read further into the book, the lines between good and evil are not so clear. Ms. Ashton does an awesome job of pulling Cole back from the brink of being purely evil whenever he gets so close that you think he can't be redeemed, which I loved! Nikki finds herself drawn to him against her will due to the 100 years he spent siphoning off of her emotions, as well as the physical closeness between the two of them in the tunnels - they were literally wrapped around each other as close as two people could be, and her body betrays her time and time again by yearning for that closeness again. While Cole may be insufferable, arrogant and selfish, his Achilles' heel is his very real love for Nikki, which plays out well here. Jack also has a very deep connection to Nikki since it was his love and constant thoughts and dreams of Nikki while she was gone that allowed her to return six months later with her memories intact, which is  a rare thing for someone who has been fed on for 100 years. This is what makes Cole realize that there is something special about her, and this in turn makes him realize that she could be that one in a million person who could actually become queen of the underworld, and he in turn could be the king. Unfortunately, Nikki doesn't share this dream with him, and when she decides that she would rather go back to the tunnels than be his queen, he becomes desperate to change her mind.

I really enjoyed this book because the characters were very well written and grew so much from start to finish that you felt drawn to them and really wanted everything to work out in the end, which was of course not to be since this is the first book of a trilogy and ended with one whopper of a cliff hanger!!  I can't wait to read the next book in the series, Everbound, and already have my copy ready to go! 

I also have to mention the absolutely beautiful cover art on this book, as well as Everbound! I know we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I totally did that with this book! Lucky for me, the inside of the book lived up to the awesomeness of the cover :)

I give this book an enthusiastic 5 stars and recommend it to lovers of YA, paranormal romance, and Greek mythology :D

Review: Goddess Interrupted (Goddess Test #2), by Aimee Carter

Title: Goddess Interrupted (Goddess Test #2)
Author: Aimee Carter
Format: eGalley
Source: NetGalley

From Goodreads: "Kate Winters has won immortality. But if she wants a life with Henry in the Underworld, she'll have to fight for it.

Becoming immortal wasn't supposed to be the easy part. Though Kate is about to be crowned Queen of the Underworld, she's as isolated as ever. And despite her growing love for Henry, ruler of the Underworld, he's becoming ever more distant and secretive. Then, in the midst of Kate's coronation, Henry is abducted by the only being powerful enough to kill him: the King of the Titans.

As the other gods prepare for a war that could end them all, it is up to Kate to save Henry from the depths of Tartarus. But in order to navigate the endless caverns of the Underworld, Kate must enlist the help of the one person who is the greatest threat to her future.

Henry's first wife, Persephone."

My Opinion: Kate won her immortality at the end of The Goddess Test and then left to go spend her 6 months away from the Underworld, which she spent traveling with James. In Goddess Interrupted she returns home, excited to begin her new life with Henry, only to find him once again acting distant towards her. She does her best to reassure him that being the Queen of the Underworld is what she truly wants, but when Henry is kidnapped by Cronus, the King of the Titans, during her coronation, her world is turned upside down all over again. She goes on a quest to rescue Henry, but the only person who can really help her is the last person she wants to turn to - her sister, Persephone, Henry's first wife and the woman he has pined away for for an eternity. 

One of the reasons I loved this book is because we get to spend a lot of time in the Underworld with Kate, and the descriptions of the Underworld are amazing!! It's not a vast, empty, dreary space as you might imagine, but since each person gets to pick the afterlife that they feel they deserve, it's full of beauty and love as well as hopelessness and despair. 

I wish we could have seen more of Henry in this book, because, although he might have been present, he was so distant and vacant during this time that he might as well have been absent. There's a good reason for his apathy, and of course, there is a war to prepare for and all of the gods and goddesses are preoccupied by this, but I missed his playfulness. I feel like Kate really grew a lot in this book as she has to go WAY out of her comfort zone to help Henry, and the pacing of the book was excellent! There always seemed to be a lot of action going on, which made for a really quick read. I love this series so much and I'm really excited to read the Goddess Inheritance, especially after the huge cliffhanger at the end of this book!! :D

Review: The Goddess Legacy (Goddess Test #2.5), by Aimee Carter

Title: The Goddess Legacy (Goddess Test #2.5)
Author: Aimee Carter
Format: eGalley
Source: NetGalley

From Goodreads: "For millennia we've caught only glimpses of the lives and loves of the gods and goddesses on Olympus. Now Aimée Carter pulls back the curtain on how they became the powerful, petty, loving and dangerous immortals that Kate Winters knows.

Calliope/Hera represented constancy and yet had a husband who never matched her faithfulness….

Ava/Aphrodite was the goddess of love and yet commitment was a totally different deal….

Persephone was urged to marry one man, yet longed for another….

James/Hermes loved to make trouble for others;but never knew true loss before….

Henry/Hades's solitary existence had grown too wearisome to continue. But meeting Kate Winters gave him a new hope.

Contents:
The Goddess Queen 
The Lovestruck Goddess 
Goddess of the Underworld 
God of Thieves 
God of Darkness"

My Opinion: I don't usually read anthologies because I feel like I need more time than a short story to sink my teeth into a character and really get to know them and find out what makes them tick, but in this case I already knew the characters well from reading the previous books in the series and decided to give it a try. Boy am I glad that I did!! This wasn't just a short bit of fluff written to keep us invested in the characters until the next book comes out - it gave us the chance to look back and find out how our favorite gods and goddesses became the people that they are today. In other words, we got the chance to see how and why they act like they do, to go back in time and gain major insight into their motivations and to gain a much better understanding of them, to fall more in love with the characters that we love (Henry and James, and sometimes Ava), and to maybe soften a little bit towards those that we don't (Calliope and Persephone). I was blown away by how much I learned about all of the gods and goddesses involved, and how that information made me feel like I had peeked inside their very souls and come away with a deeper understanding of just how much they have experienced in their long lives. I now wouldn't wish immortality on my worst enemy! To have to go on after such deep disappointments and know that you are forever tied to the people who hurt you the most - it depresses me just to think about it! 

I wish I had a favorite story to tell you about, but all five were amazingly written and heartfelt, so I can't pick just one. I think the two stories that broke my heart the most were Calliope/Hera's and James/Hermes'. If you never thought you would feel sorry for Calliope, I want you to read her story and then tell me you don't just a little bit. And poor James! Just because he always acts like not much bothers him, and he tells jokes to keep everyone else's spirits up , doesn't mean he hasn't suffered deep losses. 

I don't want to give anything away (being short stories, any bit of info might do that), but suffice it to say, this book is a must read for anyone reading the Goddess Test series!! You'll go into book 3 with a whole new appreciation for all of the characters, and that's not something that you want to miss :D