Off With Their Heads: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer, Katie Alender

Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer

Katie Alender

Colette Iselin is excited to go to Paris on a class trip. She’ll get to soak up the beauty and culture, and maybe even learn something about her family’s French roots.

But a series of gruesome murders are taking place across the city, putting everyone on edge. And as she tours museums and palaces, Colette keeps seeing a strange vision: a pale woman in a ball gown and powdered wig, who looks suspiciously like Marie Antoinette.

Colette knows her popular, status-obsessed friends won’t believe her, so she seeks out the help of a charming French boy. Together, they uncover a shocking secret involving a dark, hidden history. When Colette realizes she herself may hold the key to the mystery, her own life is suddenly in danger . . .

Acclaimed author Katie Alender brings heart-stopping suspense to this story of revenge, betrayal, intrigue — and one killer queen.

Light, quirky, but lacking quite a bit of depth, Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer, is the kind of quick read mystery fans will enjoy quite a bit. When it comes down to the smaller details, that is where the book fails quite significantly. Still, there’s something fun in chasing a serial killer in Paris, getting kissed at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and diving into the — fictional — world of Marie Antoinette-France. Katie Alender has definitely written an entertaining story!

The Search for Perfection: Relativity, Cristin Bishara

Relativity

Cristin Bishara

If Ruby Wright could have her way, her dad would never have met and married her stepmother Willow, her best friend George would be more than a friend, and her mom would still be alive. Ruby knows wishes can’t come true; some things just can’t be undone. Then she discovers a tree in the middle of an Ohio cornfield with a wormhole to nine alternative realities. 

Suddenly, Ruby can access completely different realities, each containing variations of her life—if things had gone differently at key moments. The windshield wiper missing her mother’s throat…her big brother surviving his ill-fated birth…her father never having met Willow. Her ideal world—one with everything and everyone she wants most—could be within reach. But is there such a thing as a perfect world? What is Ruby willing to give up to find out?

Perfection. It’s unattainable, wherever you go, whatever you do. And in Cristin Bishara’s Relativity, that truth becomes painfully real as Ruby travels through different parallel universes, on her own search for the perfect world. If there was one thing I took home from this book, it’s that perfection is impossible, no matter how much mankind craves it. But that’s not supposed to be discouraging.: Imperfections help make you a better person, and as hard as it is to imagine, I think it is what helps us through life.

Compact Reviews: Delia’s Shadow / Find Me

Delia’s Shadow

Jaime Lee Moyer

Despite the intriguing plot and gruesome murders, as well as suspense that coated many of the pages, Delia’s Shadow was by no means perfect. Jaime Lee Moyer has written a fairly decent mystery novel, for sure, but there were some things that brought down the book and could’ve definitely been improved.

Mythology Gone Wrong: Silent Echo, Elisa Freilich

Silent Echo: A Siren’s Tale

Elisa Freilich

Haunted by silence, a mute teenage girl is mysteriously given back her voice … and it is divine.

Rendered mute at birth, Portia Griffin has been silent for 16 years. Music is her constant companion, along with Felix, her deaf best friend who couldn’t care less whether or not she can speak. If only he were as nonchalant about her newfound interest in the musically gifted Max Hunter.

But Portia’s silence is about to be broken with the abrupt discovery of her voice, unparalleled in its purity and the power it affords to control those around her. Able to persuade, seduce and destroy using only her voice, Portia embarks on a search for answers about who she really is, and what she is destined to become.

Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, SILENT ECHO: A Siren’s Tale is an epic story filled with fantasy, romance and original music.

When I first read the synopsis for Silent Echo, I was struck by how different and original it sounded: focusing purely on the sirens in Greek mythology, along with a protagonist who wasn’t as kind, pure, and good as the other heroines in fiction these days. I mean – sirens. In Greek MYTHS. But Elisa Freilich’s debut turned out to be nothing short of ridiculous, with horribly cliched characters, and a poor spin on the mythology bit that I was so looking forward to.

All Our Yesterdays, Cristin Terrill

All Our Yesterdays (Cassandra Chronicles #1)

Cristin Terrill

“You have to kill him.” Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside.

Marina has loved her best friend James since the day he moved next door when they were children. A gorgeous, introverted science prodigy from one of America’s most famous families, James finally seems to be seeing Marina in a new way, too. But on one disastrous night, James’s life crumbles apart, and with it, Marina’s hopes for their future. Now someone is trying to kill him. Marina will protect James, no matter what. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it. At least not as the girl she once was.

All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice.

I swear, Disney Hyperion is on roll! This is the second book from them I read this month that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed (the other one was Rose Under Fire, which was another amazing read). Cristin Terrill has not only managed to weave a totally believable time travel story, but where some novels in this genre are confusing and tedious to read, this one was not. With a highly original and well thought-out plot, All Our Yesterdays is definitely a must read.