YA
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[Book Blitz] Fabled By Vanessa K. Eccles
Rowena thinks the Grimm’s infamous podcasts are simply another teen fad until she finds herself trapped in a land of nightmarish storybook characters. She tries desperately to flee Mezzanine and return home, but Dresdem, Mezzanine’s wicked monarch, plans to use Rowena’s access to her world to bring dark magic and absolute rule into Georgia and beyond.
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[Book Review] Venomoid By J.A. Kossler & Starbucks Komodo Dragon Blend
Seventeen-year-old vampire Lorin has been an operative for the International Paranormal Organization, a human-run agency that studies paranormals and regulates their behavior, for the last four years, and under the organization’s watchful eye since he was turned into a vampire at the age of ten. Now weeks from his eighteenth birthday, the IPO board member are keeping an even closer eye on him, and Lorin lives in fear of stepping even a hair out of line least he gives them an excuse to torture or kill him – something the IPO does to other paranormals on a daily basis.
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[Anthology Review] Grim Edited By Christine Johnson & CoffeeAM Black Forest Cake Flavored Coffee
All of the short stories in Grim are retellings of classic fairy tales – and not the sanitized, Disney versions, oh no, these stories stay true to the essence of the original tales, which are much darker, grittier, and, in some cases, bloodier. There’s a good selection here with some modern retellings, some set in the fairy tale settings of olde (in a kingdom far far away during an indeterminable time), and yet others set in a technologically advanced future with a definite Sci-Fi feeling. To give you an idea of the many different characters encountered throughout this collection, you will find psychics who live in a trailer park, a…
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[Book Review] Ghost House By Alexandra Adornetto & Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce
17-year-old Chloe Kennedy can see dead people. It’s a gift she’s had since she was 6, but managed to block with her mother’s help. Now, with her mother gone, the ghosts are back and they want her attention. With her father lost to his own grief, it is decided that Chloe and her younger brother will spend winter vacation with their paternal grandmother at her English country estate turned Bed and Breakfast, Grange Hall. Almost from the moment Chloe sets foot on the estate, the spirits that haunt it make themselves known. One of those spirits is Alexander Reade, a devastatingly handsome gentleman ghost Chloe feels a strong, unshakable attraction…
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[Book Review] Jillian Spectre & The Dream Weaver By Nic Tatano & Paramount Coffee Almond Amaretto
When last we saw seer/astral projector/healer Jillian Spectre and her also-paranormally-gifted friends, they were busy getting through their senior year of high school and stopping Jillian’s deadbeat, technopathic (and kind of psychopathic) dad from taking over society. Now, while facing the challenges of their first year of college, the group is once again called upon to save the world as they know it – this time from the Dream Weaver, a powerful enemy who can bend a person’s reality and manipulate them into a dream-like state, even if they’re wide awake at the time.
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[Novella Review] The Asylum For Fairy Tale Creatures By Sebastian Gregory & Raven’s Brew Coffee Wicked Wolf
The Asylum For Fairy Tale Creatures takes the already pretty dark Grimms’ fairy tales and twists them even more, making them so horrific it’s no wonder the characters go mad. The main story being told is that of the traumatic experiences of Blood Red Riding Hood and her companions and their subsequent incarceration into an asylum with other fairy tale characters. This journey is used as a thread, weaving together several other tales, those of the asylum’s other fairy tale inmates and employees (though it’s hard to tell which is which at times), making this sort of a short story collection as well.