Vlad V by Mit Sandru

Meeting a vampire isn’t something that happens every night, even on the New York City subway. But never in her wildest dreams did Cat ever expect to meet a vampire or survive an encounter with one. Instead, she became his confidant. Why was she so lucky? (Description via Amazon)

When I began reading this book, I started off feeling disappointed because of it seemed a little of a preteen book. Looking at my kindle, I noticed that it had over 700 pages so i was expecting an adult novel. I realized half way through the book that it was really more like 70 pages.
 
Since now I know that the book was short, I found it to be very good for a pre-teen. It is a very quick read and not complicated at all. The story line was original. I enjoyed to the different take on vampires compared to the "normal" vampires i read about. I also enjoyed that there was some historical references concerning Vlad the Impaler and family. When i home-schooled my kids years ago, this is the type of book i would use when teaching elements of world history. I would get them interested in the subject by us reading a book like this and then come behind it to discuss the facts.

A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

Description of book per amazon:
On the evening of Sofia Claremont's seventeenth birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake. A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood.

She is kidnapped to The Shade, an enchanted island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine. An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains.

Sofia's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is selected out of hundreds of girls to take up residence in the tree-top harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal prince.

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Recently my daughter told me about a series of books she was reading and how much she loved them. She briefly told me the premise of the books, but since they sounded so similar to the Twilight books I wasn't interested in reading them. A month later, I came across this book and thought it sounded interesting. I quickly fell in love with the book and had it read within a day. I went and told my daughter about it and she let me know that this was the series she had told me about.

Despite the fact that there is a vampire and a mortal girl falling for each other, I didn't see any other similarities to the Twilight Series. As a middle-aged adult, I did find some flaws in it. The main flaw was that after a 400 year sleep a vampire should notice and have a harder time adjusting to the new world around him. But, these books are not geared for middle-aged adults. They are for teenagers and young adults; and I don't think they would notice or care about these little problems. And I love this genre of books.

I enjoyed watching the characters develop as the story went along. I loved how each chapter was written in third person from each characters perspective. The short chapters made for a easy and quick read. This book contained adventure, love, murder, and heroism. A great read for anyone.

Lost my old Blog review of books

So, I am able to see my old blog but cannot get logged back into it to add more reviews so I had to start up a new blog. But using copy and paste here are reviews from the old blog.

Zoriam: The Bios River

On a hot and humid night in the city of Salzia, a maid gives birth to a baby boy. Moments later, lightning strikes her lonely townhouse, buring it to the ground. The newborn is rescued from the flames by a mysterious old man, who takes the baby far from Salzia, names him Zoriam, and raises the child as his son. But the old man is not what he seems, and Zoriam's past is far more complicated than the young boy realizes.

When Zoriam accompanies the old man on a trip back to Salzia, he is thrust into a web of political intrigue that will determine the fate of Salzia and its neighboring city of Yozana. Soon, Zoriam will be caught in the middle of a war between the two cities, with no idea of who he can trust. He"ll have to use his wits and every skill he has to protect the people he loves--and find out the truth about who he is.

At first, I thought that the story was a little predictable but then soon realized that I was wrong. This really made me want to continue reading the book to find out what will happen. I am hoping that the author, Taoufik Jazouli, will soon write the next book in this series.

Annie McGwire and the Time Flyer

I recently received a book from the author Mike Ziniti. It is called "Annie McGwire and the Time Flyer". It is about a twelve year old girl who lives with her widowed father. She enjoys hanging out with her best friend Mitch and going to her uncles house to check out what new invention he has concoted. After her uncle invents a time machine, Mitch's curiosity gets the better of him and ends up getting loss in time. Annie decides to get take the time flyer and go and find and rescue Mitch. With the help of a robot named Simon, Annie is off to the rescue.

I really enjoyed this book. It is targeted towards young teenagers. I did feel like I was left with ome unanswered questions, but I am hoping that there will be future books to continue the series. With this being Mike Ziniti's first book, I thought he did an excellent job.

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment is a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless parasite. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of, and even have the right to do, such things. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by connecting himself mentally with Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.

I found the concept of the novel a excellent idea for a book, but then I was quickly disappointed upon reading it. It was a difficult read. I had a hard time knowing what was going on upon conversations that would go on and on and on. I think, if written differently, this story line has potential to be a great read for someone like me.

Grimes Fairy Tales

I heard about this book from many sources. I was was very excited about reading this book. After several chapters in, I found that I didn't really like this book. I knew that they were more gloomy fairy tales than what we are use to. That didn't matter. What i didn't like was how abrutely the story would just stop and they would say "to this day we don't know where they are, they could be dead". I just felt it was lazy to end it that way. Also many of the stories were the same but with just some small differences, so i felt like i was wasting my time.

Now I am off to read "Crime and Punishment". I gave a friend of min a copy of it and she said it was so hard to get through the book. She often felt like she didn't know what was going on or when she did it was boring. I'll let you know how i like it.

Awakened by Cast

I took a quick break for a week to go off from my list and read a book that I had been waiting for awhile to come out.

I have anticipated for the books to come out and when it did, it was no disappointment. Out of all the House of Night novels, I thought this one was the best. The only negative was at the end of the book I had to scream because the next one doesnt come out untill November 2011 and I want to know what happens next. It left me wanting more.

Next on my list is The Adventures of Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn....let the adventure begin.

Frankenstein

This was one of the best books I have ever read. It was an easy read unlike David Copperfield. I was pulled emotionally for which character I was rooting for (Frankenstein or his creation). I understood Frankensteins remorse for his mistakes and his struggle to right his wrong and make the right decision for the future; but I also felt compassion for his creation (aka the monster)and his desire to have love, compassion and acceptance in his life. I disagreed with some of both their decisions to help them get what they wanted in life. A truely tragic story.