Grave Mercy - Robin LaFevers

I bought this book after several strong recommendations of other writers and agents on Twitter. Fortunately I began reading when I had some time, because I finished almost half the book in one setting, not realizing that it was a fairly long book (549 pages, I think—I read it on my iPhone and Kindle).

Grave Mercy is about a young woman who must seek sanctuary in a convent, but no convent like I ever imagined. She is trained to serve death and becomes extremely dedicated to her duty. When she is sent on her first real mission, she is warned that some choices will be hard and I immediately assumed she would fall in love and then be forced to kill the one she loved. Continuing with this in mind, I was pleased how well it worked out and do not wish to spoil the story. Just let me say it was very satisfying, mostly because the characters were great.

Of late I have been reading more YA fiction and been pleased with the result. I love historical fiction and all manner of speculative fiction, so Grave Mercy was a good fit for my tastes. This book is full of young romance and intrigue. I
would recommend reading it.

The Scar - Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

This is a fascinating book with a literary feel. The authors know how to portray characters. The book begins very well and I was immediately drawn to the characters, however I did not enjoy the development if Carver (not sure of the spelling since I listened to the audio book version). My chief complaint, and the reason I gave this book 3 stars, was my fatigue with Egert's cowardice. The situations that he found himself in were very illustrative, but I began to lose patience with him. It seemed there was nothing he could do to influence his fate.

I also felt the mysterious magical powers of Lash were a huge let down. Parts of this book were as enjoyable as anything I have ever read, but I felt like I had to work for it more than was necessary.

Awesome book cover!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer - Seth Grahame-Smith

The beginning of this book was a grabber, even though I have a knee jerk reaction to stories with writers as main characters. Grahame-Smith did not overdue the “writer finally living the dream” too much, in fact, the writer-narrator does not appear again after the introduction. So why have the introduction? Yet, I kept turning pages, so who am I to complain.

The entire book was readable and some parts were great—characters coming alive, plots twisting, and vivid action scenes. In other places the characters tasted like cardboard and the plot felt mandatory. What distracted me were the frequent quotations from historical and fictional historical documents. Each time this was done, I fell out of the story and had to jump back in. I should clarify that I read some of this on my Kindle for iPhone application and the rest on my Kindle. The screen size may have contributed to my reaction, because each section of quotations seemed to start a new page. Once I switched completely to my Kindle, the reading experience was better.

I am sure this faux history style was intentional and it seems many other readers enjoyed it. Personally, I like my historical fiction as Patrick O’Brian or Bernard Cornwell write it—a seamless immersion into the past.

The idea of Abraham Lincoln as a bad ass vampire slayer is cool. The book cover is the best. But as I read, I was slightly annoyed that all the great things Abraham Lincoln did were attributed to his hatred of vampires. I did not care for the ending, saw it coming a mile away, and hoped that it just wouldn’t go there.

I would recommend trying the sample download of the book. If you like the sample, the rest of the book will be a good read.