Heart Search - Lost by Carlie Cullen

Heart Search is a first novel for UK author Carlie M.A. Cullen. This is most unashamedly a paranormal romance novel. I usually don't read romance novels, but occasionally I do like a good paranormal romance. The plot, as depicted in the blurb for this book, intrigued me. I was most certainly NOT disappointed!

The Blurb:

One bite starts it all . . . When Joshua Grant vanishes days before his wedding his fiancée Remy is left with only bruises, scratch marks and a hastily written note. Heartbroken, she sets off alone to find him and begins a long journey where strange things begin to happen. As Joshua descends into his new immortal life he indulges his thirst for blood and explores his superhuman strength and amazing new talents while becoming embroiled in coven politics which threaten to destroy him. But Remy discovers a strength of her own on her quest to bring Joshua home. Fate toys with mortals and immortals alike, as two hearts torn apart by darkness face ordeals which test them to their limits.

My Review:

Two weeks before their wedding, Remy’s fiancé, Joshua, hurts her physically. Although he doesn't know why, he is changing and not for the better, Joshua hates himself for what he’s done. As he changes, so do both his state of mind and his perceptions. He disappears a few days before the wedding.

After a brief descent into an emotional breakdown, Remy heeds advice from her identical twin, Becky, to fight for Joshua. She finds a diary which leads her to believe something strange happened to her fiancé and suspects it was something he had no say in. She resolves to find him, and sets off on a long, lonely journey around the country. As the days turn into weeks, then months, she has to fight through emotional turmoil and find an inner strength just to keep going. Strange things begin to happen to Remy and she questions her sanity.

Cullen takes you into the minds and the eyes of her characters. Her descriptions are thick with visuals and layered with emotion. Joshua is sexy and compelling even though he is not always likeable, but he is a vampire so there you go. His coven is the same way. Samir, his maker is loving and caring for his ‘children’ and they in turn adore him. As individuals they are inherently selfish and uncaring of anyone but their own society, and Cullen portrays this well.

This story is as much about Remy coming to terms with the way her life has been changed and learning who she is as much as it is her search for Joshua. It is also a story about Joshua learning how to live his new life, which is well drawn and drew me in.

She portrays Joshua’s society very clearly, introducing the various factions and power struggles well, and shows how Remy becomes a central element in the vampires’ internecine battles. The unforeseen changes which occur in Remy's life are also depicted well.

I admit I found the author's style of heavy descriptions a bit daunting at first, but I quickly got into the swing of things. I really enjoyed the story and cared about the characters; so much so I couldn't put the book down until I'd finished it. Cullen tells this story in two parallel threads, which I most definitely liked. You get a good view of both Joshua and Remy as they experience their lives through this crisis and other crises which loom.

This book has an original plot, interesting characters and a unique delivery! The book is clearly a set up for a second book, which I am looking forward to and will definitely buy.  I recommend it for those who read and enjoy a good paranormal romance novel. Carlie M.A. Cullen is an author to watch!

Sin, Shaun Allan

This is one of the more thought provoking novels I have ever come across.  I had to read it twice, before I could sit down and write this review!  Indie author Shaun Allan has created a real masterpiece with Sin.  Allan's style is narrative, and in a way, reminded me of James Joyce's equally compelling 'Finnegan's Wake'.  Others have compared Allan's style to Stephen King and Dean Koontz; and there is a slight similarity to their work as in it is definitely horror, but I am here to tell you Shaun Allen is an original in the purest sense. This is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets Finnegan’s Wake."

Sin is a dark, urban fantasy, written with large dose of sardonic humor. We hear the tale from the man who was given the name 'Sin Mathews' at birth, but who goes by the name of Sin only, as the last name doesn't matter; only the name which is the sum of his parts matters.

Sin finds a coin, a two pence coin, or perhaps the coin finds him. Either way, this is the catalyst for Sin's curse. He finds himself flipping the coin compulsively -flip, catch - and it arcs through the air he sees images of disaster and death, which is then reported on the news. Eventually he realizes every time he flips the coin, someone dies; sometimes a lot of people die in what he believes are 'unnatural disasters' timed perfectly to the flip of the coin.  Though he tries to avoid flipping the coin, he finds himself doing it anyway.

No matter how he tries, he can't throw it away, or lose it. The coin always comes back to him when he buys something and gets his change; or even just appearing in his pocket.

Sin receives a letter from his sister Joy, telling him she had found a coin, and when she flipped it she made lives. She wrote that the responsibility for making the world happy was too much for her. She was alone in world of happiness she couldn't be a part of, and she killed herself.  Sin apparently had found his coin right after her death.  He decides to check himself into an insane asylum in order to get the sort of psychotropic drugs which will render him incapable of seeing the visions, and flipping the coin.

Sin's conversations with Dr. Connors in the opening chapter are adversarial, and illuminating. For the most part, he enjoys his stay in the asylum, but, being sane, he sees the sordid truth in the callous treatment and chronic over-medication of the patients.

Although posing as a mentally ill patient works for a while, the medications soon cease to be effective and he decides that since the coin always comes back to him as if by magic, maybe he has the power to teleport.  He resolves to commit suicide by teleporting himself into the heart of a furnace, hoping for instant incineration.  Unfortunately, he finds himself on a beach, instead of in Hell where he had hoped to be.

Sin has an encounter with Joy who tells him death is not what it is cracked up to be. She warns him "a storm is coming".  He continues his inadvertent journey, trying to get his bearings. After a chance meeting which reveals more of his powers, he finds himself in Grimsby, the home of his childhood.

The atmosphere throughout is surrealistic, but it is well-balanced Allen's lyrical, intimate style of prose, as in this series of images describing Sin's disorientation, “History doesn’t relate whether Jonah, Gepetto, and Pinocchio sat around a table eating pizza, sharing stories of prophecy and puppetry while in the belly of the whale, but I thought that I could relate to being swallowed whole.” 

Throughout the novel, Sin's ruminations are self-mocking, and world-weary, yet naive and innocent.  He bears the guilt of the world, and suffers the unbearable pain of being the cause of so many deaths, but still he finds ironic humor in every situation. Joy is grounded and guides him to the truth, but is not allowed to tell him anything.

 Nothing is what it seems in this tale, and right up to the end, you are not sure which reality is real.

The facts come out, or do they?  This book is a rollercoaster ride from the start to the finish, and I give it 5 stars for originality.

Wishbone, Brooklyn Hudson

This week we are exploring the dark side of life in the bucolic country-side with the unnerving novel, Wishbone, by indie author Brooklyn Hudson.

The tale begins with Rachel and Julien Grenier, a well-to-do couple who live on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan. Julien was born on a farm in France, and at the age of 9 he witnessed his father brutally murder his beloved grandfather.  He does not share this traumatic experience with anyone, not even his wife, although he is plagued by dreams of the event.  A sculptor and artist, Rachel knows that he has has secrets, but is content to leave them be as they don't intrude on their life together.

Unfortunately, Rachel is the victim of a brutal attack that culminates in the miscarriage of their baby; a child that Julien was unaware of and would not have wanted. 

Rachel sinks into depression bordering on madness, and is ruled by her fears.  Julien is desperate to bring her back to normal. To escape the past and give Rachel a new start in life, Julien quits his job and finds a home in the country, a lovely old Victorian that Rachel falls in love with.

King's Hollow appears at first to be the miracle they prayed for.  The one thing that Julien is not really on board with is the Chickens that come along with the place, but eventually he accepts them.  The chickens are cared for by a developmentally disabled seventeen-year old, named Sarah. 

Sarah even does the butchering of the chickens, and although she is unhappy at eating a 'pet', Rachel cooks it up and finds it to be the best chicken she ever ate, as does Julien. At the end of their meal, they take the wishbone, and play the game of wishing on it.

This begins a series of events, and their life together takes a strange turn, directly into the Twilight Zone.

I could not put this book down.  Julien is handsome and strong, and loving and giving despite his secrets.  Once they begin the game they cannot quit, nor can they stick to the rules they set for themselves. Rachael is no longer herself and Julien is experiencing a string of bad luck and unfortunate accidents.

And at the center of everything is Sarah and her beloved chickens.

This book will have you thinking long after you put it down.  I don't think that I will ever see a Thanksgiving dinner again and not think about this book!

Losing Beauty by Johanna Garth is an urban fantasy in the broadest sense, being a modern take on the Hades - Persephone tale. I am a sucker for mythology of any sort, and Greek mythology offers a lot opportunity for new retellings, as Rick Riordan has shown us in his Percy Jackson Series.

I met Johanna in the course of business since we are both published by Fantasy Island Book Publishing. I was intrigued by the cover of her book, and when I bought the Kindle book I found myself completely absorbed in her tale.

The story begins with Persephone Campbell, a girl with a problem. Persey is a beautiful girl, and everyone loves her. Even as a child, people find themselves telling her their problems: terrible things which no normal person would ever tell anyone, much less a child. Even so, people can't resist telling her their deepest and darkest secrets; a thing which continues into her adulthood. Her ability to draw the deepest secrets from people is strange, and it emerges that she was adopted as a baby and her father was listed as 'unknown'.

I admit that I was afraid that Persey would be too perfect, too wonderful - but she is not.  Persey is not always honest with herself and allows her sense of obligation to rule her life, for reasons that make sense to her at the time.

Three men love her to the point of obsession. After high school, Persey marries her high-school sweetheart, Aaron Strait out of a sense of duty, more than anything else. She loves her husband, but she realizes that her love for him is not the sort of love that a wife should feel for her husband. Still, she does love him and remains a loyal wife.

Persey goes to work for the same company as Daniel Hartnet, a man with an uncanny ability to read people, that he calls his crap-o-meter. This ability to read motives is every bit as uncanny as is Persey's ability to draw out secrets. He discovers that he can't read Persey, and that really intrigues him. He soon becomes obsessed with her, but like the moderately decent man he is, he respects her commitment to her marriage.

Johanna Garth draws her characters well. Haden is a bad man, selfish and focused only on his own desires but quite seductive and very compelling. Daniel Hartnet is not lily-pure in his motives, but he is a basically good man and also quite seductive. Aaron is a simple, high-school jock-made-good; a man who is solely driven by his desire to protect and provide for her; and she is completely aware of that. Aaron becomes very successful, and on the surface everything looks perfect.

What she does not realize is that she is the one true love of Haden, also known as Hades, God of the Underworld. He has followed her progress since her earliest childhood, grooming her to be his wife in various different guises. He has even posed as the coach in her highschool. There is no length that he won't go to to have her. When she marries Aaron, Hayden puts a terrible plan into action, using all of his resources as Lord of the Underworld; and soon she finds herself tied to the last person she wants to be tied to. That is where the adventure really begins.

Persey is a nice girl, but her secret ability is hard for her to bear; and she feels that she is responsible for a tragic event that is the sole responsibility of Haden. He, of course, uses her insecurity to bind her to him even more tightly.

Johanna Garth has written an urban fantasy that is sophisticated, and romantic. It is a wonderful adventure that takes Persey from rural america to New York to Asia, and has many twists and turns that are quite unexpected. The ending was quite unexpected!

I freely admit that I had a great time reading this story and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good romantic urban fantasy. I am now a fan! I will definitely be reading anything Johanna Garth writes!