Review: Conspiracies by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill.

Posted October 6, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 2 Comments

Main Character: Spirit
Love Interest:
Series: Shadow Grail, Book 2
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

The second book in the Shadow Grail series by the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling authors Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill.

Spirit and her friends Burke, Loch, Muirin, and Addie have managed to defeat the evil force that has been killing students at Oakhurst Academy for the past forty years—or so they think. When a series of magical attacks disrupts the school, Doctor Ambrosius calls upon alumnus Mark Rider to secure the campus—and start training the students for war. The only student without magic, Spirit doesn’t trust Mark or his methods. She knows that Oakhurst isn’t safe. And if Spirit and her friends want to live long enough to graduate, they have to find out what is really going on—before it’s too late.

I got about almost half way through the book before I finally put the book down for good. I finished the first book and thought that it was just okay and thought the second book would be better but I couldn’t even finish this book.

In this book, all of the woe is me crap going on with Spirit got to be a bit much for me. I mean, she hates her school, she hates her life and she hates everything and I get it. She misses her family and she misses her old life but it was hard for me to keep sympathizing with her when all she did was hate everything. I’m not saying that the entire time that I was reading this, Spirit was depressed as all get out and moaning and groaning over everything but for a fair amount of the book, she is.

You can tell that something big is on the horizon with this book and it sounded interesting but try as I might, I couldn’t get into this book. I was already on thin ice with the first book, which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much as I had hoped. Going into this book, I forced myself to get past the few couple of chapters and then right before half way through, I gave up completely. Nothing about the characters or what’s happening in the story grabbed me and made me want to continue reading this book so I finally just threw in the towel.

*sigh*

Don’t you hate when that happens?

..and that’s your scoop!

Buy the book: B&N|Amazon|Book Depository
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com

2 Comments

Tagged: DNF, Mercedes Lackey, Paranormal, Reviews, Rosemary Edghill, Rowena's Reviews, Tor Books, Young Adult

Review: Legacies by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill.

Posted February 9, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Main Character: Spirit White
Love Interest:
Series: Shadow Grail, Book 1
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Who—or what—is stalking the students at Oakhurst Academy?

In the wake of the accident that killed her family, Spirit White is spirited away to Oakhurst Academy, a combination school and orphanage in the middle of Montana. There she learns she is a legacy—not only to the school, which her parents also attended, but to magic.

All the students at Oakhurst have magical powers, and although Spirit’s hasn’t manifested itself yet, the administrators insist she has one. Spirit isn’t sure she cares. Devastated by the loss of her family, she finds comfort with a group of friends: Burke Hallows, Lachlann Spears, Muirin Shae, and Adelaide Lake.

But something strange is going on at Oakhurst. Students start disappearing under mysterious circumstances, and the school seems to be trying to cover it up. Spirit and her friends must find out what’s happening—before one of them becomes the next victim…

This story starts off with Spirit White losing her entire family in a car accident and her finding out that her parents set her up at Oakhurst Academy should anything happen to her. The book follows Spirit as she finds out the truth about who she is, what she is and starts getting used to her new life at Oakhurst. She’s met new friends, she’s starting classes and things are as normal as she can stomach when a student disappears.

Spirit and her friends are starting to pick up on how things aren’t exactly right at Oakhurst. When another student disappears, Spirit and her friends want to know who it is and what’s going on so they take it upon themselves to try to find out.

This book was a bit slow to begin but once the story took off, it did a pretty decent job of keeping me invested in the story. The characters were all good but they didn’t really stand out for me. There isn’t one character in this story that I thought was a really bang up character. They were all good but they weren’t necessarily great or memorable for that matter. I liked them well enough but once I said good bye to them, I was okay with it.

I finished this book with a I’m curious to see what happens attitude then an OMG what’s going to happen next attitude and that’s when I knew that while this book was good, it wasn’t great. The characters were more two dimensional and that was a bummer because for me, if a story has fantastic characters then the story will really take off but that wasn’t the case with this book. I enjoyed Spirit and I enjoyed Loch and Burke but outside of them, I’m afraid I won’t remember much about anyone else in the book.

So while I enjoyed getting to know Spirit and her friends (well Loch and Burke), the mystery surrounding Oakhurst and what’s going on there was a bit of a let down but I’m curious enough about what’s to come for the folks at Oakhurst in the next book so I’ll be reading it, I’m sure.

..and that’s your scoop!

Buy the book: B&N|Borders|Amazon|Book Depository
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com