YA Fantasy/Urban Fantasy

This is the sequel to Dread Nation, a historical fiction novel that takes place after the US Civil War and after the zombie apocalypse (called shambles in this duology) and follows our two main characters, Jane McKeene and Katherine Deveraux.

Interestingly, this book alternates between Jane’s and Katherine’s POV, whereas Dread Nation was told entirely from Jane’s POV. Given that these two characters are so different, I enjoyed getting the story from both their perspectives.

Like the first book, the narrative voices where we phenomenal. I listened to this in audiobook format and thought both of the narrators did an excellent job. Bahni Turpin narrated Jane’s voice, the same person who did so in the first book, and the POV of Katherine’s POV was expertly performed by Jordon Cobb.

The story picks up where the last book left off where a supposed “utopia” once again falls to a hoard, and our characters again embark on a desperate search for somewhere out of the reach of the shamblers. I can’t say too much without spoiling the first book, except that Jane is hell-bent on revenge, and it has nearly destroyed her. It’s undoubtedly lead her to do some pretty horrible things.

You know, it’s always tough to talk about the second book in a series as you really can’t discuss too much of the plot without spoiling book 1.

But I can say that similar to the first book, there were numerous setbacks, tragedies, triumphs, and plenty of shamblers, with Katherine & Jane’s friendship sorely tested through it all. There was also an especially heart-breaking event that completely blindsided me. And I was like What??????

The villain was also unexpected and took me totally by surprise.

But I thought this as a phenomenal conclusion to the series. I think it’s only a duology though I could be wrong. There’s definitely an opportunity here for another book, and if Ms. Ireland were to write it, I for sure would buy it.

I loved the storyline and character development of this novel and adored the friendship theme that ran throughout it. There were plenty of plot twists, leading the story off into several different compelling directions. The book also nicely portrayed how our characters had to deal with and overcome constant racism as well as misogynistic assholes. But Katherine and Jane did an excellent job of putting these types of people in their place.

Like the first one, this was another solid 5-star read, and I love, love, love this duology.

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The Rattled Bones is a super-atmospheric ghost story that follows a young woman named Rilla Brae who has recently lost her father and is struggling with her grief as well as her uncertain future. The story takes place in a small Maine fishing community and visible to the town is a mysterious uninhabited island.

One night Rilla sees the apparition of a ghostly girl floating over the nearby island and her haunting yet familiar song reaches Rilla, beckoning her.

The ghosts pull grows stronger until intrigued, Rilla boats over to the island. There she meets a young man named Sam, a university student who’s excavating the island and searching for clues about the island people who were evicted from the island 80 years earlier.

Now, this is news to her, as Rilla has never heard of anyone living on the island, and she is determined and excited to investigate the island’s history. Bit the bit, the island’s horrifying past — and a tragedy that has been kept secret – finally comes to light — a disaster that has a strong connection to Rilla’s own past.

So there’s a lot going on with this story: long-held secrets, grief, and loss, there’s a mystery to solve, there’s the struggle between tradition and moving forward, the connection between the past and present, there’s the horror of racial prejudice and even a touch of romance. And given that this is a ghost story, there’s a delightful creep factor to it as well.

It was so much fun journeying with Rilla, and she began to uncover the island’s strange and unsettling past and discover herself in the process. It’s also an excellent example of how an unnerving and distressing past can resound right into the present in a variety of ways with the uneasy suspense building page after page.

One of the things I loved most about this book was the way the author developed the mystery and then slowly weaved together its strands, bringing the characters closer to each other in the process. This is an atmospheric book that is vibrant with life, rich in culture, and yet, is followed by haunting shadows that make your spine tingle.

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Tunnel of Bones is the second book in the City of Ghosts series and follows Cassidy, a twelve-year-old girl who can see ghosts and her ghostly friend Jacob.

This time, the story takes place in Paris, where her “ghost-hunter” parents are filming in the creepy Catacombs, which is basically an underground cemetery that is a labyrinth containing the bones of millions of Parisians. Think it might be haunted? If you answered yes, then you’re correct.

In this novel, Cassidy and Jacob end up awakening an angry Poltergeist who ends up wreaking all kinds of havoc in Paris.

The problem is that Cassidy can’t stop him with her mirror because the Poltergeist doesn’t remember who or what he is, which is a necessary element for the mirror trick to work.

As time passes, the spirit grows stronger and more dangerous, and it’s up to Cassidy and Jacob to stop it before someone ends up getting killed.

This was a super creepy story with a delightful, pervasive sense of menace that lingers over the story. It’s a story with tons of suspense, gobs of creepiness, and tension galore. It was also quite eerie — how could it not, given that it literally takes place in a tunnel of bones.

The characters of Cassidy and Jacob continued to grow on me with this second book, and I love watching them work as a team to fit together the pieces of the mystery and fix what’s going on around them, in this case, a super angry ghost.

The story has an excellent atmosphere, and at times, I felt like I was walking right along with them in the twisty underground boneyard. The author succeeded here in giving us another suspenseful Cassidy Blake story with just the right amount of creepiness and adventure. As a plus, we got to learn quite a bit more about Jacob in this book, which renders him all the more endearing.

All in all, Tunnel of Bones is a fun, spooky middle-grade paranormal fantasy that had the perfect amount of creep factor and mystery. I loved the fact that the story takes place in Paris because I lived there for a while, so that was an extra plus for me having one of my favorite cities as a backdrop.

I don’t read a lot of middle-grade, but the author has really me hooked with this series. I can’t wait for the next installment.

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This is the second book in the Necromancer’s Song series and follows Naya, the daughter of a sea merchant captain, who was murdered and then brought back to life as a wraith by a Necromancer.

In this book, she finds herself back in her country of Talmir, a place she never thought she’d ever see again given that Talmirans absolutely loathe the undead. Because of the events that took place in the last book, she’s also marked as a traitor to Talmir.

There’s quite a bit going on in this book. First and foremost, she has to rescue Corten, fellow wraith and lover, from a dark, dark place where there are shadows who wish to claim him permanently — and time is quickly running out for the both of them. But in order to save him, she has to find and obtain missing secret necromancy journals, which on the surface appears to be a nearly impossible task.

She’s also sucked into an intricate political web where she’s forced to form new alliances in order to survive though she’s not quite sure who she can trust. Like the last book, there are plenty of secrets, lies, and layers of treachery, but this time, the entire world is peril, a tidbit we don’t learn about until nearly the end of the story. The plot and the continuous action enthralled me right until the end of the book. I felt that the author did an excellent job portraying the political tension between the two countries, as well as the moral disagreements and mistrust.

I also enjoyed the dual POVs in the book, going back and forth from Corten to Naya, and witnessing the feeling of ever-growing desperation that both of them were experiencing. I also liked how much Naya’s character has grown since the first book where she’s transformed into quite a decisive, less gullible, and courageous young woman (or young wraith, as it were). She’s spirited, headstrong, and alert and has the backbone and personality to complement and balance many of the other no-nonsense characters, includes the stodgy Talmirans. I also was surprised by the “bad guys” in the story, which totally took me by surprise.

All in all, a mesmerizing, action-packed multi-layered adventure story with a unique and compelling spin on necromancy. The narrative never bogs down, and I was on pins and needles pretty much the entire time I read this book. My only niggle was the abrupt ending. Though it wasn’t exactly a cliff-hanger, it was pretty darn close, and because of that, I knocked off one star. Still, a super-fun read, and I’ll definitely be picking up the third in the series.

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This book is supposedly based upon a popular podcast series called “Bright Sessions,” which I was not familiar with before reading this. I definitely plan on checking out the podcast now, as well.

Infinite Noise is a YA Contemporary Sci-Fi story that follows a 16-year-old high school football player named Caleb Michaels. But lately, he hasn’t been his usual self. Whenever he’s around a group of people such as in class or at a party, he feels overwhelmed to such a point that he fears passing out. He’s also noticed that his moods swing back and forth to extremes of the spectrum without explanation or cause, sometimes even culminating with him violently lashing out in anger.

Upon receiving therapy, it’s determined that Caleb is in fact what the book called an “Atypical” — a powerful empath who feels and experiences the moods of everyone around him, which can be pretty intense if one is in a room full of teenagers whose moods are often extreme and ever-changing. But there’s one person who seems to help Caleb deal with the overwhelm, and that is Adam, an introverted gay teen who suffers from severe depression.

Though Adam’s emotions are often extreme and tend toward the dark side, they seem to “fit” with Caleb’s, and when Adam is around, Caleb finds it much easier to control the crushing, overwhelm that he experiences when Adam is not around. So in this way, Adam’s presence is calming to Caleb. Because of this, Caleb’s therapist encourages him to befriend Adam, and so the two of them form a unique friendship. In the process, they discover they have more in common than they’d initially thought.

Eventually, their friendship evolves into something more, which poses an entirely different set of challenges for our two main characters. There’s also the danger of others finding out about Caleb’s ability (there was even mention of a nefarious organization), which also added a bit of compelling intrigue to the narrative.

I love stories about people who possess superpowers and/or enhanced abilities so it was fun to journey along with Caleb as he struggled to understand and control that part of himself. The story was told from both Caleb and Adam’s alternating points of view, which really helped the reader understand the emotions and motivations of the characters. The dual perspectives worked exceptionally well in the book as both characters’ voices were so distinct that there was little danger of confusing them.

The book also had phenomenal descriptions of emotions, and I thought the author especially nailed it when describing Adam’s depression from Caleb’s point of view. I found the use of colors and physical sensations in describing emotions to be especially effective.

All in all, this is is a delightfully moving character-driven coming-of-age love story that was also a journey of self-discovery for our two highly complex protagonists. It’s an exceptional novel with lovable characters that teaches us to find solace in the special friendships that we forge and to trust those who love us.

I do believe this is going to be a series. I do hope so as I’d definitely love to delve more deeply into the world that the author has created here. The author also briefly introduced a couple of other Atypicals in the story, so hopefully, we’ll be seeing them in future books.

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