WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading.

• What are you currently reading?

Storm Siren by Mary Weber

• What did you recently finish reading?

Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder

REVIEW: Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios

Summary:  Forced to obey her master. Compelled to help her enemy. Determined to free herself. Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Stuffed into a bottle and sold by a slave trader, she’s now in hiding on the dark caravan, the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command. She’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle. Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to free Nalia from her master so that she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother—all for an unbearably high price. Nalia’s not sure she can trust him, but Raif’s her only hope of escape. With her enemies on the hunt, Earth has become more perilous than ever for Nalia. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle…and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him. Battling a dark past and harboring a terrible secret, Nalia soon realizes her freedom may come at a price too terrible to pay: but how far is she willing to go for it?

Rating: 6 out of 10

Overall:  A good read and a series I'll be continuing when the next book comes out.  I loved the world of Exquisite Captive and all the characters that populate it.  Would I recommend this book?  Yes.  It's beautifully written and tells a great story, you just have to have a little patience with it.

Thoughts:

Some things I liked:

1. Nalia's growth as a character throughout the book and her devotion to her little brother, who she's not even supposed to have a real relationship with because of some weird rules set by her race of jinni.  Basically she's supposed to be this emotionless warrior/royal knight who only feels love for the realm (Arjinna/jinni world).  She slowly breaks that mold even more than she already had at the start of the book, after three years of slavery.

2. How Demetrios handled the "romance" between Nalia and Malek (her master).  The title and the description leads you to believe this is a love triangle-ish book and that there's some sex involved.  And while the seduction of Malek plays an important part in the story (it's how she plans to steal her bottle), it's made perfectly clear that Nalia is an unwilling participant who's only doing it because she has to.  And they don't end up having sex, she drugs him, which takes her most of the book to think of doing.

3.  The sexuality among the jinn.  Nalia reveals her only experience with sex is a few experiments with the other girls of her race.  Literally one sentence.  It's not made into a big fan fair. It's just what it is.  There are a few other moments, one with Zanari and another with one of Haran's victims being the most notable.  But sex isn't a big, shameful secret in this like in some other YA books.  The only thing that's clearly put into the wrong is Malek's actions and advances toward Nalia, as I said above.

4. Raif and the revolution.  Arjinna works on the caste system, where serfs are slaves.  Raif and his family were serfs who created the spell to free themselves and others, and led a revolution against the rule of their overlords and the royal race of jinni, Nalia's race.  I loved the details we got about it and Raif's character/character development.

Some things I did not like:

1.  There were times in the story that could have been skipped over some or condensed.  Like the parts with Haran's victims.  Don't get me wrong, I liked those parts, but I knew how every single one was going to end.  They weren't Nalia and he was going to eat them.  One or two of those parts would have sufficed.

2.  How long it took to get relevant information.  There's a little info about the jinni races in the beginning, what smoke/eye color belong to each race mostly.  I went into the story know Nalia's race and when I read that little bit of info, I was confused about why Nalia didn't match the description.  It's later explained a few chapters in, but having that explanation sooner would have helped a bit.  Same goes for other pieces of info.  Though I flew through this in about two days, others will have found this to have dragged on a bit and having a couple of bits of info sooner would have helped keep interest.  Like why she was so damn guilty and how she was responsible for the death of her entire race.

3.  The fact that everything in this book took place in a matter of days.  Like, a shit ton of things happened.  Raif and Nalia falling in love in what? three days?  Okay...I mean they're cute together, but still...

#4 Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Read In 2014

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.

This week's topic is top ten books I read in 2014.

1. Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas.  Pretty sure I've raved about this book enough in my review.  I love this book so much.  Best in the series so far.

2. Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews.  I was a little nervous picking this up.  It seemed a little too romance-y for me, but I love Andrews' Kate Daniels series so I figured I'd give it a try.  I wasn't disappointed.

3. Fireborn by Keri Arthur.  Keri Arthur is another favorite of mine, her Riley Jenson series was epic and as soon as I read the synopsis for this, I knew I was gonna love this new series as well.  I mean, how many books out there feature a phoenix as the main character?

4. Night Broken by Patricia Briggs.  The latest in the Mercy Thompson series, it took me a while to pick this up.  For some reason, I was really nervous about it.  Maybe because one of the problems Mercy faces is Adam's ex-wife and I love Mercy/Adam's relationship.  But I needn't have worried.  Night Broken was just as awesome as any other in the series.

5. The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J Maas.  I knew what was coming and I still cried.  That's some talent right there.  

6. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Claire.  Took me a while to finish this.  I don't know why.  It was an awesome read, but I just kept putting it down and picking it back up and putting it down again.  Probably gonna do the same thing with the other two.

7. The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire.  This book was apparently what every other book was leading up to, even though its not the last one.  That sounds a little confusing, since it is a series and books in series generally lead to the next book in the series until everything is tied up.  What I mean is, this book is the reason McGuire started writing the Toby Daye series in the first place.  Or so I heard.  But it totally shows...

8. Graceling by Kristin Cashore.  A slow paced book that digs its claws in and doesn't let go until you're done.  It's really the only book in the trilogy I liked.

9. Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios.  Okay, so I haven't finished this one yet, but I'm almost done with it and I just got it yesterday.  It's amazing and about jinn.  So good.

10. Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews.  As I said, the Kate Daniels series is one of my favorites.  Of course the new installment is going to make my top ten of 2014.

Thursday Quotables

Thursday Quotables is a weekly meme hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

I chose two quotes because I love how they go together.  I'm sure there's a star quote somewhere in Crown of Midnight as well, but these two stuck out more.

 Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

"Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back."

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

“I am going, Rowan. I will gather the rest of my court—our court—­and then we will raise the greatest army the world has ever witnessed. I will call in every favor, every debt owed to Celaena Sardothien, to my parents, to my bloodline. And then . . .” She looked toward the sea, toward home. “And then I am going to rattle the stars.”

#1 Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Synopsis: When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.
As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

I'm so excited for this book, which comes out on May 5, 2015.  The first chapter was released as an excerpt and it was awesome.  Like Throne of Glass, it started out as a fairytale retelling, Beauty and the Beast for this one, but ACOTAR is written in 1st person, which I find interesting.  Usually an author will stick to either 1st or 3rd for all of their books, especially when it comes to YA.  Not that it really matters, because based on the excerpt, this series is going to be just as epic as ToG.

#3 Top Ten Tuesday: New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2014

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.

This week's topic is new-to-me authors I read in 2014.

1. Rick Yancey with The 5th Wave: WOOO ALIENS!!
2. Cassandra Claire with Clockwork Angel: Loved it, but still have yet to read the second one, but I'm getting the box set of xmas sooo...I also figured this was a good segue into Claire's Mortal Instruments series which I haven't started yet...
3. Marissa Meyer with Cinder.  (Haven't finished this one yet.):  Cyborgs and the plague...fun times.  I'm not all that far into it, but it's a very good read.
4. Victoria Schwab with The Archived.  (Still reading this.):  A little slow paced, but I love the writing style and Mac's narration/voice is just so strong!
5. Gayle Forman with If I Stay:  NEVER READ THIS WITH THE SONG SAY SOMETHING BY A GREAT BIG WORLD ON REPEAT.  IT MAKES IT TEN TIME SADDER.  JUST DON'T.
6. Alexandra Bracken with The Darkest Minds: Awesome read with an awesome plot/world.
7. Danielle Paige with Dorothy Must Die.  (Haven't finished this one either.): Never thought I'd see a story depicting Dorothy as evil, but it was/is great!
8.  Veronica Roth with Divergent: Tobias and Tris....asdfghjk.  
9. Kristin Cashore with Graceling:  This is the only book in the series that I like.  I don't know why, I just couldn't get into the others like I did this one.
10. Jenn Bennett with Kindling the Moon.  (Did I read this this year?  Whatever, I'm counting it.):  A good, captivating read.  Plenty of action and romance...Huh.  This is the only adult book on this list and to be honest, I'm pretty sure I read it during the tail end of 2013, but I'm gonna go with it and say I read this in 2014 anyway.  Oops.

This was surprisingly difficult.  I didn't realize how many of the books I read this year were part of on-going series, all by like, the same five authors...Also, this list is in no particular order.

REVIEW: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Synopsis: Lost and broken, Celaena Sardothien’s only thought is to avenge the savage death of her dearest friend: as the King of Adarlan’s Assassin, she is bound to serve this tyrant, but he will pay for what he did. Any hope Celaena has of destroying the king lies in answers to be found in Wendlyn. Sacrificing his future, Chaol, the Captain of the King’s Guard, has sent Celaena there to protect her, but her darkest demons lay in that same place. If she can overcome them, she will be Adarlan’s biggest threat – and his own toughest enemy. While Celaena learns of her true destiny, and the eyes of Erilea are on Wendlyn, a brutal and beastly force is preparing to take to the skies. Will Celaena find the strength not only to win her own battles, but to fight a war that could pit her loyalties to her own people against those she has grown to love?

Rating: 10 out of 10!

Overall:  Best in the series so far.  Beautifully written, heartbreaking and inspiring, Maas brings her world to a whole new level of awesomeness.  Before we had a kick ass assassin and now we have a kick ass assassin, fae queen.  Would 100% recommend to everyone.

Thoughts:  This is my hands down favorite book of the year.  The writing and story has matured significantly since the first book, and though there is not an overwhelming amount of action and danger until the very end, Heir of Fire brings out a side of every single character we have yet to see and introduces new characters as well.  It kept pace at a slow burn, the sheer intensity of it building with every chapter.  Celaena's story was heartbreaking and inspiring, and her relationship with Rowan was arguably my favorite part of the entire book.  I LOVE Rowan Whitethorn and how he and Celaena work to heal each other.  Aedion was my second favorite new addition.  Who doesn't love a loyal man who plays a dangerous game?

Manon's story was awesome as well and I can't wait to see how Maas is going to weave all the storylines together in the next book.  Chaol kind of pissed me off in this, just a little, with his reluctance to pick a damn side and his inability to fully accept Dorian and Celaena, magic and all.  Then we have Ren and Murtaugh Allsbrook, who were nameless rebels in Crown of Midnight and got to tell their story in Heir of Fire.  I liked them, especially the old man.  Now that it's just Chaol and Ren, I really want to know what they're gonna do for Aedion and Dorian.  Speaking of Dorian, if Maas turns him into one of the Valg, I swear to god, I'm gonna be pissed.  HE WAS FINALLY MATURING AND ON HIS WAY TO GETTING HIS OWN HAPPY ENDING WITH SORSCHA AND THEN MAAS WENT AND BEHEADED THE POOR GIRL.  I MEAN JESUS!

Also, are we ever gonna learn the King's name?  It's book three and, while we got a little more detail on his appearance, like scarred eyebrows/face and giant arms, we still don't know his name and its bugging me.

Finally, the two scenes that really broke my heart were when Celaena broke down right before she had to go get Luca off the monster infested lake Rowan chained him to and the second, when the musicians played after the slave massacres.  I mean really, you could open this book to any random page and have you heart torn to shreds...