NIGHT SKY—Jolene Perry

The Blurb

After losing Sarah, the friend he’s loved, to some other guy, Jameson meets Sky. Her Native American roots, fluid movements, and need for brutal honesty become addictive fast. This is good. Jameson needs distraction – his dad leaves for another woman, his mom’s walking around like a zombie, and Sarah’s new boyfriend can’t keep his hands off of her. 

As he spends time with Sky and learns about her village, her totems, and her friends with drums - she's way more than distraction. Jameson's falling for her fast. 

But Sky’s need for honestly somehow doesn’t extend to her life story – and Jameson just may need more than his new girl to keep him distracted from the disaster of his senior year.

The Afterglow

A YA Contemporary story told from a male POV, how can you not love that? Jameson was incredible—real, raw, flawed, sweet, perfect. I hung on his every word, his every emotion.

Jolene said that she got the idea for the story from Duckie in Pretty in Pink. What happens to the guy left behind? The guy who loses the girl? You can find out here, and Night Sky is WAY better than anything I could have dreamed up.

Oh, and the kissing scenes rocked my world!

A bit of  awesomeness right out of the book…

They’re opposites. Sky is all tall, dark and angles. Sarah is all smooth, short and soft curves. And now I know I’m a prick because I’ve just checked them both out in less than ten seconds.

What’s ironic here is that Sky knows who Sarah is and I’ve known her for days. Sarah doesn’t know who Sky is and I’ve known her for years. How did that happen? The s’s get tangled around in my head and on my tongue. I’m in deep . . . (Night Sky by Jolene Perry)

-Angela Cothran

DIES IRAE by Christine Fonseca

THE BLURB:

Some sacrifices should never be made—even for love.

Mikayel lives by one rule—obey the orders of the angelic Council at all costs. That is, until he and his friends, Azza and Demi, are sent to Earth. Assigned as Watchers while they await their decision of which angelic order to serve, the three assume the bodies of teenagers and experience life as human.

The sensations are overwhelming as the angels experience a host of human emotions—rage, terror, love—and come ever closer to breaking one of the unbreakable rules—never fall in love.

But being human isn’t the only problem facing the three angels. Unbeknownst to the Council, demonic activity is on the rise, threatening to break a tenuous peace that has existed for a millennia; a peace Azza seems bent on destroying.

Caught in a struggle for power with unseen demonic forces and Azza, and fighting against his rising emotional attachment to Demi, Mikayel must now decide how much he is willing to sacrifice for his new found love—a decision that could reignite an ancient war and will threaten the only thing that matters to the angels, the survival of humanity.

WHAT I THOUGHT:

I know I have the advantage of having read LACRIMOSA, the first full-length novel in the Requiem series, but take my word for it DIES IRAE is the perfect introduction to the Requiem world. I would have loved to have spent more time in the ancient world that Christine weaves around her characters. As a novella, that is necessarily limited. But Christine packs so much emotion into her pages that you are instantly drawn to these characters and their epically tragic story.

The story explores a lot of very intense themes; forbidden love, friends who become mortal enemies, how there is good and evil in everyone, how choices can tip the scales one way or the other, sacrifice, duty, honor, loyalty, betrayal, and the heart pounding (and breaking) of true love. There is a LOT of story packed into these pages.

If you’ve read LACRIMOSA, you’ll love getting to see what started everything and getting an insight into Mikayel and Azza. And if you haven’t read it yet (you won’t have to wait long – it comes out on March 21 - just a few weeks!) then this is a wonderful way to start immersing yourself in the Requiem world.

WAKE by Lisa McMann

From Goodreads:

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can't tell anybody about what she does they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can’t control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant.

The Afterglow:

I won WAKE from a book blogger who was giving away books she disliked.  So I went into it fearing the worst.  Instead, I picked it up and didn't put it back down until 3 hours later when I finished it.

That's right, I held my copy in the bathtub, through my 1 a.m. meal (ravioli), then while shivering on the couch downstairs with only my dog for warmth.

Things I like about it:

1. Cursing.  I grew up in NY.  I can't imagine a teenage(or child)hood without cursing.  
2. Caleb.  This is the first YA hero I actually found attractive in at least a year.  It might help that he's of legal age.  I liked him whether he was the first thing he is or another thing.  Sorry for the anti-spoiler vagueness.
3. Twists and turns.  
4. How it ends.
5. Hormones.  Again, more realistic.

The moral of the story is: people need to stop hyping books and start hating on them more.

No wait.

It's: WAKE is fast and fun!

Bonus: The jacket flap apparently is taken almost verbatim from Lisa's query!  Although the end of the flap copy is a bit misleading.  I like how the plot actually turned out.