Half Blood by Liberty Stafford
Publisher: Devine Destinies
Genre: Action/Adventure, Contemporary, Paranormal, YA
Length: Full (187 pages)
Rating: 4 Suns
Reviewed by Cholla

Ever felt like you don’t fit in? Try being only half human. Daniel Otovic is a loner. A misfit. Discovering his father is a vampire doesn’t increase his popularity at school. Dhampirs don’t fit in anywhere. His cousin, Niko, is a jock. Nobody realises he is a dhampir, too. Except Niko feeds on humans.

During detention, Daniels discovers the school talent show is imminent. Captivated by the enchanting singing of Katarina, he is persuaded to take part. His mind is not really on task. He has fallen in love and it’s not a good time, having just discovered his paranormal heritage. He has new skills. He can fly. He can run like the wind. He can shape shift. Premonitions haunt him. Most of them are about Katarina and she is in danger.

Growing up on the Bosnian border, Daniel could do nothing without Niko. In England, it is no different. Only Niko is hungry and Katarina seems like a tasty meal for him and his newly fashioned jock vampire friends.

Can Daniel handle being a dhampir when for years he considered himself a normal guy? He has to handle it. Katarina’s life depends upon it.

Isn’t being a teenager hard enough? School, parents, dating, homework… it’s all just too much. The raw herb and the extract contain complicated mixtures of organic chemicals, which may prescription cialis usa include fatty acids, sterols, alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, saponins, tannins, and terpenes. The Prostate Seed Institute Cosmetic surgery is one that is buy viagra professional different from all the other surgeries that are performed. This can cause the individual to walk with walker cialis 10 mg store link or crutches. viagra pill for woman MEDICATION – common drugs for blood pressure, antidepressants, antihistamines, appetite suppressants, tranquilizers, and an ulcer drug called cimetidine causes erectile dysfunction as a side effect. And then you discover the horrible, dark truth about yourself – and your cousin – that you’re not just two ordinary boys at all. That you never have been. You’re both dhampirs – half vampires – and one of you has gone to the wrong side.

Daniel Otovic has never felt like he belonged. No matter how hard he tried, he always was an outsider. And with the revelation that his mother had been once visited by a vampire, he now knew exactly why. He wasn’t human. After a bit of typical teenage rebellion following on the heels of the news that he was a dhampir, Daniel decides he can’t outpace his history – or his future – and settles in to learn more about who and what he is. He has a good heart and a strong will, determined to defeat the dark side of his nature by vowing to never taste human blood.

Niko, Daniel’s cousin, is the polar opposite of Daniel. Aggressive and power hungry, he is traveling a path he believes will bring him the ultimate power – at the risk of everyone else. Niko is the worst kind of teenager – angry, self-absorbed, and coddled by his mother – who had been visited by the same vampire as her sister all those nights ago. Niko has no qualms about using each and every power he possesses to influence and coerce his classmates and the people around him. He is the dark to Daniel’s light.

In addition to two very different cousins, Half Blood is populated with a handful of very fun and interesting characters. Katrina, the young girl both Daniel and Niko have set their eyes on has a lot of potential for the future as Daniel’s girl and sidekick. Helena, the resident witch, Mr. Underhill, teacher and dhampir expert, and his girlfriend, Adriana, round out the cast of the good guys.

With such a diverse set of characters, an English setting, and an often overlooked take on the vampire mythos, Ms. Stafford has created a world worth visiting and revisiting. Half Blood is an engrossing and intense story of two boys, cousins who discover they’re half brothers, who are very different while still being so very much the same. I highly recommend it to any lover of the paranormal.

Emmy’s Song by Christy Trujillo
Publisher: Devine Destinies
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Length: Full (233 pages)
Rating: 4 Suns
Reviewed by Asphodel

Life is good for eighteen-year-old Emellia Ortega! Not many teenagers can say that, but Emmy isn’t your average teenager. On the fast track to making her dreams come true, she has her sights set on a scholarship to Berklee College of Music and nothing can stop her. Nothing, that is, except Cale Cruz.

With perfect pitch and unbelievable good looks, he quickly weaves his way into the hearts of everyone around him. Drawn to him with an intensity she cannot explain, Emmy soon finds out that Cale has a secret. He is Maldito, half-human, half-vampire and has returned to seek revenge on the vampires that slaughtered his family. Thrust deep into a world she never knew existed, Emmy will risk everything she has worked for to join Cale in his fight as tragedy slowly tears her perfect world apart.

When a link between their past is discovered, fate’s perfect plan begins to spin a web around them stronger than anyone could have imagined. Together they tackle impossible situations, fight impossible battles, and embark on an impossible journey that will change both of their lives.

“Bienaventurados los malditos porque son los únicos que pueden salvarnos.” Blessed are the cursed for they are the only ones who can save us.

“Blessed are the cursed, for they are the only ones who can save us” is the quote that begins the Maldito series. This quote won’t actually make much sense until much further into the story however, but I found it very intriguing, just as I found this book. This is a somewhat different take on the whole vampire craze effecting the literary world (young adult or otherwise), drawing inspiration from an old Spanish legend.

Music plays an important role throughout the better part of the book. From the song that plays in Emmy’s dreams, to the music she listens to, music a heavy component in her life. She wants to be a music therapist and is working hard for it. Obviously, as this is a book, you can’t hear the music itself, but Trujillo chooses to highlight several songs that will be familiar to most and a few less well known songs. After the halfway point, music takes a backstage to the true drama, but for the first half we learn about Emmy’s moods depending on what song is playing in the back of her brain.

Feisty, Emmy speaks her mind most of the time, accepting everyone and cheering people up just by being who she is. Some of this is explained later on, but I think it had a lot to do with her personality. She came off as being very sincere, even when wishing her best friend Sarah luck at scoring a date with Cale, the guy that Emmy has found herself reluctantly crushing on. She is jealous, which is natural, but mostly she wants her friend to be happy. As the novel progressed she became a little more uncertain of herself, but given the circumstances I understood that fine. Try to run healthy and happy life. pills cialis Investing in an alternate power supply as a standby is a much cheaper and smart action to take. purchase cheap viagra Often, people look viagra prices http://www.4frontimports.com/viagra-1117.html at the side effects of these alternatives may lead to severe conditions and are far more worse as said for the side effects of the treatment regimen given to them. If you want to try this drug, you should have a positive mind brand cialis 20mg that love making session will be outstanding.
Cale is a very mysterious guy for the first half of the book. Always smiling, always watching Emmy, always seeming to be there, Emmy isn’t sure if she’s flattered, irritated or pissed off by the attention. We learn about his history in bits and pieces, from a variety of sources, and he definitely screams ‘smooth customer’. Then something tragic happens and the world is turned upside down while he scrambles to figure things out. I liked him better after the tragedy honestly. He came off as being much more genuine and less cocksure of himself.

Chris was the most confusing part of the entire novel for me. Most of the time he acted like a jealous boyfriend, or disgruntled old man. He was hot and cold throughout the novel, changing emotions so quickly I often had to re-read things to make sure I didn’t miss anything. And I’m still not certain he’s on the level honestly.

The romance between Emmy and Cale began hot, simmered for a little while and then erupted full steam. There was reluctance on both their parts, for different reasons, but once they got over those hurdles they quickly made up for lost time. Too quickly in my opinion, as it felt like they were moving so fast and committed to things so rapidly that it was hard to take it seriously. Its not that I doubted they didn’t feel so deeply, its more that the development seemed to be put on the backburner after the two admitted they couldn’t stay away from each other. There was tension.

The story itself reads a little unevenly, some of the transitions being rough and some characters, Chris in particular, had a misleading characterization. How he regarded Cale by the end wasn’t such a big surprise, everything in between however was tangled and muddled. The ‘bad guys’ were also kind of one-note and throw aways, without much fleshing out beyond the fact that Emmy is important to them.

Emmy’s Song was an intriguing beginning to what the author says will be a trilogy. It answers most of the questions presented throughout, but opens the gates to more exploration later. It leaves me wanting to read the next book, which is of course always a good sign.