Shining Bright

“They said that love was terrifying and tender, wild and sweet, and none of it made any sense. But now I knew that every mad word was true.”  Rosamund Hodge ,  Cruel Beauty Cruel Beauty is a wonderful retelling of a beauty-and-the-beast-esque story mixed with Greek mythology. This unlikely pairing actually makes for a wonderfully written fairytale. This book is about 17-year-old Nyx who has spent her whole life preparing to be married to and then to assasinate the immortal, evil ruler of her kingdom, the Gentle Lord, all because of a deal that her father made with the dark ruler. The day of her seventeenth birthday, Nyx is taken to the ruler's castle with the quest of finding the four Hearts that reside in his palace in order to kill her husband, who she calls Ignifex. Learning more about her husband, she begins to realize that she might have been wrong about him, and that he isn't the one with authority to rule over the kingdom. Apparently, even the Gentle Lord took ...

"Thinking something does not make it true. Wanting something does not make it real." Michelle Hodkin,  The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer "You're stronger than you believe. Don't let your fear own you. Own yourself." Michelle Hodkin,  The Evolution of Mara Dyer "Do not find peace. Find passion." Michelle Hodkin,  The Retribution of Mara Dyer Mara Dyer, 17, wakes up from a coma in a hospital and is greeted with news that her 2 friends and boyfriend are dead. She is then diagnosed with PTSD and swept up from her home in Laurelton, Rhode Island and rerooted to Miami, Florida to help her stay away from her traumatizing memories. The move isn't much help and Mara sees the faces of her dead friends all around her. This is a symptom of the PTSD, but she also begins to see people's deaths before they happen and this can't be explained. Despite her strange visions in Miami, she manages to make friends with Jamie and attracts the attention of th...

"Bloodlines and last names didn't make a man extraordinary — the extraordinary existed in what we did in life, not in who we were." -    Courtney Alameda ,  Shutter Shutter  provides a peek into what the world would be like if ghosts and monsters were common and ghost hunters were heroes. The heroine in this story is Micheline, heir to Helsing Corps, her family's famous monster hunting company and tetrachromat -- a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. Being the only possible heir -- due to the traumatic death of her mother and two brothers -- puts a lot of pressure on Micheline, particurlary from her father, the current Commander-in-Chief of the company. This being said, Micheline and her father don't have the best relationship especially since the death of her mother, so it's no surprise that Mr. Helsing doesn't react well after a routine ghost hunt goes terribly wrong, endangering Micheline and her 3 crew members. After fa...