Delightful Deviant

*I received this book via Different Area Codes tours


This book gets 4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes for having a great character and a plot that promises a very intriguing future for the series.

The book opens with an interrogation scene so you know right away that something bad is going to happen in the book.  This showing pages of the interrogation is a great tool that really ratchets up the tension of the story as you go along.   


Emily Webb is just seemingly a normal everyday geeky girl until things suddenly change.  She's an interesting character who is very introverted but each night starting in the first chapter she finds herself acting more and more extroverted/wild.  On the first page she has the urge to jump out the window and run around outside but comes back to her senses before she actually does it.  At first being more wild is fun but then it leads to lots of trouble.

There is more to the book then the mystery about what's happening to Emily.  A girl in her class with the same first name was murdered after she was alone outside in the middle of the night acting strangely.  Things are strange right from the beginning so you really wonder what the heck is going on.  Murder reverberates throughout the book and gives it a kind of weight and urgency to see what exactly is going on in this town.

The reader learns that many people in this town are not what they seem.  Not only Emily has a secret to hide and changes to go through.  She finds herself having the urge to smell boys to see if they're the right one for her which is well a little strange.  

The book has an interesting moodiness to it because Emily herself thinks she might just be sick or going crazy.  To everyone else around her she just looks to be acting out or acting more like a "normal" teenager.  Then others start to get hurt, someone is targeting teenagers. 

The only person Emily tells about her change is her best friend Megan.  Megan doesn't think anything is wrong with her until she sees some of Emily's antics.

Many will probably figure out what is happening to Emily pretty quickly but there are many more secrets to be explored especially because she finds out that she's not the only one who's more than a little different.

The ending is exciting and opens up the world to a plethora of possibilities.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

Radical Rising

Red Moon Rising by Peter Moore

*I received this book via Different Area Codes tours

This book gets 4 gnomes and a gnome hat out of 5 gnomes for a great alternate world where wulfs and vampyres are out in the open and a part of society.  I like that it reads just like a normal coming of age story but with wulfs and vampyres thrown into the mix.  This story reminds me a bit of the whole Sookie Stackhouse series with the whole synthetic blood aspect.

Dante aka Danny Gray, the main character, is trying to get through high school and going through some changes.  He is part vamp and part wulf, his mom's a vampyre and dad is a wulf.  Being part wulf and part vampyre may sound awesome but wulfs are the minority in this world and marginalized by everyone.  Wulfs are sent to compounds every month during the full moon and it's a felony not to go.  If they don't register or show up at the compound they are labeled a moon runner and usually killed.

Danny and his sister had treatments to repress their wulf genes.  His sister had all the treatments and looks like a full vampyre.  He had over half of the treatments but had a reaction that didn't let the treatments finish.  Because of that he has vampyre like blue eyes but the complexion and body type of a wulf.  Most think that Danny is half human and he usually doesn't correct them in their misperception.

I like that his friend Claire also has secrets to hide.  She's a great friend and also knows what bullying and other ostracizing can happen when you're different.

There are complications aplenty for Danny.  Vampyres in this world unlike some young adult literature, can't go out in the sun so they have things like Sol-Blok suits.

The arguments in the book about whether celebrities and people from history are wulf, vampyre or human is great.  For example David Bowie is a vampyre.  Also interesting that there's speculation that Hemingway was a wulf but the family won't let DNA tests be done to determine whether that's true.

Danny has to talk to his wulf father again after pretty much abandoning him after his mom got remarried to a vampyre.  That means there is plenty of family turmoil too.

You can tell where the story is going but there are a lot of fun twists along the way.  It's great that the book wasn't all about him getting a girlfriend, that part's just a small aspect of the book and not really his biggest problem.  Danny likes Juliet, the only human at Carpathia Night (the night high school he goes to.)

The bully/big bad of the book is well done too because you never know what he's going to do especially towards the end of this book.  The bully's hate is made easier because most people don't have a problem when someone is bullying a wulf.

The tension builds throughout with you always wondering will he be caught and what decision will ultimately be made.

I love the ending because things are still very unsure about whether the solution will work but it still ends on a hopeful note.  Hope theirs a sequel because I'd love to read more about this world.

Ravishing Rosebush

Rosebush by Michele Jaffe

*I received this book via Different Area Codes tours

This book gets a resplendent 4 out of 5 gnomes for being full of drama, mystery and some seriously messed up characters.  The cover of the book tells you a lot of what you can expect I especially love the line that was added to her arm, it really adds to the mysteriousness of it all.  Jane is pretty much the ultimate mean girl she changes her entire identity just to fit in and be popular.  


The book opens with Jane waking up in the hospital after being hit by a car and found in a rosebush.  Then the story backs up to show what happened up to that point and after.  Jane used to be an unpopular girl but had enough and changed everything about herself to fit in.  She becomes best friends with Kate and Langley the two most popular people at her school.  Being friends with them means that she's automatically in the popular crowd.


Jane makes some horrible choices even though she has her own reasons for making them.  She sees her mother as uncaring.  She is one of these characters that you just want to have a serious talk with about her boyfriend, he has abuser written all over him.  He's a character that has well, no redeeming qualities.  The guy tries to control everything that Jane does and makes everything bad happen seem like her fault.  


It seems that everyone has a secret to hide and that makes them seem even more like suspects.  Well almost everyone is a suspect except for my favorite character her sister Annie, who has a barbie doll that she thinks is a man trapped in a woman's body.  All the clues come together and the answer to the mystery surprised me.  


The beauty in this book is that Jane is slowly being driven mad but at the same time discovering important information about people she thought she knew.  Jane seems to learn more about herself in the hospital room then she ever did among the popular crowd.  This is a truly engrossing mystery with a flawed but beginning to change narrator.  I would highly recommend this book for anyone that likes a mystery along with a lot of high school angst.