The Lords of Salem by Rob Zombie

Synopsis:

From the singular mind of horror maestro Rob Zombie comes a chilling plunge into a nightmare world where evil runs in the blood...

THE LORDS OF SALEM

Heidi Hawthorne is a thirty-seven-year-old FM radio DJ and a recovering drug addict. Struggling with her newfound sobriety and creeping depression, Heidi suddenly receives an anonymous gift at the station-a mysteriously shaped wooden box branded with a strange symbol. Inside the box is a promotional record for a band that identifies themselves only as The Lords. There is no other information.

She decides to play it on the radio show as a joke, and the moment she does, horrible things begin to happen. The strange music awakens something evil in the town. Soon enough, terrifying murders begin to happen all around Heidi. Who are The Lords? What do they want?

As old bloodlines are awakened and the bodies start to pile up, only one thing seems certain: all hell is about to break loose.

What did I just read? This was the most twisted book I have read in a long time, maybe the most twisted one I have read so far.  I have been wanting to see this movie for awhile, but I wanted to read the book first. So, when I got it for Christmas, I was super excited.

There were horror elements, there were gruesome scenes, and there were chapters that actually left me really creeped out.

It was an interesting experience to say the least.

That being said, I did actually enjoy the book. It held my attention with how strange and out there is was. It is easy to read the whole thing rather quickly because you want to find out what is happening. It is definitely not for people who cannot handle gore though. Reading through many of the scenes had me cringing in my seat.

The characters were all pretty interesting in their own ways. Heidi was a good protagonist and it was easy to root for her.

This book was good if you want an interesting horror, paranormal book. I wouldn’t have expected any less from the mind of Rob Zombie.

4/5 stars

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Darkside by T.A. Miles

Synopsis:

Xandria: A mega-metropolis on Bhast, humankind's newest home.

Calen: A young athlete and son of a top ranking senator.

Luka: A mysterious operative with an unorthodox method of investigation.

Yoshiro: A rising star in Xandria's exotic underworld.

Staciel: An enigmatic figure of political and social deterioration, a catalyst for change.

On the eve of an unprecedented political maneuver in Xandria, Calen Liese flees from his home, leaving a murder scene behind and setting into motion a chain of events that could decide the fate of humankind on Bhast, beginning with the planet's Fey population; a group seemingly handicapped by acute empathy and society's uncertain fears, drawn to the destructive and oppressive powers within the planet's largest slum. Are Fey the next evolution of humankind? Or were they created? Darkside is a sociological post-Earth thriller.

It took me a long time to get through this novel. It is very long, so it was easier to pick up shorter books instead and get through them quicker.

Something I didn’t like was the amount of different characters and how they appear. This book could have probably been broken up into a few books that covered different storylines while integrating the main characters with the new ones. Instead, it was all thrown together and became a bit jumbled and confusing.

Many times, new characters will just be introduced by reading a new name. I didn’t have the slightest clue where some of them came from or what the points of their storylines were. I either figured it out after reading further, or I just never new and I forgot about them.

This book likes to jump from event to event with no real transitional phase. It is easier to get used to as you read more of it, but it is very confusing in the beginning.

I would say it is like a reading funnel. It starts our very broad with a lot of different things going on, and as it progresses, it all stars to come together and fit into one story line.

I felt like this was almost a never-ending book and it needed to be broken up to make it more interesting. I often found myself wondering how much longer it would take me to read it. It dragged on for a good portion of the book and just made it really, really difficult to get through.

The one bright spot in the book is that the characters were all pretty well developed even if some of them didn’t seem to have that big of a part in the story.

1/5 stars.  I am sure there will be many readers who will get into this book, but I was not one of them.

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Worlds Apart by Yolande Krueger

Synopsis:

Worlds Apart is the second book in the Trix-ology series, following Between Worlds. In this sequel, Olive Trix, a sixteen year old witch going to school and working at her family’s coffee shop The Black Brew, has finally fallen back into her everyday routine of life after closing the portal to Dazrath. However, life is not completely the same as Dah-vid, her giant, has returned to his home in the mountains of British Columbia, and their only means of communication is their ‘message bottles’. At night, Olive is taken in her dreams to a strange place where she meets a snow-white-eyed stranger who seems to want to help her learn how to use her magic. It is from his teachings that everything begins to change.

There is always something nice about reading a sequel and coming back into the lives of characters that you have read about before and enjoyed. Olive is a strong protagonist, and her relationships with the supporting cast are written well. Plus one of the main characters is a pet dog. How could you not like this family?

This is a good second book in a series. It starts off right where the last ended and it introduces new elements to the series. It shows us a whole different world of magic – the dark side of magic and their leader.

Meanwhile, the characters that we knew from the previous book continue to grow and their arc progresses.

Olive continues to learn how to use her magic. Her abilities surprise everyone including herself. 

There wasn’t too much going on in this book, but it laid a solid foundation for the next book in the series.

I have a feeling the third book will be the best one. 

My favorite character is still the little dog.

3/5 stars

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