Title: The Bloodline Cipher (Thieves Like Us #3)

Author: Stephen Cole

Published: 2008, Bloomsbury

Pages: 326

Rating:

“Jonah and the rest of the elite team of teenage thieves have been sent on a mission by Coldhardt to retrieve an ancient grimoire. He believes it to be a magical book of the law of the dead. Something like that could fetch a very good price in the right market. But when they go in to get it, the discover another team of thieves has beaten them to it. Even more disturbingly, this team is better trained, and better informed. It seems Coldhardt’s old mentor, a man he thought was dead, is not only very alive, but has a highly efficient rival organisation, and a devilish plan to wipe out Coldhardt. Only the best will make it. In a thrilling adventure with brilliant plotting and fiendish twists, join Jonah faces his toughest challenge yet – but will it be his last?”

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Good, Exciting Fun

I remember reading the first two books in this series when I was in middle school or high school, and falling absolutely in love with them. They weren’t like other books I’d read. A love triangle wasn’t the main focus of the story, although romance was present, if an afterthought. No, instead, these books were about the action, the excitement, the thrill of adventure and danger that reminded me a bit of the Alex Rider books I used to read. I was so bummed that they never published the third and final book in the States, and for years I searched for a relatively cheap copy on Amazon that I could ship from the UK and read, finally. And while this book didn’t exactly hold up to my rather idealized expectations of the series, it still proved to be a quick, fun read that kept me engaged from start to finish.

Jonah Wish and his team of fellow thieves find themselves targeted by their employer’s rival after a deal gone bad. This team is just as young as they are, but for some reason always three steps ahead. What started out as a chance encounter turns into a battle of wits and lives as Coldhardt’s crew realizes that a lot more is at stake if they want to crack the Bloodline Cipher.

I was a bit worried that, since it had been years, I wouldn’t be able to get into the story easily. I shouldn’t have been worried—Cole handles the exposition nicely without beating the subject over the reader’s head, quickly and efficiently introducing the main characters and their talents (Jonah is a hacker, Motti is the security and weapons, Con is the seductress who can convince anyone to do anything, Patch can pick any lock, and Tye is a human lie detector). It was like being with old friends again, and I was able to quickly focus my attention on the story.

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Title: Pure (Covenant #2)

Author: Jennifer L Armentrout

Published: 2012, Spencer Hill Press

Pages: 304, ebook

Rating:

“There is need. And then there is Fate…

Being destined to become some kind of supernatural electrical outlet isn’t exactly awesome—especially when Alexandria’s “other half” is everywhere she goes. Seth’s in her training room, outside her classes, and keeps showing up in her bedroom—so not cool. Their connection does have some benefits, like staving off her nightmares of the tragic showdown with her mother, but it has no effect on what Alex feels for the forbidden, pure-blooded Aiden. Or what he will do—and sacrifice—for her.

When daimons infiltrate the Covenants and attack students, the gods send furies—lesser gods determined to eradicate any threat to the Covenants and to the gods, and that includes the Apollyon… and Alex. And if that and hordes of aether-sucking monsters didn’t blow bad enough, a mysterious threat seems willing to do anything to neutralize Seth, even if that means forcing Alex into servitude… or killing her.

When the gods are involved, some decisions can never, ever be undone.”

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Purely Engrossing

Alex is a half-blood—a mix between god and mortal who is less than a pure-blood, but more than any mere mortal. She is also an Apollyon, one of two with the potential combined power to take on the gods themselves. What makes things more complicated is the mutual attraction she has with gorgeous pure-blood Aiden, especially since love between a pure and a half-blood is punishable by death. As daimon attacks on the Covenant become more frequent—and more deadly—Alex must not only prove her innocence but also save the very people who do not trust her and wish to force her to become a servant to the order.

I was so taken-aback by how much I loved Half-Blood, the first book in the series, that I just knew I had to read Pure and see if Jennifer L. Armentrout could keep up the momentum. Needless to say, after this book, I am a solid Armentrout fan and will follow her books to the ends of the earth. What a ride! From the start, the plotline was gripping, what with the war on two fronts that poor Alex has to fight—a war with the Covenant and its inhabitants, who view her as a weapon, a threat, or both; and with the daimons that keep attacking and killing Covenant inhabitants and sucking their life force, or aether, out of them. In between being accused by everyone as being responsible for the attacks and getting the crap kicked out of her in training and in encounters with the daimons, Alex really has nowhere to turn. This loneliness is especially poignant because she is head over heels for a guy that she really cannot have, Aiden. I love Alex and Aiden. Their chemistry is off the charts and I promise you, you can’t go into a scene with these two without fanning yourself off a bit when it’s over. But underneath all the sexual tension is a strong bond and mutual respect that I found much more compelling.

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Title: Angelfall

Author: Susan Ee

Published: 2012, Feral Dream

Pages: 254

Rating:

”

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.”

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Amazing, Fresh Take on a Genre

Let me just get this all out here now: I absolutely loved everything about this book, so this review will be filled with tons of fangirling. If you want the CliffNotes version of what I have to say, here it is: read this book. Now. It is amazing.

Penryn wants nothing more than to protect her little sister and survive. Survive the apocalypse that brought wrathful angels raining down on mankind. Survive the world that was left behind afterwards—the scavenging and cutthroat humans in gangs that roam the streets. Survive what might be mankind’s enslavement—if not eradication—by the very heavenly beings they thought would protect them. So when her sister is kidnapped by angels, Penryn must turn to the fallen angel Raffe, a warrior angel savaged by his own kind and left for dead, for reasons unknown. On their journey together, they learn that they have allies in each other, especially against the cosmic race of creatures that tried to destroy them both.

Where to begin with this fantastic book? From the very first page, I was sucked into the plot. Post-apocalyptic with a supernatural/angelic addition? Sign me up! Something in Penryn’s narration made it so easy to sympathize with her and care about what happened to her, even in the first couple of pages. What I loved about Penryn was that she didn’t shy away from the Right Thing, even if she was terrified. Plus she is all kinds of gutsy, not to mention a quick thinker on her feet. There’s one scene where she attempts to scare off gang members through a little bit of impromptu theatrics that had me laughing and biting my nails at the same time.

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Title: The Fires of Heaven (WoT #5)

Author: Robert Jordan

Published: 1994, Tor Fantasy

Pages: 989

Rating:

“In this sequel to the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Shadow Rising, Robert Jordan again plunges us into his extraordinarily rich, totally unforgettable world: … Into the forbidden city of Rhuidean, where Rand al’Thor, now the Dragon Reborn, must conceal his present endeavor from all about him, even Egwene and Moiraine. … Into the Amyrlin’s study in the White Tower, where the Amyrlin, Flaida do Avriny a’Roihan, is weaving new plans. … Into Andor, where Siuan Sanche and her companions, including the false Dragon Logain, have been arrested for barn-burning. … Into the luxurious hidden chamber where the Forsaken Rahvin is meeting with three of his fellows to ensure their ultimate victory over the Dragon. … Into the Queen’s court in Caemlyn, where Morgase is curiously in thrall to the handsome Lord Gaebril. For once the Dragon walks the land, the fires of heaven fall where they will, until all men’s lives are ablaze. And in Shayol Ghul, the Dark One stirs….”

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More Tedious Than Exciting

I’ve been sensing that the Wheel of Time books have been slowing their pace for some time, but The Fires of Heaven really exemplified that for me as I was reading it. As I was reading it, I was having flashbacks to The Eye of the World, the first book in the series; much in the style of the series opener, this book had small, action-packed chapters in between long, dry stretches of boring. Overall, while I found that the developments in characterization and the overall story to be interesting, the book itself was overly wordy.

While rich in description and detail, the long-winded description that Jordan favors was pretty much the last thing that the book needed. As with most of his books, I found myself skipping long passages at a time. I also had the same problem that I had with George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books; with the main cast of characters being split between three or more locations at a time, I sometimes skipped over chapters with characters that I didn’t really care for or perspectives that weren’t all that exciting. Once again, Mat and Rand’s perspectives were far more interesting than Nynaeve’s or Elayne’s, and I found myself rushing through the latter’s points of view so that I could get to the good stuff.

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