The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

 "I had a life anyone would kill for. Then someone did."

I enjoyed Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars and was pretty excited when I heard that she was writing a new series.

Unfortunately, this book fell short of the bar that Pretty Little Liars  has set. My first gripe was the incessant namedropping. Katy Perry, Owl City (hipster trash), Lady Gaga, iPads/Phones.. to me, it seemed like a desperate attempt to seem young, fresh, and hip. The tone just seemed as though she were pandering.

I digress.

The plot was thin, and Ms. Shepard did a terrible job at writing a character that I'm supposed to sympathize with. In this book, there are two main characters -- Sutton and Emma, who are identical twins. Sutton lives a charmed life. She is manipulative and selfish, oh, and she was murdered. This leaves our other leading girl, who was shuffled around from foster home to foster family and back again, to try to pick up the pieces and solve the murder. The cliffhanger was pretty obnoxious, but as it was only the first book in the series, I'm sure that Ms. Shepard can do better than this.

Final verdict? Needs improvement. I know that she can do better.

Always a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough

Suspenseful, and beautifully crafted.

In this installment of the Witch series, we learn more about the mysterious Knight family and the Greenes.

I loved Tamsin in the first installment, but I absolutely fell in love with her spunk, dry wit, and bravery in this book. We see her going through a lot of different things here, and we watch her grow. She’s moving away for college, she has a boyfriend and she finally knows what her talent is, and how to harness that power. I think what I liked most was that she wasn’t simpering and pathetic. The story wasn’t based entirely around some kind of forbidden love where the female protagonist turns into a slobbering dog, pretty much. The face that she had a boyfriend wasn’t completely rubbed into your face the entire time.

I was surprised and pleased at the imagery described in the past and the traveling. I do wish there had been more character building in Jessica Knight’s character. Why was she going against the way she was raised? What’s her talent? She seemed to be on the “good” side of things, so I would have liked to see a bit more building of her character in this book.

I wouldn’t read this installment without having read the first one beforehand. You’d be able to understand it, but not with as much clarity as if you had read the first one.

All in all, I loved it. I hope that Ms. MacCullough writes another installment.

It’s due for release on August 1st, 2011.

Here Lies Bridget by Paige Harbison

 “I want you to understand how people see you, and how your actions matter…You must learn that your place in the world is important. You’ve been given the power to affect people, just as we all have, and it’s important-no, vital-that you do the right thing with it” – Anna Judge

Bridget Duke is the byproduct of a semi-famous, barely-there father, an absent mother and a stepmother who spends entirely too much time decorating. And this infuriates Bridget. In fact, everything infuriates Bridget.  I blew through this in a matter of hours, because it was just that good. As ashamed as I am to say it, I saw a lot of the way I used to be in Bridget. She was catty, mean-spirited, manipulative, and selfish. However, she was not heartless, but  careless with the hearts of others.  Simply put, our heroine is a huge effing bitch, with a capital B. As she notices a dramatic decline in her popularity, she hops into her (used) 2007 BMW and drives too fast, getting into an accident and passes out. When she wakes up, she’s suddenly surrounded by all of the people closest to her watching her impassively. She is then encouraged to “walk in their shoes”. Literally.  Which was actually an interesting concept.Suffice to say, I enjoyed watching her turn over a new leaf as she was shown how her actions had a grenade-like effect on everyone around her.

It’s kind of Christmas Carol-esque, and I actually really enjoyed the ending.

Ms. Harbison did a wonderful job building incredibly likeable characters and describing their world, right down to the very end. Sequel? Maybe?

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

 The author did a really good job with the concept, and character development and painted a beautiful picture of the beautiful, and often times savagery of the mermaids.  In this vengeful story, mermaids are made, rather than born . Its foreboding melodious lull swept me into the world of these killer mermaid girls.

Luce. I hated her. She was just so.. pitiful. Her father and mother are dead, she doesn’t fit in as a human or a mermaid for that matter, and her uncle is an abusive alcoholic.  After drinking himself into a stupor in the local tavern one night, he brutally attacks Luce,  mistaking her for her mother and she falls from a cliff. But, instead of dying, she turns into a mermaid. The mermaids that inhabit the sea are not of the sugary, cutesy, dolled-up versions that Disney has fed us our whole lives.  In this story, they are vindictive, and malicious, hating the humans for what they had done to them during their lives as mortals, so what do they do? They sing. and their song leads sailors to their death, and the mermaids described in this story take great pleasure in this.

Lost Voices addressed a lot of issues such as abuse, redemption, forgiveness, and friendship, which was honestly what saved it for me. The relationships described in this book were heartbreakingly real and really hits home.

Oh, and plus it’s prefaced with a Radiohead song.

It’s due for release on July 4th, 2011.

The Betrayal of Maggie Blair by Elizabeth Laird

 In this book, we’re introduced to Maggie Blair who is orphaned and lives with her Grandmother in 17th Century rural Scotland. The book is peppered with references to Laird’s own ancestry and landmarks, and has some pretty solid writing. A shame to say what a disappointment the book was.  I was completely bombarded with scripture and bible verses and it seemed that the main focus of the story was God and Religion which makes sense, as Maggie is wrongfully accused of being a witch. I think that Laird just took the concept and ran with it. Overall, I found the historical setting fairly authentic, with allowances given to help make it accessible. I felt empathy for Maggie, yet there was a distance throughout my reading, I never felt totally immersed and didn’t really feel that connection with the main character as I normally do when I read a book.

The main problem that I had with Maggie was that she was so superstitious and ignorant, so she fell short.

I give this book a 3/5 because the writing, and character development was done really well.

The book is due for release on April 18, 2011.