Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young
Release Date: November 3, 2015
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Edelweiss
Rating: 
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
Stay Tonight. Stay Forever.
When Audrey Casella arrives for an unplanned stay at the grand Hotel Ruby, she’s grateful for the detour. Just months after their mother’s death, Audrey and her brother, Daniel, are on their way to live with their grandmother, dumped on the doorstep of a DNA-matched stranger because their father is drowning in his grief.
Audrey and her family only plan to stay the night, but life in the Ruby can be intoxicating, extending their stay as it provides endless distractions—including handsome guest Elias Lange, who sends Audrey’s pulse racing. However, the hotel proves to be as strange as it is beautiful. Nightly fancy affairs in the ballroom are invitation only, and Audrey seems to be the one guest who doesn’t have an invite. Instead, she joins the hotel staff on the rooftop, catching whispers about the hotel’s dark past.
The more Audrey learns about the new people she’s met, the more her curiosity grows. She’s torn in different directions—the pull of her past with its overwhelming loss, the promise of a future that holds little joy, and an in-between life in a place that is so much more than it seems…
Welcome to the Ruby. – Goodreads
Review:
Audrey Casella is on her way to her grandmother’s when her father decides to stop and spend the night at the Hotel Ruby. The Hotel Ruby though is far more than meets the eye. It’s creepy, it’s weird, it host mysterious parties where one is required to have an invited–and everyone seems to have an invite but Audrey.
What Audrey, her dad and her brother don’t expect is the Hotel Ruby to change them. The three of them have been dealing with the death of their mother and wife and the void that she has left. It’s painful and not once does Young hide the feeling that grief hits you in waves and stages. It may not be constant, it may hit you at the most unexpected times and it isn’t always easy.
The Hotel Ruby also showed how grief broke the Casella family because they weren’t handling it well, they broke apart when they needed each other the most. But, if anything the Hotel Ruby brought them closer together. The Hotel Ruby has a dark past of its own, full of its own grief that is painful and hurts. It’s hard to talk about Hotel Ruby without giving too much away, but here’s the thing. It works. Not once was I taken out of the story, the prose and the imagery kept me turning the pages even when I was far too sleepy to stay awake.
At its heart Hotel Ruby is a story about grief and family and it’s a beautiful story. Hotel Ruby is my type of horror novel, it’s more of a mind game then scary scary. It’s also a good mix of Hotel California and The Shinning which left me wanting more in this genre.
The Devil You Know by Trish Doller
Release Date: June 2, 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Source: Publisher (THANKS!!!)
Rating: (3.5)
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
Eighteen-year-old Arcadia wants adventure. Living in a tiny Florida town with her dad and four-year-old brother, Cadie spends most of her time working, going to school, and taking care of her family. So when she meets two handsome cousins at a campfire party, she finally has a chance for fun. They invite her and friend to join them on a road trip, and it’s just the risk she’s been craving-the opportunity to escape. But what starts out as a fun, sexy journey quickly becomes dangerous when she discovers that one of them is not at all who he claims to be. One of them has deadly intentions.
A road trip fling turns terrifying in this contemporary story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. – Goodreads
Review:
I heard about The Devil You Know quite awhile ago from my friend, Erica. It was described to me as a slow moving horror novel and I could not wait until I could read it. Then, I received an ARC in the mail and was waiting for the mood to hit me. The mood recently hit me and I spent a sunny Memorial Day weekend in the swampy world of a tiny Florida town with Arcadia.
Arcadia is a girl who’s life sucks. She has accepted that it sucks and it is what it is. Her mother died in the past five years, she is being forced to take care of her younger brother, Danny, who likes to be known as Daniel Boone, and her father is there but not really. The family owns a small store that cannot compete against Winn-Dixie and Arcadia’s father is often helping Uncle Eddie with projects. Arcadia isn’t stupid. She knows her father is using this as a coping mechanism. She doesn’t want to be the daughter, sister and mother. Just wants to be just the daughter and sister. She wants to talk about the fact her mom died and that sucks, but life goes on.
I adored Arcadia as a many character. My notes I took on her when I read this was: feminist! Sex positive! And the fact that Doller never talked down to the reader was also awesome.
But I’d rather fight my own battles. I don’t need to be rescued. I do appreciate the shirt, though. —print ARC pg 39.
Pretty sure I’m capable of choosing for myself, instead of waiting around for you guys to decide who get me. So that’s not what you meant by poach right? — print ARC pg 55
This isn’t to say that Arcadia doesn’t make stupid life choices. She does. But that’s what makes Arcadia, or Cadie relateable. She’s a teenager. She gets in a car with two guys she hardly knows because she hates her life and wants out of her small town. All she wants is to get out of this small town. It’s always been her goal. She buys travel guides for countries that no longer exist, she has a map full of push pins for places she wants to go. That’s what these cousins, Noah and Matt, provide for her: freedom.
My grades weren’t great, but good enough to be admitted somewhere. Except Mom left such a hole in our lives that I stopped thinking about college. —print ARC page 162
What Doller does in The Devil You Know is take the reader to swampy, muggy, Florida. I was in the dry desert of Arizona, but while reading this book I could feel the humidity. I could feel the fear that ran through Arcadia. I wanted to hug her and get her out of that situation, but I also realized this was something that she would have to go through herself.
Even though I can justify what I’m doing, it doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty. I’m just getting better at tamping it down. —print ARC page 114
The amount of growth that Cadie goes through in a short period was amazing and made me proud of who she had become by the last line of the novel.
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Release Date: August 30, 2011
Publisher: Tor Teen
Source: Library
Rating:
Buy It: Amazon
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story…
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
And she, for whatever reason, spares his life – Goodreads
Review:
A double review! Tina recommended this book, forever ago. And I’ve had it since then, I just haven’t had the time. However, I recently picked up this book and was sucked in. Much quicker than I thought I would be. I tend to have issues with male narrators. I’m not sure why, they just are generally not my cup of tea. But this one seems different. I was still sucked into the book, even with the male narrator. I enjoyed how Cas handled the situation he was dealt. Many wouldn’t have handled it well. I’m not sure I could have handled it well.
Here’s the thing, Cas sees dead people. His father before him did, and died at the hands of one. Cas wants to avenge his death and he knows he isn’t strong enough until he fights Anna. Anna Dressed In Blood as she is known to the local community and to Cas. Anna’s viscous. Everyone knows she is and yet people still go to her old house to party. Even though she haunts it. But that is considered old folklore.
Cas knows different. He knows she haunts it for real and will continue to mess with anyone who crosses her path.
Cas also wants no friends. That’s a lie, he wants them, he just doesn’t have time for them. He moves with his mom too often. Then he comes to Thunder Bay, Canada and zeros out the popular girl, Carmel. He likes to use them. He doesn’t mean to but the popular people know the local gossip the best. And that’s the thing, Carmel does. But at the same time Cas stops using her and slowly they become friends, even if it’s the last thing that they want from each other.
There is also Thomas. Thomas is the town weirdo, loner. He’s like that for a reason. He can read minds. Doesn’t exactly make him popular with people. Even if they don’t know, he still carries that weird stigma with him. The thing is Thomas is helpful. Thomas’ grandfather knows things, and on top of knows. Thomas knows that Cas sees dead people. Even without being able to read his mind, Thomas knew. Thomas just knows things.
Thomas and Carmel become involved, even though they never really asked to be part of this. There is a bond between these three, and by the end they all understand each other and become a group that they never wanted to be nor never set out to be.
There is a flashback scene with the group and Anna and my heart goes out for Anna. I felt for her in a previous scene, but after that flashback scene I wanted to climb into the book, hug her and tell her everything would sooner or later be okay.
Plus, you know what else is awesome about this book. The popular culture references. Ghostbusters anyone?
Skinned (The Shadowing #2) by Adam Slater
Release Date: August 1, 2011
Publisher: Egmont Books
Source: Kindle Copy
Rating:
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
Black Annis smiles. Her pointed teeth do not gleam; they are black with age and the bloodstains of her victims. She looks up at the human child — surely meant to be in bed and asleep. Some things don’t change. Every hundred years the gateway opens between their world and ours. A human coven has joined forces with the dark beings of the Netherworld. Evil is growing. And Callum is caught in the middle. The Shadowing has begun…
Review:
Let me start off by saying that if I hadn’t read Slater’s first novel in this series, that cover up there would not make me want to start reading it. It looks like an RL Stine cover circa 1997. Or the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt. (I’m showing my age now, aren’t I?) Huge turn off there, but I know I like these novels, and I know I like Callum Scott. What I’m hearing is that this book is being re-released next year, but it was less than $5 for Kindle, so I went ahead and bought it anyway. (I think this is the first time I’ve admitted to owning a Kindle when my co-bloggers both own Nooks.) The summary leaves something to be desired, but it still managed to intrigue me. Plus, this book is the quickest read ever, and like it’s predecessor, I was finished in about four hours.
I mentioned above that I like Callum, but I love Melissa. I think I mentioned her in my review of Hunted and she is just as awesome. In the first quarter of the book she’s forcing Callum’s reticent Gran to teach Melissa magic so Melissa can protect Callum! Love it! Men need protecting from women more than they realize, and Melissa is a HBIC and also a BAMF. And this book is still horror. A little kid is killed and then skinned (see: title) right at the beginning. Slater hasn’t backed down there at all, but he usually keeps the gore to a minimum. And, since it’s horror, the whole thing is scary. Seriously, don’t read this book alone in your house at night if ghosts freak you out. I read it in broad daylight surrounded by co-workers, and itstill scared me.
A lot is going down in this novel. The Shadowing has begun, and Callum is the last living chime child. He has to learn to fight with his chime child powers before the thirteenth moon, or the mortal world will be overrun by creatures from the Netherworld. Callum’s Gran is typically reluctant to help him at all, but she gets it together eventually. Callum and Melissa do some dumb things, as protags in YA are wont to do, and we eventually learn that Callum wants to control his powers so he can see the ghost of his dead mother. This follows a similar theme from the first book. Callum can see ghosts, but he’s never seen his mother. Now that ghosts are slipping through the barrier and becoming more aware of the living people around them, Callum hopes he’ll finally get to talk to her.
Things really start to hit the fan after a lot of info-dumping, so the second half of the book is more exciting than the first. The only thing that bothered me about the action was that at one point, Melissa faints. NO. My Melissa does not faint at the sight of demons, okay? She’s a natural witch in training, not some frail damsel from a fairytale. So, yes, that annoyed me, but I got over it quickly because Melissa springs right back into action. We also get a bit of a Monologuing Villain near the end, and I honestly skimmed it, so I did drop a star for that.
The book ends not at all resolved, par for the course with a series. The Shadowing will continue and it will get stronger. The next in the series is called Doomed.
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Release Date: August 30, 2011
Publisher: Tor Teen
Source: Personal Copy
Rating:
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story…
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.
Review:
Read this book right now! Seriously, stop reading this review and buy this book! RIGHT NOW! God, I loved this book. Cas reminds me of Ethan Wate, but I think I say that about every male narrator in YA. Ethan Wate is the best, but Cas Lowood is pretty amazing too. We start off with Cas killing a long-dead greaser who was beat up and killed for his money a few decades ago. We’re in Cas’s head the whole time, and what a head it is. He’s not whiny or annoying, and the first person POV didn’t make me want to murder everyone within eyeshot. Not a single person in this novel is Too Dumb to Live, other than all the people who are murdered, of course. Plus there’s a black cat, and anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE black cats (especially my boy, Yoshi).
Cas and his mother move around a lot, especially after his father is killed. They receive tips from Cas’s sources and move to the location to kill the ghost. Cas only kills ghosts that kill other people, not ghost who just harmlessly haunt. When they get to town, Cas immediately zeroes in on the popular girls, namely one Carmel Jones. He attends a party with her and her jock/cheerleader friends and gets them to tell him stories about local ghosts. This is when Cas first meets Anna.
Anna is terrifying and beautiful at once. She changes forms when she angry, and Cas calls her the Goddess of Death. She kills one guy that night, but not Cas, who she just tosses out the front door. Cas has also met Thomas, a psychic, at this point, and soon Cas, Carmel, and Thomas are working together to try to figure out how to kill Anna. While they’re doing this, Cas starts visiting Anna and grows more and more attached to her.
This story is truly original, I thought, and a really fast read. I don’t recommend reading this book alone at night, because I did that and it terrified me, even though I live in a house built after 1960. This book also lives up to its horror label, and there is talk of blood, guts, and missing eyeballs. It can be gross, but this is not about gore. The story that’s weaved underneath all the scary stuff is truly awesome and Blake fleshes out the three main characters while keeping Cas as the narrator. That is something that a lot of authors have trouble with, but Blake pulls it off perfectly.
Go out and get this one ASAP!
Hunted (The Shadowing #1) by Adam Slater
Release Date: September 13, 2011
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Source: NetGalley
Rating:
Buy It: Amazon | IndieBound
Once every century, the barrier between the human world and the demon realm begins to break down. Creatures gather, anxiously waiting to cross the divide, to bring death and destruction from their world to ours. This time is called The Shadowing.
Callum Scott has always known that there is a supernatural world out there—he’s seen ghosts for as long as he can remember. Lately, he’s had visions of children being brutally murdered by a terrifying creature. Then the visions start coming true, and Callum realizes that he’s being hunted, too.
Driven by a dark destiny, he must stand against the demons that threaten our world.
And The Shadowing is almost here…
Review:
I’ve been reading more and more books written from a male POV, which I like. It seems like books written in a male POV have less emphasis on the romance (minus the Caster Chronicles, of course), which appeals to me a good majority of the time. Unwind is another from a male POV (also written by a man) that’s pretty awesome. In fact, Callum reminds me of Connor in more ways than one. They’re both headstrong and impulsive, mostly invisible to their peers, and both are running from certain death. I like it.
The concept of a “chime child” isn’t new, even if the terminology is, and it reminds me a little of the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld. Callum can see ghosts and has premonitions. A black dog and a boy are following him, along with a creature we know of as the Hunter. As if that’s not enough, Callum has a boy from school out to get him as well. He’s seeing more ghosts, and his premonitions are becoming more and more accurate. He saves a girl, Melissa, from certain ketchup-on-stairs death, and they become friends.
I liked Melissa. She sounds like the kind of girl I wish I knew in high school. They describe her as New Age, with flowing skirts and sequins, always carrying a fantasy novel. And, of course, she’s the source of the information that leads Callum to who he really is. She’s loyal, even though she and Callum have only been friends for a few days, and she vigorously defends him when he’s falsely accused of a crime. She’s great and I want to know more about her.
When they say this book is horror, believe them. It’s not gory like Hostel, but there are a lot of descriptions of blood and eyes being ripped from sockets. It’s creepy, and I’m mostly glad I read this one at work and not at home, alone. There’s a lot of creeping around in dark woods (!), hanging out in abandoned churches (!!) in the middle of a centuries-old cemetery (!!!). Not my idea of fun by any stretch of the imagination. And, the monster? Can steal your face. Worst (yet most effective) identity theft EVER.
This book kept me fully engaged for its entirety. I read it in four hours! That’s like the best review I can give it. It means I couldn’t put it down, not even at my second work break. If a book keeps me in my desk chair even a second longer than I need to be in it, that means said book has succeeded in every way.
yAdult Review 