Olson lives in a city that has been sealed from the outside world. He’s an Eleven Year and close to citizenship. His life is upended when one of the few adults who cares about him commits suicide – or so it appears at first. While investigating, Olson meets a girl named Natalie snooping around his school. He soon learns that one of her friends died under similarly mysterious circumstances. Together, they start looking for answers, and end up discovering the city’s darkest secrets.

“You make your own fate”. That is the motto that Olson has lived by his entire life, along with the rest of the people in The City. This is a well-written dystopian novel that will have you rethinking everything you think you know.

Olson is a young man who starts to question things after the supposed suicide of his favorite teacher, Duncan. Then when he meets Natalie, a young woman from Above, he really begins to wonder. I enjoyed the way the author revealed the hidden aspects of this world as Olson discovered them. It made the story unfold in a realistic and very disturbing way.

In Olson’s own words: “They are lying to you. We are grown, in batches, to serve the people at the top. They kill people who don’t follow along. Anyone who doesn’t fit is defective, and a new person is grown as a replacement.”

“THEY’VE LIED TO YOU.”

“You don’t know what true freedom does to people.”

The characters are well-developed, the story is fast paced, and the world building is great. This book reminded me of a mix of “Ender’s Game” and a dystopian novel. The interaction between Olson, Natalie and Olson’s classmates was great. The book does end on a cliffhanger, so be prepared to want to continue the series!

The narrator does a very good job and added a lot to my enjoyment of the book

4*

The nightmare of the outbreak is finally over, but Cat’s fight has only just begun.
Exhausted, wounded, and reeling from revelations that have shaken her to her core, Cat is at a breaking point. Camped in the woods with Cole and Leoben, she’s working day and night, desperate to find a way to stop Lachlan’s plan to reprogram humanity. But she’s failing—Cat can’t even control her newly regrown panel, and try as she might to ignore them, she keeps seeing glitching visions from her past everywhere she turns.
When news arrives that the Hydra virus might not be as dead as they’d thought, the group is pushed into an uneasy alliance with Cartaxus to hunt down Lachlan and fix the vaccine. Their search takes them to Entropia, a city of genehackers hidden deep in the desert that could also hold the answers about Cat’s past that she’s been searching for.
But when confronted with lies and betrayals, Cat is forced to question everything she knows and everyone she trusts. And while Lachlan is always two steps ahead, the biggest threat to Cat may be the secrets buried in her own mind

Firstly I’m still sat here reeling after the conclusion of This Cruel Design which I finished yesterday. In a direct continuation from the closing stages of book 1. The Dynamics have changed and understandably so. Cataxus have gone to even greater lengths to try and secure a vaccine by using the cruelest of incentives for their team. Caterina and those with her face themselves in a completely different race against time, thinking back it’s difficult to reconcile that most of what happened takes place in just a few days, but I think that’s because we are often meeting new people and as the book progresses fresh revelations about history and family seem to appear on every page!

With world building a new area arrives in the form of Entropia it’s a kind of a techno shanty town which felt a bit cliche but I don’t know why – I’ve been thinking that it’s been done so much before but really, I’m scratching my head to come up with a comparison. It has a Mad Max meets Ready Player One feel though with the inhabitants almost making them into physical versions of avatars. Its a vibrant oasis where the reader gets to fully understand the capacity of the technology built into humanity. The range of enhancements from aesthetic changes through to integrated hardcore hacking tech is quite a feast for the mind and a long way from the cabins and sterile bunkers of Catarina’s past.

A large part of this book deals with Catarina’s mental struggles as she tries to come to terms with the revelation from book 1 that she is in fact the mysterious Jun Bei in an altered form. Although subtle at first it’s clear to those who knew the Jun Bei of old, that she is trying to break through into Catarina’s conscious. Changes in attitudes and a quicker use of violent tech are the first warning signs and with the encouragement of Mato, Cartaxus’s head of tech, she becomes an almost Jekyl and Hyde character in waiting. It was beautifully done and pretty brutal at times, as the line that Catarina walks becomes finer.

This Cruel Design is full to bursting with revelations, where This Mortal Coil felt very much like a road movie with a condensed cast, it’s very much the opposite here with the introductions of a number of new characters. It did at times however, feel like the tech was in fact the main protagonist/antagonist, it took centre stage far more frequently and really stepped up a notch in content. As with book one I had to really drop back from really trying to understand a lot of the detail and just kind of roll with it. There is definitely a greater sci-fi feel overall.

For me though This Cruel Design for a large part of the book lacked the intensive, heart pounding peril and pace of book 1 – I felt like I was constantly breathless reading This Mortal Coil and whilst that pace can’t continue for ever it did add to the feeling that this book was suffering from middle of the trilogy syndrome. At times when I was feeling overwhelmed with the tech speak I did find myself wondering how much of it really drove the story forward and how much of it could have been condensed down.  However, it did regain it’s pace in the closing stages in quite an epic way. I also found that I was frustrated with the lack of proper medical care taken with a particular injury just moments after the author had indicated how fragile the healing process was – however if that comes back to bite the character in book 3 I’ll happily eat my words.

I did really enjoy this book though, I found myself pretty rocked by a lot of the revelations and it was quite emotional at times. That ending had me totally in shock though and I haven’t decided yet if i’m feeling heartbroken or excited, one things for certain book 3 will not be a dull ride!

4*

An Epic Battle For Love and Power.

A Fight For Redemption.

One Human Against A Legion of Monsters.

Charlotte Ruzikova finds that she is the freak in her world of magic and monsters. When she stands before an army of impossible obstacles, the likelihood of survival is slim. Will she vanquish the nightmares, or will there be bloodshed?
Filled with hatred for what he is, Valek condemns himself to a life of solitude. Always hiding in the dark, will he ever let Charlotte’s love in? 
Together, they must fight in the shadows with their league of loveable misfits to survive the light. But will they still be alive at the break of day? 

In Of Light and Darkness by Shayne Leighton, she paints a beautiful fantasy world. She integrates and modifies fantastical creatures like fairies, elves, and shapeshifters into a world that still follows the law of the land in werewolf and vampire lore. That being said, this is not the pick for a reader still tired of the whole “vampire love story thing”. Because that’s definitely what this is with certain elements akin to Anne Rice’s characters Louise DePointe and Claudia. There were a few things to nit-pick. Charlotte had a number of injuries, particularly a head injury, that were very down played, to a point of infeasibility. There were also quite a few word confusions and misspellings. The civil war plot begins to develop in the thick of the character development, and for a few chapters, it seems that the bigger picture is going to be overcast with the romance, but that proves not to be the case later on in the book. Some of the magic later in the novel seemed convenient, but that could be easily overlooked if that same magic is incorporated into the rest of the series in a meaningful way. All of that aside, the point of view changes are smooth and easy to follow. Charlotte is a strong female protagonist, always a bonus. Valek isn’t entirely an overbearing, draconian male protagonist, double bonus! Every single character received the same full and luscious backstory as the main few, a feat in and of itself! Leighton seems almost to have invented a new genre of Romantic Horror with this world. Her love stories intertwine like a Lifetime special, her drama escalates like Game of Thrones, and her imagery is equivocal to Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. With Charlotte, facing life and death decisions that may not be choices after all and the elves still up to mischief, I can’t wait to read book two and give book one four stars.

Twin Sisters: one destined to rule, one cursed to destroy.
Some say blood is thicker than water. But for twin sisters, Adie and Aura, their connection runs even deeper than blood.
After investigating a surprise attack carried out by dark souls controlled by the Wicked Willow, an evil  residing in a neighboring region, Aura uncovers a family secret: she is the fulfillment of a curse placed upon her family centuries ago.
While Aura is destined to destroy their planet, Thindoral, Adie is fated to follow in their mother’s footsteps and become Ruler, but even Adie’s path comes with revelations. Dangerous premonitions plague her dreams, all depicting Thindoral’s demise at the hand of her sister.
As darkness takes control of her mind, Aura must determine whether defying fate and time is the choice that will seal her destruction, or if self-sacrifice will save all she holds dear. Meanwhile, Adie is faced with an impossible decision: save her sister, or protect their world?
 

Adie and Aura have always been close but things start to change when the sneak into the room holding the Rokis which Aura will one day where and Adie gets a glimpse of her future. This book sucks you in from the beginning, the world they live in, the different beings that reside there as well as the regiment rules they live by fascinate as well as make you sad like the room of papers. The characters are great as you can relate to them as they are flawed as well as trying to do whats right, but boy there are times where you want to shake them and make them really think about what they are doing. There is plenty of mystery, hope, loss and twists that unfold as you see Adie and Aura become who they are meant to be and the ending, well lets just say I can’t wait to read book 2!

The end of the world is coming. How or when, scientists can’t agree upon. For decades, Earth’s best line of defense has been a team of young soldiers known as the Apocalypse Five, forced into virtual reality simulations to train for Doom’s Day. But, this is no game. Death on the grid is brutally final and calls up the next in a long line of cadets. Stationed aboard the AT-1-NS Starship, the A5 are celebrities thrust into the limelight by a calling they didn’t choose. All it takes is one unscheduled mission, showing seventeen-year-old team leader Detroit a harsh and unfathomable reality, to shake the A5’s belief in all they thought they knew. After questioning people with the power to destroy them, the team is framed for a crime they didn’t commit and marked for death. Now, the hunt is on. Can the Apocalypse Five expose the truth the starship would kill to keep hidden? Or, will their bravery end in a public execution?

Meet the Apocalypse Five, a band of rockstar status soldiers going into deadly battles whilst living a big brother house existence. In a Buffy esque “when one slayer dies another is chosen” world, cadets are nothing but numbers until a calling into the A5 grants them a name, for Detroit and her team, they are the longest running A5 group and have garnered far higher celebrity status than most.  The idea that this team are being watched both privately and on the field for the enjoyment of the masses is pretty tough to swallow, and sets the tone that the world we’re seeing has almost forgotten that children as young as 13 are being put in deadly scenarios. What makes that society worse for me is the ghoulish product placement that the team need to find time for whilst fighting for their lives. Yet this is normal and had the impact that for me as a reader, I often had to remind myself of just how young they are. There is a clear influence from the Hunger Games in the early stages of the book and I felt at times that it was struggling to form it’s own identity, but when the tables turn about 1/3 a way in it very much comes into its own.

As far as world building goes, much is left to the imagination as Apocalypse Five is very much story driven. The pace is pretty relentless, so pages about the space station would have detracted from that. Whilst I’m usually a world building girl, I can appreciate why the author chose not to go down that route this time. One thing that this book has is a HUGE twist, you can kind of see it coming not long before the team do, but it turns the entire story on it’s head. It’s a real mic drop moment as the enormity settles. Interestingly the story moves into 2 parallel paths as we also come to understand how the children became part of the space station crew, it’s a point which slowly burns alongside adding some anxiety to the pace.

I found the characters pretty interesting, It could be easy to be flippant about their depth, but these are children who have grown with very little nurturing and ability to explore their emotions. Their days are spent watching others die and waiting to hear if it would be their turn next, that’s going to stunt anyone. I think it was a brave move to have these characters very shut down, with only false bravado for the camera’s where they know they are wanted. Their use of different coping strategies is actually a little heartbreaking when you have a 17 year old alcoholic and a 13 year old obsessed with old movies of a happier time. I realise that I am painting them as a sad bunch – but their friendship is rock solid and that’s what makes them endearing and a formidable team.

Unfortunately the author painted herself into a difficult corner, in that the premise and the twist are so intrinsically linked that for the first 3rd of the book, I’m sorry to say, I was pretty baffled by what the wider arc was. I don’t mind books that hit the ground running but it needs to be quickly backed up with context, otherwise the narrative stutters.  It becomes clear why it had to be that way as the story continues, but it did mean that I struggled to get into an early flow. At one point I thought my ebook had started beyond a prologue so I stopped and went back… this was quite a big issue for me so I’ve reduced the rating down accordingly.

Apocalypse Five is a fast paced read with a real cinematic feel, Detroit walking along a rocket launcher decimated beach described as looking like a goddess of chaos and war, was one of my favourite lines – and gives you an idea of the scale. It has plenty of feels without being sappy and is thought provoking without even realising. I initially thought this was a standalone but those last lines will want you clamouring for book 2!

4*