‘It is impossible to know who you really are until you spend time alone in a cemetery.’

Pretty cool, huh? That’s the deliciously dark first line we hear from Silla, one of the three main character viewpoints in Blood Magic. The darkness grips you from that first line – and doesn’t let go for a second.

Silla is sitting alone by the graves of her beloved parents, dead from an apparent murder-suicide the summer before. And she’s reading a book – a book that has mysteriously turned up, addressed to her and written in her father’s handwriting. But for Silla, the weirdest part is that it’s a book of magic. Yep, you guessed it – Blood Magic.

The second viewpoint is that of Nick, or Nicholas. Nick has just moved to the sleepy town of Yaleylah, Missouri, where he spent his early childhood with a crazy mother. A city boy, he’s angry with the world, especially his Dad’s new wife – the dreaded Lilith – a famous author. Nick has inherited his grandfather’s property and it just happens to overlook the cemetery.

It doesn’t take long for the troubled twosome to hook up and in a nice change, there’s no angsty does he? / doesn’t she? drama to get in the way of a good story. Silla and Nick are made for each other, in more ways than one. It’s a believable love affair that’s not too naff or vomit-inducing– well, unless blood makes you queasy that is. And there’s plenty of that.

Together Silla and Nick find themselves thrust into the world of Blood Magic when a hundred-year-old witch comes hunting for the bones of Silla’s parents and the Spell Book. This gal is one of the best and totally psycho antagonists I’ve read in ages. As a reader, we get a chance to get in her head as her story is told in snippets peppered between Silla and Nick’s. To fight her and save themselves, they have to accept who they really are – for Nick, this means facing the reality of what sent his mother off the rails, and for Silla, it means accepting she may never have really known her father. I found it interesting how they both coped with being outcasts at school and in their small town community; Silla finds reprieve in her mask collection, and often imagines herself wearing one of them to hide how she really feels in difficult situations – something many of us do in one way or another.

Just one of the things that kept me turning pages (and up very late at night) was the whodunit. Or, more specifically… Who Is It? Tessa Gratton has written an amazing first novel filled with clues and red-herrings that kept me guessing, along with Silla and Nick who the bad guy or girl really was. Just when I thought I had it figured out, that nasty ol’ witch would go and possess someone else, throwing my theory out the window. The Blood Magic itself is beautiful and gross all bound up together. Yep, there’s A LOT of blood. Heaps of it, actually. And setting most of the story in a cemetery might sound clichéd, but this story is anything but. Although there are a number of viewpoints, we’re never lost and it’s easy to keep track, even when the story jumps constantly within a chapter. In fact, it works really well. There were a lot of loose ends that were left untied by the end, but since this is marked as the first book in a trilogy, it’s an easy thing to forgive. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for number two, which, according to internet rumour will be called ‘The Blood Keeper.’

So if you’re not easily grossed out, but love a good scare, Blood Magic is for you. But beware – you’ll never look at of a murder of crows in quite the same way again…

Published by Doubleday for release 1^st June, 2011 (in Australia)

ISBN: 978 0 857 53020 2

Paperback, 408 pages.

Ever wondered what it would be like to find an employee of the business you’re doing work experience for lying dead on his office floor? Unfortunately for Alexandra Thaler, that’s exactly what happened on her second day with Simulcorp’s marketing division.

Simulcorp is ahead of the game with state of the art virtual reality technologies that allow employees from all over the world to work in the one virtual office space. So when the head of the marketing division is murdered in his virt room across town, things get rather complicated and suspicious fingers automatically start pointing at local employees as possible culprits. Employees like Alex.

It falls to Alex and her friends to clear her name, keep her safe from a stalker, and catch the real murderer. But hey, that’s what friends are for.

Nansi had me in the palm of her hand right till the last page, and it was to the point where I was considering writing out a suspect list myself to figure out who did the deed.

I liked that her teenagers are intelligent; aren’t hung up on teen angst, and are not ruled by peer pressure to be cardboard cut-outs of one another. They are individuals and, if anything, it enhanced their friendships. The slight touch of romance wasn’t enough to lose male audiences and the guys were friendly enough to keep female audiences interested.

I didn’t realize how much I enjoy a well written mystery, and how much fun it is to follow the clues to see if it really was Miss Plum in the library with the candle stick, just as I suspected all along. Dangerously Placed is the perfect read for those excruciating days that seem to drag on forever. I promise it’ll speed things up with its fast pace, intrigue, mystery, and humor.

Thanks for reintroducing me to the mystery genre, Nansi. I appreciate it.

Dangerously Placed–Nansi Kunze

1 March, 2011, by Random House, Australia

Paperback, 275 Pages

ISBN: 9781864718829

An Apocalyptic future:

The end of the world is nigh! It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but it’s going to happen. So as a gift to all you lovely readers, we have assembled together a list of the possible ways the apocalypse may come and things that you can do to be sure that you are prepared.

This list is by no means comprehensive; there is a myriad of futures and, when it comes down to it, we don’t know how it’s going to end. The best we can do is give you an idea of what you have to look forward to.

Nuclear-World-War

What it is:

The cold war may have ended but there is still reason to worry. With over twenty thousand nuclear weapons worldwide there are plenty to go around. With each one able to evaporate large cities and dump enough radioactive fallout to poison the land for decades there is a real risk of this one.

How to survive it:

Duck and Cover! Seriously; Lying down and hiding behind a solid object or in a hole will protect you from the majority of the main blast wave, leaving you free to navigate the newly irradiated wilderness at your leisure.

The safest place to be, of course, is in a bomb shelter with your family and friends. Your town may not be habitable for many years, and supplies out there will be few and far between – better to be safe and secure while the bombs fall.

What you will need:

Ideally, you will have a bomb shelter and a carefully stocked hoard of supplies to see you through the storm. Failing that you will need clean water, food, anti-radiation medication and something to keep the wasteland bandits at bay.

Invasion

What it is:

Robots, zombies and aliens. Oh my.

Science will probably be to blame for this one. Be it sentient robots rising up against their creators, zombie hordes roaming the streets or aliens angry that our space probe just knocked over their mailbox, it will end the same. We Humans will lose our place as the dominant species on the planet at it will be up to those who survive to fight on.

How to survive it:

Don’t give up! Start a resistance movement to fight your alien overlords. Don’t let the scaly ones win without a fight.

Robots fear magnets and water. Use them as your tools to secure your place in the new world order, or just wait until they run out of batteries.

Zombies are slow and stupid. Run away when you see them coming or pick them off one at a time with a sword or shotgun. Don’t let them touch you though; the last thing your friends want is their kindness coming back to bite them.

What you will need:

Be prepared for all eventualities. Keep a bag with the following gear in it and you will be ready for anything: shotgun/shovel/any other weapon, super-soaker, fridge magnets, anti-alien pamphlets and a catchy slogan to build your rebellion around.

Natural disaster

What it is:

Asteroids, volcanoes, floods and earthquakes. Anything that the earth or space uses to try to knock us off as a species. We have seen this recently and it may be a harbinger of things to come.

How to survive it:

Move somewhere inland and far away from active volcanoes. For added protection against asteroids the best place will be inside a mountain somewhere. Stay calm and optimistic and you will come out on top in the new world.

What you will need:

A bunker far inland, away from oceans and tectonic plates, preferably built in a mountain of granite. Take lots of supplies and a pile of books; it may take months or years for the chaos to subside.

Neutron bomb

What it is:

A neutron bomb is a kind of nuclear weapon that floods an area with neutron radiation, killing everything without damaging the surroundings.

How to survive it:

In short; you won’t. This thing kills everything.

But if you are lucky enough to be outside the blast zone when it hits you will have a whole city to call your own.

What you will need:

Luck.

Religion

What it is:

Every religion has its own idea about the end of the world; the Hopi Indians believe that the world will be covered in iron snakes, the Norse had an all-destroying battle between the gods called Ragnarok, and Hinduism states that the world will be consumed in a flood.

The Mayan calendar predicts a “great change” for 2012 which many people believe will be the apocalypse.

How to survive it:

Depends on your religion. Judaism, Christianity and Islam believe that believers in their faith will be saved, the others tend not to let people off so easily. Many just believe that everything ends.

What you will need:

A really lucky dice roll to help you decide which faith to join. But the odds are stacked pretty high against us no matter which you get.

Plague

What it is:

The Black Plague killed between 30-60% of Europe’s population in the 14^th century. There are over 225 million cases of malaria every year world wide. Smallpox killed over two million people in 1967.

And these are the viruses and plagues that came about without the help of humans.

These days there are research labs specifically designing new viruses and bacteria for both the betterment and detriment of mankind. One superbug could wipe out all life on the planet.

How to survive it:

For the Black Plague all that was needed was a strong immune system. Smallpox was almost eliminated with the engineering of a vaccine and malaria is now easily treated.

For a super-virus or bacteria, though, there may be no vaccine or protection to be had other than living in a plastic bubble with filtered air.

What you will need:

A vaccine, a hazmat suit or a team of scientists working around the clock on a cure.

Survival Tips (whatever the case)

Be prepared to eat things you never have before:

Rats may not be as appetising as a hamburger but there should be plenty of them around feeding off the old world. And the radiation will have made them grow big enough to feed the whole family.

Not everyone you meet will want to be your friend:

With robots, zombies, aliens, cannibals and bandits everywhere chances are that some of them might want to do you harm or steal your food. Don’t trust anyone.

Romance is not dead, just most of the people:

Don’t let the end of the world ruin your social life. A picnic on the edge of the irradiated lake with your special someone is a perfect way to way to relax at the end of a long day.

And when it all comes down to it; the most important person in the world is you. Hell, you might be the only person left in the world.

Stay informed, stay alert, stay alive.

MUSIC: REM — It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

U2 – Until The End of the World

Donna Underwood has spent her life labelled a freak. As if being born into a family of  alchemists (who all belong to a super secret Order) wasn’t enough, as a child, Donna fell victim to a horrifying Fae attack that cost her both parents and left her with injuries that could only be fixed by magic. This left her hands and arms branded with silver tattoos, just another part of the curse her heritage has handed her. When the same Dark Fae kidnap her best friend, Navin, Donna faces some of her greatest fears and accepts her role in the centuries-old Human/Fae war. With the help of the gorgeous half-fae Xan, Donna races against the clock to bring Navin back home.

The Iron Witch is Karen Mahoney’s first offering to the world of YA and she has certainly hit her mark. A intriguing mix of ancient myths and legends, deep dark secrets and one young girl’s struggle to find her niche in the world, The Iron Witch will give your imagination a healthy work out with its visually rich sights and sounds. The characters are well developed and the plot is clearly defined and laid out right from the beginning, but still holds plenty of surprises. My only gripe was that it did lag a little in the middle but the action soon kicks back into high gear and all can be forgiven. Mahoney has given us insight into the history of Alchemy and its practice and enticed us with glimpses into the workings of the Order, while still holding back enough to keep us guessing.

The relationship between Donna and Navin is sweet and touching and the lengths that Donna will go to save him are a lesson to us all. Donna has a different feel as far as heroines go. Sure, there is the deep loss and the chafing against the rules and path set out for her, but  where others go after the culprits for revenge and gain a harder feel, Donna faces her fears only to save someone else; and you get the feeling that if circumstances hadn’t conspired against her, she would have left well enough alone. The feel of the character is a lot softer and, although I usually like my heroines full on kick-ass, it really did work in this case. I was hoping that Donna would uncover more memories about what really happened the night her world was turned upside down, but The Iron Witch is the only the first instalment in Donna’s journey, with The Wood Queen coming soon; so I hold out hope all the questions will be answered.

The Iron Witch has no overt  horror or adult scenes so would also be suitable for the younger YA age bracket.

The Iron Witch – Karen Mahoney

Published February 8, 2011 by Random House Australia

ISBN: 978-1-86471-827-0

Paperback, 289 Pages

So what in the heck is a grablet??? Well it’s a grab letter and I’ll be offering a limited amount of them to celebrate the launch of Burn Bright. All you have to do is send a SSAE (stamped self addressed envelope) to Burn Bright Grablet, PO Box 5473, Alexandra Hills, Brisbane, Queensland. 4161, Australia. And in your return envelope you’ll get a bookmark, a sticker (see the Stickers Page in[intlink id=”4454″ type=”page”] Extras[/intlink] for other choices), and a signed Glitter Rose bookplate.