The title got me going on this book. A killing in the hills evokes images of houses hidden away in remote places and some seriously not nice things happening to the occupants. It seems I’m not completely off target with this tale of how drugs can leave their mark on small back water communities.

“Bell Elkins left a broken teenager, savaged by a past she couldn’t forget. But, as prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, Bell is back and determined to help clean up the only home she has ever known.

As winter sets in and her daughter is witness to a shocking triple murder, Bell finds her family in danger. Can she uncover the truth before her world is destroyed again?”

Acker’s Gap, in my mind, is one of those picture postcard towns you pass through to get somewhere else. You promise to visit someday, but never do. I like to imagine what life would be like for people who live in places like these, because for at least 6 months I was one of them. Living in a sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it town is generally pretty quiet, but in comparison to my peaceful experience, Acker’s Gap is on its way to hell, complete with a road paved with good intentions.

The setting really holds its own and adds its own brand of stumbling blocks, due to remoteness and socio-economics.

The relationship between Bell and her daughter, Carla, is at times excruciatingly awkward, and I seriously doubt (hope!) if any teenager would actually behave as Carla did. Mum is a workaholic and I find it incredulous that nobody tells her to take one darn minute and just listen to what Carla has to say.

I flew through this stand-alone book in less than 48 hours and though some sections were a tad slow, it mainly bounds along at a steady pace. The body count is getting up there and the gore is nicely shocking.

So if you’ve ever wondered like I have, about the people, who live in those small towns, give A Killing in the Hills a read. This book would be perfect for those long nights by the fire at the most remote Bed and Breakfast you can find.

Paperback, 272 pages

Published August 30th 2012 by Headline (first published August 21st 2012)

ISBN 0755392868 (ISBN13: 9780755392865)

Today Krista reviews a very special new e-book and audio book written and performed by the amazing Suzie Plakson.

Suzie is an actress, singer and now a writer. We recommend you listen to the audiobook version which is narrated by Suzie and is simply quite amazing.

Marianne met Suzie at Supanova in 2012 and was struck by her wonderful sense of humour, kindness and shining talent.

Here at Burn Bright we’re very happy to be spreading love for her project. Some people need to be heard, and Suzie is on of them. Please share the news of her book on your websites and social media.

“Blue sixteen! Blue SIXTEEN! hut, hut HUT!”

The pigskin snaps into the hands of up and coming quarterback Quentin Barnes with the speed of a bullet, passed not by a fellow human, but from an insectoid-alien the size of a small Volkswagen. The future of the human race is in space, where there is adventure, war, awesome technology, and American football.

This is Scott Siegler’s epic story about a backwater planet former-slave-turned-football-star in an incredibly complex and antagonistic universe united only by an immense love for the sport. As soon as the story begins you are immersed in a world in which different galactic governments and empires are being held together by fragile peace treaties, while an abusive but cunning and very sneaky race of little furry critters called Creterakians (don’t let their cuteness fool you, they’ll kill you if you breathe the wrong way) maintain overall control of the galaxy.

To try and maintain the peace, the Galactic Football League was created to forge, strengthen and keep friendly relations between other races and factions. Somehow, this crazy idea worked, and Football has become the strongest factor keeping everything going.

What makes this story so special is the way the author has blended together elements from real life (such as sports, racial tension, and religious conflict) into a much bigger scale (the galactic scene) with only the GFL keeping everything together through games. So big is football in this story that one particular race (you’ll have to read to find out which one!) considers it an actual religion (with some players actually having Churches in their name).

If you’re a sports fan and you love sci fi (or maybe just one of the two!), pick this baby up. You’re in for one hell of a ride, and quite possibly a tackle from an 8 legged linebacker.

http://scottsigler.com/books/the-rookie

Sixteen year-old Adelice is a Spinster. She can weave time and matter. But no one knows just how talented she is….

The Guild demands loyalty, and everyone has their secrets. But Adelice is about to unravel the deadliest one of all, a sinister truth that could destroy reality as she knows it….

Once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.

Months prior to it being in my hands, Crewel had the advantage of containing several of my personal literary ‘buzz words’ – namely “weave” and “spinster”. I was envisioning some sort of take on the Fates of Greek mythology, intercepted with commentary on female roles and functions in society. Needless to say, I allowed myself to build up my own idea of what this book would contain, and perhaps that was my downfall. While I certainly can appreciate the original elements and unique world-building that Albin employed, Crewel was sadly a case of having set my expectations too high.

An interesting blend of genres – at once dystopia, science-fiction and good old fashioned fantasy – Crewel essentially adheres to many of the trappings of other young adult titles in these genres, but occasionally takes some surprising, somewhat unexpected turns. The action takes place in the universe of Arras, a baffling futuristic society in which women are once again designated to the second-class citizens, serving only as wives/mothers, secretaries or in the revered position of a Spinster. A Spinster weaves time and space – the very matter of Arras – and as such has control over life and death, creation and destruction, all living and physical things. Nothing can exist in Arras without the work of a Spinster; in theory, they play God. However, as our protagonist Adelice is to learn, they are not in possession of any true power and things are a great deal more oppressive within the Coventry than they are outside of its walls.

I really wanted to empathise with Adelice; I truly did. The poor girl is not in control of her seemingly astonishing weaving abilities, and these lead inevitably to her separation from her family, the murder of loved ones, and the loss of her personal and social freedom (what little there was!) However, Adelice was nothing if not inconsistent as a character for me, leaping from being rather shallow and self-centred to more proactive and aware without much growth in-between. And in what actually proved a problem for many characters, her rather ‘modern’ attitudes and opinions were, rather than comforting and familiar, far too at-odds with the world she would have grown up in. At times, it felt as though Albin was hesitant of providing her cast of players with beliefs and ideas that might sit uncomfortably with a reader but would maintain coherence with Arras as a society. This was quite disarming, especially towards the novel’s beginning, when the world was still being gradually revealed piece-by-piece.

The romance of the novel also fell quite flat for me, as is often the case: there was a somewhat forced attempt at a love triangle, which I am never a fan of, with Adelice juggling between her more superficial attraction to the cocky Erik and her ‘deeper’ connection to the stoic, Jost. Throw in the unwanted attentions of the villainous and older Ambassador Cormac and there were simply far too many men interested in this girl for me to find it at all credible! Cormac at least, in his bad guy role, was slightly more consistent that most other characters, and despite the stereotypical attributes, I found some of his brutal honesty refreshing, as did Adelice. Side characters such the loyal Enora and the allusive mentor Loricel could have been much more than their designated functions  – and at times they almost got there, which was tantalising but ultimately frustrating.

The overall tone of the novel never felt as though it had been decided upon exactly; there were moments where I thought Albin was reaching for some social commentary and some rather sweet and considerate messages about sexual and gender equality. So many themes were possible in this particular universe that she crafted; I am just very sad that there weren’t explored as deeply as they could have been. Of course, this is only the first in a series, so perhaps I am judging too harshly, too quickly. The world-building itself was also somewhat confusing for me; depictions of the weaving in particular were fascinating yet unrelentingly vague. I wanted so badly to get a clear image of how this skill worked and formed the world of Arras, but it never came to light for me. Perhaps I am simply too restricted in my imagination to glimpse it, which I regret!

I will probably give the next instalment in this series a whirl, just out of curiosity, but I still can’t help wishing that the Crewel I had formed in my head was the Crewel that I held in my hands.

Crewel – Gennifer Albin

Faber and Faber Limited

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ISBN – 0374316414

369 pages

October 16th 2012

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“The carnival pulsed in the centre of The City – a swirl of masked pleasure and violence. All around the carnival, transactions of varying degrees of legality and ethical questionability were happening. The City wasn’t a world that seemed beautiful to everyone. It was their world, though”

As an avid fan of Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series, as well as her short stories, I was eager to pick up her latest YA title, Carnival of Souls, especially as it was a departure from her work with fae, instead focusing on daimons and witches (her adult novel, Graveminder, focuses on revenants/ghosts, so Marr is close to tackling all the popular supernatural creatures!) Having recently read and enjoyed Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, I was also momentarily convinced that this novel might house a similar atmosphere – especially as it seemed that masks were involved.

But where Morgenstern concerned herself with performance art in the traditional setting of a touring circus, Marr’s carnival was a decadent, dark and violent market of sorts, trading in all forms of nefarious wares, and basing itself around the bloody and brutal ‘Competition’. This where many readers might well draw comparisons to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, as two of our protagonists are contestants in this ‘Competition’, fighting fellow daimons often to the death for the chance to raise their social status and gain access to a better life.

Both Kaleb (daimon) and Ayra (part witch, part daimon) fight for very different reasons, and with contrasting methods, but ultimately their motivations are to gain wealth, social freedom and personal success. You can certainly empathise with them both to a certain extent, with Kaleb wanting better living conditions for lower-caste daimons and Ayra wanting independence and power as a female, but personality-wise both characters struggled to deliver enough likeability and warmth for me to connect to them.

The same could also be said of the novel’s third protagonist, the ‘human’ teenager Mallory. Marr initially sets up to focus more on Mallory’s narrative in the real world, which would be an understandable touchstone for the reader in between the fantastical setting of the Carnival. However, Mallory quickly fades into the background, all the while seeming to shift personality traits and attitudes, resulting in a very inconsistent portrait. The romance between Mallory and Adam was also tinged with some troubling power dynamics, which could never fully be explained away by the daimon lore that supposedly governed some of Adam’s decisions.

I have always always respected Marr for presenting readers with incredibly flawed, morally grey characters, but for the most part, almost everybody in Carnival of Souls was either insanely self-centered, astoundingly naive, or just unnecessarily cruel. I wanted to understand them and their motives but it was quite a struggle.

The overall feel of the novel was one of incompletion, which makes me wonder if perhaps many changes were made in between the proof I read, and the final published product. It just felt like I was simply looking upon the skeleton of the larger work; there was too much repetition of phrases and sentiments, too much inconsistency between the shifting points-of-view, too vague a construction of the mythology concerned, and too little control in the tone of the piece for it to be satisfying. I have no doubt, with its themes of forbidden love, struggles against tyrannical power, and a bloody battle between mythological beings, that Carnival of Souls will find fans in many readers. I just wish I could have been one of them!

Carnival of Souls – Melissa Marr

Harper Collins Australia

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ISBN – 0061659282

306 pages

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September 4th 2012

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