Outcast: A Darkness Surrounds Him
Robert Kirkman
Genre(s): Graphic Novel, Horror, Supernatural
Published: January 15th 2015
Pages: 152
Rating: 4 stars

“Kyle Barnes has been plagued by demonic possession all his life and now he needs answers. Unfortunately, what he uncovers along the way could bring about the end of life on Earth as we know it.”

Outcast promises demons, horror, and the impending apocalypse. I'd expect nothing less from the creator of The Walking Dead, and the first few pages are enough to raise your hopes for the rest of the series. They're sufficiently horrible and compel you to read on.

Our main character, Kyle, is first introduced as a brooding slob, and rather than put me off, it made me curious. Just what have the demons in his life done to make him live in such squalor? Are these demons inside him? Those he loves? Or are they just in his head? We get answers when he has a run in with the local reverend, but they still manage to create more questions. Just what is up with Kyle?

The artwork is fairly simple and I can't quite tell if I like it or not. It's not overly cartoonish, but at the same time it's not totally realistic, either. There's minimal shading when it comes to clothes, and some larger panels lack finer details. The full pages, however, do deliver more in these departments and the landscapes in general seem to have more detail than the people. Mixed feelings aside, the colour scheme throughout this volume is fantastic. Each issue seems to have a different main colour which is nice as it gives you more of an idea of when things begin and end, but as a whole nothing feels out of place.

There's a lot of talking and a smattering of action in this volume, but it doesn't drag or come across as boring. Yes, some of the speech is rather deep and philosophical - which seems out of place in a graphic novel but actually ties in nicely with the theme of demons - but it feels somewhat necessary. While this is set in our world, it feels like a world of its own and some degree of setting up is required.

Overall, this is an interesting volume and a good set up for the rest of the series. I'm excited to read more.

Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

Witch Hunter
Virginia Boecker
Genre(s): Fantasy, Supernatural, Young Adult
Published: September 1st 2015
Pages: 409
Rating: 2 stars

“Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Grey doesn't look dangerous. A tiny, blonde, wisp of a girl shouldn't know how to poison a wizard and make it look like an accident. Or take out ten necromancers with a single sword and a bag of salt. Or kill a man using only her thumb. But things are not always as they appear. Elizabeth is one of the best witch hunters in Anglia and a member of the king's elite guard, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and bringing those who practice it to justice. And in Anglia, the price of justice is high: death by burning.

When Elizabeth is accused of being a witch herself, she's arrested and thrown in prison. The king declares her a traitor and her life is all but forfeit. With just hours before she's to die at the stake, Elizabeth gets a visitor - Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful wizard in Anglia. He offers her a deal: he will free her from prison and save her from execution if she will track down the wizard who laid a deadly curse on him.

As Elizabeth uncovers the horrifying facts about Nicholas's curse and the unwitting role she played in its creation, she is forced to redefine the differences between right and wrong, friends and enemies, love and hate... and life and death.”

The blurb for Witch Hunter makes it out to be a thrilling fantasy book, filled with magic and witches, suitable ‘for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Holly Black’. In reality, it’s a mishmash of historical fiction based around witch trials, fantasy but with a ban on magic, and – of course – a traditional young adult romance with plenty of butterflies and longing.

Our main character, Elizabeth Grey, is supposedly the best witch hunter in Anglia. I say supposedly because within the first few pages she makes a mistake in arresting a group of necromancers, and it’s revealed that she’s made several more before. Nobody is perfect, but if you’re going to call yourself the best then at least be the best. To me, she felt like a Celaena Sardothien wannabe. And not a good quality one, either.

After her mistake she’s soon found with some witch’s herbs and arrested, her punishment being death. Ironic, huh, that the girl who hates magic so much would turn to it in her time of need. It seemed very convenient to me, as it resulted in her being rescued by – yeah, you guessed it – witches in order to get the plot rolling. The aftermath of her arrest also seemed far too contrived, and much too over the top for what she was convicted of, making things hard to take seriously.

However, even though the plot was reached fairly quickly (which in itself was an issue for me, I wanted more background into Anglia and its laws and how magic worked) it didn’t really seem to do anything. I wasn’t gripped. Elizabeth was annoying – constantly whining about Caleb and how magic is such a terrible thing. Which I can sort of see, seeing as magic was responsible for a plague throughout the kingdom. What I find hard to see, though, is why so many people were keen for the bans on it to be lifted.

All the way through Witch Hunter I was left wanting to know more backstory, get more character development, and just be immersed fully into the world. It all fell very flat, focusing more on the love triangle and Elizabeth’s thoughts. The writing wasn’t thrilling enough to pull this off successfully, so reading felt like more of a chore to me.

I didn’t hate this, but I also didn’t like it.

TBR Feature #14

TBR Feature is the chance for me to, every Wednesday, pick one of my unread books and discuss it: why I picked it up, when I'll get round to reading it, if I'm still interested in it at all etc.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtwon by Holly Black

Book Review: So... I Met a Vampire by Paul McAvoy

So... I Met a Vampire
Paul McAvoy
Genre(s):  Paranormal, Supernatural
Published: July 18th 2015
Pages: 180
Rating: 2.5 stars

“On a foggy morning, thirteen year old Jessica wakes up in a strange forest, not knowing how she got there, but with a feeling she is being watched. Helped to a local police station, memories start to come back, about where she has been the last few days… She remembers a deal she had to make to stay alive… to obtain a small bottle of vampire’s blood. With the use of a magical phone, her journey takes her to the English Lake District, a lonely Scottish village and the bright lights of New York. She meets mysterious men who work for a secret government organisation and a vampire who seems willing to help, but is he and his teenage vampire friends to be trusted? On the run, she must reach a government hide out before her adversaries catch up with her and take her to a realm of darkness and blood…  ”

A copy of this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review

From the start, things looked interesting and promised to be good. The tone of the story was set early on, as was the scene. I instantly got a sense of foreboding and air of creepiness, with the narrator struggling to remember things and talking of drowning. However, I do think there was an overkill of ellipses in the initial setup. They’re good for creating suspense and uncertainty… when they’re used sparingly.

I’ll admit that I was surprised to discover that the narrator was female as she didn’t read as female at all to me. It wasn’t something I minded; in fact it was quite refreshing to read a character like that. She came across as quite smart and I liked the way she kept calm, despite what had happened to her.

The writing style was easy and pretty fast to read, with good variation in regards to sentence length and structure. Nothing was jarring or choppy, yet nothing dragged on and on either. I did, however, notice a few more poetic and metaphorical lines had been included every now and again, and these felt a bit off to me. It wasn’t that they were bad, they just didn’t fit the tone and overall style, in my opinion. 

The dialogue could be a bit more refine, and it was here that my biggest problem emerged. Adults didn’t read as adults; they came across as childish and trying too hard to be funny. There were also times when I found it difficult to follow conversations (but that may just have been me and nothing to do with the dialogue). Contractions needed to be used more often to make some sentences less formal and stilted, especially when the young narrator spoke.

I’m not entirely sure of the intended age range of this book, but to me it came across as children’s or young teen paranormal fiction. I don’t have a problem with that, but it was a bit of a surprise after the initial setup, as things did seem to take a bit of an odd turn, most notably when Jessie gets set her three tasks. 

Overall, this had its ups and its downs. There were moments I thought could have been better and moments that were action-packed. Some of the more action-packed scenes did feel a little out of place next to the more subdued parts, but in the end it wasn’t a bad read. That being said, I did prefer So... I Met a Demon.

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Book Review: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Heir of Fire
Sarah J.Maas
Genre(s): Fantasy, Supernatural, Young adult
Published: September 11th 2014
Pages: 562
Rating: 4.5 stars

“Consumed by guilt and rage, Celaena can't bring herself to spill blood for the King of Adarlan. She must fight back...

The Immortal Queen will help her destroy the king - for a price. But as Celaena battles with her darkest memories and her heart breaks for a love that could never last, can she fulfil the bargain and head the almighty court of Terrasen? And who will stand with her?”

I'll admit, I was nervous about Heir of Fire even before I picked it up. I'd heard loads of reviews raving and praising it, but then I'd also heard some that felt a bit let down by it. Considering how much I loved Crown of Midnight I was hesitant to start this for fear of it making me fall out of love with the series.

The very first chapter did confuse me a bit. Celaena's behaviour and the way she interacted with Rowan when she first met him did mean I had to read the scene several times over in order to fully appreciate it. Whether this was because I'd left quite a while between reading this and the previous book (I know, I know: I do this all the time and I need to stop) or whether it was because she was in a new place with new people, I don't know. However, things definitely started to pick up and peak my interest a few chapters later, with the introduction of Manon. 

I enjoyed the introduction of new characters and settings, I felt that it really set the way for the second half of the series and made me really interested in what could happen. I also think that it really changed the tone of the series as a hole, making it sound more mature and more like epic fantasy. While the first two books were very fun and light, Heir of Fire was decidedly heavier and more serious.

That being said, it didn't hinder the enjoyment for me. Meeting Rowan and Manon and Aedion made me excited and further proved to me that Sarah J. Maas knows what she's doing. I found original characters more developed and found myself liking Celaena more now that she wasn't acting so spoilt. 

The thing that I did have problems with, however, were how sometimes Maas' writing felt a bit choppy and disjointed and the scenes with Dorian and Choal. There were a few times where I had to re-read sentences or scenes because I couldn't make sense of where a character had gone, who had said what, or what was going on. Despite that, I did enjoy the writing style overall. I also found Dorian and Chaol's friendship to be more strained - which was understandable, but I really enjoyed that in the first two books, so in this I didn't really like how they seemed separate. Their scenes were also boring compared to Manon and Celaena's. Chaol's I understood as they gave information and more political plot, but Dorian's I found to be more filler material.

Nevertheless, I did really enjoy Heir of Fire, and it was only those little picky things that pulled my rating own from a full five stars.

Book Review: So... I Met a Demon by Paul McAvoy

So... I Met a Demon
Paul McAvoy
Genre(s): Paranormal, Supernatural
Published: August 9th 2014
Pages: 190
Rating: 3 stars

“In a small English town, the residents stay clear of a rundown house they call Spook House. Things have happened there, bad things the locals never talk about. Young Ben sees a girl in the garden of the house one day... a girl who says she is trapped... a girl no-one else can see but him. Concerned, his parents forbid him to go near the place. The girl appears once a year, for the next six years, never ageing. She is held there against her will by a power greater than anyone could imagine... Can Ben help set the girl free from the clutches of Spook House?”

A copy of this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review

I have no trouble in admitting that paranormal and supernatural are not some of my favourite genres. I've read a good amount of both, and I've found a few hits amongst the many misses. So... I Met a Demon falls in with the hits.

The beginning held a bit of mystery, which I liked. It made me want to find out who the narrator was and what they were talking about. I found that the sentences were a bit choppy at times, but overall I enjoyed the descriptions and could put any disjointedness down to the early chapters setting the scene. And perhaps a need for more punctuation (I'm no grammar expert, but some of the pauses were in the wrong place for me, and sometimes I paused naturally where there was no punctuation). The dialogue felt a bit forced and too formal, considering the main character was only young at the start of the story, but not much time was wasted in jumping into the main plot, and I liked that. I don't need to hand around for a million chapters and countless descriptions before actually being introduced to the titular subject.

I thought it was interesting that the main character was so young (and a boy, there are so few male protagonists in the supernatural and paranormal genres). The only books with young main characters that I've read have been children'r or middle grade books. it was nice to read an adult - young adult? I'm not sure - book with a main character under the age of sixteen. I found it made things a little less contrived and I was very interested to see how someone so young and seemingly average would deal with a demon, as it's no secret how dangerous and tricksy demons can be.

The writing did remain simplistic throughout the book, making it a quick and easy read that didn't require a lot of thought to get into. However, the dialogue also remained quite forced and formal, and that was the thing that I had the most trouble with. It could have been greatly improved by simply using contractions more often. Don't reads much smoother than do not, and also feels a lot more natural, too.

Overall, thought, I did like So... I Met a Demon. I feel that with a bit of fine tuning it has the potential to be even better, but as it stands, it was a quick read that I don't regret.

Paul McAvoy and his work can be found at...
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