Hold Me Closer Necromancer by Lish McBride

Thrill Me

It should come as no surprise that I adore this cover, anything bold and graphical will always get my little reader's heart racing, as opposed to the glut of photoshopped glowing half-faces of inexplicably healthy teens which just leaves me, at best, a little cold and, at worst, insulted. But thankfully there are no pouting My Space girlies here, and why would there be? This book is about a boy, a rather hot boy if the dish on the cover is to be believed. And, er, his crow. Apparently.

Kiss Me

Samhain, or Sam to his friends, has led a rather lackluster existence. Dropping out of college and working full time at the local burger joint, Plumpy's, with his only three friends was not on his list of things to achieve in life. So when an ill advised potato hockey match brings him to the attention of one Douglas Montgomery, necromancer and all round power crazed a-hole. Sam is very surprised to suddenly find a whole world of crazy shiz existing right in front of his face. And now all of it is revolving around him. Disembodied heads that can talk, dancing zombies being sucked out of the ground, little girls demanding waffles in exchange for knowledge on the dead and a very cute werewolf girl all come together when Sam realises that Douglas's offer to train him in necromancy, may not be the selfless kind act he insists it is.

Kill Me

Debut! I have to keep reminding myself this is a debut novel. Because it was so good! Where on earth did Ms McBride appear from with this little gem, and why oh why did I have to pick it up now? When there's no news yet of the next book and I have no clue how long I'll have to wait till it's released? I have absolutely no patience when it's comes to waiting for the next book in a series I love, but as we all know (and so I keep telling myself) absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer feels like a pretty short book mainly due to the fact that we don't get to meat of the story until about halfway through, but Ms McBride is such an natural at weaving interest and humor into the everyday moments I didn't really notice that I had more pages in my left hand then my right when things really began to kick off. Which turned out to be a bonus if you consider the emotional pay back I got from all those pages spent building the characters was huge. Even the characters with the smallest word time were a pleasure to read about and not once did I have any trouble imagining a face or location, Ms McBride has that rare skill with writing that allows you to follow the action perfectly with the bare minimum of words (see also Sarah Rees Brennan and Ilona Andrews).

"Ramon and I started a rousing game of "Guess What I Put In The Fryer."
I closed my eyes and leaned against the back of the shake machine. There was a fairly large plop and a hiss from the fryer. "Pickle," I said. 

"That's uncanny, Sam" Ramon said. 

"Not really. I just helped Frank get the bucket out of the walk-in." 

"Damn," he said. 

After the pickle, a bun, one set of tongs, a spoonful of mayonnaise, and a hat, Ramon ran out of ideas, and I decided not to eat the fries here any more. I stared at Ramon's spatula. 

"Thou shalt not covert thy neighbor's spatula, Sammy.  

"I'm pretty sure that's not in the Bible," I said. 

"How do you know? Have you ever read it?" He slapped a chicken burger on the grill. 

"Not really, but I'm still pretty sure that's not in there" 

"Trust me." he said. 

"Fine," I said, "what version then?" 

"The King Ramon version. Spatulas are considered very sacred in the King Ramon version."
I folded my arms across my chest. "Well, I'm not Christian, so I can covet. I can covet like a fiend.""

Sam himself is rather lovable (and, I thought, a bit of a hottie), despite seeming to be a massive dropout and all round failure. His three best friends make up a fantastically dysfunctional Scooby Gang of sorts and I challenge anyone to read this book and not wish Ramon was their bestie for life, everybody needs a friend who wouldn’t think twice about hitting a rampaging psycho with their skateboard for them. I also adored tough-as-dried-on-porridge Brid, she was bright, optimistic and wasn't afraid to take what she wanted regardless of being stuck in a cage for most of the book, and the scenes with her and Sam? I lived for those while reading this.

So in conclusion, it has action, it has funny, it has romance and it has a genuinely scary bad dude. All this filtered through the sharp pen of Lish McBride make this a must read. And if anyone knows anything about when and what the next instalment will be. Please share the love with me?

The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan

Bring It
Can I just say that normally I am not a fan of real people on covers? They always look so boringly normal and all I usually see is some tarted up 16 year old doing her best Facebook pout. But I don't see that here, this cover is gorgeous. That girl is totally Sin (look at her smoldering defiance and tremble!) and the burning London background is so very dramatic. And for a Super Bonus Cover Prize, this actually happens in the book! It is so rare these days that YA covers represent the story inside so well and look awesome at the same time.

The Nitty-Gritty
Sin loves the Goblin Market, it's been her home since she could crawl and, apart from her little siblings Todd and Lydie, dancing there is the most important thing to her in the world. She was all set to inherit it from Merris, the current leader. But now Merris has offered the place to Mae as well, a girl who is no more then a tourist and who only ever discovered the market because of Alan and Nick Ryves, Sin's allies in the Goblin Market's war against the Magicians. Now the Magicians have set their eyes on completely destroying the Market and everybody Sin loves. Reluctantly she turns to the Ryves brothers for help, which is less then ideal as she already feels like she owes Alan everything for saving her little brother life, and Sin hates owing debts. Especially to know-it-all, charming liars like Alan Ryves.

Bullseye!
So this is the last book in a trilogy and I can't really go into how good this book was without giving away some small spoilers. So if you haven't read The Demon's Lexicon and the The Demon's Covenant go do that now and you can thank me later.

Where to start? How about the fact that this book followed Sin, a character I hadn't really paid much attention to in the first two books. Mainly because she didn't feature as much as the others and also because she always came across a little prickly and cold. So I was a little surprised when I found out the final book followed Sin, and perhaps a little disappointed? Surely, I thought, the third book should have followed Alan? Nick then Mae and finally Alan, this made sense to me because I liked Alan and he was such a main character. But I needn't have worried, Ms Rees Brennan has clearly saved the best character for last. Sin is amazingly likable, admirable even. I may have developed a small girl crush (not unlike Mae) on Sin because she's just so awesome. She loves her little brother and sister and takes care of everything for them while still going to school and dancing at the markets all while dealing with the fact that Merris (a woman she has looked up to all her life) has invited a demon to share her body and is slipping away from Sin day by day. Oh and the fact she is now in direct competition for the leadership of the goblin market with Mae, a girl who has only been to the market four times.

Despite this Sin and Mae still maintain their easy friendship and I was so glad the story never got bogged down with misunderstandings or unaired suspicions. When Sin has very good reason to suspect Mae is actually a danger to the Market, she doesn't keep it to herself letting mistrust fester between them, she lays it out for Mae and asks for the truth. Which was so refreshing! The dialogue in this book is, at times, a little quippy for my tastes. But then I'm not a super master with twin blades or a sword so who knows? Maybe if I was I'd also have time to lay out some comedy gold between taking out enemies.

"She hadn't heard Nick move, but suddenly he was pushing past her, blade in hand, running towards the sound of the gun. Sin hesitated and then ran after him, through the pathways round the wagons to the other side of the hill. She was pulled up short by the dead body at her feet.

Nick was already kneeling by he body, his hand against its chest. He looked from that dead thing up at Sin, and he smiled a wild smile that made him look handsomer than she'd ever seen him.

'You can't be sure it was Alan'

'A shot in the dark, through the heart?' Nick asked. 'I'm sure.'

With some people it was a voice they would recognise, with some people a step in the hall. Sin guessed it was fitting that Nick could look at a corpse and see his brother's skill."

The action is as exciting and fascinating to read as before, it whips along so fast but Ms Rees Brennan writes such detailed explanations that you don't ever feel lost or confused while devouring the pages. In fact I think she writes some of the best fight scenes I've ever read and whatever she goes on to write next I hope she fills it with her awesome brand of fisticuffs.

I was also glad to see that the relationship between the brothers was just as strong in this installment as in the others, they don't have as much page-time together as before, but they're still scene stealers. Especially Alan who spends much of the first two books lying so convincingly to everyone you never really know what he's ever actually like. But Sin (or Cynthia as he insists in calling her) is more then a match for him when it comes to fibbing and together they both begin reveal more of themselves to each other through their lies, so much so that I became rather attached to the pair of them, which was a sneaky underhanded thing for Ms Rees Brennan to do as this book is the last in the series and now I want more!