Saturday Pages: ARC Review of Compulsion by Martina Boone!!

Hello there guys!

This week's Saturday Pages is a bit later than usual because I was supposed to write this review last night, but I was way too tired to write a coherent review for it!

I was so surprised in the best way when Simon Pulse approved my request for Compulsion on Edelweiss! Thank you so much Simon & Schuster! I finally got to read it during my flight from Chicago to Atlanta on my way back home from vacation. As an ARC it counts towards my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge!

Compulsion by Martina Boone

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I fell in love with the cover for Compulsion and the very intriguing summary, so when I was approved by Simon Pulse via Edelweiss for an eARC I was elated!

I really enjoyed the story and the setting, even though if I felt as frustrated as Barrie was in the beginning, because you feel like there's so much more behind all that is presented at first and you need to know!

Barrie is a girl that might have been a bit hard to understand, given the way she was raised and what she was dealing with, a dead mother and a dying godfather that sent her to the place her mother was born and lived and where whatever is left of her blood family lives. Watson Island, and she is a Watson. She has social anxiety, and isn't used to change, so all the new people and the changes she has to face by leaving the only home she ever know are extremely hard on her.

There are so many unknowns for her, about her family history, the history of the small town and of the three families that were the founders of the town, the Watsons, the Beauforts and the Colesworths. She tries to make her own choices without letting the generations old prejudices colour her opinions, but she discovers that there's more than just prejudices and that the "compulsions" are as real for the others as it is for her, with her "finding lost things" gift (or curse).

I loved the atmosphere and finding out about the history of the three families and the legends and reasons behind the different curses/gifts. I kept turning pages quickly hoping to get more hints and more insight and I was a bit annoyed at the swoon-worthy Eight Beaufort and Aunt Pru for failing to realize than information is power and you can't expect Barrie to like being in the dark!

Barrie might be trying to overcompensate on her anxiety by being rather rash and headstrong a few times, and that ends up landing her in situations that are rather dangerous. With what she doesn't know and how she seems to be determined to not listen... well, she gets a few hard lessons and finds herself entering bargains that she doesn't know the first thing about!

Barrie and Eight (no, that's really not his name, but everyone calls him that; yes, it took me a while to stop either snickering or rolling my eyes at seeing Eight as a name, even if it's not a name; and yes, it makes sense him being called Eight) have a great teasing and flirting relationship, and even though at some point you feel like pushing their heads together and say "KISS ALREADYYYY!!!", it is a fun relationship to see develop.

We don't get all the answers, and given that this is the first book in a trilogy, it does make sense. But we do get quite a bit of information and we get resolution for a few of the family mysteries and ghosts in Watson's Landing.

A great read that will have you turning pages and rooting for Barrie and Eight and a few mysteries that you won't see coming too easily. Very well deserved 4 stars and I cannot wait for Persuasion!



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Saturday Pages: ARC Review of Winterspell by Claire Legrand!!

Hello everyone! Happy Saturday!

How's your weekend going? Mine is going pretty well, losing sleep while devouring an extremely captivating book and finding myself actually swooning with a character like very few times (Jamie Frasier the Highlander is quite something!!) and today I'm actually off to have a girl's pampering day with one of my besties, as an her early birthday gift for me!

But I have a review for an ARC as this week's Saturday Pages and it's quite a great one! I was very lucky indeed to be approved this one by Simon & Schuster via Edelweiss for this one on my second try! As an ARC I'm also counting this one for my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge!

Winterspell by Claire Legrand

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Winterspell was one of those highly awaited books that I was beyond happy (and surprised!) that I got the chance to read and review ahead of time. I requested it via Edelweiss and was declined the first time, so imagine my surprise when I tried again and was approved for it!

Since I knew there was a prequel novella coming out, I decided to wait to read it after I had read the novella, and I think it was quite the right choice! Reading Winterspell will spoil the story of Summerfall for you, and it was fantastic to discover Cane before the war and gave a much different and welcome insight to what's going on in Winterspell too.

Winterspell starts with a hint at Cane but with the focus on Clara Stole and her struggle to feel safe in her life in New York. Her mother recently dead, murdered, and her father folded in grief and a puppet of the mob, she struggles to keep herself and her sister safe from some very dark characters that are her father's "allies".

Clara is quite a complex character, she has an inner strenght and resiliance that seems to fly out of the window when confronted with some dark (and frankly scary) characters, but I couldn't blame her for feeling terrified of a certain Dr, he's a character that would make you shiver in anger and fear all at the same time. She's had a bit of an unusual upbringing with her Godfather, a very curious man that was a friend of her mother's and that has been telling her stories and training her on self defence since she was little.

I had began to wonder what the connections with Cane would be and where on the storyline after Summerfall we'll land with this one, and even if I didn't get my curiosity satisfied all too soon, I was treated to great storytelling and retelling, with some really interesting twists to the Nutcracker story thrown here and there!

Once Clara finds herself in Cane with Nicholas, she is thrown straight into a most dangerous game, war and dance of deceit, doubts, misplaced trust and self discovery that culminates on meeting Anise, the current queen of Cane and a half breed (that we met if briefly in Summerfall). Anise was a fascinating character, mad as a hatter and full of hate it seemed on the surface, but with a much unexpectly softer and fragile core that we barely get to glipse here and there. I found Clara's relationship with Nicholas and Anise both extremely interesting and well done, both serving to further the story and to help grow Clara's character to the savior that Cane needed.

The writing was gorgeous and captivating and I'm very much willing to read anything that Clare Legrand would write, and even if this one stands very well as a standalone, with an hopeful & open ending but satisfactory enough, I would also see enough openings for maybe companion novels or at least novellas, there's a lot of Cane that can be explored I'm sure!

A wonderful retelling that doesn't requite any knowlegde of the original story to be enjoyed, but those who know about the Nutcracker will find themselves delighted in the way that Clare has twisted the story in her own way. Very well deserved 4 to 4.5 stars to this one!



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