Reviews written by Alanna Shaw

Where to begin with this one? Yikes… I knew pretty early on that this was going to be a big, steamy pile of werewolf poo. It was an easy read, so I was able to fly through it, but the story never got better. By the end of the first...

I have mixed feelings for this one. On the positive side, it is a FANTASTIC love story. Absolutely gripping. You can feel the passion radiating from the pages. Hot and steamy. Stiefvater’s writing style is wonderful as well. There were parts of the book that were almost poetic the prose...

It’s hard to say what I liked most about this book. Let me start by praising the author. Beth Revis has a beautiful writing style. It’s poetic at times without being wordy or flowery. It’s simple and dramatic. Poignant. I also...

I already announced that I thought this book was cute when I did my mid-book review. The premise behind a blood intolerant vampire strikes me as pretty darn funny. Of course, I'm the type of person that will smile at the mentioning of diarrhea and corny jokes in novels....

This was such a fun read. It's certainly a new take on the Medusa story (no turning people to stone here or slithering tresses). I am such a sucker for myth retellings, and this one did not disappoint. I LOVED the characters. Well, most of them. For...

I do love a good, thought provoking novel. When I picked up The Eleventh Plague, I thought it was going to be a zombie novel. I mentally prepared myself for rotting flesh and gore. Apparently, I misread the synopsis, or else read it when I hadn’t had my morning...

Eh. I was SO into this book until I hit the end. What a disappointment. I can't begin to tell you how irritated I get when books end abruptly in the middle of the climax. That is such a no-no. I was fuming. Seriously. My husband was driving the car...

There are several things in life that I find hard to resist: shoes, free books, and retellings of fairy tales. A True Princess (Diane Zahler) was a quaint retelling of the classic fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea.” Unlike the well-known fairy tale version, however, this retelling is packed...

It is a well documented fact that England, during the 1500s, faced many foes. The Pope and the Spanish empire were both displeased with the newly appointed Queen Elizabeth. But who would have thought that Queen...

Brigitta and her younger sister, Himalette, are the only two faeries in their entire village of White Forest that have not been affected by a mysterious curse. During the preparations for the annual festival, every living being in the White Forest is turned to stone. Brigitta suddenly finds herself faced...

Kate Winters has spent the last four years of her life taking care of her sick mother. Now, her mother has decided she wants to return to her home of Eden, Michigan for one last time before she dies. Kate isn’t thrilled with the idea of moving from New York...

The story begins with Lisa’s attempted suicide. Before she can overdose on her mother’s pills, Death intercedes and appoints her as Famine. She thinks she is dreaming, until she notices a large, black horse living in her backyard and Famine’s scales sitting on her kitchen table. At night, Lisa takes...

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and people all in a row. Not exactly the nursery rhyme that we remember from our childhood, right? In S.A. Bodeen’s The Gardener, this is exactly the type of garden found inside of The Greenhouse...

Sadie has spent the three years since her mother’s death moving from one foster home to another. She is labeled crazy by her peers and the adults in her community because she refuses to believe her mother is truly dead. After all, there was no body found at the scene...

After 62 years of “sleeping” in a stass tube, Rose Fitzroy is awakened. To her horror she has found that everyone she once knew has died. She is a foreigner in a new time. She doesn’t fit in with her new surroundings, and she is terribly out-of-date in both fashion...