The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called "Le Cirque des Reves," and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway--a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per-formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
My Rating: 2.0/5
Genre: Fantasy, Adult, Contemporary
Hardcover, First Edition, 387 pages
Published September 13th 2011 by Doubleday
Darkness never dies.
Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.
The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her--or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.
My Rating: 2.9/5
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal (Magic)
Read from November 9 to 24, 2014
Hardcover, 358 pages
Published June 5th 2012 by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.
My Rating: 2.9/5
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia
Read from October 9 to 15, 2014
Paperback, 487 pages
Published February 28th 2012 by Katherine Tegen Books (first published April 25th 2011)
Then.
When Sam met Grace, he was a wolf and she was a girl. Eventually he found a way to become a boy and their love transformed from curious distance to the intense closeness of shared lives.
Now.
That should have been the end of their story. But Grace was not meant to stay human. Now she is a wolf. And the wolves of Mercy Falls are about to be hunted in one final, spectacular kill.
Forever.
Sam would do anything for Grace. But can one boy and one love change a hostile, predatory world? The past, the present and the future will all collide in one pure moment - a moment of death or life, farewell or forever.
Paperback, 416 pages
First published July 12th 2011
My Rating: 2.5/5
Genres: Fantasy, Young-Adult
Read from 23 August to 26, 2014
