Scarlet

Title: Scarlet

Author: A.C. Gaughen

Series: Scarlet #1

Genres: Adventure, Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Romance

Publisher: Walker Childrens

Released: February 14, 2012

Pages: 292

Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com Many readers know the tale of Robin Hood, but they will be swept away by this new version full of action, secrets, and romance.
Posing as one of Robin Hood’s thieves to avoid the wrath of the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only the Hood and his band know the truth: the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. Helping the people of Nottingham outwit the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham could cost Scarlet her life as Gisbourne closes in.
It’s only her fierce loyalty to Robin—whose quick smiles and sharp temper have the rare power to unsettle her—that keeps Scarlet going and makes this fight worth dying for.

For Fans Of: The Wicked and the Just, Guilt, A Breath of Eyre, Finnikin of the Rock

My Review: I absolutely loved this book. I love the Robin Hood retelling and this was one of the best. I'm a huge fan of the BBC's version of Robin Hood, (which everyone should go and watch) which focuses on heroines rather than just the heroes. So that is why I really loved Scarlet; it focuses on Will Scarlet who is a girl posing as a boy and her dealings with Robin Hood and his band of thieves, Little John, Much and Friar Tuck. Through out the whole story, we are left wondering about Scarlet's elusive past, which comes back to haunt her when Guy of Gisbourne suddenly enters her life...again.
I liked this book because it focuses on Scarlet and she is a strong, kick ass heroine who doesn't need men to take care of her. She knows how to fight with knives and is quite skilled with a bow (but not as skilled as Robin) fast and quick on her feet. She is stealthy, has ears for useful information and is the best thief in the county. Besides being a strong heroine, I like that she stays true with her feminine side. Rather than cutting her hair to take on the whole persona of a boy, she keeps her hair long and dresses as a girl to go to church in secret.

One thing I didn't like was the love triangle among Robin, John and Scarlet. I wouldn't call it a love triangle; however, it was just awkward and I felt like it got in the way of the story. I felt like there should have been either romance between Scarlet and one of the lads or no romance at all. I highly recommend this book and I am currently reading the sequel Lady Thief. 

 

Fracture

Author: Megan Miranda

Series: Stand Alone

Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult, Supernatural, Fantasy

Publisher: Walker Childrens

Released: 17 January 2012

Summary: courtesy goodreads.com Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?  Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?  

For Fans Of: Existence, The Alchemy of Forever, and The Catastrophic History of You and Me

My Review: Fracture was a hard one for me, mainly because I felt like there were two warring plot lines that didn’t feel like getting along.  One was a paranormal, ghost story, first love sort of thing and the other was a girl trying to figure out what exactly has happened to her.  A lot of books have competing plot lines, but for some reason in Fracture, it doesn’t work.  The reason, in my opinion that they don’t work is because Miranda skims the surface of both without making either the dominant.

Is Delaney somehow a paranormal anomaly now?  Or is she just crazy?  I felt like her condition was never really explained and that things were all over the place.  Like a parent trying to keep a child under control.  That’s how this plot felt to me.  Like someone was constantly getting reigned back in.  Although I really liked the idea, it almost had too much basis in the realm of reality that when the paranormal stuff was introduced I had a hard time believing it.  This also made it hard to get behind any of the characters.  Delaney makes a lot of lame decisions concerning Decker and Troy and I get that she is just a girl trying to figure things out, but seriously.  Another love triangle?  Why not just axe Troy, he was annoying and vindictive and kind of a creeper anyway.

For a novel about death, that is sort of similar to this I would go for the Soul Screamer series, because although they aren’t exactly the same at least the plot isn’t all over the place.