Review: The Kiss by Lucy Courtenay

Publication Date: July 2^nd 2015
Publisher: Hachette Children’s Books/Hodder Children’s Books
Length: 336 pages

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Children’s Books/Hodder Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

'Aphrodite kissed a mortal once by the light of this moon, many thousands of years ago. It drove him crazy. The next person that he kissed - boum. The craziness travelled like this from person to person. It travelled through time. Everywhere - boum! Tu comprends?' 'Where did it end up?' I whisper. His lips are on my cheek now. 'It ended with me. And now I am going to pass it to you. You will like that, mermaid?' Imagine the perfect kiss. A legendary kiss that makes people crazy with love. Imagine a summer's night, on a moonlit beach in the South of France, as French boy Laurent kisses 16-year-old Delilah after the best chat-up line she's ever heard. BOOM! Delilah is pretty sure the Kiss is fiction, despite her head-spinning holiday fling. But with all the sudden crushes, break-ups and melt-downs happening back at home, the Kiss starts looking a little too real for comfort. If only Delilah could keep track of where it's gone ...Who knew one kiss could cause this much trouble?

This is another case of a blurb not doing a book justice. I was curious based on the blurb, but not sold. And then I read the first few chapters and the dialogue was so cringe worthy that I very nearly put the book down and moved onto the next one. But it was a quiet Sunday so I figured I would persevere and see what happened. And you know what? I am so glad I did.

The first few chapters were not great, and they were almost enough to put me off, and sadly I think enough to put a lot of people off. However, get beyond those to when Jem is introduced and suddenly the book gets a whole heap better. The magical properties of the kiss take more of a backseat and the book becomes focussed on Delilah’s life, her problems, her friends, and how she tries to juggle/fix everything whilst it falls apart. I found that aspect much more interesting than the kiss, which fades into the background and then makes a reappearance right at the end. However just because the book gets better when Jem is introduced, don't assume that the romance is all there is to this book. It's a great story about problems faced by most teenagers that include love, friendships, money and bad relationships as well as finding yourself and being the best possible version of you.

My three gripes were the terrible first few chapters and the occasional lapses into truly cliché and awkward dialogue, and how the adult characters weren’t fleshed out at all. For example Delilah’s father loathes that she wants to get a college education – why? We never find out why, what the backstory or motives for that were and that really frustrated me.

However I loved Delilah, how she was a control freak desperately trying to keep her and her friends lives together and forced to take a step back and start again when it all fell apart. I loved her friendships and I loved the romance. Jem was a truly fantastic love interest. And I loved how she pulled her life and mistakes back together at the end to have a truly fantastic finale.

This is a fantastic quick read that once you get past the stumbling block of the opening is a wonderful summer romance. This book definitely surprised me and whilst I was skeptical going in, I am so glad I stuck with it.

Review: The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

Publication Date: June 4^th 2015
Publisher: Hachette Children’s Books
Length: 368 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Your greatest enemy isn't what you fight, but what you fear.
Elizabeth Grey is one of the king's best witch hunters, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and doling out justice. But when she's accused of being a witch herself, Elizabeth is arrested and sentenced to burn at the stake.
Salvation comes from a man she thought was her enemy. Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the kingdom, offers her a deal: he will save her from execution if she can break the deadly curse that's been laid upon him.
But Nicholas and his followers know nothing of Elizabeth's witch hunting past--if they find out, the stake will be the least of her worries. And as she's thrust into the magical world of witches, ghosts, pirates, and one all-too-handsome healer, Elizabeth is forced to redefine her ideas of right and wrong, of friends and enemies, and of love and hate.

When you put comparisons to Game of Thrones and Graceling on the blurb for a book, I’m going to go in with very high and excited expectations. Unfortunately comparisons like that tend to end up as reader bait, rather than because the books bear any sort of resemblance, and ‘Witch Hunter’ is just such an example.

The blurb (plus the comparisons) had me very excited going in, but unfortunately the book really didn’t live up to any expectations I had and I ended up feeling incredibly disappointed and frustrated and nearly gave up on the book half way through.

This was due to terrible pacing, truly awful dialogue and a protagonist who suffers from a terrible case of one dimensionalism. There was nothing that made Elizabeth feel like a real person, I never got a real sense of who she was, what she wanted, anything that made her into anything more than a cardboard cut-out. She supposedly has these extraordinary fighting skills – she’s supposed to be the best Witch Hunter there is – but she never shows that. We see her in two fights, one where she accidentally kills someone and the second she just ends up hair pulling and slapping. Not exactly living up to the hype. She let’s herself be pushed around and manipulated and never seems to possess anything remotely resembling a spine. Where are the strong heroines I was promised? Don’t make comparisons to two novels with incredibly strong female characters if you then can’t deliver.

In fact all of the characters were cardboard stereotypes, none of whom had enough going for them to lift the novel up into something readable. The dialogue is awkward and cringe worthy, and we never learn anything much about any of the other characters. They’re just there to provide background decoration, fluttering sensations in the stomach area and occasional pieces of information.

The plot wasn’t much better. The ban on the magic is unexplained and that leaves a lot of gaping plot holes all over the place so that the story trips over itself several times. As a result the story is clunky and frustrating and never feels remotely believable. The pacing also leaves a lot to be desired as nothing really happens for the first three quarters, other than Elizabeth mooning over two different boys and a lot of wandering around the countryside, hair pulling and pretty dresses. None of that is enough to lift the novel up into something interesting to read and when the climax hits, it is too little too late.

All in all this was an incredibly disappointing read. All of the promise in that blurb and none of it is delivered. Terrible pacing, awful characters and dialogue, I was left feeling sorely disappointed by this one.