Title: Shutter
Author: Courtney Alameda
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA Horror
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: February 3rd 2015
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: ARC received from publisher in exchange for an honest review

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Horror has a new name: introducing Courtney Alameda.

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat—a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.

When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before . . . or die trying.

Lock, stock, and lens, she’s in for one hell of a week.



I am usually not one for horror...of any kind. But when I saw the reviews come in for Shutter I knew I had to read it for myself, and let me tell you I will never look at a mirror or armoir the same again. This book is one of the most graphic YA horror books I have read in a very long time and it is definately not for the faint of heart.

Shutter follow a young girl named Micheline who is a decendant of Van Helsing and is tasked with capturing ghosts and other supernatural creatures. What I think I liked the most about this book was how different it seemed. She doesn't capture the ghosts ghostbusters style, or even ghost whisperer style. She uses a camera flash. I though this was brilliant and it made for great reading. I can't really say too much else about the plot because there are so many twist and turns that I would just be giving away the book. But I will say this. I loved Micheline. She was badass! I loved that she was so secure in herself that she would do whatever it took to fix the situation they were in, even when no one else thought she could. I also loved the way she interacted with the other characters in the book. Ryder, the love interest was sweet but ultimately a little boring overall. I loved Jude because he was hilarious and full of sarcasm. He brought much needed humor to this otherwise very grim story. Then there is Oliver. He was s sweet and I loved that he was a brainiac that knew almost anything. It was a great dynamic throught the book. Everything worked.

The writing is superb in this book. The author does a great job blending scienticifc and historical facts with those of the plot and it makes for a very interesting read. I will say that at times, it was hard to follow with all the different lingo that was used, but after a while I just got used to it. When the author was described as the new face of horror, they were ot wrong. She is brillaint at teh gore and the disgusting and I seriously cannot wait for more from her.

Title: The Fall
Author: Bethany Griffin
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA Horror, Retelling
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Release Date: October 7th 2014
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Source: eARC received from publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review

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Madeline Usher is doomed.

She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin.

Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.

In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.


I really do not know how to review this book, because the more I say about it, the more I will ruined it for those that want to read it later. Well first off let me tell you that this book is capital C Creepy. While I was reading it I think I had a permanent weirded out look on my face that my husband questioned on an hourly basis. This creepy factor was the best part of the book because it kept you guessing from beginning to end. At time I had no idea what was going on and I felt like i was watching one of the horror movies I seriously hate because they scare the crap out of me!

My favorite part of the book were the characters. Of course we have our usually characters. the Family itself, but there was another character that I loved even more. The house. Throughout the book it became its own kind of character and I love that. It added another part of the mystery and it became something we dreaded as readers because every time the house was mad, something horrible would happen. This was the best part of the whole reading experience because this character was the most unpredictable of them all. We had no idea what was going to happen and it was that unknown that made this book as creepy as it was. The mystery element of the curse upon the Usher family and what that means for Madeline and her twin brother. This mystery curse kept me reading until the end because I wanted to why it effected every generation of Usher so strongly.

The writing style in this book was one of the things that took me out of the story on more than one occasion. I was not a fan of the flow of the book because I found it hard to follow at times. It was very disconnected and all over the place at tomes and n the end it left me feeling quote distracted. I usually love Bethany's writing but this time I was a bit disappointed. I wanted more from the story itself and in the end the writing style is the reason I gave the book threatening I did.

Title: Mary: The Summoning
Author: Hillary Monahan
Series: Bloody Mary #1
Genre: YA Horror
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Release Date: September 2nd 201
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Source: eARC copy received from publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

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There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her.

Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them--Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna--must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go.

A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror.

Once is not enough, though--at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary's wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered.

A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary--and Jess--before it's too late?



I love horror books, especially in the YA genre. The funny thing is I HATE horror movies, so when I come across one in print form I always seem to gravitate towards it because I am in need of a good scare. Mary: The Summoning was a book that was on my radar because it has to do with the Bloody Mary myth that we all grew up, and yes I have tried it, and no nothing happened :)

I will admit that this this book was not the best horror book i have ever read, and yes I had a few issues with the overall book, but let me tell you think. This book is grade A creepy. I mean there were some parts that I read where I cringed because it was just so disgusting. I loved the fact that the myth surrounded a group of friends and because of what was happening t them it became a strain on their friendship. I think I liked that the most was how real the friendship seemed and how the arguments and strains seemed so real.The only aspect of the friendship that I didn't like was the fact that there was one friend that seemed to not care as much as the others and cared  more about herself than her friends and I wasn't a fa of that characters and therefore didn't connect with her at all.

I will say that Shauna, our narrator was a great one. I really enjoyed her take on the whole situation and I loved seeing how much she cared for others, which was a great and refreshing thing to read. There were times when I couldn't really relate to her on the level i wanted that meant that at times I didn't connect with the story overall. But I will say that the horror aspect of this book was bang on. I loved everything to do with Bloody Mary and what happened to those girls when they called upon her. I just know that after reading this book I will no longer be going into bathrooms and chanting her name.

Title: The Merciless
Author: Danielle Vega
Series: The Merciless #1
Genre: YA Horror
Format: Hardcover, 279 pages
Release Date: June 12th 2014
Publisher: Razorbill
Source: Bought

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Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned

Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.

Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.

Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls . . . unless she wants to be next. . . .

In this chilling debut, Danielle Vega delivers blood-curdling suspense and terror on every page. By the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?
 

This book is CREEPY. I feel like that is all I can tell you about this book because if I say anything else I will ruin the surprises that seem to come with every chapter. I loved the tone of this book because it was not at all dark at the beginning. It actually felt like your regular YA contemporary where a girl moved to a new town and has to find her way around a new school, and find some new friends. And that lead to some bad friend decisions (they were obviously not who they said they were), which then read to some pretty freaky shit (them being obsessed with paying for their sins). There were times when I literally convulsed from repulsion of some of the things that happened in this book. They were so gross that I will not explain them here, you will just have to read the book and find out for yourself.

I loved teh characters in this book because they were so vivid and so VERY different from each other. I think they all were character extremes of friends we all have and put them in a catholic setting and you get characters getting aught up in sins, witchcraft and murder. There was one character that to me made no sense and that was Charlie. He was a boy that our main character Sofia meets on her first day of school, and they continue to flirt etc. But because the book was mostly about Riley, Alexis and Grace and their friendship with Sofia and how that friendships can go to the extremes i felt like Charlie didn't matter to the story at all. I didn't think he contributed enough to the story to be relevant and although I liked the added love story to this mostly dark book, I felt it stood out like a sore thumb.

The Merciless is not for the faint of heart. This book is dark, and has some very gross descriptive parts. The end in particular was gruesome and a little jarring. I did not see it coming and honestly it made e super excited for the next book because I need to know what happens to Sofia! This book is a horror so beware of that but I loved it and would recommend to all that love the genre!

Title: Sea of Shadows
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Age of Legends #1
Genre: YA Fantasy, Horror
Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Release Date: April 8th 2014
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Source: ARC received by publisher in exchange for an honest review

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The first book of a bold and hugely anticipated new YA trilogy by the phenomenal Kelley Armstrong.

In the Forest of the Dead, where the empire's worst criminals are exiled, twin sisters Moria and Ashyn are charged with a dangerous task. For they are the Keeper and the Seeker, and each year they must quiet the enraged souls of the damned.

Only this year, the souls will not be quieted.

Ambushed and separated by an ancient evil, the sisters' journey to find each other sends them far from the only home they've ever known. Accompanied by a stubborn imperial guard and a dashing condemned thief, the girls cross a once-empty wasteland, now filled with reawakened monsters of legend, as they travel to warn the emperor. But a terrible secret awaits them at court--one that will alter the balance of their world forever.


Starting to read this book was very hard for me, and it is probably not the reason you think. It was not because I was afraid of Sci-Fi, or the start if a new series, it was because it was written by one of my favorite authors of all time; Kelley Armstrong. I have read and loved everything that Kelley has written so far, and my fear was that I was not going to like it as much as her other books. I hate not loving a book by a favorite author, and that was my fear going into this book. But thankfully I was worried for nothing and I loved every page of this book.

This is not a genre that I am great at reading, it can be very touch and go for me, and I will say that more often then not, fantasy mixed with a bit of sci-fi can be dangerous. But honestly I think that this book is a great start to a brand new series that follows twin sisters who have extraordinary powers. I loved the creativity that Kelley had with the world that these twins live in. Not only was there magic and mystery but it also had disgusting creatures that both frighten and enthrall the reader. I loved reading about this world and what it was capable of.

This book is told from both girls' POVs and I loved that because they were separated for most of the story therefore as a reader we got to see two different sides of the same story and that was great to read. I love being able to see different sides and figure out what will happen next. And I will be honest I never actually figured out what was going on until Kelley decided to show me, and I will say that I was surprised!

Kelley has always been good at writing romance, and I honestly loved that this book was not focused on that. Although it was prominent at some points, most of the story was about the love these sisters had for each other and how that love drove them to find one another in the end.

Overall this book is a lot darker and more horror-like in genre than most of her other YA novels but I think that the grotesque elements brought this book to a whole new level for me and I loved reading it. I seriously cannot wait for the next book!