A Darker Shade of Magic by Victoria Schwab

Magical and exciting! Another winner from Victoria Schwab.

Imagine if you had magic: the ability to travel from one parallel universe to the next. Pretty awesome, right? 

Welcome to Kell's everyday life.
At first a slow start, I found myself soon wrapped up in Kell's plight. His troubles begin with his irresistible urge to collect items from the other Londons that he visits. Tricked into smuggling over an extremely dangerous magical item, Kell must rise to the face the consequences or risk losing his London, as well as the others.

Schwab gave great details and emotional connections in this book that helped bring the different worlds to life. I could almost feel the dustiness of Grey London, the chill of White London, and the glow of the Red London. It was fascinating to know that each was connected, but became unconnected when Black London became corrupted and devoured by it's magic. Each character was unique, strong, and brave in their own way, but Schwab built powerful connections. I simply loved Kell and Lilah. Lilah is so headstrong and spunky, it's hard not to like her! I was easily ensnared, with the strength and connection of them, and there were plenty of things left open to amp up excitement for the next book.

Lauren - 4 stars  

Shit is going down!! Feb 2016! 

The Unbound by Victoria Schwab

5 stars

Love the matching theme cover, I must say!

(sequel to The Archived)

No sequel trauma here! What a knockout!!

Back with our independent heroine Mac, we start off with a new beginning, a new territory: school. Mackenzie is trying to cope with the trauma she experienced in the previous book with Owen, while attempting to take control of her life. Easier said than done in her case.

She finds it of course difficult since she suffers from morbid night terrors involving Owen that start to bleed into her waking life making her wonder if she's slowly going insane. What's especially difficult is that she can't show weaknesses right now since her job as a Keeper has been put on the line. 

To add to the mystery and chaos of it all people are disappearing and their only connection is to Mackenzie. 

Dun, dun, dunnn!

The Unbound round house kicked me in the face with awesomeness. We get more character development, more action, more mystery, and more layers of the "Archive" onion peeled away to reveal that there is more to this library of the dead than we could have ever hoped for...

For fellow Mac and Wes fans, I'm pleased to announce that they grow much closer in this book! (Finally!) 

Once again, I'm left dying for the next in the series, because everything was raw and intense. You feel Mac's pain, anxiety, and terror throughout the book and the ending leaves such promise for the third.

The Archived by Victoria Schwab

5 stars

Look at that cover!! It's freakin' fantastic!

AHmazing!! I am so happy this book 
lived up to my expectations!

If you don't read this book you will be missing out. In my perspective, this book was a whole new view on the dead. This isn't about ghosts, and it isn't about a troubled teenager. It's about life, death, and something more. 

That's right, there's more!

So you have the three main "worlds" in this book. 

You have the Outers, everyday life for us normal beings. 

The Narrows, in my head I pictured a sort of go between for these different worlds for it has many doors and one narrow hallway like description with fog and darkness. 

Then you have the Archived, a library of dead people called Histories. 

Histories can awaken and they slip, where they start to lose themselves and their eyes become all black, it sounds pretty creepy. Mac's job is to find these histories and return them to the Archives. Sounds mundane, except that when they slip they can become violent and Histories don't bleed and are strong which ups the danger and excitement of this story!

What makes this book such a winner is the fact that its creatively imagined, the story is kept interesting because the apartment that Mac lives in has a dark back story of it's own which keeps the background intriguin. You also have a mysterious conflict and I loved the characters, and just when you think you know everything, there is much more to it than you thought you knew!

Just blew your mind there.
 All the excitement, mystery and action is why I can't wait for the second book, plus I want Wesley and Mac together. No lie.
The only complaint I have are that I pretty much figured out the villain right away. <spoiler>It had to be who I had priginally suspected, because the character was too...vague. We only knew that he/she was a sad character who had a somewhat mysterious past. 
I found Mac to be a strong heroine, defiant, and funny. I also thought the grief in this story was appropriate, not too whiny or clingy, but a family trying to recover from a harsh loss. The climax was awesome and blew my mind, especially when some of the clues were pieces together to reveal the "final form," as I'd like to put it.

The characters are wonderful and well developed as well. I simply adored Roland. Wes is pretty funny but I love Roland hands down. Just had to put that in there, that this book earns its fifth possibly secret sixth star for Roland. He is such an awesome character, I mean any character who wears Red Converse is just amazing automatically! I'm happy to find that Victoria Schwab has made another winner.

My review to the sequel, The Unbound.

Vicious by Victoria Schwab

4 stars

 I love the details in this cover. Amazing art!

Victoria Schwab has fast become one of my favorite authors. 

From the Near Witch, to The Archived, and now Vicious, I have to say that she writes engaging stories that absolutely thrill.

With her newest adult fantasy novel, Vicious, we are introduced to a new creative world. She gave a whole new spin to the idea of superheroes or ExtraOrdinaries (EO's). I loved how in this book, technically nobody is the good guy.

Both Eli and Victor have their dark sides, both have killed people in the pursuit for something bigger and greater.

The story swings between past and present and pulls together as we collect the little pieces of the puzzle to Victor and Eli's tale. A few chapters help us get to know the side characters like Mitch, Sydney, and Serena, in more depth.

Victor and Eli become involved in the study of Eo's and how they come into existence or whether or not they actually exist. After discovering how people attain their unique gifts, which is very fascinating and creative, they decide to take it a step further and experiment on each other to in order to attain results.

It's here that things start to get ugly and our characters begin to change. The boys split ways; Eli begins his killing spree and Victor his life in jail. Then the story amps up when Victor escapes from said prison, and picks up a stray on his pursuit on Eli who is trapped in his God mode.

The story dragged just a little at some parts, but I was otherwise highly entertained. (Out of all the characters I found Sydney to be my favorite!)

The ending was brilliant, and left it open in a way that was satisfying in my opinion. To others, possibly not so much, but this a book that's meant to be given a chance!

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

This cover is simply gorgeous.
4 stars

I'm pretty sure this is Schwab's debut book, and I loved it!

A story told in a different time, where women's rights were pretty much non-existent, and men were jerks all the time, magic was considered witchcraft, even evil.
 Lexi is a strong willed girl in a small town, she loves her sister and mother will all her might, and doesn't seem to fear witches as much as other townfolk do. They even have a an old story of the old Near Witch, she calls to you on the wind, but you must never answer. Then things start to get interesting, when Lexi meets a young boy who seems to disappear on the wind. 

 Magic!

Children in the town start to disappear,
 and Lexi fears the worst and knows she must investigate before her sister is next.

Such a good book, appropriately creepy and spooky! I adored the love story behind the action and mystery. You'll fangirl over Lexi and Cole too once you see them together!  The characters are well defined, you do have some of your typical cookie cutter types, and the development was intriguing! Truly a fun read!