As I Lay Reading

Book Reviews & Occasional Author and Book - Fangirling

Veiled by Karina Halle – Book Review

November 13, 2017 By Kellie Leave a Comment

veiled karina halle book cover

Veiled by Karina Halle is the much-anticipated spin-off book from Halle’s Experiment in Terror (EIT) Series.

I cannot lie, I was so eager for this book! I scoured the internet for two years, trying to find any updates at all. I think Karina mentioned that the book was going to be released shortly after the final EIT book but she may very well have been burned out on writing paranormal romances for a while. All I can say is this book was worth the wait.

This book features Perry’s younger sister – Ada. Ada Palomino is now 18 years old.

When the book opens, we find that Ada has just finished her senior year of high school and has been accepted into a prestigious fashion school. Though she has always been a bit more level-headed than Perry, in the two years since her mother’s death, Ada has struggled at life emotionally. She struggles with depression and is kind of reckless. She leans heavily on Perry and Dex during this time.

Enter Ada’s re-occurring dreams, this is where the nightmares begin. Every night Ada dreams that her mother is being tortured in the afterlife and that she is not in heaven but somewhere in the veil. The veil is the world that separates earth from heaven and hell. As Ada tries to make sense of her dreams, in walks the ever handsome Jay.

She met Jay briefly at her sister’s wedding but hasn’t seen him since. He re-appears along with some mysterious new neighbors who might hold the key to making sense of Ada’s dream. As things get deeper with Jay, she discovers he has a dark past. Is the darkness behind him or is he the entity Ada should fear?

Spoiler Alert! My review continues below and may contain spoilers. If you do not wish to be spoiled, you can jump to the rating.


 

Even though Karina Halle took a short break from her Experiment in Terror characters, she jumped right back in as if no time at all had passed. Dex and Perry were not featured as main characters in this book. However, we got to catch up with them in this book. They took a backseat to main character Ada but their inclusion felt organic and not forced.

Ada’s relationship with Jay, while fast-forming, also seemed to clip along in a very natural wave. Though I was a little skeptical in the beginning (this is a standalone novel for now) about the impending instant-romance, to me, the connection made sense.

It was also nice to see some of the beloved characters from the Devil’s Metal series (which, I have read but not yet reviewed). It’s really neat how Karina Halle managed to build this universe inclusive of Jacobs, demons, the veil, and characters with paranormal superpowers!

My only frustration came in when Ada finds out that she is supposed to be this badass all-powerful demon slayer. The only trick up her sleeve is that she can put up crazy strong mental walls to block out the monsters. So, it’s like she can hide. We all know that Karina Halle can set up some suspenseful frightening scenes. So, I found myself anxious whenever Ada was approached by a demon or was forced to fight one. She never felt “ready” to me, even when she was supposed to be. We had some mentioning of her training with Jay but I never felt very confident overall that Ada was going to achieve badass status by the end of the book. There was a lot of “telling” not “showing” that she was powerful. I really wish this part had been fleshed out a little more so that it could be a bit more believable.

Other than that, I read this book fairly fast. It was that good. I couldn’t put it down.

I *think* I remember reading an article somewhere that mentions Veiled will become its own spinoff series. Though it did not end on a cliffhanger, the characters were left very open-ended, so this could easily turn into a series.

My Rating for Veiled by Karina Halle

Jodi Picoult’s Leaving Time

June 4, 2017 By Kellie Leave a Comment

Jodi Picoult - Leaving Time

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult is a pungent novel that centers around 13-year-old Jenna Metcalf and the relentless search for her missing mother, Dr. Alice Metcalf after a tragedy struck at the Elephant Sanctuary 10 years ago.

Dr. Alice Metcalf is an esteemed scientist who studies the behavior of African elephants. Throughout the story, we learn that she has lived in Africa and that her last known location was an elephant sanctuary where she raised her daughter Jenna and lived with her husband, fellow scientist, and researcher, Dr. Thomas Metcalf. One night, tragedy struck as one of the caretakers in the sanctuary was trampled by an elephant and Alice was taken to the hospital with some serious injuries. She left the hospital in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Alice’s husband, Thomas, had a psychotic break, which landed him in a psychiatric hospital.

Jenna Metcalf lives with her maternal grandmother and visits her father regularly. In the first few chapters of the book, we learn that Jenna is saving up enough money to hire a private investigator to investigate the disappearance of Alice Metcalf. A case, which has been cold for 10 years. Jenna decides to find the lead detective – Virgil Stanhope – and ask him some questions, hoping he can shed light on her mother’s disappearance. Jenna finds Virgil but he’s not in great shape as he favors the bottle to help quiet his demons.

Virgil, feeling haunted by Dr. Alice Metcalf’s disappearance, decides to help Jenna. Maybe solving this case once and for all will grant him the redemption he has been desperately seeking.

Jenna also comes across renowned psychic Serenity Jones, who rose to fame by using her gifts to find missing persons. However, an incident in Serenity’s not-so-distant past leaves her feeling broken and not up to the task of finding Jenna’s mother. However, this band of misfits knows that they need one another if for nothing else than to fill the voids that are within. So, they set out on the journey to find Jenna’s mother.

Disclaimer: I review and discuss the book a bit more thoroughly beyond this point. Book spoilers may happen! So, if you don’t want to be spoiled, skip down to the rating. 🙂


Jodi Picoult has been one of my favorite authors since 2008 when I found one of her books in my local library and checked it out so that I could take it with me to read during the downtimes in the hospital after I had my 3rd child.

One of the things I most love about her books is the honesty with which she writes. Each character truly has a different personality, a different set of values and she does a great job of setting the scene. Interestingly enough, even though Jenna is arguably the main character here, I feel like we’re really reading Alice’s story. We switch back and forth from present time / Jenna’s point of view to the past / Alice’s point of view as seen through her journals.

Also, elephants! I have always found elephants to be so fascinating and majestic but haven’t done much research on them past what most people probably know. I loved every fact about elephants that was included in this book! There is so much beauty in how an elephant lives its life – from the way they raise their young, interact with their herd and grieve their losses.

Aside from the elephants, the character that I was especially enamored with was the character of Serenity. Once a legitimate psychic, living the good life and using her gifts to aid in high-profile missing person cases, she loses it all one day. Yet, throughout Jenna’s search for her mother, we see that Serenity starts to get some of it back. Serenity is a good person who has simply lost her way.

It seemed like this book centered around finding what was lost. Virgil needed to get back to having faith in himself, Serenity needed to find her way back to her gifts and Jenna needed to find her mom.

In conclusion, just when it feels like we’re heading down a never-ending rabbit hole without a true resolution, in true Jodi Picoult fashion, we get our resolution in the most shocking yet satisfying way possible.

This book is not one I could easily put down. I thought about this story long after finishing it. Well done, Jodi. Well done.

My rating for Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

5 star rating for The Changelings

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