'Vampire Academy' by Richelle Mead

(who doesn't love a good graphic novel?)

I first picked up my copy of "Vampire Academy" by Richelle Mead back in 2008. When everyone - including myself, was going through the "Twilight" phase. Don't get me wrong, it was a good time (I still have all my Twilight books and no shame)

I didn't think I'd like this series, to be honest. I was too in love with Edward and Bella's story to care about anyone else. That was until I discovered Dimitri and Rose. Needless to say I soon forgot about Bella and her moaning and groaning over the love of her life and fell head over heals in love with Rose Hathaway - badass strigoi hunter!

For those who don't know, this story is about best friends, Lissa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway - Lissa is a Moroi princess and Rose who is a Dhampir. To explain quickly, the Moroi are "good" vampires. Although they drink human blood to survive, they try to live as normally as possible. Unlike traditional vampires, the Moroi can die and they can each use one of the main elements - Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The Dhampir's are half-human, half-vampires. They are trained from a young age to protect the Moroi against the "evil" undead vampires, the Strigoi. They are more like the traditional vampires. They can't go out in sunlight. The live off blood and they are immortal.  You know, the normal vampire stuff.

Rose and Lissa live in St. Vladimir's Academy. This is where most of the story is set. I don't want to give too much away if you haven't read it but I would highly recommend it. It's an adventure packed story with badass vampire hunters, hilarious wit, and of course an epic love story (or two) 

Book Review: 'Say Her Name' by James Dawson

Title: 'Say Her Name'

Author: James Dawson

Publisher: Hot Key Books

Date Published: 2014 

Number of Pages: 285 

Plot: 'Say Her Name' is a story about a girl named Bobbie and her two friends who are dared on Halloween night to say "Bloody Mary" five times into a candlelit mirror in the bathroom of Piper's Hall Boarding School for young girls. Something is called forth that night and Bobbie and her friends find themselves being haunted by something dark and evil. She is just out of sight, lurking in the shadows of their bedrooms, waiting in the reflections of mirrors. They can't get away from her, and she wants revenge. 

Thoughts: I have read a lot of scary books but this one takes the cake. Holy Crap! I started this on Halloween and I couldn't sleep that night for fear of Bloody Mary climbing out of my bedroom mirror and killing me. No Joke. I have a very over-active imagination. I was glad this book only took me two days to finish because I was scared out of my mind reading it. This is my first James Dawson novel but it definitely will not be my last. I loved his writing style. I got so involved with the story and the characters that hours went by and I hadn't noticed that I was reading for so long I thought the romance was nice and normally I don't like romance in horror books but I really liked what Bobbie and Caine had. Mary scared the life out of me. Although I thought the ending was great, I would like to know more about the history of Mary in this story. I would like to know why she ended up haunting people when they called her name into a mirror, but I suppose my over-active imagination will have to do. 

4/5 stars for 'Say Her Name' by James Dawson. 

Sailb0atScream

If I'm being honest, this has to be like my tenth blog... but c'mon, I can't be the only person online who has a lot of blogs. Between tumblr, wordpress and now blogger I've gone through a lot. It's not because I have nothing to write on these blogs, trust me I have plenty to write about. It's finding the time. Between work, studying, and trying to have a social life, blogging was just second to these things. But over the past few months my creativity hasn't been the highest. This could be down to me leaving art college 4 months into it and then having my life flipped upside down, but tonight as I listened to sad Joshua Radin songs I realized that I should put my racing thoughts down somewhere. Somewhere I can try to make sense of them. So here I am.

Hi. I'm Kayla. A self-proclaimed blogger. I have a black cat named Purrlock Holmes and she sleeps in a giant pink slipper. I unfortunately do not solve crimes with her, but we take the odd selfie titled "Purrlock and Watson" because almost a year after finding her, I still find that amusing. I buy a lot of books and my "to be read" pile grows bigger each week... I have a problem. I am a fan of Jon Snow and I like things with maps on them, mostly due to my love of traveling. I like to pretend I'm a photographer with my fancy canon camera but at the end of the day I'm just a hipster with an instagram account. I'm sure some people are laughing at the fact I admitted to being a hipster. So please feel free to join me trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, what book to read next, who my least favorite character in The Walking Dead is and whatever extraordinary adventure Purrlock Holmes gets up to next!

- Kayla