Book Review Wednesday: Anna’s Adventures (The Sarah Milton Chronicles)

This one is a short read, but definitely worth it if you liked the humor in the Sarah Milton Chronicle books – which by the way I wholeheartedly recommend. It’s an expansion of events mentioned in the second book which were only mentioned in passing. And it’s really really funny.

Link to my review of the first book: https://samaustinwriter.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/book-review-wednesday-reading-the-dead-5-stars/

Link to my review of the second book: https://samaustinwriter.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/book-review-wednesday-reading-the-dead-fidelis-in-aeternum-4-stars/

The humor of the series reminds me of Buffy. Some may see something different in it, but that’s how I view it. Now I know there are those who hate buffy humor with a passion, in which case this may not be up your street. For my fellow buffy fans who have not read these books, click on the above link to read my review of the first book in this series.

By this paragraph I’m going to assume you guys still reading this have read at least one of the Sarah Milton books and know what I’m talking about. If not prepare for confusion.

Anna gets the front seat in these stories. The first is her point of view of the night the “Fancy Dress Killer” almost killed Sarah. This was mentioned in the first book and detailed pretty explicitly in the second, so not much new here. Still was interesting to see Anna’s side of things though.

The second story is the real prize. This one takes place during Sarah’s dad’s wedding which was mentioned in passing in the second book. It’s kind of like Casper meets Home Alone, and this one was hilarious.

Two criminals have the bright idea to infiltrate the wedding to try and steal money from the house while the guests are busy shedding tears over the vows. Anna just so happens to spot them and takes it upon herself to teach them a lesson.

This was pure unadulterated fun, so don’t expect anything serious from that story and you’ll enjoy it.

For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20693234-anna-s-adventures

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Book Review Wednesday: Girl of Nightmares (4 stars)

A few months ago I reviewed ‘Anna Dressed in Blood.’ Here’s the review for those that missed it: http://wp.me/p3Wf30-1l

I gave it five stars, it was that good. So of course when I heard about the sequel I had to read that too. Girl of nightmares wasn’t quite as good as the first book, but it was a decent enough book. What I liked about the first book is that Anna is genuinely scary at times. Too many times in paranormal romances the supernatural guy or girl seems like a normal if overdramatic brooding teenager. Anna doesn’t really brood that much, even though she has a lot to brood about: being dead for one thing, being made to pull people apart against her will, and the horrible event that led to her being how she is (revealed in the first book).

My first problem with the second book is that there isn’t much Anna in it. For most of the book she’s only there in bits and pieces. Now this wouldn’t be as much of a issue if our main character Cas had more direction, which leads us to my second problem with the book: Cas wanted to find Anna, sure, but he kind of meandered about for most of the book. He was all angst ridden and not doing much.

I think it would have been better if he’d had more of a journey to go on to get Anna back. Instead most of the book is him being angsty and asking people for clues, them saying ‘there’s no way,’ repeat a few times, and then out of the blue a clue lands in his lap, and he goes on a simple trip and gets his answers without much struggle. It was too easy. There’s some friend issues to deal with as conflict, but it didn’t take my mind off the lack of conflict in his journey to find a way to get Anna back.

Now after he finds his answers he gets conflict in bucketfuls . That’s where things got really interesting. The first chunk of the book wasn’t too bad, but the last chunk was awesome. The conflict was back and it was huge: life or death, and even bigger than that. There’s this heartbreaking decision he has to make near the end that had me on the edge of my seat.

My verdict is if you liked the first one, read the second. It isn’t as interesting, but does get better toward the end. And it has the same lovable characters that made the first book so enjoyable.

In case you want to read more reviews on this book follow the link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12507214-girl-of-nightmares