Recent Arrivals chronicles the books that have made their way onto the Today, I Read… bookshelf. Here’s the latest arrival: Underworld by Meg Cabot

First paragraph: "Pierce keeps having the most terrible nightmares." My mom used to say this to all the doctors we saw right after the accident. "She talks in her sleep–sorry, sweetheart, but you do–about a boy following her. Sometimes she even wakes up crying. It doesn’t seem normal. I’ve never had dreams that vivid."

Initial thoughts: I literally squealed like a little fangirl when this arrived on my doorstep. And I love that cover—it’s much shinier in person. Thank goodness I keep a book summary journal* because I only remember a few bits and bobs of Abandon, but I remember enough to know I enjoyed it**, so I’m looking forward to reading the continuation of Pierce and John’s story.

Book description:

Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera isn’t dead. Not this time.

But she’s been taken by John Hayden, lord of the Underworld, to the dim, twilit place between heaven and hell, where the spirits of the deceased wait before embarking upon their final journey.

John claims it’s for her own safety, to protect her from the Furies who yearn for vengeance against him. But John may have reasons of his own for wanting to keep Pierce close…

And soon she learns that while she might be safe from the wrath of the Furies in the Underworld, the people she loves back on earth are not. Can Pierce convince John to release her in order to save the life of someone in her family–or will the price he asks her to pay for her freedom turn out to be too high?

Book Details: 336 pages; Point; Pub. May 8, 2012

* Book summary journal: After I finish reading a book (usually immediately afterward unless I’m feeling lazy), I’ll write a 5-10 page summary of all the major plot points, character list, and other relevant notes so I can reference it later. This system has been working out well—except for the books I didn’t get around to summarizing.

** I’m such a dork. I wrote the review for Abandon, but never edited or published it. I thought I did, but didn’t. Expect that soon-ish.

Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• You also need to share the title of the book where you get your teaser from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given
• Please avoid spoilers

Before I get on with this week’s teaser, I realized I had an interesting dilemma on my hands because I’m reading an ebook. I can’t randomly flip to a page and quote it. So, how, then, to quote? With the help of random.org, that’s how. I plugged in the total pages, let the Random Machine do its job and went to that page. OK, I know that was a useless fact to most people, so I’ll just get to the teaser.

This week’s teaser:

“I couldn’t believe it. Here I’d just told him I was a monster, that I was designed to suck souls out of paranormals, and he was okay with it.” ebook pg. 198 Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

This book has been on my radar for at least a year, but I never had an opportunity to read it before. Now I do.

I’m not that far into it, but it already has a fun campy feel. This can get overdone in a heartbeat and I’m not far enough in to know for sure if it does, but for now, it’s perfectly balanced. I’ve already laughed out loud a few times.

I especially love the interaction with the vampire in the opening chapter. That was a hoot.

Thanks to Jill at Breaking the Spine, I present another edition of Waiting on Wednesday…

I’m waiting, rather impatiently, on a book called The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff.

While browsing Amazon, I saw the cover and stopped in my tracks. I mean, look at it. It’s the right amount of creepy, whimsy, and cute.

But since I rarely buy a book (or covet it) based on cover alone, I read the description and knew immediately that I had to have this book the moment it comes out.

Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement—left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.

Tell me you’re not hooked now, too. It’s due out September 21, 2010 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

If you like the idea I invite you to join me in sharing a memorable scene on your blog and link to it in a comment or just share the scene in the comment itself. (Please remember to include the book’s title and author so our wishlists and TBR stacks can grow. Also, if your scene is a spoiler, please clearly mark it as one.)

This week’s scene comes from Pharos: A Ghost Story by Alice Thompson.

The next day the pain from the burn developed into a fever and she was forced to retire to bed. Late afternoon, someone knocked on the door and she lifted her head from her pillow to see the young assistant keeper enter. Her heart sank. His looks disconcerted her. He had a very still face with green eyes that reminded her of a snake or wild creature, something from the sea. His hands moved delicately, like anemones. As if they had a life of their own, quite apart from the rest of his body, which was lithe and fluid like an acrobat’s. His body looked as if it were always alert, as if it were about to jump up and do a somersault in the air, that sitting down never quite satisfied it. But he was sitting down in front of her in the small, round room, on a wooden chair, his hands nervously twisting in his lap.

She wondered what she looked like to him. But she hardly cared and neither, it seemed, did he, as he was acting as if it were quite normal for him to come into a strange, ill woman’s bedroom and make conversation.

‘Would you like to see a trick? It might help while away the time for you.’

She tried not to smile. Being cooped up in a lighthouse must make people strange, she thought. She nodded.

He bent towards her and at first she thought he was coming towards her to kiss her, until she saw him keeping on bending, clasping his hands over his head. He moved himself over and round until he was a circle in the middle of the room. He rolled around in the center of the room like a wheel.

‘That’s not a trick,’ she said rather disappointedly.

Then she watched as suddenly, to her astonishment, he seemed to catch fire. Flames were coming out of his body as he was turning, now on the spot, as if he had been transformed into a Catherine wheel. He lit up the room in the encroaching twilight. Bright red, orange flames spun out of his curved body as he turned and she could no longer see where his head met his hands or even his body at all. He had turned into a wheel of fire.

-pg 26-7

This book had been sitting on my TBR stack for a while and for some strange reason, I was struck with a desire to read it. So far, Thompson’s writing has a tactile quality to it, which engages all the senses. It really is rather beautiful. The story is shaping up to be a mind-bending one as clues have been dropped that not everything on Jacob’s Rock is as it seems.

Title: Morpheus Road: The Light
Author: D. J. MacHale
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0438-0
Story Length: 344 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Psychological Horror

Back Cover of Morpheus Road: The Light

It begins with mysterious sounds, a fleeting face outside a window–all things that can be explained away. That is, until he comes face-to-face with a character who only exists on the pages of a sketchbook–a character Marshall himself created.

Marshall is quickly convinced these strange incidents have something to do with his best friend, Cooper, who has gone missing. Together with Cooper’s beautiful but aloof sister, Sydney, Marshall searches for the truth about his friend while ultimately uncovering a nightmare that is bigger and more frightening than he ever could have imagined.

Three Quick Points About Morpheus Road: The Light

• Point 1: More of a creepfest than a gorefest. Although I’d definitely place this book in the horror category, there’s a relatively small amount of blood and guts.
• Point 2: So. Much. Tension. It just didn’t stop. Right when you think all is well–BAM!–something else jumps out at you.
• Point 3: There’s a mystery begging to be solved. Too bad the second book isn’t out yet, because (and I can’t believe I’m going to say this…) OMG I can’t wait for it!

My Thoughts on Morpheus Road: The Light

(Below are my thoughts on the book. If you want a full rundown of the story, you can read the story summary, but be warmed: it includes spoilers.)

I actually kept flipping the last page back and forth hoping there would be more. I was hoping that by some miracle, the last page would transform into the second book in the series so I could continue because there was a huge teaser that left me bug-eyed and slack-jawed. But let me back up.

The story is narrated in Marshall’s own voice. He’s a somewhat idyllic sixteen year old who still plays video games, reads comic books—oops graphic novels, as he would correct—and builds model spaceships. On the surface he was somewhat immature, but it worked for him. He was a good kid through and through, though some would call him a geek through and through.

However, his best friend Cooper is his complete opposite. Cooper is a lady’s man, risk-taker, and borderline bad boy. In the beginning, I didn’t really feel the chemistry between these two characters, but as the story progressed and I witnessed the lengths to which Marshall would go for his friend, it felt more natural.

Then there’s Sydney. Oh, Sydney. I’m used to seeing the angst-ridden and brooding hero in YA literature, but this time it’s an angst-ridden and brooding heroine. Sydney is snarky and unapologetic in her virulence. But as the story progressed, we get to see a different side to her. She truly did evolve as a character and I absolutely love the evolution of her relationship with Marshall. It actually felt like an organic part of the story.

As far as character development goes, this book did an excellent job of making the main characters (Cooper and Sydney) real; they were imperfect and made mistakes and grew from those mistakes, while (most of) the secondary characters, including the villains, had just enough personality to make them entertaining.

Where this book shone, though, was the tension. This isn’t the typical horror that has killer clowns climbing out from under the bed with a scythe to lop off heads. This is the kind of horror that makes you question your own sanity. You’re inside Marshall’s head as he’s experiencing weird happenings—blood that can’t be explained, his character coming to life, the ground opening up and swallowing a VW Beetle—and it doesn’t take long for you to start questioning what’s real and what’s not right along with thim. This book had my heart racing more than a few times.

It’s also fast-paced. There are sections that offer a brief respite, but before you’ve had a chance to fully catch your breath, you’re swept up again. Not only that, this book was actually funny. Even under all the pressure, Marshall still had a sense of humor. Granted, in some of his quips, he makes references to bands, celebrities, and television shows which might be foreign to the younger generation and might date the book in a few years, but it was tastefully done.

I’ll admit there were a few moments where this book slipped into cliché-land, but frankly, it’s more than forgivable. This is one of the better YA horror-thriller-suspense-with-a-dash-of-mystery-thrown-in books I’ve read in a while.

Slightly wild tangent: I have to point out that although this is the first book in a series, it had a complete story in itself with the promise of another, bigger one lurking around the bend. In fact, it was a single sentence in the Epilogue (which I can’t share because it would be a MASSIVE spoiler) that made me ask WTF happened and when is the second book being published?

Lately I’ve been noticing a trend where the first book in a series is basically a prequel with no self-contained story—like a set up where nothing actually happens—and it always irks me when I come across them (am I the only one who’s noticed this and is annoyed by it?), which is why I appreciate this tidbit about Morpheus Road: The Light.

Rating: Worth Every Penny [HC] [B+] (?)

Title: The Devouring
Author: Simon Holt
ISBN: 978-0-316-03573-6
Story Length: 231 pages
Genre: Young Adult

Back Cover of The Devouring

When dark creeps in and eats the light.
Bury your fears on Sorry Night.
For in the winter’s blackest hours
Comes the feasting of the Vours.
No one can see it, the life they stole.
Your body’s here but not your soul…

Three Quick Points About The Devouring

• Point 1: A bit chilling. At least, the beginning was. What would you do if some dark creature offered to eat your fears?
• Point 2: Mmmm, cheesy cliché filling. The entire middle section of the book is devoted more to shock value than fear factor.
• Point 3: Curiosity inducing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’ve been brainwashed because I’m anxious to read the next installment.

My Thoughts on The Devouring

(Below are my thoughts on the book. If you want a full rundown of the story, you can read the story summary, but be warmed: it includes spoilers.)

Some parts were good, and some parts were lame, but something must have been done right because I have a burning desire to read the next book.

The story unfolded well. We get the back story on Regina and her family. Her mother left her along with her brother and father. No one knows what happened to her and their family hasn’t been the same since.

One way Regina copes is by drowning herself in scary stories and she’s managed to rope her little brother Henry into it by reading him scary bedtime stories. One of the stories was about entities called Vours.

Then, on Sorry Night, when Regina and Aaron, her best friend, decide to call a Vour, their plans go awry while Regina’s little brother is possessed.

I have to say, the unfolding of Henry’s devouring was downright chilling—that makes up the first quarter of the book. I was hoping the momentum would continue, but it petered out and the story became something straight out of a B horror movie.

Although Henry is acting differently (like people and pets dropping dead in his presence), neither Reggie nor Aaron wonder whether he’s possessed until well after any clear thinking person would have. But I was willing to forgive that.

What I had difficulty forgiving was the gore-for-scare effect filling out the story, some of the dialogue was pure cheesy cliché, and character development left much to be desired.

Call me jaded, but anyone who’s ever watched more than a few classic horror movies would see right through it—in fact, I laughed a couple times. I truly wish it had more of the creepy ominous effect displayed in the beginning, but if wishes were pennies, I’d be a millionaire.

But what has my panties in a bunch is the fact that I really, really want to read the next book. The Devouring ended at the beginning of a bigger mystery. It’s not to say that The Devouring wasn’t a full story in and of itself—it was—but the story left me wondering: Who is Eben really? What are the Vours? And what is their plot?

That’s why this book was so difficult to rate. On one hand, a chunk of the story I would consider lame in the horror department, relying more on gore than suspense with gore, but on the other hand, it did an amazing job of painting a larger story and piquing curiosity. So, with that in mind, I’m middle of the road.

Rating: Get It Used [solid C] (?)