Saturday, July 25, 2015

INTRODUCTIONS by C.L. STONE - THE GHOST BIRD # 1 - YA CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

By: C.L. Stone
Published By: Arcato Publishing
Released: Available Now
Details: Kindle, 280 Pages

RATING: 3.5 STARS

Blurb: Goodreads

With an agoraphobic mother and a barely-there father, Sang abhors the isolation keeping her in the shadows. The only thing Sang craves is a fresh start and to be accepted as ordinary by her peers, because for her being different meant being cast out alone.

When her family moves to a new school district, Sang infiltrates a group of boys nearly perfect in every way. Grateful for an influence outside of her parents’ negativity, she quickly bonds with the boys, hoping to blend in and learn from them what it means to have a natural relationship with friends.

Only the boys have secrets of their own and they’ll do anything to keep her safe from the knowledge of the mysterious Academy that they've sworn allegiance to. Bit by bit, Sang discovers that her friends are far from the normalcy she expected. Will her loyalty change when she's forced to remain in the dark, or will she accept that she's traded one house of secrets for another?

Meet Kota, Victor, Silas, Nathan, Gabriel, Luke and North in a story about differences and loyalty, truth and mystery, friendships and heart-throbbing intimacy.

The Academy, ever vigilant.


BOOK REVIEW by Michelle

I am going to admit that I had to sit and think about this review for a couple days.

I have had this free on Amazon for quite some time and I have also bought some of the other books in this series.

Where to begin?

Ok, I think this is one YA book where I am left a bit all over the place how I feel about it.

There is good and bad for me personally and this is just my personal thoughts, but in saying that I am rather addicted to read more.

Hence...why I am feeling a bit all over the place.

There are seven lads, they are all introduced one by one in this book, aptly titled, Introductions.

There is not much else.

These lads are all yummy. Gabriel, I am still trying to work out. He just made me laugh with what he wanted to do with Sang.

Gabriel was about Victor's height though a little slimmer in the hips. His hair hung long around his chin but brushed back away from his face. Two locks of hair, one tucked behind each ear, were colored a lighter shade of blond. The rest of his hair was a rich brown. His eyes were crystal-like, bright blue, excited and wild. He had a couple rings on each of his hands and stud earrings in each ear, his right ear had three more rings going up along the top. He wore jeans and a neon green tank shirt which showed off lean, but defined biceps.


"And what do you call this look? Wet shag?" His fingers fell over my hair, lightly tugging at the knots.

Victor toed at Gabriel's back to poke at him. "Leave her alone."

"Hey, I'm fixing it." He smoothed out my hair at the tips, starting with combing out the ends. "I'm going to detangle it, but we're going to wash it out and then dry it."


Gabriel patted my now smoothed strands of hair. Soft curls fell around my shoulders, still wet but now brushed. "Your color is amazing," he said." How is it so many different colors?"


..."Let's go wash it. I want to blow dry it and see how it looks."


Anyhoo, I tangent.

The actual story is quite simply written. There isn’t any great depth to it and it feels kinda like, seven dwarves ( although they are far from dwarves ), a princess, a wicked mum, a rather out of the picture dad and this really weird reverse harem.

I only just learned what a reverse harem aka RH was.

These lads are kind of weirdly and sorta intimately all over Sang, but they have only just met her, one by one, one after the other.

Silas was on my right, his arm behind me against the back of the couch. North and Kota were on the floor in front of us. We were watching the roadrunner and the coyote battling it out. I had taken my sandals off and put them by the door. I felt North's hand on my foot. He traced the edge of my small toe. At least I think he was. He was stone still otherwise. I wasn't sure what to do. As it was Silas's arm warmed my shoulders. I couldn't calm myself down enough to focus on cartoons.

I'm trying to work them out, as they can be toon watchers and then all Ninja, then hair washing and all in touch with their new friend feelings.

Mum’s character feels very forced. That is the best way I can describe her. I was like Wt... is your problem? I wasn't quite sure of what her problem was. It just seemed to be there, serving a purpose for the story.

Onto the lads.

Kota, aka Dakota, Victor, Silas, Nathan, Gabriel, Luke ( reminds me of the early days Travis Fimmel) and North ( twin to Luke) are all buff, gorgeous lads.

I can only assume they are all around seventeen years old.

Then we get Dr. Green and Mr Blackbourne.




Now to give you a better picture of these lads, visually, I have copied ( sharing is caring) another reviewer’s casting to help you see these lads, better.

Here is link to said reviewers , review, just so I am crediting where credit is due. 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1235211261?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1 

Nathan smoothly touched the bottom with a palm. His shirt and shoes were off. When his head and chest rose out of the water, I was in awe of the muscles that were defined in his body. Unlike Silas whose bulk of muscle was smooth, Nathan was a precision machine. The ripples of muscles along his abdomen fit together like a living puzzle.

On Goodreads the whole series rates very well and I can see I am in the minority. I would put it down to being very well read over many genres and age brackets and expecting more from a YA read and its characters. I may well get that in the next book and so forth, but this is how I felt about the first book.

So, it is kind of me and how I am personally feeling as the majority are 4 and 5 star ratings, which is awesome. I'm very happy that so many other readers got so much out of this book.

I think what made me all weirded out is all the lads act quite personally towards Sang and she is a bit of a naive bunny, due to reasons, and having seven lads quite into you straight up is...well...kinda weird. No build up. Insta friends.

I was going to take another bite of my sandwich when Gabriel reached over and took my wrist. He looked right at me, never wavering his gaze and then brought the sandwich to his face, with me holding it still, and took a small bite.


But from a younger reader’s perspective, that would be one heck of a nice feeling to have. These lads are all easy on the eye and simply took to her like a fish to water, taking bites from her sandwich, doing her hair, buying her a phone, looking after, spending the night...

BAM! Sang is our friend and that is that. I think that is what I was looking for...build up. 

I am so intrigued to read more because naturally there is much more to tell.

I won’t say what little more I learned in the last few percent of the read, but I will be definitely reading more.

I feel addicted to know more.

And why couldn't I stop thinking about how affectionately they had touched me? Or the way their eyes looked at me? Over and over again, I saw Luke's happiness as he daydreamed about the diner in the chapel, and North's smile after the ride on his bike. I thought of Victor's purchase of Winter, and Silas holding me to his body, of Gabriel doing my hair, Nathan's shirt, and Kota's hands as he held mine.

Yup! Every young girls dream to have seven guys so into her.  

I need to know more!

Note to self; Hubs needs to be pulling a few of these moves. Hair washing and blow drying sounds kinda nice. Dudes gotta lift his game, Sang has seven of them all over her.

SEVEN!!!!


Michelle



2 comments:

  1. I've had a copy of this too for ages that I snagged free. Plus I have various other books in the series that I also got as freebies I've always wondered about the multitude of guys in this book so I'm glad you addressed it.

    Great review Mich!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sang has a harem of boys...if I was age appropriate I wanna Harem too. Like these dudes are too good to be true and they erm, don't really know her. I am still trying to work mamma out. But heck I would be feeling so spesh if I had these babes hanging around me. :)

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