Some book reports...

Cold as Ice:
Blackness surrounds me as I sit on the couch in the lighted living room. Malicious and dangerous words creating a swirling vortex tying me in place until the book is finally closed. As I sit there shocked, it slowly releases me back into the world that I suddenly realize is as Cold as Ice. When Abigail Wyatt falls and nearly kills herself on too icy stairs, she realizes that the plot to frame her younger brother, Derek, has suddenly turned to a plot to kill her. Abigail, being the older of the two, and the mediator of her shambles of her family, she immediately is the first to protect her brother when he is convicted of a murder, and was sent to the site of the murder. Her life turns into mad chaos as she tries to protect her run- away brother, get her parents to talk to him, manage her book and candy store, and manage her feelings towards her best friends ex- boyfriend Kyle. Convinced that, even after he has run, that Derek is not the killer, she finds herself interviewing the people who may have set him up, and not to mention, want to shut her up just like they did to Karen Brodie, Derek's mysterious and stalking land lady. Torn between her intuition and the world she'll struggle to prove to everyone and even to herself of Derek's innocence. Written by two time Whitney award winner Stephanie Black, join Abby as she struggles to keep her family alive and safe in Cold as Ice.

Poison Study:
Walking through the blindingly bright corridors after a year in the blackest of cells, I sought only my death by hanging, for I had murdered one, one higher in rank than I. Little did I know that I was going to be lead only to my second death, a different one. One that would include Butterfly's Death, a man, an assassin, whom I found to love, and the intoxicating prison of political controversy. I became, what others only fear to be, and fear to love, I changed from a murderer to one who was to be murdered, the Commanders Food Taster. Each day may be my last in the former kingdom of Ixia, commanded now by Captains, and seemingly soon to be controlled by the devilish man whose wicked, torturous so I was forced to kill.

I opened the book, suspense tensely threaded in the air. The simple name seemed to entreaty a mysterious and hidden secret. Poison Study is a trilogy written by Mario V. Snyder. I admit myself despite my great hopes to be disappointed with this book. It was Really good, and yet when the author had the chance to improve the plot bit by bit, it got more shallow and cheep. I will admit that there were some parts of the book that were really good, and that I didn't want to stop reading, but as I said it got shallow. Especially the characters. Yelena has the potential to be an intriguing young woman, with a shadowy and horrendous background, yet she seemed to be portrayed as a shallow protagonist. I guess that my biggest let down was Valek. He had the potential to be dark, mysterious, and hidden, and yet he is also portrayed far to shallow for one with the frame she had built for him. He is too childlike and immature in some ways, and brought in to the book as a way too repel not knowing what else to do, which then created a really cheesy romance. He could have been darker, and deeper (in a good way), and the book also, instead of turning shallow (I know I keep using that word).