Review: Beauty's Beholder by Lori Clark

Title: Beauty's Beholder

Author: Lori Clark

Release Date: April 19th 2011

Publisher: FeedBrewer, Inc.

Source: Bought

Kindle/Nook Lendable: Yes and it's currently selling for only $2.99

Goodreads Description:

Sixteen- year-old Trinity is pretty sure life sucks and then you die. First her father leaves to be with his pregnant girlfriend. Then her mother runs off with her newly discovered soul mate. When she's busted for underage drinking, she's sent to live with her Grandma Sarah in the one-horse town of Disappointment Cove.

An expert at self-pity, Trinity is positive no one's problems are as enormous as hers until she meets Logan. He's the new boy at school who has been horribly disfigured. He's rude, arrogant and hard to figure out. Trinity has no idea what caused his scars or his attitude. And from the rumors going around, she's not sure she wants to know.

When the two of them are paired-up on an after school project, Trinity sees a compassionate side to Logan and realizes he isn't the person everyone thinks he is.

My Thoughts:

Trinity Alexander is living with her Grandma Sarah in Disappointment Cove, Missouri since she got in a bit of trouble at her other school and was sent to live there.  What she doesn't know is that this is when her life will change completely and for the better.

Logan Sharpe is the new boy in school that Trinity has been appointed to show around since they are both in the Outreach Program.  Even though she has only been at Disappointment Cove High School for three weeks, she agrees to the task.  She notices that he walks with a limp and also has burns on his body that he tries to hide with a hoodie.  Despite the scars, she still finds him handsome and even jealous of the girls competing for his attention.  Though Trinity has just met Logan, she is drawn to him- his caring side, his mood swings and even his secrets.

This book was amazing!  I was really addicted to this book while reading it.  The way the author describes the people, places, and events that occur, made me feel like I was really experiencing it myself.  I was pulled in from the first chapter and engrossed the whole way till the end.  I love it when a book makes such an impact that you catch yourself thinking about it days later.  That's what this story did for me.

Lori Clark is an author that I have never read before, so I had no idea what to expect when I started Beauty's Beholder. 

The characters of Trinity and Logan are incredible.  Trinity is the type of girl who doesn't hold back, and when she has something to say, she says it.  She has a tendency to put her foot in her mouth, especially when she is talking with Logan.  She is unique, smart, and a lover of animals and that is what makes her irresistible to Logan.  Logan is a real flirt when it comes to Trinity.  When she tries to talk to him about his past, his scars, or even his family life, he just gets all moody towards her.  He realizes that he does it and apologizes for it later, but he knows that he is gonna have to tell her the truth soon before she starts believing all the rumors going around school.  He has an amazing heart when it comes to taking care of all the animals at the shelter and he doesn't let his limp hold him back.  Their love of animals is something that they have in common and they grow from that into something pretty amazing.  I even loved the other characters.  Her BFF, Petrie, her Grandma Sarah (who is a pretty awesome Grandma, btw) and all the other characters  that make this story fulfilling. 

This story was very believable.  It could happen to anyone at anytime and that is what kept me reading.  I will definitely be reading more of Lori Clark's stories when they become available.  The writing was amazing as well as the romance, drama, and secrets.  If you haven't read this, I highly recommend that you do.  I guarantee that you'll love it too.

4 1/2 Stars

Review: Love and Fangs by Stephanie Blough

Title:  Love and Fangs
Author:  Stephanie Blough
Release Date:  March 9th 2011
Publisher:  Xlibris
Source:  Bought
Kindle and Nook Lendable:  Yes

Barnes and Noble Description:

Maddy was just a small town girl living in Cherry Rock, Tennessee. On the first day of her senior year in high school, she meets the mysterious Dylan and fate changes her life forever.

My Thoughts:

Maddy's life is about to take a new direction.  She is now a senior in high school.  When she gets there, she sees this gorgeous boy.  She's never seen him before and is instantly attracted to him.  They lock eyes and he comes over to talk to her.  His name is Dylan and he has just moved to Cherry Rock, TN from Montana.  He is a complete gentleman and even carried her bag to class and is constantly complimenting her.  How sweet is that!  They end up having every class together.  Is it a coincidence or is it fate?

Maddy is the new captain on the cheerleading team.  As she was watching the football players practice, she noticed Dylan and he was on the team.  Maddy has never been about putting boys above her school, until Dylan.  There is just something about him that she can't resist.  He's good looking, pale, cold, and extremely sweet.  Who could resist?

Later on in the week, there is a murder outside the woods at her school.  Maddy and her best friend, Amber, sneak out back to look for Dylan, who had just went outside to his car, to make sure he was ok.  It wasn't Dylan and he left a note for Maddy saying that he was fine.  A few weeks later, there is another murder.  Maddy and Amber go through the same door again and see the killer in the woods.  Soon Amber and her parents end up missing and Maddy can't help but blame herself.  If they had just stayed inside of the school, they wouldn't have seen the killer and became his next targets.  Even though Maddy is falling for Dylan, she can't help but think that this all started when his family came to town.  Is he who he says he is?  Will she be the next target on the killer's list?

I thought this was a really good book.  The writing needed a lot of editing, but I try to overlook that.  This is a debut novel from the author and as soon as I saw the cover and the name, I had to check it out.  The cover is a bit cheesy, but it's so cheesy that it caught my attention, lol.  "Love" would be romance and "Fangs" would obviously be vampires according to the cover picture and I am a sucker when it comes to YA vampire romance.

I love that the setting was here in TN.  Maddy lives about an hour from Nashville, so she's a country music lover like me.  She even gets to meet Kenny Chesney in the book.  How awesome that would be!! 

I found very little of the book to be believable.  Well, obviously we know the book is about vampires and we know those are fiction, but I'm talking about the storyline as a whole.  Maddy develops special powers, hears voices, and can see a ghost.  The story is also very choppy.  I felt that there was so much more the author could have delivered in the plot to make her story a little bit more entertaining and believable.  So many details seem to have been left out.  There is one scene where Dylan wants Maddy to go with him to a school dance and after she turns him down because they don't know each other very well, it is never mentioned again.  Stephanie could have wrote in about them going on dates, more activities outside of classes, and even just a little more detail, in general, of what the characters looked like and what they wore.  So basically, I think that it was just lacking a bit and could have used more storyline.  She really had the potential for a rating of 5 stars with the idea of her book if she just would have extended it a bit and made the reader feel like there wasn't anything missing. 

Overall, I overlooked most of the editing and enjoyed the story.  A little less than what I went in anticipating, but I was still so engrossed in it that I read it all in one sitting.  Love, fangs, special powers, and mystery are all apart of Stephanie's debut and if you can overlook a bit of editing mistakes, I think that you'll enjoy this too.

3 1/2 Stars