Blog Tour Review: Fractured Light, by Rachel McClellan

Llona Reese is used to living on the run. After the Vykens killed her parents, she knew they would eventually come for her too. But she never felt ready to face them---until now. Defying the Auran Council and everything she's been taught, Llona must learn to use her power over light as a weapon if she wants to survive.

For this review, I thought I would switch things up and start with the bad so I can end with the good. The bad: this story works with some cliches that we've seen from several stories in the past like the fact that the main character has a power but spends most of her time trying to hide it. Then of course, there's the boy who falls in love with the girl that's seemingly perfect for the girl.. yet they cannot be together for one reason or another. Really, that's about it for the bad though... and, to be honest, those things aren't such bad things. Especially since McClellan did such an amazing job putting her own spin on these things.

Aside from this, the story was amazing. I started reading it late one afternoon with the intention of only reading the hour before it was time to go to bed. Instead, I stayed up an extra two hours past my bedtime to finish the book because I could not make myself stop reading it. Nothing worked, of course... I was hooked from the very beginning.

If there was one particular reason I had to give someone to read this book, I would not hesitate in saying Llona herself. Here is a character who, in the true sense of the world, is a real heroine. She's not without her faults, but her strengths far exceed any of those. She's brave, strong and doesn't give up. If there's something she doesn't excel at, she works and works on it until she gets it. And she's a fighter. I'm not just talking about she starts out strong but turns all D-i-D (damsel-in-distress) once a boy enters the picture. She fights beginning, middle and end, even with a hunky Guardian in the picture.

And yes, there's the swoon-worthy male lead who is indeed everything a girl wants in a guy and then some. Unfortunately, there are things keeping the two apart. However, it does lead to some very crazy tension in the book that I definitely thought added another layer to the story.

You can't have a good story without a "bad guy," and Fractured Light definitely included one. I have to admit, I thought I knew but ended up second-guessing myself throughout the entire story. I changed my mind entirely too many times, but it led up to a surprise at the end - which is a nice change from knowing from the very beginning who the obvious villain is.

Fractured Light is definitely a story that keeps you turning pages until the very end. There was some events that unfolded at the very end that makes me probably a little too anxious for the next book, which I look forward to reading as soon as it comes out. If you like paranormal books with some great characters and a nice new mythology spun in, I definitely recommend you pick this one up.

Rating: ★★★★✩
Source: Teen Book Scene

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Title: Fractured Light
Author: Rachel McClellan
Series: Fractured Light, Book One
Publisher: Sweetwater Books
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Release Date: February 8, 2012

Purchase Book
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | IndieBound

Blog Tour: Q&A with authors Carlyle Clark & Suki Michelle

Today I have authors Carlyle Clark and Suki Michelle on the blog answering some questions about themselves and their book, The Apocalypse Gene.

What are some of your favorite books?

We both love The Poisonwood Bible. A few other favorites Carlyle’s favorites are The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, and Burning Angel by James Lee Burke and Suki loves everything by Stephen King, except for The Long Walk because it was too heart-breaking for her to bear.

How is writing with another author different from writing a story on your own?
It really helped us create an unpredictable story. So far no has said that they were able to guess what was going to happen next. And we also had complementary skill sets so it was relaxing to know that the other person was there to keep us from making mistakes outside of our comfort zone and that freed up both of our creativity.

What attracts you to the Dystopian genre?
Weirdly, we didn’t even know there was such a thing as the Dystopian genre. We were halfway through our book before we even heard of The Hunger Games. In fact, ours is only a sideways Dystopian, in that most take place post-apocalyptic while ours takes place mid-apocalyptic. Anyway, as I said we didn’t know there was such a thing, Suki just got a startling original take on a Pandemic, and we determined the story needed to be told after the disease had done some serious ravaging, but before a total Apocalypse.

If you weren't writing, what would you be doing?
I would be doing stand-up comedy and Suki would be painting, knitting, and riding horses.

If one day you woke up to discover everything in your book was coming true and only you had the power to change it by rewriting the story, would you? How would it be different?
Absolutely, we vastly prefer our world Pandemic-free. That’s a really tough question with a mid-apocalytic book. Guess we would have to try to write a pre-apocalypse story and a race to stop it.

Blog Tour: Into The Past with author Rachel McClellan

Today I have Rachel McClellan, author of Fractured Light, here to tell us about some of her favorite books throughout the ages.

Books are eternal. I love so many of them. When I was five, I loved A Pocket for Corduroy and still do. I wanted a pocket sewn on to me for the longest time, but apparently Kangaroos’ have cornered that market.

At age eleven I was into R.L Stine’s Fear Street books. This is when I discovered a love for things that go bump in the night. At sixteen it was LJ Smith’s Vampire Diaries and Secret Circle. I also loved Mary Higgins Clark books. At age 20 it was Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire or any of Dean Koontz’s books.

Wow. Looking back, A Pocket for Corduroy was the only book that didn’t have some element of fear in it. But then again, you have no idea what I imagined was in his pocket.