Audio Review: Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Title: Girl of Nightmares
Author: Kendare Blake
Series: Anna Book #2
Publisher: Tor Teen
Audio Publisher: AudioGo
Audio Publication Date: August 7, 2012
Format: mp3, 10hr 4 min,
Source: received from AudioGo for my honest opinion of it.
Get Your Own: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Synopsis: It’s been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can’t move on.
His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they’re right, but in Cas’s eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.
Now he’s seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he’s asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong... these aren’t just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.
Cas doesn’t know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn’t deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it’s time for him to return the favor

-goodreads blurb 

 My Thoughts:
I would like to say thank you to AudioGo for sending me Girl of Nightmares on mp3 for review.

I absolutely loved the audio version of Girl of Nightmares!  I wasn't too keen on the narrator, August Ross, while he read the first book, but he came back in full stride and really changed my opinion of his skills in this one.  As soon as I turned it on, I just leaned back, closed my eyes and found myself swept away with Ross' chilling narration.
Character Development- Cas is this crude, gritty, tough hero that has a soft side hidden deep within himself that he finds surprising when it surfaces out.  He tells people how things are and doesn't really care if it puts him in another light.  He is brutally honest and I love him for it.  Cas really grows throughout this series and learns a lot about himself, his friends, and his ability to love.
Thomas is a darling.  I have to admit, besides the main protagonists, Thomas is one of my favorites.  The voice August Ross gives him is part hippie, part surfer dude.  And it fits his personality.  Thomas is so laid back, hardly getting too worked up over situations.  He always tries to find the silver lining, even when there is darkness everywhere.  The scene where Cas and Thomas go visit Thomas' Finnish aunt is extremely spooky and extremely funny.  I had to gag a little thinking about the cookies Thomas sucked down.  (Not giving anything else away-just read it! :) )
I have always liked Ana.  She is this cursed soul that has been put through so much, never being able to really live, and still has this spunk to her that makes me smile.  She is definitely a good match to Cas' attitude.
We have a lot of the same characters here, including Carmel, and we also meet a lot of new characters.  These new people help Cas reach his goal and help tie everything together in the end.
Plot-  Girl of Nightmares is so, so , so good!  It is a dark story but it does have these snarky comments thrown in, to help lessen the stress, if you will.  I really enjoyed the fact that Blake could write a scene to scare the hell out of me, but even then, still throw in a joke to let me laugh the fright off a little.

He smiles at me like he is Yoda and I'm just a dumbass without the force,"

There is action in this book but Girl of Nightmares is more of an emotionally charged book, showing Cas so broken and sad to seeing him realize the power he has within himself.  Kendare Blake did an exceptional job of painting such imagery that the reader can feel Cas' heartbreak, Ana's pain, Thomas' power, and Carmel's insecurity.
Blake also does a really wonderful job of world building, especially in Girl of Nightmares, when our "ghostbuster" team has to travel to many different places.  The Suicide Forest was the scariest thing I have ever heard (and dummy me, I listened to it at night, with all the lights off, and everyone else asleep).
The pacing was just right. I didn't find myself bored with it at all.  I liked learning more about the athame's past and why it does the things it does.  Yes, it is much more than just a knife.
Blake's interpretation of Hell was so interesting and very scary and breathtaking.  It was a different take, yet based on a lot of classic examples.

"This place exists in the wake of a scream..."

The best part about this novel or series, is that the point of view is from our male protagonist, Cas.  I feel like we don't have enough YA books from a male p.o.v and it is refreshing to get a book that can pull it off this well.  He is gritty, curses when the need arises, sarcastic as hell, and doesn't question his feelings for Ana.  He embraces the love he has for her and it shows with the very depth he is willing to take to save his beloved Ana.
Narration-August Ross has really stepped his game up in narrating Girl of Nightmares.  I wasn't really impressed with his style in the first book, but he has totally turned my opinion around in this second book.  This guy has so many great accents hidden up his sleeves; southern, Scottish, Finnish, English, and of course, Carmel's voice.  Sorry that is the only one I had a tough time with.  Other than that one, Ross sounds like a completely different person.  He is also superb at conveying the intensity of the situation, capturing you with the fullness of his voice.
I had to give Girl of Nightmares five hearts, more if I could!

Contact Kendare Blake:

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Book Promo: Dark Seraphine by KaSonndra Leigh

Dark Seraphine

Author: KaSonndra Leigh
Formats: ebook- Kindle, Nook
Date of Publication: October 21, 2012

Genre: YA Paranormal

"Mom always says the angels walk among us. She forgot to tell me that sometimes they're not all fluffy and nice."
Seventeen-year-old Caleb Wood has seen people he calls the walkers since he was a baby. It didn't take long for him to realize something…no one can see these strangers but him. They never stuck around or tried to touch him. And they never said a word. That was until one day on the first day of class in his senior year when an incredibly gorgeous girl strolls into his life…and things are never the same again.
Soon Caleb realizes he has stepped into the middle of a growing conflict between two ancient groups. And his ability to see the invisible ones, the half-breeds that want to modify the human race, just might be the only hope both he and the mysterious, but infuriating, Gia, have of making it out alive.

Excerpt:
 Without Kyle by my side, I now faced with heading into my Trig class too early. Nobody blazed a trail to be the first one sitting around and waiting on the teacher. Because of Kyle’s hormones, I faced looking super un-cool and nerdy. When you put those words together, you never came away looking sexy.

Stepping into the room, I immediately noticed that I was right. I headed straight for the back row. I turned around and almost wet my pants.

The new girl was sitting in a desk at the front of the room. She wore that same faraway look they always have, these Walkers do. I gave them that nickname because sometimes a ghostly film trailed behind them. It always reminded me of angel wings. Otherwise, I guess they might be considered plain old ghosts. To label them as spirits kind of took away from their magic. The mystery people were always super gorgeous, like this chick: slick, dark hair that stopped just below her shoulders, a long oval-shaped face, and nice skin. And they always wore something dark: black jackets, jeans, and a tee shirt.

To admit this girl made my skin crawl sounded sissy and weak. This wasn’t the time to be a wuss. Manning up, I squared my shoulders before I sat down. The little kid in me wanted to run away like a baby. But then she laughed. It was a high-pitched giggle, a normal girl’s chuckle. It surprised me. That wasn’t right. I couldn’t ever remember the Walkers laughing before.

“Go ahead and run. I’ll just simply find you like I always do,” she said, her face still turned toward the teacher’s wipe board.

Her voice was smooth like a forgotten song, a hypnotic one. I could listen to it all day long. But even super sexy voice didn’t change the fact that she pretty much read my mind.

“Have you decided whether you’ll run or not yet? I have an awful lot of things to take care of.” She turned her head the slightest bit to the side

My underarms prickled. I was glad that Mom forced me to start using the clinical strength deodorant this morning; to say I was nervous wasn’t even close to how I felt.

“Are you an angel?” I asked, my voice squeaking on the last word. What a dork. She didn’t frighten me too badly, but I wasn’t exactly ready to get her phone number either. As a little kid, I remember talking to a few of the Walkers. As soon as I hit my thirteenth birthday the ability to communicate with them disappeared. This was the first time I’d spoken to one in years.

“I hate to tell you this, but I’m not a ghost an angel or a zombie. Sorry.” She turned around to face me, an amused expression on her ridiculously gorgeous face. I inhaled sharply and held my breath. The word beautiful didn’t do this Walker-girl any type of justice. Her strange, dark eyes with the specks of blue and green inside the irises pierced into me.

I swallowed hard and found my voice. “So then, what are you? You’re not the only one I’ve seen or talked to. And why do I have the honor of being the stalked one?”

She made a light laugh and tilted her head. Her slick black hair flowed around her face as if it were made of silky thread.

“Others have come before me?” She seemed to have said it to herself rather than asking me. One thing I did know for certain. I was probably going to be committed to the loony ward after all of this. “I’m going to need your help soon, Caleb. So be ready.”

“Be ready for what?” I asked, crossing my arms and feeling just a tad flirtatious. A desperate idiot. Kyle was chasing Erica the Stiff. And me, I got some sort of angel girl sitting in front of me. A good man always knows when to aim for the right goal.

She glanced behind my head just before a sudden crash thundered behind me. My heart leapt into my throat. I jumped up and spun around thinking it sounded like gunshots. But I was being paranoid. It wasn’t a gun or anything at all threatening. The classroom clock had fallen. Bits and pieces of it lay all over the floor.

I groaned. “Oh hell. They’ll think I did this.”

“What in the world did you do, Caleb Wood?” a girl’s nasal voice asked me. I turned around to find Jillian Bowman and her tortoise shell glasses grinning at me. She was the last person I wanted to see. What, or rather who did I not find?—the Walker girl. She’d vanished.

Something hitched in my chest. I wanted to know more about her. I’d never gotten so intimate with them before.

She told me to be ready.

Exactly what did I need to get ready for? 

About the Author:

I live in the City of Alchemy and Medicine, North Carolina. I write about teens doing fantastical things in magical worlds. Sometimes they fall for each other and make sacrifices for their friends. Oh, and sometimes they love music and nature too. I live with two teens, mentor other teens, and write with them. Some of them have made me promise to write a boy book next. Now that I have completed my MFA in creative writing, I find that I have a little extra time to play CLUE more often. I live in an L-shaped house dedicated to my grandmother. It has a secret library complete with fairies, venetian plastered walls, and a desk made out of clear blue glass.

When Copper Suns Fall is my debut novel.

 Reach KaSonndra Leigh:



Release Day Party at 6pmEST at the Young Adult Teen Readers Group https://www.facebook.com/events/288064814642558/

Author website: http://www.kasonndraleigh.com
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Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13628670-dark-seraphine