Dangerous Creatures

I saw this book and I had a total girly OMG moment. Why? Well, remember a while back, I read Beautiful Creatures and its sequels? Yeah, this is a spin off series of that one. But where those books followed Lena and Ethan's love story, these books are going to follow Ridley and Link's "love" story. I was crazy stoked for that.

Of course, through an actual read of it, it wasn't a stellar book. But I went in not expecting a great work of literature. It's a young adult novel and those tend towards a lighter side than some adult novels tend to. Now, don't get me wrong. This book is not all fluffy bunnies and happily ever afters. It's actually a bit dark.

Ridley and Link have the complicated relationship of these books. They love each other, but the act of saying those words is hard. Link doesn't have a problem since he's three quarters mortal and one quarter Blood Incubus. But Ridley struggles because she's a Dark Caster and a Siren to boot. She struggles to believe that Link actually does love her because it's hard for her to trust what anyone says to her. She has the power to manipulate people to say whatever she wants them to.

But, she lost at a card game and the cost was a drummer (Link) and a house marker which leaves her vulnerable to being forced to do whatever Lennox Gates wants for a year. But Ridley won't tell Link about any of this.

Lennox Gates has his own secrets to hide. One of which involves a plot against Ridley and Link. But things happen that Nox doesn't expect and he ends up working to unravel all the traps he's helped to lay.

This book, however, ended in a freaking cliffhanger! I'm so mad and yet so impatient to get the next book so that I can keep reading about Link and Ridley. It's frustrating!

Beautiful Redemption

**Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 2.5 * Book 3**

I must say, after the depressing end of the third book, I wasn't really sure where this one would go. I mean, seriously, Ethan was gone. There's generally no coming back from a jump off a water tower.

How wrong I was. This book was exciting like the others, but with a sort of bittersweet note to it. I'm not sure if that was my own personal feelings regarding the ending of a series I had come to love or me sort of feeling what the characters felt.

Ethan is determined. He isn't supposed to be dead. This was not his fate. But if he wants to return to the Mortal world, to his family, to Lena, he has to go on a huge quest that is not as easy as it sounds. Just cross a river, make a deal with a gatekeeper, rip a page out of a book. Sounds easy, right? It's not.

Ethan encounters problems the whole way, and he has to use all of his skills to solve the problems of his journey. Unlike the other times that he has to deal with some supernatural problem, this time he is, for all intents and purposes, alone.

I'm sad this series is over, but I think it had a really satisfying ending. But, part of me does wish it didn't have an ending. But that's the same part of me that hates to have a good book end.

Beautiful Chaos

**Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 2.5**

The world is ending. At least, it appears to be. Heat wave, drought, earthquakes, and the Casters have unreliable powers.

Ethan and Lena go on a hunt to figure out how to fix the chaos that Lena's Claiming caused. When she chose both Light and Dark, she broke the Order of Things, and now the Mortal world is going through the apocalypse.

Ethan's Shadowing Song, the warning from his mother, tells of a Demon Queen and The One Who Is Two. This mysterious person is the one who can bring about a New Order through sacrifice. If only they could find The One Who Is Two.

I am loving these books, but I'm sad that I only have one left.

Dream Dark

**Book 1 * Book 2**

Dream Dark is a little blip in the Caster Chronicles. After Link is bitten in Beautiful Darkness, he starts transforming. He goes to Macon to get help and to learn about his new abilities. But, he also learns that the events that happened at the end of book 2 have repercussions that can bring about the end of the world.

It's a short story, with six chapters. It took me almost no time whatsoever to finish. It's not a great little story, but I'm not really a huge fan of Link anyway.

Beautiful Darkness

** Book 1 **

Ok, first, a slight confession. I've been comparing these books to the Twilight Saga. I have a good reason though. I find a lot of parallels between the two.

This is the second book of the Caster Chronicles. Lena is struggling with her identity after the disastrous night of her sixteenth birthday. Her uncle is dead, and she blames herself. Her eyes are becoming increasingly golden, a mark of a Dark Caster. She's pushing Ethan away and hanging with a boy named John Breed. A boy who seems to be an Incubus, but with the green eyes of a Light Caster.

The parallel of this book to New Moon is that the supernatural character in the relationship separates because they think that it is unsafe for the Mortal to be around them. But, unlike Twilight, where the Mortal sits and mopes for months, Ethan goes out and does something about it.

What this results in is a quest through the secret underground Caster Tunnels. Ethan, Link, and Liv (Marian's summer intern) attempt to find Lena while Ethan tries to figure out his destiny as a Wayward, a living compass for someone in the Caster world (Lena).

There is something magical about these books when I read them. I have a hard time putting them down.

Beautiful Creatures

I had been seeing mixed reviews regarding this book. It seemed like people either love it, or they hate it. I am in the love it category. I mean, I blew through it in three days. It just sucked me in.

Ethan is just a normal boy. A normal, mortal boy. Then, Lena appears in his small town. A small town where new people are outsiders. She is shunned and hated by the whole town because she's different. She's not from the town, so she doesn't belong.

It doesn't help that she has magic that she doesn't have full control over.

Ethan doesn't care, he falls for her anyway. But she's counting down to her sixteenth birthday, the day when Lena's whole world will change.

I loved this book. I'm hoping the next is just as engaging.