Blog Tour Stop: The Chronicles of Kerrigan by W.J. May- review
Rae of Hope
Author: W.J. Way
Release Date: September 5, 2011
Summary:
How hard do you have to shake the family tree to find the truth about the past?
Fifteen year-old Rae Kerrigan never really knew her family's history. Her mother and father died when she was young and it is only when she accepts a scholarship to the prestigious Guilder Boarding School in England that a mysterious family secret is revealed.
Will the sins of the father be the sins of the daughter?
As Rae struggles with new friends, a new school and a star-struck forbidden love, she must also face the ultimate challenge: receive a tattoo on her sixteenth birthday with specific powers that may bind her to an unspeakable darkness. It's up to Rae to undo the dark evil in her family's past and have a ray of hope for her future.
Book Trailer:
Dark Nebula
Author: W.J. Way
Release Date: December 15, 2012
Summary:
Nothing is as it seems anymore.
Leery from the horrifying incident at the end of her first year at Guilder Boarding School, Rae Kerrigan is determined to learn more about her new tattoo. Her expectations are high, an easy senior year and a happy reunion with Devon, the boy she’s not supposed to date. All hopes of happiness turn into shattered dreams the moment she steps back on campus.
Lies and secrets are everywhere, and a betrayal cuts Rae deeply. Among her conflicts and enemies, it appears as if her father is reaching out from beyond the grave to ruin her life. With no one to trust, Rae doesn’t know where or who to turn to for help.
Has her destiny been written? Or will she become the one thing she hates the most—her father’s prodigy.
Book Trailer:
About the Author:
Wanita May grew up in the fruit belt of Ontario - St.Catharines. Crazy-happy childhood, she always has had a vivid imagination and loads of energy.
The youngest of six -- four older brothers, and a sister -- taught her at a young age to be competitive in all aspects of life.
At sixteen, she began competing in athletics (track and field) and before she turned seventeen, she was representing Canada in high jump. She continued to compete, breaking Canada's JR High Jump record (1.92m - 6' 3 1/2" for those metric-ly challenged). She attented University of Toronto, and Kansas State University - winning CIAU's and becoming All-American 6x - NCAA Indoors Runner Up + more.
But you're not interested in her athletic career - unless of course you're curious to know she stands 1.70m (5'7") and has jumped 20cm over her head on more than one occassion. She's represented Canada at the World Championships, World Jrs., won Francophone Games, and loved every minute of every competition. From the grueling workouts, the crazy weights she lifted on her back, the days she thought her lungs were going to spit out of her mouth for lack of oxygen, the travelling around the world and the opportunity to read - her favourite past time.
Wanita and her husband now run an online business, dealing in antiques and collectables - particularly jewelry and porcelain.
After her father passed away in 2009, from a six-year battle with cancer (which she still believes he won the fight against), she began to write again. A passion she'd loved for years, but realized life was too short to keep putting it off.
She is currently represented by Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary Agency. Wanita is a writer of Young Adult, Fantasy Fiction and where ever else her little muses take her.
Twitter: @wanitajump
My Thoughts (on the series as a whole/both books):
Series/books like these are either a hit or miss. For me, this series was a miss.
If you were to ask me what book series it reminded me of, I would have to say Harry Potter, except not.
Where Harry Potter was great and anew idea and all of that, I felt that this wasn't all that great with the similarities (to name a few: magic, being orphaned and living with aunt and uncle). I can tell you that I like the idea of the Tatús, though, because that was something new.
So, in both of them, I'd have to say that the cover draws you in. It's a pretty good looking cover isn't it? Maybe that's why I decided to review these, because I totally judged a book by it's cover in this case.
Anyway, I felt that... how to say this not completely mean-sounding... thewritingwasn'tsogreat. Let me try that again: the writing wasn't so great. It felt like someone younger than me wrote this without prior knowledge of sentence structure, subject-verb agreement and different verbs and pronouns. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't absolutely horrible, but I'm a stickler for that kind of stuff (maybe I should become an English major... nah). I also thought that instead of using third person the whole with all of Rae's added random thoughts, the author could have used first person. It would have mad the books go over a lot more smoothly.
Next, it was hard to keep up with the random characters that popped out of nowhere. I mean, there was so many of them that if I really wanted to remember them, I would have written the names down, but then forget why I wrote them down. Advice to the wise: don't add too many extra characters that aren't really needed.
This will be my last point, I promise: Rae wasn't all that smart, like heroines are usually. Most of the time it made me so frustrated that someone could act like her character (even if she was made up). I wanted to smack a lot of sense into her.
Hmm. This series didn't receive such a good review, did it. Well, it must mean it received two hearts (for trying to incorporate Harry Potter in, the idea of the Tatús, and for me finishing the books).
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