Finders Keepers by Annalisa Gulbrandsen

Synopsis from Amazon:

Nothing could be more horrifying than being stuck in a thrift shop trying on wedding dresses for your mother, except possibly being attacked and nearly abducted by a creature whose eyes flash yellow-green in the dark.

Sixteen-year-old Ellie Brown inadvertently stirs up the interest of a secret society of goblins living underneath her small, mining town when she rescues not a wild crow, but the future goblin king.

The goblin community is out to get her and it doesn’t seem to matter if she’s dead or alive. The only person trying to protect her is a blue-eyed childhood friend named Sky, who, in spite of not having seen him in eleven years, seems unnaturally familiar to Ellie. But it’s his polar opposite brother, one whose intentions aren’t quite as honorable, that threatens to steal her heart.

Writing a synopsis is hard. I can attest to this. Sometimes it feels like it’s harder than writing the book itself. This synopsis doesn’t do the book justice, but it did get me to purchase it so I guess it did its job.

This book was an unexpected gem hidden in the Amazon Indie rough. I believe it used to have a different cover, one that shows up on the inside of the book. Either that or it was posted elsewhere because I remember seeing this other cover and passing it up because it was very amateur looking which made me think the book probably was also. I’m really glad the author changed the cover because I might not have given it a chance if not for the new cover.

It does start with the main character Ellie in a thrift store trying on a wedding dress. The action starts in that thrift store and is pretty consistent from there on out.

What I liked about this book:

It wasn’t your typical YA paranormal/fantasy characters. Trolls! How cool. Someone asked me are they the scary trolls or the Amanda Hocking type trolls. I haven’t read the Amanda Hocking troll books so I can’t honestly make a comparison but I think there were a little of both in this book.

I also liked that it wasn’t your typical YA characters. It wasn’t the new kid in town drawn to the hottest boy in school or the hot new boy that shows up and is drawn to the dumpy/plain/shy girl that no one likes/pays attention to. The character had deep roots in the town as did all the characters.

The last thing that I really liked was that you weren’t really sure who was the good guy or the bad guy and I wasn’t entirely sure how things were going to pan out.

There were of course little things of course that I could point out, but I won’t because to be honest they were minimal and the story was very well written and for an Indie very well edited. I usually prefer first person narration for my young adult novels but the author did such a wonderful job that I wasn’t aware of the POV after the first couple of pages. Plainly stated, the story had heart.

My only complaint is, after I was finished with the book I wanted to know if there would be a sequel and to twitter/blog stalk the author as I do with many authors whose books I like, but I was unable to find anything except a bio on Authonomy.com.

I would give this book 4.5 stars if any of the sites I’ll be posting the review on had that option. Since they don’t I’m rounding it up to 5 stars because I was unable to finish the last two Indie books I attempted. So, this book gets a bonus half star for not only being good enough to finish but good enough for me to really like.

Get your copy here:

(you know you want it!)

Winter by C.B. Cole

Synopsis from GoodReads:

Winter doesn’t know it yet, but once she steps into the amphitheater to see the biggest rock show of the year, she will set into motion a whirlwind of events beyond her control. She will soon learn that her entire life has been a carefully crafted lie and that she will have to make a choice that will not only impact her life, but also the lives of everyone around her.
Will she be able to choose between what she wants and what she knows is right?


I really wanted to like this book since it is my first Indie book review and since I did publicly announce it. (Lesson learned. Don't anounce till I've actually read it.)

Unfortunetly, when searching for books to start this endeavor I was more concerned with the criteria I'd set for myself and less focused on finding the type of books I would like to read. Which is stupid, I admit.

I also have to admit, though I hate to, I didn't finish the book. It just didn't work for me and upon reaching chapter fourteen, I admitted defeat. It is probably a book that many will like. For me though, I just couldn't get behind any of the characters, and that is partially because of the way the author handled POV. (for those non-writer types that is point of view).

She jumped around from character to character, rather than sticking with just one. And for many readers this is welcomed. For me, not so much. To me, it's like the Wal-Mart of POV, a large selection but not enough quality to choose from. That's not to say the writing is of low quality but the time spent with each character isn't enough for me to identify with any of them, or even feel sympathetic towards one.

One of the things I've come to decide about my own tastes where POV is involved is: If you leave more to the imagination of the reader they'll fill it in with what works best for them.

A good example of this is scary movies. For me a scary movie that never actually shows me the monster, but only lets me see his actions or the effect he has are always way more scary than the ones that are flashing the lame CG monster in my face every ten seconds. Not afraid of a CG monster, but the monsters my imagination supplies? Yeah, they scare me.

The other thing that made me finally put the book down was that since I couldn't identify with any one character, there was nothing to keep me reading in spite of being turned off by the behavior of the main character.

The writing was decent to good. I did find that either the writer didn't trust her readers sometimes to get what she was saying or didn't trust herself to get her point across, so there was some redundancy.

Overall, I think given time and experience I would consider trying future offerings from this author.

(This review will be limited to my blog. Since I didn't finish it, it wouldn't be fair to post it anywhere else. For all I know it got amazing after I gave up.)

I've been a huge slacker with this blog. Though I'm still figuring out how best to post my work online and what I should and shouldn't be sharing.

Wattpad.com is an awesome site that allows you to post your work and be read and read other peoples work. I have posted some of my work there. You can find the first three chapters of The Fall. They are really early versions of them that have since been edited but not reposted. So forgive me for their roughness. I wrote it about 2 years ago as sort of therapy, thinking I'd never do anything with it except get that world outta my head.

I've also posted the first chapter of something I work on here and there when the Shadow fills my head. It's another one that I'm currently only writing for myself, sort of as a guilty pleasure since I'm completely in love with some of the Shadow with all his flaws and beauty. So if you're interested check out Feeders here: http://www.wattpad.com/1757071-feeders
or The Fall here: http://www.wattpad.com/427832-the-fall or my profile here: http://www.wattpad.com/user/Snimples

July 20^th

David,

I’m still here. I bet you were beginning to wonder. I wish I wasn’t though. I know where all the screaming is coming from in my dreams.

Something from my past came to the surface after my session with Helen this time. I remembered your lips and what it felt like when they were searching mine for the meaning of life. It was a blissful memory but it will never tame the ache from seeing them that day, that purple color, pink skin turns when it’s trying to be blue.

I’m sorry I was so weak. I just wanted you to know that. I think I came to them to make me strong. I’d like to believe it was so I could bring you justice but I know it was really so I could get revenge.

I decided, while I listened to Emily scream when she found me holding you like you were still alive. No one should ever have to see their brother like that, life pooled out around you like a tipped over bottle of nail polish.

I know I’ve been sitting here on my thumbs, pretending I don’t really exist cause there’s no one to care about if I live or don’t. Not anymore. I’m going to find out who I am so I can find out who you are. This time I am going to find the ones that did this to you and make them pay for what they did to you and me and Emily.

Me.

July 19^th

July 18^th