Review: Stung by Joss Stirling

Published by: Oxford University Press
Release date: 5th February 2015
Series: Struck #2
I got it from: Netgalley
Goodreads summary:   
Stung by Joss Stirling is a breathtaking romantic thriller from the bestselling author of Finding Sky.

Sixteen-year-old Kate has a talent for disappearing. Framed for murder, and hunted by a violent gang, she's running for her life...

Nathan is the young recruit tasked with finding Kate before her enemies track her down. He's determined to stay detached no matter what.

But when Nathan and Kate's paths collide, neither is prepared for the electricity that sparks between them.

As the net tightens, can they trust each other long enough to stay alive? Or will their next kiss be their last?



My Review:










I somehow missed Storm and Stone/Struck, the first book in Stirling's new Struck series, but after reading Stung and adoring it I really need to go find it now. I was a huge fan of Stirling's Benedicts series, and when I got the chance to read Stung on Netgalley I was so excited (and mad that I missed the start of the series!). Happily, the book lived up to my high expectations. It has all the action and adventure you expect from a Stirling book, with just the right mix of danger, friendship and romance.

Stirling isn't afraid to introduce her characters to intense hardship or even death, and that makes her books that much more exciting. She treats her readers as intelligent adults, giving no quarter where complex plotlines and high-tech toys are involved. Yet she also has that great author knack of making it so that you can stumble across a series at any point. I wish I'd read Storm and Stone first, simply because I want to know Kieran and Raven's story, but I didn't have any trouble catching up with things. A steady trickle of pertinent information ensures that you can keep up, without any annoying info-dumps. I can't wait to see which of the YDA gets the next story. Damien's has got to be a good one. Just sayin'.

Review: Sister Assassin by Kiersten White

NB this book is titled Mind Games outside the UK.

Time for something completely different. Sister Assassin is unlike any YA book I've read. It has a hint of the supernatural, in that it features girls with abilities such as mind-reading, seeing the future and feeling emotions (known in the book as readers, seers and feelers), however it's not all about that. It's also about  relationships, abuse, control and escape.

Sister Assassin is a hard book to review without dropping any spoilers. Glancing at other reviews, it seems to be a bit of a marmite book - people either love it or they hate it. Personally, I loved it. It's so different from the usual paranormal romance that has flooded the YA market, it was like a breath of fresh air. Or perhaps I should say a breath of tainted air, because this book is quite gritty, although it's easy to just get caught up in the thrill and excitement, and gloss over the subtext.

Told using a dual PoV, Sister Assassin is the story of two sisters. Annie is blind, but she has visions - she can see the future. Annie's younger sister Fia doesn't think she's special - it's just her job to look after her disabled big sister. But when Annie is offered a place at the Keane School for Exceptional Girls, Fia discovers that Annie isn't the only one with a special gift. Fia just knows that agreeing to join the school is the wrong thing to do - she doesn't know why, but her intuition tells her it's wrong, and her intuition is flawless. However, Annie is overjoyed at the chance to attend a school that offers her a chance at a good future, and possibly even a cure for her blindness, so Fia can't say no. Together, the girls start their new life, but it doesn't take long before Fia works out that what they're being taught isn't exactly on the National Curriculum. Annie has it easy, with a best friend and a tutor who understands her strange visions, meanwhile Fia is being trained to be an assassin, and for the first time in her life she has to keep things from her sister, to protect her from knowledge that would surely break her, just as it's broken Fia herself.

Not only using two PoVs, Sister Assassin skips between time-frames. Beginning with a strange but exciting series of events, each chapter reveals more, with snippets from the past filling you in until gradually everything is explained. This is something that a lot of people seem to have a problem with. I don't. I found the style of writing fascinating, with clues as to what's going on being dropped here and there, scenes from the past adding both interest and essential information. It's like getting to know someone in real life - you start off in the present, with your first impression of a person coloured by the circumstances in which you meet them. Then over time they tell you stories from their past, and you get to know them bit by bit.

Full of angst, terror, a hint of romance and a ton of kick-ass moves, Annia and Fia's story is a dark, thrilling, action-packed rollercoaster ride that you'll find hard to put down.

Published by HarperCollins on 19/02/2013. This review is thanks to an ARC from NetGalley.

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