Book Summary: Edge of Extinction

Basically imagine if no-one was able to stop the bad dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and they took over...

Because this seems like that story...

Humans manage to clone dinosaurs but they soon manage to make their way back to the top of the food-chain. With their obvious hunting ability and not so obvious killer virus the human population was quickly decimated, forcing the few living humans to live in compounds underground for the last 150 years, and one such human is our protagonist Sky, who is an orphan after her fathers disappearance.

Sky discovers a letter written by her father and with best friend Shawn she decides to go find him. Even if it means risking their lives against the dinosaurs

This book seems very "on the edge of your seat" reading and come on who hasn't thought about what the old would be like if dinosaurs still lived (although personally would like the Flintstones version of that world)

Book Review: Brotherhood of Thieves

Brotherhood of thieves is set back when horses were how you got home on time, you didn’t leave home without your sword and life on the streets leaves you cold, miserable and hungry… so when main character —orphan and street thief— Caspan gets given the chance to compete to join the brotherhood of thieves (a secret order sanctioned by the king) how could he pass it up.

The secret order specialise in treasure hunting, exploring ancient temples long left by an ancient race that lived on earth many moons ago, leaving behind their magical artifacts that are much needed by the kings army in a war against the Roon, the invading ork army .

After completing the first part of their training the five young apprentices – Caspan, Roland, Lachlan, Sara and Kilt - receive a very special gift reserved only for those in the Order… their own Wardens, a magical beast that they will train with to help them with their task, but when the group are sent on their first mission things don’t go to plan and the trainees must rely on each other and work together to survive.

This book would suit any reader that enjoys dragons, sword fighting, magical pets and funny banter. Also great for younger teens stepping up into teen books.

Book Summary: The False Prince

The false prince is a story about Saga, a sharped tongue quick witted orphan in a kingdom on the verge of civil war after a mysterious poisoning kills of all the next in line for the throne leaving the king with no heir.

Saga is one day approached by Connor, a nobleman who's plan is to find the perfect candidate to impersonate the kings long lost son who was proclaimed dead a sea year before. Saga is recruited with 3 other orphans but Connor is in only needs 1, so Saga is not only competing for a better life but also to stay alive.

Saga now must learn all the thing expected of a royal son - Sword-fighting, Horse riding, politics and customs, and the culture of the realm. The story is full of sabotage, intrigue and adventure.

Comic Review: Misfit City Vol 1

Short but sweet, can’t beat a comic I say.

I hardly touch comics but this one was pretty cool. Ever seen the movie Goonies? Well this comic is somewhat similar and I’m all for a trip down memory lane.

Nothing ever happens in this small hometown. But, when Wilder and her friends find an old pirate map, which has people chasing them to get it back the girls know they have found something special. Finally, something exciting is happening!

This a good read about mysterious adventures and the friends that make it all worth it!

Manga Review: Queens Quality

I'm loving this manga! Its a follow on from QQ Sweeper, a manga i didn't actually like but might give a second chance now.

It starts with Fumi getting magically attacked in her garden, when she fights back she releases an incredible dormant power inside of her which basically allows her to control people!

These powers come with a good side and a bad side. In order to not destroy the world with these new powers Fumi must learn to control the bad side before it controls her and if that wasn't hard enough other clans are plotting to use her bad powers for themselves no matter the cost!

With danger all around Kyutaro has taken on the challenge of "Queens guard" meaning he will sacrifice everything to keep Fumi safe.

But with Fumi starting to remember haunting memories from her past and Kyutaro hiding some serious secrets of his own do they have any chance of holding back the darkness...

Book Review: The Secret Deep

The Secret Deep. – Lindsay Galvin

You would think losing your mum to cancer would be enough to deal with let alone having to move to a completely different country and then your aunty taking you to live out in the bush with a bunch of kids each of them teaching and learning different ‘off the grid’ type of survival skills.

Aster and her little sister Poppy find it a little weird when nothing their aunty is saying or doing adds up. Who are these kids happy to live in the middle of nowhere?

Things get stranger when a so called boat trip to see bioluminescent algae turns into a trap. Locked inside the cabin gas starts to fill the room and the only one wearing a mask is aunty Iona. Waking up alone on a desert island Aster’s only hope to find any answers is the ocean.

But something else is out there. You can’t help but think, what exactly happened to the other kids? 

Intrigue. Thrills and out of nowhere twists makes this book a gripping read. This book had me sitting on the edge of my seat because I couldn’t quite figure it out.

Give it a read and if you could describe it in three words what would those words be?

Book Review: Cheerleaders

In a small town five cheerleaders are found dead.

Two of them are killed in a car crash so bad first responders' can't tell which girl is which. A few weeks later two more are found dead in their home. One strangled and the other one so badly cut she bleeds to death.

Police put the murders down to a creepy neighbor and the car accident to just that, an accident.

The fifth cheerleader Jen....well everyone thinks she killed herself because she couldn’t handle her friends dying.

Five years later Jen's little sister Monica finds Jen's old cell phone in her stepdads drawer. Along with photos with handwritten notes saying ‘the neighbor didn’t do it. Connect the dots’. Monica gets in contact with a stranger that was texting her sister on the morning she killed herself. And she gets a text back....(Suspenseful music).

Pretty much Monica looks into what really happened five years ago to her sister and her friends. Everyone that she comes into contact with has some part to play. I thought I had it all figured out by chapter three but I was so wrong.

Its such a easy read and in the end I was left feeling intrigued but a little sad because sometimes the tragedies in life don’t always have a reason for happening.    

Read this book and comment below how it made you feel.

This was book 1 for the 'Reading out of my comfort zone' challenge I set myself for this year. Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/napierlibraries/ to see what I'll be reading next. Join me on my challenge and see what new books you can find! (Remember to send us a photo of what you’re reading too).

Manga Review: Made in Abyss #1

Okay.. this was wonderfully strange. 

Made in Abyss was a different kind of fantasy story than I'm used too. The Abyss is basically a giant giant giant Cave System in the middle of the earth and is the only place left in the world that humans haven't fully explored. 

The mysterious thing about the Abyss is that the deeper you travel into the cave the worst it is for you to travel back to the top, so basically people don't return to the top they just keep exploring further down into the abyss and send up letters and artifacts when they can, which means the people on the surface still know very little about the lower levels of the abyss.  

The main characters are a group of children learning to be Cave Divers, People trained to explore the Abyss, while searching around Rico is attached by one of the many dangerous creators that roam the caves, she is mysteriously saved by a boy named Reg with mechanical arms and legs who has no memory of who he is or how he got there.

Rico and Reg quickly plan a secret adventure into the lower levels of the Abyss to find Rico's mother -an expert cave diver- after Rico receives what she believes is a coded message from her mother and to see if the lower levels will explain what Reg is and maybe trigger some of the memories he's lost - like why he needs a blaster canon built into his arm??

I'm definitely keen to see where this manga series goes and with the wacky mysterious story line anything could happen  

Book Review: Gone

Gone.

One moment your teacher is standing at the blackboard explaining the history of the Civil War and then he’s just not. No puff, no flash of light, no explosion… hes just gone.

In small town Perdido Beach everyone over the age of 15 has disappeared, so no police, no teachers, no PARENTS a dream come true for most kids right!?
but then things start to change...

Kids around you are able to do strange things they couldn’t do before
You start to notice the animals aren’t really the same either
Bullies are taking over the town
The day care is fill of young kids but no-one to watch them 
The food supply is getting smaller and smaller 
Kids are getting hurt 
The strong are picking on the weak

You begin to realize that the adults they were all so happy to be without, are the ones they now need. 

With panic slowly starting to move through town everyone is starting to look at you, Sam Temple, to fix it…. But you have no idea where to start and you’re not 100% sure you want to be the one to 'fix it' . You’re not an adult you’re just a kid who wants to surf, and you’re dealing with your own issues your own strange gift that you don’t want to tell anyone about, and your birthdays coming in a few months. You’ll be 15.

Comic Review: The Prince and the Dressmaker

This has been a very sort after comic and a happy addition to our collection.   

Prince Sebastian is struggling between two worlds, his responsibilities to his kingdom and his secret life as the FaBuLoUs Lady Crystallia!

After the struggling dressmaker Frances, designs a dress that catches the attention of Lady Crystallia both of their lives change forever.

Frances now has the freedom to design whatever she wants but is that enough to only design for one person for the rest of her life…

Lady Crystallia has never felt more beautiful or more confident in Frances designs but is that enough, how does he make this confidence last when he will one day need to put down his tiaras and pick up his crown...

Comic Review: Animosity

One day, all at once, all the animals 'Wake up', they start talking, thinking and acting how the please... including taking revenge on those who have oppressed them.

The world as we know it changes forever, animals vs human, animals vs animals, humans vs humans! and in all the chaos we're following Jesse and her dog Sandor trying to survive in a very hostile world as they try to make their way to Jesse's brother.  Jesse finds herself teaming up with a peculiar group of animals and humans along the way and is forced into solving some crazy, weird and disturbing situations.

Animosity is very action packed and will make you rethink the way you see animals and the way you treat them. 

New comic arriving soon

THE COMICS ARE COMING, THE COMICS ARE COMING!!

Our trolleys are packed double sided FULL of new comics!
Welcome to...

I'll be reviewing as many as I can :) 

Book Review: Lifel1k3 (Lifelike)

Lifelike is a dystopian story about Eve.    Eve is a robot gladiator building whiz, but when her priced junkyard gladiator is smashed beyond repair leaving her undefended and seconds from being ‘smashed beyond repair’ herself, she reveals a dormant secret ability that saves her life but in saving herself she has also doomed herself. What she just did is seen as an abomination by a dangerous group called the brotherhood who's swore oath is to eliminate people like Eve.
Eve quickly hides herself in the fleeing crowd with her best friend Lemon, they then disappear in the twisted metal slums they call home. While trying to make it home unnoticed the two girls witness and fighter plane crash, with their only source of incoming lying in an unusable pile of torn metal Eves plan is to scavenge the wreckage for parts to sell and start again... but the girls find more then they were expecting, a unresponsive lifelike, lifelike's are highly weaponized and expensive robot that look like humans and thought to have been all destroyed years ago, Eve has hit the scavenger jack-pot! But the girls are not the only ones to have seen the crash and quickly discover that a smart mouth and an electrified baseball might not be able to save them this time... but the now awake lifelike might be able too....

Lifelike was in my top 10 most anticipated books this year and it didn't disappoint a definite must read!

Book Review: Legend

Once the western United States is now the Republic. A nation with rich military families that have it all, good military universities, easy access to health care, good housing and plenty of food and the poor families working for them, living in the slums fighting and scavenging for everything. The only way out is to score high on your trials…a test to decide what part of society you belong.

June- born into the one of the Republic wealthiest districts and a military prodigy with a perfect trial score and amazing military skills, is tasked with a mission well beyond her peers…to hunt down Day the republics most wanted criminal, the same boy accused of killing her brother.

Day- an unknown boy for the slums who turns into modern-day Robin Hood stealing much need medication and food from highly secure military facilities for the despite families in the slums, quickly becoming the states most wanted criminal but also a shining light for the suffering underdogs.

I soooo can’t give too much away about this story. It’s one of those books you just need to grab and get stuck in. With chapters from each characters point of view, it's a little different from other books I have read. I flew through all three books so fast because I had to know what was happening next. There is a loooootttt happening lying, action, romance, this is another one of my favourite books series and actually just writing this review just makes me want to re-read them

My only negative really was the end (of the third book), don’t get me wrong the books are worth reading right till the end I just think the end was rushed and could of easily been a few hundred pages longer just to finish the story better. But hey people might love the ending so you’ll just have to read them and see. 

What to read after... The 100

Here's why...

Countdown

Countdown sees two teens linked together in a game of life and death not just theoretically but literally (sound familiar) the two teens must work together to get through the deadly tasks given to them by a hidden society and stay alive long enough to figure out a way to get free .... and away for those that are always watching... DUM DUM DUM!

Maze Runner

This is just a different twist on the core theme of The 100 . Maze Runner features a group of teen's stuck together trying to survive in their new surroundings, and just like the 100 there is more to the Maze Runner world then we initially think and just like the 100 series each book just opens up more and more of the world and also the problems.

The Prey

Similar to The 100 in that there are two groups of kids, one that believes they are being trained to be soldiers but soon discover that they are in fact being trained too be hunted for sport to the highest bidder and in their attempt to escape the group encounters the second group of kids that are being experimented on for "The greater good". (Talk about 'Mount Weather' flash backs!) Now the two groups must work together to escape and survive.

Revenge and the Wild

"Revenge and the Wild's Cannibals vs The 100's Grounds? who would win!!!"

Revenge and the Wild is based around Westie a girl determined to find the cannibals that killed her family and took her arm. This book has lots of the same ideas as The 100 but also has massive differences, like werewolves, vampires, orks, and other magical creatures. So if you liked the 100 AND fantasy books this could be the perfect mass-up to read next??