Book Birthday Review: Shadow Service Vol. 1 by Cavan Scott, Corin Howell, Trionna Farrell & Adrian F. Wassel

If you know me, you know will always love a gory graphic novel. And this is definitely one of them. Shadow Service is an addicting book that I really loved checking out. The story was extremely gripping and the art was mind boggling, I really could never have thought of anything like it in a million years. A new twist on magic powers and demon possession, I really couldn’t get enough. I can’t wait to see what the next volume is all about.

4/5 Stars 128 pages
Published April 20th 2021 by Vault Comics

Following a girl named Gina, she tries to live her life as what she knows is a witch, with crippling insomnia due to her powers. This entangled with her past makes her life tough, and even her job doesn’t help that out. She hunts down people who have gone missing, and one night on one of her jobs, she finds something that she never expected. Not only a gored dead body, but a man feasting on the remains. After attacking her she finds herself kidnapped and taken to a boy named Hex, who’s actually four hundred years old.

He wants her for her powers. And he’s willing to stop at nothing to force her to help them out with what they need to do. But Gina doesn’t like that at all. Honestly a lot of this book is blood, guts, gore, and Gina running away. And that’s just how I like it. Like I said earlier, this book was so exciting and interesting that I really can’t wait to see what happens in the next volume. I loved the art a lot, especially on the monsters, demons, and gore. I definitely recommend checking it out if you like graphic novels like that!

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can here!

And if you’d like to keep up with some of the creators, you can here on Twitter!

Adrian F. Wassel

Corin Howell

Cavan Scott

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe from demons and monsters and everything else.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.

Book Birthday Review: And Then She Vanished (Joseph Bridgeman #1) by Nick Jones

5/5 Stars 350 pages
Published February 2nd 2021 by Blackstone Publishing

Something I don’t get to read very often, are these kind of time travel stories. Ones without tech and the usual aspects of science fiction. It’s not in the future, it’s in the now, and it doesn’t have any of the flashy bells and whistles. And that’s exactly what I love about them. It’s gritty, it’s raw, and it’s just so interesting to me that I absolutely cannot get enough of it. This book was no exception. From the moment I picked it up I knew I would be hooked, and to my delight, it won’t end at the last page. It’s something that will continue to bring me joy in the future. And I’m almost ecstatic about it.

As a young teenager, Joe’s life was torn apart when he took his little sister Amy to a local fair. Trying to win a prize for her, he took his eye off of her for only seconds when she vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. No one ever found out what happened to her. It destroyed his family, and his sense of self worth. As an adult, Joe finds himself drinking himself to sleep every night and quickly running out of money, as well as being on the verge of losing his house. But Joe has a secret, a special power that seems unrelated to everything else. Sometimes object speak to him, they tell him their story through a kind of vision on his head when he touches them. And then after losing too many nights to insomnia, his friend convinces him to try hypnotherapy. That’s when everything changes.

After his first session he feels like it hasn’t really done anything, but that night he time travels back in time, just an hour. He watches himself do his nightly routine, all the while, he’s frozen with fear. And then it happens again, only farther back, and for a longer time. And then he starts trying to do it. That’s when he realizes that he might be able to change his past, make his life better, and even save his sister, and his entire family.

This book was amazing from the beginning until the end. I didn’t want to put it down for a second, for fear of missing something, even though I know it’s a book, and I can just go back and re read it if I do. Joe’s story, and the world crafted around him, is just so intense and interesting that it’s almost believable. The emotions portrayed in this story are so real and raw, that the characters really seem like actual people you could know. And the best part of all, is that I wasn’t left with any questions at the end, which I think is a pretty hard thing to do. Everything was like a perfectly put together puzzle, and I couldn’t get enough of it. We get to watch Joe go from a depressed hermit who’s lost everything in his life but his few friends, to someone who actually wants to put effort into his life again. And I think the most important part, is that the story really teaches you about having to let go the things that you can’t change, and you have to start living your life before it’s too late.

I think this book is for anyone looking for a really heartfelt story with a scifi twist that’s not too overwhelming. If you are a fan of books like How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, and The Time Traveller’s Wife, I think you’ll really enjoy this. It has the same kind of subtle scifi aspect as those books, and I loved this one just as much as I did those. I can’t wait to see what comes next for Joe, and I think that with the absolutely breathtaking cover that this book has, it would make a beautiful addition to anyone’s bookshelf.

If you’d like to check it out for yourself, you can grab a copy here, through my Amazon Associates link.

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can on Twitter here!

Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day.

Surprise Unboxing of Percivious Insomnia??

Pretty Dark Nothing (Pretty Dark Nothing #1) by Heather L. Reid Review

As someone who occasionally has sleeping problems where I stay up for days, this book really called to me. The description was extremely intriguing, claiming that Quinn, a young teenage girl, hasn’t slept a full night in about twenty three days. She’s plagued by shadowy creatures when she does finally sleep, and it started about eighteen months ago when her dad walked out on her and her mother.

 

4/5 Stars 321 pages
Published April 23rd 2013 by Month9Books

The shadows aren’t just scary looking, but they tell her bad things. Taunting her, telling her she’s not good enough, and that her ex boyfriend never liked her. The story is told through the third person viewpoint, and alternates views every other chapter, between Quinn and another teenage boy named Aaron. He doesn’t have the happiest backstory either, after losing his mother and little sister in a car accident that he was present for, he almost lost his life as well. His father is a grief stricken alcoholic, and his little brother does whatever he wants. He’s not ready to be a parent, but he has to be for the sake of his family.

 

Though this seems like just another teen romance book from the drama that encapsulates the characters, it’s so much more than that. Yes, it has the makings of the those kind of books, but this story has angels, demons, the afterlife, and even death in it. I  really enjoyed getting to know the characters  and their “powers”, if you could call them that, and I had a very easy time picturing them reacting with the world they’re in. This was a book that I got and forgot about, and I wish I would have read it sooner because it’s really an interesting tale.

 

If you’d like to check out this book for yourself, you can do so here.

 

Here’s a link to the author’s Twitter, if you’d like to keep up with them.

 

Thanks for reading! Hope you have a good day.