BLOG TOUR - REVIEW & GIVEAWAY - THE MIDNIGHT SPELL by RHIANNON FRATER & KODY BOYE - YA PARANORMAL - PERMUTED PRESS

The Midnight Spell 
by Kody Boye and Rhiannon Frater 

Published by: Permuted Press

Publication date: February 28th 2013

Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult

Synopsis: 

By: Rhiannon Frater & Kody Boye
Published By: Permuted Press
Released : Available Now
Details: Digital, 234 Pages

RATING: 4 STARS

Best friends since kindergarten, Adam and Christy have always been the perpetual outsiders in their small town in Texas. The other kids call Adam gay and Christy a witch.

On both counts the bullies are right.

Their junior year in high school seems destined to be the same old same old until Christy decides to cast a love spell for Adam at the midnight hour. The next day an alluring and mysterious boy enrolls at school and sets hearts aflutter, including Adam’s. Meanwhile, Christy’s mad crush on the handsome football player Ian seems to be going nowhere fast and her witch puberty is making her life miserable.

When a great evil arrives in town that threatens everything they hold dear, the best friends realize that finding a boyfriend is the least of their worries. Soon Adam and Christy will have to battle a force of darkness that has killed in their town before, and will again.

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13597181-the-midnight-spell

BOOK REVIEW by Michelle:

The Midnight Spell is my first read from Rhiannon Frater. I know her  As The World Dies series is very popular.

I thought this book got off to a very strong start. I really enjoyed both Christy and Adam’s pov’s.

I really liked listening to Adam. He is the only gay student at Trinity Springs High School. He naturally gets bullied.

Both Christy and Adam are outsiders, but still they have a great group of friends. They have been bff’s since kindy. Both are turning seventeen.

Christy is a witch in training and she decides to take it upon herself to find Adam a beau, via a spell.

Now I think you just have to go with the fact that every other male student at the high school is not gay, even though, how would you know. For the sake of this story, they are all straight.

Until...

I really love Drifter. He is the guy that can be friends with everyone, no harm no foul.

Olivia is the new student, who could quite easily blend with the populars, but she puts herself in with Christy and Adam.

She is a very likable character. She loves her lollipops. 

  “Hi,” she said in a perky voice that immediately annoyed me.

  “Hi,” I mumbled, trying to dart around her.

  She was quicker and positioned herself right in front of me. Without a doubt she was definitely not a local. Her blond curls had pink highlights and her makeup was pinup perfect. Dressed in rockabilly-style clothing, complete with saddle shoes, she looked like a sexy, yet cute doll. I’m always trying to lose the fifteen pounds that clings to my lower stomach and upper thighs, but her extra weight looked good on her. She was all curves and cuteness.

  I wanted to hate her.

  “So, you’re totally the outcast chick, aren’t you?” she said, grinning as she sucked on a bright green lollipop.

  “Why do you say that?” I glowered at her.

  She swept her hands dramatically at me as though she were unveiling a masterpiece. “Behold, the surly girl in combat boots, beat-up jeans and a vintage Blondie t-shirt. Add in the hoodie, lack of makeup and the long, slightly ragged hair, and you get... ”

  “The outcast,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I like outcasts. They have flavor and this town so lacks that. Wait, I take it back. The town has flavor, but it’s very vanilla. Not even Mexican vanilla. We’re talking boring old vanilla vanilla.”

  “And I’m not vanilla.”

  “You’re like... espresso.”

  “And you?”

  “Definitely peppermint.”

  Despite myself, I smiled.

  “I’m Olivia, the new girl.”

  “Christy, the outcast,” I said.

Olivia is a fun friend. She is open and honest and knows how to put her two cents in.

  Olivia was sitting on my bed petting Callie. I was surprised that my usually very judgmental cat liked her already. Olivia’s pink-streaked blond hair was carefully coiffed into a retro style complete with a big gardenia in her hair. She also wore a pale blue dress that looked like something an old movie star would wear. Instead of looking dorky, she looked awesome.

  Meanwhile, I looked totally... different.

  Placing my hands on my hips, I watched the girl in the red dress and bright red lipstick in the mirror mimic me. Olivia and I had left early that morning on a road trip to the nearest big town with outlet stores. We had hit Ross and Marshalls, scouring the racks for a dress that would actually make me look like a real girl. By the time we settled down for lunch at Cheddar’s, we had found the red dress and black strappy heels I was now wearing. Before heading home to Trinity Springs, we had stopped by Sephora and bought a matching lipstick.

  “Do I look slutty?” I said worriedly.

  “I would say we avoided slutty by flirting outrageously with sexy,” Olivia assured me.

Enter Mark Black, the handsome guy who falls for Adam.

Hard.

Adam and Christy’s parents are both, great parents. Nice to read a book where the parents aren’t abusers, have a terminal disease or are just plain shitty.

  And if you try anything at the school, I swear I will bring holy hell down upon you, because when you fuck with the cub, you mess with the fucking mama bear.

Amen. Sister.

Adam’s, mum is funny and I love that she knows Adam is gay and she is one hundred percent supportive. 

  Mom shrugged. “Boys are weird,” she offered, “and you don’t get better with age, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Thanks Mom.”

  “No problem. But hey-I gotta jam. Cake in the oven, yannow?”

Amelia, the ten year old sister, who is rather nosy, and a tad bratty, is kind of funny to watch. She is like that family’s sidekick.

Christy’s family has two sidekick characters, the broom and Callie the cat and maybe dad.

My personal thoughts on The Midnight Spell, while I did enjoy the story, I thought sometimes it hovered between YA and middle grade. Kind of back and forth for me.

I felt the first two thirds of the book was strong, I really enjoyed where it was heading, then it kind of dropped off for me and I felt like things were being thrown at the story line, quickly.

I did work out the villain, although I was only half right. I did like the extra twist thrown in.

I think the comments dropped in the story line had me being suspicious and then my theories got stronger as more comments were dropped.

What can I say, I read a lot of certain genre books. I think it is pretty easy to pick up, although, there was a twist of lemon thrown in. Which made me not so much a smarty pants.

I liked the twist.

As the story progresses in the latter part of the book, I would have loved a certain character to have been introduced, earlier. I totally dig this character.

What I did love reading was Adam, and I really felt for him attending a school where he wanted a boyfriend, someone to spend time with, other than Christy. Someone for himself, but he was the only gay guy. I loved how Olivia and Christy got excited for him when Mark arrived.

Every girl wants a boyfriend in high school, Adam wanted someone too.

I didn’t like hearing Christy say repeatedly she was fat and ugly. She clearly has so much more to offer her friends with her personality that they all clearly love. She loves Adam like a brother and watches out for him, he loves her in turn. She got along really well with Olivia from the start and Ian was interested in her. Not many of us are Barbie dolls.

Speaking of Barbie dolls, the biaaatches in this book, because, you always have to have the Barbie doll clones, they had the looks, but were utter mean girls.

Point taken.

I think where this felt more Sabrina Teenage Witch , was with the broom and Callie the cat. They are fun characters, but sometimes among the dangerous parts of the story, it flew into middle grade territory. It fluctuated for me, in this odd ebb and flow.

This was an enjoyable read with some great sub characters that really added to the story. I felt like this had great possibility for a spinoff with another character, or two. I was just really getting to know them.

* wink *

Michelle

Purchase From: 

Amazon 

B&N

AUTHOR BIOS: 

Rhiannon:

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of over a dozen books, including the As the World Dies zombie trilogy (Tor), as well as independent works such as The Last Bastion of the Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog), and other horror novels. In 2014, her newest horror novel, The Mesmerized, will be released by Permuted Press. Dead Spots will be published in 2015 by Tor. She was born and raised a Texan and presently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and furry children (a.k.a pets). She loves scary movies, sci-fi and horror shows, playing video games, cooking, dyeing her hair weird colors, and shopping for Betsey Johnson purses and shoes.

You can find her online at:Website: rhiannonfrater.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/astheworlddies

Twitter: twitter.com/rhiannonfrater

Blog: rhianonfrater.blogspot.com

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/rhiannonfrater/

Email: rhiannonfrater at gmail.com

Kody:

Born and raised in Southeastern Idaho, Kody Boye began his writing career with the publication of his story [A] Prom Queen’s Revenge at the age of fourteen. Published nearly three-dozen times before going independent at eighteen, Boye has authored numerous works—including the short story collection Amorous Things, the novella The Diary of Dakota Hammell, the zombie novel Sunrise and the epic fantasy series The Brotherhood Saga. He is represented by Hannah Brown Gordon of the Foundry Literary + Media Agency.


You can visit him online at kodyboye.com

GIVEAWAY TIME

one (1) ebook copy of The Midnight Spell. 

Open internationally

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28th MAY 2014