Friday, December 13, 2013

Secrets & Lies

Hello, Lambs! It's time for a book review and it's Friday the 13th. Woah.

Secrets & Lies - Christine Armsden
Secrets and Lies

Cassie Scot,still stinging from her parents’ betrayal, wants out of the magical world. But it isn’t letting her go. Her family is falling apart and despite everything, it looks like she may be the only one who can save them.

To complicate matters, Cassie owes Evan her life, making it difficult for her to deny him anything he really wants. And he wants her. Sparks fly when they team up to find two girls missing from summer camp, but long-buried secrets may ruin their hopes for happiness. Book 2 in the Cassie Scot Mystery series.



I had completely forgotten that I read the first one until I got this one, and then I was reminded on how much I liked the first one. Which is always a nice bonus. Basically, Cassie is from a magical family- except she has no magic. Nobody knows why, but this lack of magic essentially gets her disowned from her family because she's a liability basically. But that leaves her unprotected in a town of dangerous people with varying degrees of magic, so Evan saves her and now she owes him a life debt. Evan is her friend from when they were really young. The kicker twist is that with the life debt, she basically has to do whatever he tells her to even if it's against her will. Evan isn't a jerk though and you know that he does love her- except she doesn't believe that because she thinks the life debt is clouding things and that he has a hidden agenda.

Then all hell breaks loose because two girls go missing from camp and everything is indicating foul play with magic.  Then in the entire midst of this, Cassie is fighting feelings that she doesn't know if they are even real or not. She sees a seer who basically tells her "he will break her heart and soul" and in hindsight- I wonder if the seer means Evan or someone else? Because as pointed out in the book, the confession of a seer isn't always what you think it means, basically it's like a riddle. After I finished the book, I'm torn whether I want her to be with Evan or not. You get a confession from her mother, which explains a lot, but then her father confesses something else to Evan and it's a game changer. I'll be interested to see how the author wraps it up in book 3 Mind Games, when that comes out next year.


Excerpt:

I faced my former father for the first time since he had announced his intention to disown me. He looked just as he always had, with straight dark hair, brown eyes, a long, angular face, and a wide, curving mouth – curving downward into a frown, that is.

If Victor was the last person I had expected to see in the diner that morning, then my former father was the last person I wanted to see. Even now, with Victor explaining my part in his unusual scheme for revenge, I didn’t want my former father nearby. I didn’t want his help. I only hoped Nicolas and Juliana hadn’t broken their promise and told him about the life debt, or I would never hear the end of it.

The air crackled with visible tension. Sparks of shimmering red fire danced around my father’s head. Behind the counter, Mrs. Meyers twisted her hands together anxiously, as if afraid her diner might burn down. Her fears were not unjustified.
I stepped boldly between them, facing my father. “What are you doing here?“

“We need to talk,“ he said.

“I have nothing to say to you. You disowned me, remember?“

The color seemed to drain from his face as he stared past me, at his oldest enemy.
Victor raised his water glass in a mock toast. “I’ve known for some time. If it makes you feel any worse, so does everyone else in town who hasn’t been asleep for a week. Or at least, they guess.“

“I don’t care what you think you know. Stay away from my daughter.“With that, he grabbed my arm with a hand hot enough to leave a reddened imprint on my skin, and dragged me through the kitchen to the employee room at the back. Only then did he release my injured forearm.


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1 comment:

Christine Amsden said...

Thank you so much for your thoughtful review!

Just to clarify -- there are two more books in this series, so Mind Games (book 3) won't wrap things up. Stolen Dreams (book 4) will. :)

It's a little refreshing to see a review that doesn't just think Cassie and Evan need to get together right now. Without spoiling the end, I meant it to be a BIG problem! Both Cassie and Evan have some growing up to do, and it is my opinion that "I love you" are words that don't fix things without some actions to back them up.

Thanks again. I hope you enjoy the last two books in the series, too, and that you like where I end up going. :)