Review: WITH ALL MY SOUL by Rachel Vincent

Goodreads description:

What does it mean when your school is voted the most dangerous in America? It's time to kick some hellion butt...

After not really surviving her junior year (does "undead" count as survival?), Kaylee Cavanaugh has vowed to take back her school from the hellions causing all the trouble. She's going to find a way to turn the incarnations of Avarice, Envy and Vanity against one another in order to protect her friends and finish this war, once and forever.

But then she meets Wrath and understands that she's closer to the edge than she's ever been. And when one more person close to her is taken, Kaylee realizes she can't save everyone she loves without risking everything she has....

*****

I am writing this with somewhat of a heavy heart since I still can't seem to be able to wrap my head around the fact that my favorite series has come to an end - that I won't be able to escape into this world again (unless it is during a re-read). I can never again pick up another novel in this series with the same first time anxiousness and excitement and with adrenaline pumping through my veins at the pure thought of what Rachel Vincent could have possibly done to/with my favorite characters.

Having said this, I couldn't be happier with the way she ended Kaylee, Tod, and everybody else's story. Not surprisingly, this is another gripping book full of action, surprise, twists and turns. You cannot miss the, sometimes subtle, humor we have all come to love. Those snarky and cheeky comments from the people I have become so attached to, as well as those vicious and vile remarks from the hellions I love to hate.

Rachel Vincent is a master at drawing such vivid images with her words, you can't help but feel like your standing right there next to Kaylee, Tod, and everyone, staring straight into the eyes of the evil that is Avari and all other creatures of the Netherworld.

After BEFORE I WAKE had been so devastating for me that I hadn't been able to pick up another book for about six months, I was very, very scared what WAMS might do to me. Luckily for me, I never felt as devastated as I did during BIW, but that doesn't mean that this book wasn't intense on all sorts of levels - not at all! I went from happiness to pure terror in a matter of a few pages. I felt all the emotions anyone could possibly feel. There was never a dull or quiet moment because you never knew what would come next. I was sitting at the end of my seat until the very end.

Since I don't like giving anything away, I will stop myself here before I accidentally spill the beans about one thing or another. The only other thing I just have to add is I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new character!!! I would definitely want to read more about them.

*****

Now to my favorite passages, and there a lot of them. It is really hard for me to just pick a few, but I will try my best. Unfortunately, I won't be able to share one my absolute favorites, since I believe that it's too spoiler-y.

Avari

 "I want your anguish, both mental and physical. I want to take you apart and see what biological pumps and vessels make you bleed and what psychological gears and levers make you tick. Then I want to put you back together and begin again. I want to hear you scream. I want to see you writhe. I want to taste your flesh, and your blood, and your fears. I want to savor your ill-fated dreams as they burst like berries between my teeth, then melt like sugar on my tongue."

*****

Kaylee

Tod blinked at me. His arms rested against his legs, his hands hanging between his knees, and his eyes were so still. Still like true death. And for the first time since I'd met him, he looked like I might have expected a reaper to look. Like death itself, he was both the object that could not be moved and the force that could not be resisted, and the longer he stared at me without reacting -- without showing a single ripple of emotion beneath his frozen-lake eyes -- the deeper my heart ached, until I thought it would split open and fall apart.

***

That damn mara was an emotional ninja, sneaking up on your heart when you least expected it.

*****

Tod

"I may be physically younger, but -- much like a sweet, golden apricot -- I was plucked from life at the peak of perfection."

***

"Some decades from now, when you and Sabine are hobbling around in your old-people pants and orthopedic shoes, yelling at grandchildren and reminiscing about the days when you could still see your feet, unimpeded by the view of your gut, I will still be basking in the glow of eternal youth, forever young, forever golden, forever-"

*****

Reading WITH ALL MY SOUL has made me want to read all seven books, three novellas, and two short stories all over again, and as soon as I have a little free time on my hands, I intend to do just that.

My Rating: Glorious 5 out of 5 Stars

Book Blast: ECHO by Alicia Wright Brewster + Giveaway

The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone's been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end.



Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans.



Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to suspect that the future of the world may depend on Ashara's death.

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About Alicia Wright Brewster

Alicia Wright Brewster is a mild-mannered lady of average height and above average paranormal obsession. By day, she works in an office. At night she is an author, an electronics junkie, and a secret superhero. (Please don't ask what her superpower is; that's not very polite.)

In her virtually non-existent free time, she loves to read, watch movies, and eat food. She is particularly fond of the food-eating and makes a point to perform this task at least three times per day, usually more.

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SNEAK PEEK of ECHO...

A metal plate occupied the wall to the right of the door. Loken pressed his hand to it. The door slid away and disappeared into the left side of the doorway. Loken stepped through and down the stairs on the other side. His footsteps clanged against the metal steps as he descended.



Unlike in the overly bright training room on the other side of the building, dim lights filled this room with shadows. The team clustered at the bottom of the steps, blocking my view. As they shuffled slowly out of the way, I caught sight of what had stopped everyone else in their tracks.



A glass wall separated us from what looked like a large cell. The only entry point into the cell was another thick metal door with a security pad next to it. Behind the glass, three people stood as far away from one another as they could possibly get within the enclosed space: a hugely tall man, a woman with blond hair that hung past her waist, and a smaller man. All three were nude.



They looked human but . . . wrong somehow. Despite their lack of clothing, they made no effort to cover themselves. The larger man’s muscles bulged in odd places. While the woman wasn’t as massive, her body was more toned than any woman I’d ever met, more so than even Elder Ethereal.



From across the room, their black eyes cut through the darkness. A chill raced up and down my back like icy fingertips.



I stared at the smaller man. His eyes bore through me. I wondered if he saw me at all, or if he just happened to be looking where I was standing. At first glance, I’d thought him to be relatively slight. Although the other man dwarfed him, his thin arms were as tight as a predator’s, coiled to strike. The sharp planes of his face only emphasized the eerie black of his eyes, sunken into their sockets.



Loken’s voice startled me from the man’s hypnotic gaze. “In case you haven’t guessed it, these three are—”



“Mages,” I whispered.

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