{Book Review} THE CASQUETTE GIRLS by Alys Arden

Book Title: The Casquette Girls
Author: Alys Arden
Publisher: fortheARTofit publishing
Publishing Date: October 31, 2013
Length: 512 Pages
Source: Read 4 Review via Xpresso Book Tours

Book Blurb:

After the Storm of the Century rips apart New Orleans, Adele Le Moyne and her father are among the first to return to the city following the mandatory evacuation. Adele wants nothing more than for life to return to normal, but with the silent city resembling a mold-infested war zone, a parish-wide curfew, and mysterious new faces lurking in the abandoned French Quarter, normal will have to be redefined.

Events too unnatural – even for New Orleans – lead Adele to an attic that has been sealed for three hundred years, and the chaos she unleashes threatens not only her life but everyone she knows. Mother Nature couldn’t drain the joie de vivre from the Big Easy, but someone or something is draining life from its residents.

Caught suddenly in a hurricane of eighteenth-century myths and monsters, Adele must quickly untangle a web of magic that links the climbing murder rate back to her own ancestors. But who can you trust in a city where everyone has a secret, and where keeping them can be a matter of life and death – unless, that is, you’re immortal.
Goodreads | Amazon

 This book snuck up on me. That's the first sentence that comes to mind when I'm trying to describe how I felt as I read. I requested this book through a review program with Xpresso Book Tours and was granted a copy in exchange for an honest review. This book exceeded my expectations!

I requested it because I was intrigued by the title and the setting of New Orleans. I know the story of The Casquette Girls very, very vaguely and was interested in a story based on them. What I got was a story that highlights the devastation of Katrina, the emotions of a young girl, magic, rich history told via a walking tour, and a glimpse of both past New Orleans and current New Orleans.

This book falls under the YA Paranormal Romance labels, but if you're not a normal reader of YA, I urge you to pick this up anyway. It is delightfully intricate, weaving a story around the past, the current, and a main character, Adele, who is very much a sixteen year old girl. With confusion about the sudden attention from boys, you would expect her to be annoying, but instead I found her quite charming.

It was hard to put this book down to tend to everyday life. Intriguing with layers of mystery, history, legend, and romance, there wasn't a single moment where I became bored. The characters are rich and charming; even the villainous characters are likable and have depth! I must say...this book made me want to run to New Orleans and find a little mystique and romance of my own. I was utterly enchanted. 

ARC REVIEW: CURSED (Book one VOODOO NIGHTS) by LIZZY FORD

Cursed by Lizzy Ford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received an ARC to read. This review was not required and it's my honest opinion. This book releases November 17th, which is approximately a thousand years from now. Good luck in waiting for it! :D

Warning: Lizzy Ford writes books that suck you into a vortex of "stfu I am reading" and when it spits you out at the end, you're basically on your knees begging for more or just shell-shocked at the cliffhanger. Actually, you're probably both. Just so you know.

Warning No 2: CLIFFHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGER zomg




Review: I can't even...I don't know where to start. I do my best not to give away ANYTHING in the book when writing my reviews and I've written and re-written this review a couple of times before walking away and coming back again. I really want to rant, I really want to praise, I really just want to stalk amazon and poke at Lizzy's assistants, publishers, amazon, and anyone that could possibly sneak me more on this story in any way possible.

Obviously, this book revolves around voodoo, the culture, the traditions, the legends. An urban gang named Loa Ogoun, after the god, formed after Hurricane Katrina to help protect and preserve the families of voodoo. There are four original families, three of whom still reside in New Orleans: Dubois, Touissant, and Igbos. The return of the fourth family is prophesied and with that return can come great evil.

Adrienne St Croix has won a scholarship to a prestigious school in New Orleans. She moves from Atlanta, Georgia to New Orleans to live with her father so she may attend this school. Jayden Washington is the hot quarterback, son of the rich “black Steve Jobs.” As Jayden starts school, his father reveals a secret family history to him. A burden, really.

Of COURSE you know that Adrienne and Jayden are bound to cross paths. She’s petite, pretty, and gifted with a marvelous voice and Jayden is the jock of the school, revered and desired.

I am fascinated by magical tales, voodoo, paranormal, etc. This was no different. Voodoo is especially fascinating for as much as is revealed and reported, there is so much more that is swept under the rug, hidden behind locked doors, and only passed down from family to family.

Even when you have multiple families working to preserve their ways, they withhold information from one another as you see Marie Touissant do from Candace Igbos. I am probably going to be the only one to say this, but…

I DID NOT LIKE JAYDEN WASHINGTON. There are characters in this book that I just couldn’t stand. I don’t know if it’s because I come from a more privileged (although not like Jayden’s) background than Adrienne does, but her father was REVOLTING. (And by privileged, I mean I have 2 parents who love me and when I was a kid, I was not given adult responsibilities like help me pay the rent!) I don’t see how any parent treats their kid that way! She’s not even an adult and she’s paying her own way?! I understand chipping in because times are hard and you want to ease the burden on your parents. I do. But then he turns around and chastises her with thoughtless, jerk statements like “that fancy puffed cereal you like ain’t free.”

Okay, so that’s her dad. But I didn’t like Jayden for the SAME reasons. Firstly, while his Uncle Tommy’s comments are messed up, Jayden has no love or respect for his grandmother. He dismisses her as crazy with her “voodoo” crap. You know, my grandmother was very superstitious as well and I never dismissed it. You, kid, are a rude, insufferable jackass. Then, he is thinking about how attracted he is to Adrienne, but since she’s poor and his daddy is rich, “can’t be anything serious between us but I wanna have a little fun and won’t be told I can’t by anyone!” You typical jerk male. UGH! *slaps him*

I also didn’t like him for lying to Adrienne, not warning her of the malicious intent from Kimmie (that selfish, vicious COW) that he KNEW about well ahead of time (he could have WARNED Adrienne!!!!), and then he is dismissive towards her as well, after asking for a tarot reading and dismissing it TO HER FACE as “a card trick.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? And she is STILL fawning over him? No. Just no.
No amount of money makes this kid worthwhile. Besides, he’s 17. It’s not his money anyway. It’s his father’s! Just because the dad is rich doesn’t mean this kid will be. The dad could leave it all to charity or his sisters. Not that Adrienne really thinks about his money; she’s bowled over by his handsome looks. She does think about it, but not in a money-grubbing, gold-digging way. Still, I’d rather she choose Rene, who is very what-you-see-is-what-you-get. I want Adrienne to be with Rene. Rene is rough on the outside, but gooey on the inside. He has this strict street code he sticks to that I find honorable and admirable. Jayden better be doing a whole lot of self-sacrificing, heroic, white knight on a fiery steed kind of crap in the upcoming books if she is going to choose him. (Are you listening to me, Adrienne? So far the one who is looking out for you and cares if you end up in a ditch isn’t Jayden; it’s Rene!)

Adrienne has to face some hard truths about the sister whose disappearance she is looking into. She already knew that Therese had crossed the line into black magic (blood magic) and its evil ways, but she didn’t know just HOW much. And oh look…another betrayal from someone that is supposed to be on her side. How is she ever going to learn to trust the right person? While I pitied her, I was also frustrated with her on this point.

The story is twists and twines and reaches faaaaaaaaar back into the past and messes with the present. And you just KNOW that the resolution should lie with the Chosen, the Devil, and the Warrior. And you THINK you know who is who, but then…you’re wrong. Or are you?!
So as I’m getting all revved up, CLIFFHAAAAAAAAANGER. Major things happen and then no matter how hard I was tapping on my kindle, it stubbornly remained at 100%. I can’t…I can’t even.
Hi, my name is Tiffany and I’m officially a LizzyFord-addict. There is no cure.

View all my reviews

Review: DEJA VOODOO by Elle James

Title: Deja Voodoo
Author: Elle James
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Publishing Date: June 24, 2013
Length: 233 pages
Source: Publisher for an honest review

A little magic goes a long way… Alexandra Belle Boyette is closing in on the big 3-0 and her mama has made it her mission to marry her off. In the tiny parish of Bayou Miste, deep in the Louisiana swamps, finding suitable hubby material can be a challenge—and Alex would rather not rely on magical spells to do the trick. But there is a sexy new man in town who might fit the bill... Ed Marceaux is in Bayou Miste to safeguard a key witness to a Louisiana Mafia murder. He must keep an eye out for suspicious characters—but the place seems to be full of them! What could be stranger than a woman dressed in a sexy nightgown chasing a naked man down the street? The enchantingly gorgeous Alex Boyette certainly makes it worth his while to find out… Add a Voodoo spell gone wrong, and voila! madness—and love—ensues.


A_TiffyFit's Review
 This was a thrilling read! Hot, steamy romance, great action, and characters who really leap off the page with their personalities. I have to admit, I fell in love with the Boyette clan. Their names, their personalities, their adoration and love for one another.

Alex is an independent woman who adores and loves her family and owns a gym. She helps her mother out with her siblings, is a steadfast friend, but despite her protestations, she's a little lonely. Enter her matchmaking mother and the hunky Ed Marceaux, her mother's new vacation cabin renter. Their first meeting is quite something and had me giggling as I imagined it: a hot, well-built man running butt-naked down the street chased by two women, one in a see through nighty and black lace panties... lol

I've never been to Louisiana, but from reading other novels, watching television and movies (I'm sure exaggerated, but still that's my exposure to it!), and from the author's descriptions, I felt like I was a part of the book. Nicely detailed movement within the book (through the town, the swamp, etc). Hell, I would love a little bit of this voodoo in my life. Lucie and her grams can come up with a little voodoo bag for me any time!

As the story unfolds, Alex and Ed are each fighting their attraction towards one another, extreme lust and chemistry turning into something more. But Alex wants to stay in Bayou Miste to help her mother and keep her business, and Ed's from Baton Rouge over 2 hours away. Plus, he's being a bit weird and shady at times...what is he keeping from her? Well, we the readers know that it's because he's undercover, but Alex doesn't.

I love romance books where you have two strong characters with chemistry who fall in lust and then in love with one another. I love thrillers and magic, too. This book has it all and was a very satisfying read. This was the first book I've read by Elle James and I must say that I'm looking forward to more!

Thank you to Entangled Publishing for the advanced readers e-copy! :)

This book releases today, Monday, June 24, 2013, readers! Perfect summer read if I do say so myself: sizzling, suspenseful, action-packed romance!