Mini Review: The Flame Never Dies

Wells of Souls: The Flame Never Dies | Rachel Vincent

Published by: Mira Ink, August 16th 2016

Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy, Demons

Pages: 368

Format: Ebook

Source: Purchased (before release at YALC, heck yes!)

ONE SPARK WILL RISE

Nina Kane was born to be an exorcist. And since uncovering the horrifying truth―that the war against demons is far from over―seventeen-year-old Nina and her pregnant sister, Mellie, have been on the run, incinerating the remains of the demon horde as they go.

In the badlands, Nina, Mellie, and Finn, the fugitive and rogue exorcist who saved her life, find allies in a group of freedom fighters. They also face a new threat: Pandemonia, a city full of demons. But this fresh new hell is the least of Nina’s worries. The well of souls ran dry more than a century ago, drained by the demons secretly living among humans, and without a donor soul, Mellie’s child will die within hours of its birth.

Nina isn’t about to let that happen . . . even if it means she has to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Everything I've come to expect from a Rachel Vincent book - emotional, angsty and romantic, and dangerous. I just didn't enjoy it as much as The Stars Never Rise.

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Reading round up (81)

Reading round up is a weekly journal where I record my daily reading progress, my thoughts on each book as I read it, and any books I've acquired during the week. 

22nd June

I'm reading The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent, which I'm really enjoying. I read 28% today and I reaaaally like Finn (though the body swap thing is making me feel ICKY. Like, you're kissing strangers and not really him...)

23rd June

Today I read 32% of The Stars Never Rise and finished it. It wasn't exactly what I expected but it was so, so good. I also started The Cage by Megan Shepherd (23%) and I like it so far.

24th June

I read 37% of The Cage and I am REALLY into the shiny gold alien. How could this happen? How could the attractive human be a complete jerk and make this metallic alien seem like a much nicer dude??? Megan Shepherd, why???

25th June

I read 23% of The Cage and I am 100% in love with Cassian, send help.

26th June

I finished The Cage (17%), and despite its imperfections it was perfect to me. I love it. 

I also started Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (13% read) because I am way overdue reading this and it felt like the right time to start it.

27th June

I read 12% of Red Queen, and I think I like it but I'm not sure yet.

28th June

Wasn't in the mood for Red Queen, so I started Invasion of The Tearling by Erika Johansen (7%). I totally forgot the heavy atmosphere of these books and how much I love it.

Books finished this week: 2
Books DNF'd this week: 0

For review:

Zeroes | Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, & Deborah Biancotti

Free on Amazon:

The Key | Jennifer Anne Davis

The Stars Never Rise (4 STARS)

The Stars Never Rise (ARC Review)

The Stars Never Rise: The Stars Never Rise | Rachel Vincent

Published by: Mira Ink, June 18th 2015

Genre: YA, Paranormal, Dystopia, Demons

Pages: 368

Format: Ebook

Source: Harlequin UK, via Netgalley

There’s no turning back…

In the town of New Temperance, souls are in short supply and Nina should be worrying about protecting hers. Yet she’s too busy trying to keep her sister Mellie safe.

When Nina discovers that Mellie is keeping a secret that threatens their existence, she’ll do anything to protect her. Because in New Temperance, sins are prosecuted as crimes by the brutal church.
To keep them both alive, Nina will need to trust Finn, a mysterious fugitive who has already saved her life once. Wanted by the church and hunted by dark forces, Nina knows she needs Finn and his group of rogue friends.


But what do they need from her in return?

The Stars Never Rise was so not what I was expecting. It was a lot more terrifying dystopia than dark fantasy, and it was so tense. I was on edge for a good portion of this book, expecting things to go wrong. Usually, they did.

The Stars Never Rise starts off pretty heavy. We're in a new nightmare world where souls are sparse and have been consumed by demons during a war, and to save humanity the Church has risen and not controls literally every aspect of everyone's lives. Which would be scary enough without factoring in the women must be pure specimens and if you have the tiniest thing wrong with you (bad eyesight, for example) we're going to make it so you can never conceive thing. That's just one example of how this new world utterly sucks for women. But what's new with women getting the worse end when it comes to rules of religion?

There's a few plot twists in this book, and I saw literally none of them coming. One of them should have been obvious from the get-go. And THE OTHER. I don't wanna spoil anything but the love interest is ... weird. And that situation is only going to get weirder through the series. I kind of can't wait for the next book, because I love the world Rachel Vincent has built, and I like the characters, and I realllly do like the romance, but ... I'm a little nervous of where the love is going to go. Like how can you fix that? Spoiler: How is she not going to keep kissing strangers, and even worse people she knows. One minute you're joking with a friend and the next you're kissing your soul-bf in your friend's body. LIKE WTF??? It makes me want to shudder with every kiss.

I really, really liked this book. It wasn't what I expected but it was amazing and exciting and totally different. I'm dying to read the next book - this series is going to be awesome.

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world-building ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

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Reading Round Up (80)

Reading round up is a weekly journal where I record my daily reading progress, my thoughts on each book as I read it, and any books I've acquired during the week. 

15th June

Today I read 39% of The Lying Game, and finished it. It was way better than I expected. A really good mystery.

I also started Arena One: Slaverunners by Morgan Rice because I'm still in the mood for a good post-apoc and Ashes didn't deliver for me. I read 20% of this and I like it.

16th June

I read 15% of A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas, and I'm so happy that the missing letter F in every word isn't holding my reading back. 

17th June

Read 30% of ACOTAR and IT'S SO GOOD. I'm irrevocably in love with Tamlin. I'll go to the ends of the earth for this baby.

18th June

FLEW through ACOTAR today, and read 40%, bringing me to 90%. I was DYING to finish it but ran out of hours in the day and didn't wanna meet the sunrise tbh.

19th June

Finished ACOTAR and it was perfect. So much more than I thought it'd be, and I thought it'd be everything. Alsooooooooooo .... I might be slightly in love with Rhysand. SLIGHTLY. This will not end well.

I also started The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent (5%), which is already preeeeeeetty cool.

20th June

I only read 7% of The Stars Never Rise today because I was busy with work.

21st June

Today I read 28% of The Stars Never Rise and the love interest is super cute, so I'm happy with that. Also the church IS SO SO WRONG AND TERRIFYING and wow I am glad I don't live in this world. This is a feminist's nightmare.

Books finished this week: 2
Books DNF'd this week: 0

For review:

Nothing!! Which is great because I have SO MANY books for review.

Bought:

Mortal Heart | Robin LaFevers

Mum gave me some money to treat myself so I got this baby. I can finally finish this series!! It's one of the best written series I've read it my life.

Emmy & Oliver (4.5 STARS)

The Lying Game (4 STARS)

A Court of Thorns & Roses (5 STARS+FAVOURITE)

Most anticipated of 2015: The Stars Never Rise

I wanted to talk about the books I'm dying to have, but since I don't do the WoW weekly feature I don't really have somewhere to talk about those books. So these posts were born. It'll be a series of 6-10 posts, since I haven't decided how many I want to talk about, and they should be up every Friday as a temporary feature.

Today I'm going to talk about

The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent

expected June 9th/18th

Sixteen-year-old Nina Kane should be worrying about her immortal soul, but she's too busy trying to actually survive. Her town's population has been decimated by soul-consuming demons, and souls are in short supply. Watching over her younger sister, Mellie, and scraping together food and money are all that matters. The two of them are a family. They gave up on their deadbeat mom a long time ago.

When Nina discovers that Mellie is keeping a secret that threatens their very existence, she'll do anything to protect her. Because in New Temperance, sins are prosecuted as crimes by the brutal Church and its army of black-robed exorcists. And Mellie's sin has put her in serious trouble.

To keep them both alive, Nina will need to trust Finn, a fugitive with deep green eyes who has already saved her life once and who might just be an exorcist. But what kind of exorcist wears a hoodie?

Wanted by the Church and hunted by dark forces, Nina knows she can't survive on her own. She needs Finn and his group of rogue friends just as much as they need her.

Rachel Vincent is one of those authors I will buy anything of. I LOVE her Soul Screamers series, and I'm DYING to read the Shifters and Unbound series, but neither of those could match my extreme craving for this book. The Stars Never Rise has a blurb that just grabbed me the first time I read it. Usually I'll know I want to read a forthcoming book but forget what it's about, but this just stuck with me. And the cover is beautiful.  I'm curious to see what the Mira Ink cover will be though, since we usually get different covers.