Sophie Reads YA: Kelly Zekas

Waiting on Wednesday: These Vengeful Souls (These Vicious Masks #3) by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

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#RockMyTBR 2017 Challenge

ARC Review: These Ruthless Deeds (These Vicious Masks #2) by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

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These Ruthless Deeds
Series: These Vicious Masks #2
Author: Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas
Published March 14th 2017 by Swoon Reads

Goodreads Synopsis
England, 1883. Still recovering from a devastating loss, Evelyn is determined to use her powers to save other gifted people from those who would harm them. But when her rescue of a young telekinetic girl goes terribly wrong, Evelyn finds herself indebted to a secret society devoted to recruiting and protecting people like Evelyn and her friends.

As she follows the Society’s orders, healing the sick and embarking on perilous recruitment missions, Evelyn sees her problems disappear. Her reputation is repaired, her friends are provided for, and her parents are newly wealthy. She reunites with the dashing Mr. Kent and recovers the reclusive Mr. Braddock (who has much less to brood over now that the Society can help him to control his dangerous power). But Evelyn can’t help fearing the Society is more sinister than it appears...
Goodreads

Review
See my review of book 1, These Vicious Masks.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

These Vicious Masks was one of my favourite debuts from 2016, and I was overjoyed when I both won a copy of the sequel, and was approved for an advance copy via NetGalley. In These Ruthless Deeds, Evelyn is coming to terms with the death of her sister Rose, and also her new tangled powers of healing people. She has joined forces with The Society, a group of other gifted people, and she now has people to turn to when she is struggling with her abilities. Her old friends Mr Kent and Mr Braddock are still around, and she's instrumental in finding, and helping, other people just like her. However, she's also struggling to balance her life in The Society, and life in Society, for the Season, when she starts to consider that just what she's doing, might not be the best thing for everyone, and she might be being used to helps others gain.

I love anything to do with the Regency era, and adding fantasy elements to that time is always a good thing. This book was so well researched, and well written, that it felt as if it was reality, and I was more watching a film, than reading a book. Evelyn is such a good narrator, and her growth as a person, growing into her abilities, is awe inspiring. Understandable, she's apprehensive around The Society, but she does warm to them, and begins to develop friendships, and a kind of new family, with them. Her own family isn't the best, especially as her mother is pushing her into an engagement and marriage with the most boring person ever, just because he's titled, and his mother is influential in the Ton, and her father has nothing about him, other than gambling away their fortune and reputation.

The plot is ridiculously good. It's fast paced, and exciting, and there was never a moment that I felt like something was unnecessary or boring. Everything was just right, and I'm beside myself with excitement for the next book in the series, because with each one, the story is getting better and better.

There's romance in this book - obviously, when it's published by Swoon Reads - and I much prefer Mr Kent to Mr Braddock, but that's not to say that I don't like Braddock, just that Kent has something more about him. These two characters, and the other characters were all interesting, even the ones that you hate, or grow to dislike throughout the course of the book. I think all lovers of historical YA or fantasy need to have this series on their radar, and I look forward to the next instalment because I love Evelyn and this series so much!

Dates Read:

March 5-11, 2017

Rating
5 Stars

Kelly Zekas

Waiting on Wednesday: These Ruthless Deeds (These Vicious Masks #2) by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

10:00

#RockMyTBR 2016 Challenge

Review: These Vicious Masks (These Vicious Masks #1) by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

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These Vicious Masks
Series: These Vicious Masks #1
Author: Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas
Published February 9th 2016 by Swoon Reads

Goodreads Synopsis
Jane Austen meets X-Men in this gripping and adventure-filled paranormal romance set in Victorian London.

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive, young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true—and that her sister is in graver danger than she feared.
Goodreads

Review
This was another book I read during the Easter holidays, and again, I adored it. Pride and Prejudice remains the only classical book I have read more than once, and I watch as many Austen adaptations as I can, so sticking her name into any synopsis/tag line is a sure fire way of getting me wanting to read any book.

In These Vicious Masks, Evelyn, our main character, is tired of going to society balls, and wants more in life than just to be married off and expected to sit inside like a dutiful little wife. Her and her sister, Rose, are interested in medicine, and are known around there village for being particularly gifted in treating the sick. To Evelyn, her biggest wish would be to learn medicine properly, and do something with her life. After Rose goes missing, Evelyn's world is suddenly thrown into chaos, and she has to join forces with her old friend Mr Kent, and the new acquaintance Mr Braddock. As she journeys to London in search of her sister, she realises that Mr Braddock might just be right, and she may actually have special powers which could mean everything in discovering Rose.

Sometimes when a book teases its connection with Austen, it's completely off the mark, but that wasn't the case here. When I was reading These Vicious Masks, I could imagine Lizzie Bennet and Mr Darcy walking past Evelyn in London, or Emma Woodhouse playing matchmaker. The regency era was the perfect setting for this book. Again, the X-Men part of the synopsis was also very true too, with the different types of powers the characters had being very reminiscent of those in the comic series. If you can't tell, it made me really happy to know that the synopsis hit the mark, and wasn't a let down.

The characters, especially Evelyn and Mr Braddock, may just become favourites of mine. Each character was hiding something at one point or another, but it made it seem realistic. In the regency era, especially in the gentry and nobility, showing your emotions on your sleeve was not the way to go, and the language used in the book fit the period to a T. Evelyn was a strong character, sometimes a bit too headstrong, but her love and devotion to her sister took my breathe away - think of how much Lizzie cared for Jane in P&P, and how she would do anything for her sister.

From the beginning, I thought there was something about Mr Kent that I just didn't like, so I was glad to find how much more I preferred Sebastian throughout the book. Though they both had ulterior motives for wanting to help Evelyn find Rose, at least his weren't going to harm anyone - rather he wanted to help a close family friend recover from a debilitating illness. Sebastian was aloof for most of the book, but you could see that Evelyn was breaking through his barriers, and he was starting to come out of his shell.

On that note, I loved the romantic aspect of These Vicious Masks. I knew from the start that Sebastian would be a potential love interest for Evelyn, and as their acquaintance grew, and they began to really know each other, it only got more and more palpable. I only wish there was more romance, but that's what to expect from a regency era story - the feels come more from the hint of attraction, rather than a full blown love affair. With how it ended, I'm seriously hoping for much more romance between Sebastian and Evelyn in book 2, maybe even with some banns being read in the future ;)

If you love Jane Austen, or the regency era, and want a wonderful, full of feels romance, this is definitely a book for you! These Vicious Masks was a wonderful debut by Shanker and Zekas, and I'm looking forward to reading more from them in the future - both together, and on their own.

Dates Read:
March 15-6, 2016

Rating
5 Stars