Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Review: Halflings by Heather Burch

Publisher: Zondervan
Pages: 272
Received: Received from publisher through Netgalley

Release Date: January 17, 2012
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Goodreads Synopsis:

Split.After being inexplicably targeted by an evil intent on harming her at any cost, seventeen-year-old Nikki finds herself under the watchful guardianship of three mysterious young men who call themselves halflings. Sworn to defend her, misfits Mace, Raven, and Vine battle to keep Nikki safe while hiding their deepest secret---and the wings that come with.A growing attraction between Nikki and two of her protectors presents a whole other danger. While she risks a broken heart, Mace and Raven could lose everything, including their souls. As the mysteries behind the boys' powers, as well as her role in a scientist's dark plan, unfold, Nikki is faced with choices that will affect the future of an entire race of heavenly beings, as well as the precarious equilibrium of the earthly world.

My Review:

This book has a new and interesting take on the supernatural. It is not the regular werewolf/vampire story which really interested me. This is the first of a series and Heather Burch does a good job of bringing you into this new world. What I really enjoyed was that the story has a good vs. evil aspect to it and everyone needs to choose one side. But the thing that really got my attention was the science vs. religion aspect of it (I haven't seen this in a novel in awhile and I quite enjoy it).

This story opens up right away with Nikki being attacked, I found myself being intrigued because Heather Burch jumps right into the story. There are a lot of questions I found myself asking while reading the book because there is quite a lot of things that need to be explained that aren't right away. But I enjoyed that because it kept me intrigued and I kept reading because I wanted to find out everything. It takes awhile before the author explains what halflings are which I was hoping to find out a little earlier.

The small thing that got me was that throughout the book there is never much of an explanation of what Nikki is or why she is so special. The halflings mention something in passing but they don't go into much detail. It seems that no one throughout the story understood why she needed protecting and I feel that if they are on a mission to protect her they should know why it is her, it is unusual that they don't know why they are there either. I hope that in the next book more is mentioned as to why Nikki is so important and needs to be protected.

I did enjoy that Nikki is not the average girl that I have seen in most YA books lately (very girlish and boy crazy). Nikki is the complete opposite as that, she is more of a tomboy type who is strong (black belt in karate) and she tries to take care of herself rather than being protected by others. Nikki also does not automatically fall for the good looking guys that show up to the school (there is not the automatic romantic involvement that has been seen in a lot of books). I really enjoy that a relationship does not get started right at the beginning (I would actually say nothing that resembles a relationship even starts). This was an interesting read and I am interested to see where the story will go from here.

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2 comments:

  1. Nicely reviewed. I'm on the fence about this book. I like that you said the author jumps right into the story and that the romance doesn't monopolize the plot. I'm also an impatient reader, though, and I think I would be frustrated not knowing why she is so special. I may wait until the sequel comes out and see if the answers are given there before starting. Thank you for all the info!

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  2. Hi Andrea,

    Thanks for posting a review for Halflings!

    I wanted to invite you to The Halflings Network: a place where fans can talk about the book, chat with author Heather Burch, enter giveaways, and get updates on the next book in the series. We also have a free illustrated eBook prequel that I think you'd really enjoy. Feel free to check it out at Halflings.ning.com.

    Thanks again for your great review, we really appreciate it!

    Grant
    Zondervan

    ReplyDelete

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