*[Blog Tour Review & Tour] The Earth Painter (Painter #1) by Melissa Turner Lee

 

Summary:

 

When a self-conscious young woman discovers the boy in drama class is actually the immortal who painted the world into being, she becomes the target of another painter who hates humanity.

The Earth Painter is a Young Adult Supernatural Romance set in the small mill town of Chesnee, SC. It revolves around Holly Scruggs, whose family has just moved back to Chesnee after her dad lost his job along with pretty much everything they owned. Her image conscious parents correct her to the point of brokenness until she meets Theo. He is the artist responsible for all the beauty of the land and he thinks Holly is beautiful too. Together they will fight against Fritz, the water painter who hates humans and is hiding a secret under the high school.

Summary & Cover taken from Goodreads.com

Length: 224 pages (Paperback)

Source: Bought

Available Formats: Print/E-book

Publication Date: April 24th 2012 by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

 

I'd been seeing The Earth Painter around the blog world for quite some time before I got the blog tour invitation and I was really curious about giving it a try because of all the great things I'd heard about it so I had to sign up for the tour. Plus I had already bought a copy of the book and the tour gave me the perfect excuse to read it and because I enjoyed the book so much I'm going to avoid spoilers so forgive me if the review is a wee bit vague.

 

The Earth Painter was a wonderfully vivid young adult novel that mixes fantasy, mythology and magical realism all together. The way that Melissa wrote the story was just so well constructed that it was as if I were watching a movie of the events.

 

I really liked the characters in the book. Holly was so sweet and I enjoyed seeing her develop as a character. She started off all sweet and innocent and while she remained sweet and innocent she wasn't a done kind of sweet and innocent. She began to see things, and people the way they truly were and I liked seeing the change in her character as she matured. I also liked how her relationship with her atrocious mother changed as well.

 

Theo, was a good character as well but as much as I liked him I do wish that he had a little more substance. What the author did write about him was detailed but I feel as if there were some essential parts of his being that I wish had been more in depth than they were.

 

I enjoyed reading about the other characters in the book but Holly and Theo were definitely two characters that I enjoyed the most. They seemed like real teenagers and I think that played a large part in their appeal to me. The author created them in such a way that they weren't teens who sounded or acted older than they were but were written in a way that was in keeping with their ages.

 

Overall, I thought the Earth Painter was a unique take on the young adult paranormal genre and I thought that Melissa Turner Lee was a breath of fresh air. I enjoyed giving this author a try and I'm looking forward to reading the second book in the series soon. With a fast pace and stunning imagination I really enjoyed this novel but I do wish that the author had written more in depth with some things and I think the novel could have done with an extra 20 or 30 pages but that's just my preference.

 

I would recommend The Earth Painter to all fans of the young adult paranormal genre. The author weaves a consistent story using fantasy, mythology and a dash of young love all together for a really great story.

 

 

I read this book for the following reading challenges:

 

2013 150+ Reading Challenge

Really Liked It!
★★★★

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Author Bio:

 

 

Melissa Turner Lee holds a BA in Communications with a concentration in Journalism from the University of South Carolina. She has studied fiction writing since 2008, attending various writing conferences and workshops, along with guidance from professional writing coaches. She resides in Spartanburg, SC with her husband and 3 sons. 

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Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles #1) by Anne Rice

 

Summary:

 

Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force–a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.    

Summary & Cover taken from Goodreads.com

Length: 342 pages (Mass Market Paperback)

Source: Gift

Available Formats: Print/E-book/Audio

Publication Date: 1976

 

I've been wanting to read this book since I was 11 years old so exactly half of my life has been spent wanting to delve into the pages of Anne Rice's work but something kept holding me back. Often it was the fact that other books got in the way but a lot of the time I was afraid that I would be that one person who didn't enjoy her writing.

 

After finishing Interview with the Vampire I can honestly say that it is one of the best books I've ever read and I can totally see why Anne Rice is the queen of this genre. From the first page I was gripped by her writing style which was fantastic.

 

Interview with the Vampire is a complex novel dealing with darkness and light, life and death, passion and cruelty. The characters were so detailed and I loved getting to know Louis, Lestat, Claudia and Armand but Louis was definitely my favourite character. Despite all he had done in the novel there was still such a lightness and innocence to him and though he could be whiny and pretensions I thought he was the most well developed character in the story and he still remains an enigma to me.

 

Lestat, Claudia and Armand were all brilliant in their own unique ways. I loved how all the characters in the book had a lot of similarities but had some very prevalent differences as well. I loved how harsh and cruel they could all be but enjoyed they're very few tender moments when the last semblances of their humanity shined through.

 

I thought the whole plot of the book was intriguing and I thoroughly enjoyed being whisked off to New Orleans in the later bit of the 1700's into the 1800's as well as the sweeping city streets of Paris where Louis and Claudia journeyed to in the second half of the novel. Anne Rice has an amazing gift for transporting her audience to the locations she sets her writing in.

 

This was definitely a provocative read what with the relationships between Louis and Lestat, Louis Lestat and Claudia, Claudia and Lestat, Louis and Claudia and Armand and Louis especially with the fact that Claudia was turned at such a young age not being much more than a toddler but she handled their unconventional relationship with grace as she did the other relationships the characters had in the book. I was pleased that she didn't reduce her writing to vulgarity and thought the sensuality of the novel spoke volumes.

 

Overall, I thought this was a stunning novel and one that while I'm sad I didn't read sooner am glad that I gave it a chance now that I'm at an age where I can grasp the intricacy of the many story lines and undercurrents of the plot. The writing was absolutely superb and really swept me up in this story that I can best describe as one of love, lust, loss and longing. If you haven't read Interview with the Vampire yet I strongly urge you to do so especially if you've been waiting to read it for some time. Hopefully you love it as much as I did and it leaves you reeling, questioning and wanting to read more of Anne Rice's books immediately.

 

I read this book for the following reading challenges:

 

2013 150+ Reading Challenge

2013 Anne Rice Reading Challenge

2013 Paranormal Reading Challenge

 

Loved It!
★★★★★

To "Like" Anne Rice on Facebook CLICK HERE

To "Follow" Anne Rice on Twitter CLICK HERE

To visit Anne Rice's Website CLICK HERE

To purchase the book via Chapters Indigo CLICK HERE

To purchase the book via Amazon CLICK HERE

To purchase the book via Kobo CLICK HERE

To purchase the book via The Book Depository CLICK HERE

To purchase the book via Barnes & Noble CLICK HERE

 

 

 

2013 Anne Rice Challenge

 

This challenge is being hosted by The Towering Pile

Here are the details copied from The Towering Pile

 

Since I vastly underestimated the amount of time it takes to read Anne Rice novels, I still have a lot left to read after the 2012 Anne Rice Challenge. So I've decided to host the challenge again!

Join me in one of several levels, according to how many Anne Rice books you plan to read in 2013.

Rules:

• Ebooks are fine. Audiobooks are fine as long as they are the unabridged versions.
• Rereads and crossovers with other challenges are fine.
• You can change your level at any time.
• The challenge goes from January 1st to December 31st, 2013.
• If you read, for example, the edition that has the first 3 Vampire Chronicles books together in one volume, that still counts as 3. We're going by how the books were originally published.
• All books written by Anne Rice count, not just the Vampire Chronicles, including those written under a pseudonym.
• You can sign up any time from now until November 30, 2013.

Levels:

• Louis de Pointe du Lac (1 to 5 books)
• Lestat de Lioncourt (6 to 10 books)
• Armand (11 to 15 books)
• Marius de Romanus (16 to 20 books)
• Maharet (21 to 25)
• Akasha (26 to 30)

 

 

To sign up for the 2013 Anne Rice Challenge CLICK HERE

 

I'm aiming for the Louis de Pointe du Lac level (1 to 5 books) I've had several several of Anne Rice's novels taking up precious space on my bookshelves for years and I've never read a single one! This year I plan to read the first 5 books in The Vampire Chronicles series.

The titles I plan to read are:

Interview with the Vampire

The Vampire Lestat

The Queen of the Dammed

The Tale of the Body Thief

Memnoch the Devil