Rachel Rust

Natalie is an honour student with perfect grades. Victor is the new kid who’s already proven to be the class slacker. When they are paired together for a class project, Natalie is determined he will do his share of the work. When the night before ithe project’s due date arrives and he hasn’t done anything, she decides to hunt him down to ensure he does. But soon she comes face to face with the truth in the old saying ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ as she finds herself in a quagmire of kdnapping, violence, and danger and non-stop danger and now the only person who might be able to help her may just be the class slacker.

The YA thriller Or the Girl Dies by Rachel Rust starts out fairly slowly as what appears to be a typical teenage romance, not a genre I enjoy and I almost gave up on it but I’m so glad I didn’t. It quickly veers off in a completely different direction ramping up the suspense and action and, when it does, it never lets go. Every time I thought I knew what would happen next, it took another quick turn and I was kept guessing until the surprising reveal at the end. Definitely a fun fast and exciting read and I’d like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.… (altro)

A suspenseful YA that starts innocently enough with high school academic, Natalie, and her need to get through one last team project in order to maintain her perfect GPA. The only problem? Her partner, Victor, is anything but easy to work with. Thrown into a whirlwind of violence, action, and danger, Natalie learns that Victor isn’t the worst person she could meet—there are others, and some of them are out for her blood.

I loved how suspenseful this book was. At the beginning, I thought it was gonna be another typical love triangle between the outcast and popular guys but this story went on such a different tangent that I applaud it. I couldn’t guess the ending and it took me by surprise…I love books that are able to do that.

For anyone that’s a fan of YA, thrillers, and action, I highly recommend this book and eagerly wait for book two!
… (altro)

8 Souls by Rachel Rust follows Francesca 'Chessie' Carpenter who suffers from recurrent nightmares of a house, sometimes decrepit, sometimes new, but always the same and always beckoning of death. It's not just any house either. It's the Villisca Axe Murder House and her grandparents live right across from it. When she ends up being sent to Iowa for the summer so her parents can finalise a divorce, Chessie's dreams turn into something more. She starts having visions during the day, and spectral manifestations at night. The ghostly goings-on aren't relegated to just the Moore House either, but also to the death of a recently missing little girl. At her wit's end, Chessie contacts a local ghost hunting group, both the best and worst thing she could have done.

The subject first drew me to this book. The Villisca case, as with most cold cases, fascinates me. Forensics is a love if mine, even though my hopes of a job in the field of forensic anthropology were thwarted by medical issues. The case is the same in this story, though the modern state of the house is not. Far from being decrepit and abandoned, the house is furnished and open to visit, preserved as a historical site. Ghost groups conduct investigations there at times.

As I started reading, I rapidly fell into Chessie's world. The action is fairly fast-paced. While the haunting manifestations were creepy, overall, they weren't dangerous. Indeed, they were there to help and they tried to warn against danger. Chessie thought they were warning against David, when in truth they weren't. They needed her to help him. I don't want to give a major part away, so I'll avoid specifics. I did enjoy the hints of quantum entanglement threaded into the story, and that the major plot point was specifically *not* ascribed to God's punishment. It's that whole entanglement thing. (No pun on the publisher intended!) Overall, this was an awesome read! Highly recommended!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Entangled Teen Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. Reviewed as part of the Chapter by Chapter blog Tour.… (altro)