Blog Tour: Entice by Carrie Jones

Release Date: December 7, 2010
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 272
Series #: 3
Buy: Fountain Bookstore / Amazon
Description: Fountain Bookstore

Zara and Nick are soul mates, meant to be together forever. But that's not quite how things have worked out. For starters, well, Nick is dead. Supposedly, he's been taken to a mythic place for warriors known as Valhalla, so Zara and her friends might be able to get him back. But it's taking time, and meanwhile a group of evil pixies is devastating Bedford, with more teens going missing every day. An all-out war seems imminent, and the good guys need all the warriors they can find. But how to get to Valhalla? And even if Zara and her friends discover the way, there's that other small problem: Zara's been pixie kissed. When she finds Nick, will he even want to go with her? Especially since she hasn't turned into just any pixie. . . She's Astley's queen.

These books are always a quick read for me because I love Carrie Jones writing. Her ability to boil things down and choose exactly the right words to convey a concept or image amazes me. It makes for a very visual journey.

Zara returns in book three, much changed, but still the same unsure girl she's been all along. She and all of the other characters are each distinct and very real, but Astley really came alive in this book for me. I'm definitely on his team. There are also some unexpected laugh out loud moments. The first of which was when Zara, who is attempting to threaten, tells some evil pixies to tell their king, Frank, that "he has a ridiculous name for an evil pixie king".

Despite the speedy read, I had a few problems with this book. From the start there was a lot of recapping and exposition. It didn't slow things down too much, but for a while I felt like there was at least a sentence of of backstory or explaination per paragraph. I also had some issues with the flow of the story. In some places it felt a little broken like thoughts were being cut short.

Originally, I believe this series was supposed to be a trilogy with Entice closing out the story, but as I understand it there will be at least one more book. (Yay!) I can't wait to see what happens next in Zara's tale and see how this story evolves.
To find out more about the series, follow Bloomsbury Teens and the Need series on Facebook.

Giveaway

A shiny new copy of Entice and some very cool Need series bookmarks will go to one lucky reader. Thanks to Bloomsbury for donating the prizes!