V-Games by Caroline Peckham

The V-Games is a paranormal thriller and is the first in a series.

Selena is in jail for killing her stepfather. Even though Selena and her mother have been subjected to physical and emotional abuse for years, the state believes that she deserves to be punished. Selena is not inherently a bad person, so to be stuck in jail with hardened criminals is pretty scary.

Varick is a vampire and in the servitude of the Van Helsings. Once a feared pirate, he now has to bow down to his masters as torture and starvation face his every transgression. The V-Games are about to start soon and Varick must take his pick of contestants from prisons that look the other way when inmates go missing (well they get glamoured anyway!)

Selena and some of the others are carted off, dolled up and let loose on an island. An island where they have to get from checkpoint to checkpoint each day while bets are placed on their lives until only one survives to cross the finish line. And in their way? Starving vampires! Something strange has happened though; Selena seems to be getting a little more help than the others from Varick. She can feel a spark of interest from him and even though she doesn’t want to admit it, the feeling is mutual. So now vampires are real, hunters are real, the games are real and being the last contestant standing; has totally become real.

As has been claimed, this book can be compared to the story in The Hunger Games mixed in with some of the obsession from Twilight. If you are looking for in depth characters with angst and soul this is not for you. Take it as a YA novel filled with action, betrayal, friendship and a love interest, and you have a fun afternoon’s read. Not that you don’t get to feel the characters – there is a definite cheer for the girls you feel didn’t’ deserve to be there in the first place and a boo for those “bad girls” who did.

The writing flows well and is easy to read with minimal editing mistakes. A slight twist at the end leads into the next book nicely. While not a deep story, it kept me turning pages until the end. Those who enjoy a strong female lead and an interesting take on an old idea will enjoy this.

Code Name Camelot: A Noah Wolf Thriller by David Archer

Code Name Camelot is the first in the Noah Wolf series and is advertised as an action thriller.

No emotions. Having suffered from blunted affectation disorder since he saw his dad killing his mom and then killing himself, Noah lives his life by logic only. When he kills the members of his platoon for raping and murdering civilians his logic dictates that he was doing the right thing. The court disagrees, however, and sentences him to death. Just before his execution, he is approached by the leader of a secret military organisation; one who can use people like him. People who are ruled by their heads and not their hearts. Noah is about to enter the world of approved assassins.

An assassin ruled by rational logic? The blurb definitely caught my attention but the action thriller I was promised fell short. Even a lack of emotion would not automatically make Noah better than everyone else, yet time and time again he bested others on training courses and in tests. Everything seemed to happen too easily for him: from his team hating him to believing he is better than sliced bread, to infiltrating and organising the drug busts in a matter of weeks, to ‘rescuing’ the prostitute. In fact, the whole part of the story with the underage prostitute was borderline dodgy, especially when the team listens in to him having sex with her and the woman that he was sleeping with just shrugging and saying that the prostitute was part of the job and then carrying on having sex with him. The team also seems superfluous to requirement. They played a tiny contribution and the majority of the mission seemed to be about Noah.

The writing itself was rather flat. I know Noah’s name was supposed to be changed when he joined the organisation but his lawyer kept alternating between the names in the beginning when she should not have known them. There was a lot of description of actions that could have been summarised as a movement starting at A and ending at B instead of A.1 and A.2 and A.3 etc. At the end of the book, I felt dissatisfied. I don’t enjoy huge cliffhangers, but this book was like a story with an ending and the lead into the next book was basically to say that the same characters would be used in an entirely different story. There was not enough of a teaser left for me to want to continue with the series.

I give this book an average rating as there are no good or bad reasons for me to remember it. If you are on the beach and want a book where you don’t have to concentrate or you can put it down and pick it up much later then this one’s for you.