Monday 5 March 2012

Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions Review

Enthralled: Paranormal Divisions
-          Edited by Melissa Marr & Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Harper Collins

A journey may take hundreds of miles, or it may cover the distance between duty and desire.
Sixteen of today's hottest writers of paranormal tales weave stories on a common theme of journeying. Authors such as Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, and Melissa Marr return to the beloved worlds of their bestselling series, while others, like Claudia Gray, Kami Garcia, and Margaret Stohl, create new land-scapes and characters. But whether they're writing about vampires, faeries, angels, or other magical beings, each author explores the strength and resilience of the human heart.

I’ve said before that anthologies can vary depending on the talent involved and the tenuous theme linking them all together. Luckily with Enthralled there is a huge range of very talented authors – pretty much a who’s who of top YA writers and the theme of journey’s – both emotional and physical allows for a wide variety of stories. As ever one or two linegr in the mind longer – for me I enjoyed Kelley Armstrong’s story, Facing Facts which was an interesting little coda to the Darkest Power trilogy. It was nice to catch up with Chloe & Derek again.
Other stories that were excellent are Scenic Route by Carrie Ryan, set in the same world as her Forest of Hands and Teeth series, but much earlier and The Third Kind by Jennifer Lynn Barnes – both of which managed to create exciting and tense adventures with minimal pages. Great example of both writers skills and had me wanting to read more by both.  I also enjoyed the story by Jeri Smith-Ready based in her Shade world with the focus on Logan preparing to move on and saying goodbye to his family.
Overall, this was a high quality collection which has considerably added to my wishlist of authors – in fact I ordered Evernight by Claudia Gray based on the very sweet ghost story she contributed here. There’s not really any major dud stories with all of them worth the investment in your time.
Recommended for fans of Kelley Armstrong’s YA series and Jennifer Lynn Barnes. 8 out of 10

3 comments:

  1. Anthologies, well some will be good, some will not be, that is a risk I can take :)

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  2. Oh yes! I love a good anthology. Especially when it gives you new authors to explore. Even those that I have heard of but yet to read. I think I have this one... will have to check. Yes, I'm organized like that. LOL

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  3. Oh I do want to get this one. So glad to see you enjoyed it. :) thank you!

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