Vanessa Barneveld

Aliens and space meld with high school drama to form a high tension, well-woven read.

Cassidy is struggling. Her parents are divorced, her mother is a well-known figure, and now, her mother has checked herself into some strange wellness ranch, where Cassidy isn't allowed to visit her. Nothing makes sense, and everything about life seems out of sorts. So, when one of the boys at school...a 'hot' one...can't take his eyes off of her and starts accidentally running into her everywhere, she's not sure what to think. As she warms up to him, things on her mother's side grow stranger and stranger, especially as Cassidy begins to delve into the research for the novel her mom was writing. Add her sudden blackouts and hours being lost at a time, and she's afraid something big and sinister is going on.

When I picked this one up, I was expecting a sappy, alien-human romance...but this is so much more. The author weaves tons of secrets and intrigue around the characters, creating a tale which is packed with unexpected twists and turns, high stakes, and dangerous shadows. Nothing is as it seems and so much is at stake. So, romance is there, and it does carry the tones of usual high school drama, but that is only the beginning.

There's quite a bit going on in the background. To get this to all click together by the end, the author tells the tale not only from different perspectives, but includes emails and notes from the past. Each chapter does put a place and date at the beginning to help keep things clear and coordinated. Still, I was more than a little confused during the first half of the book and just trusted that this was all going to fall into the right place by the end. And it does for the most part, although some things were still blurred and I'd have to go back and reread several spots to see exactly how it worked. But to say this ruined the read for me would be wrong.

I read this one in a single sitting and couldn't put it down. The characters and situations are very original, and while it's clear there are some evil doings happening, it's not so clear how it all works. The tension is high, the characters are more than easy to root for, and it's an entertaining read until the very end. So, if you're looking for high school romance with a dash of science fiction and a super helping of evil intrigue...this one is for you. I received an ARC and found the tale very engaging.… (meer)

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: This story was disappointingly underwhelming.

Opening Sentence: “Who died?”

The Review:

Keira’s life isn’t exactly normal. For one, she has the ability to read tarot cards and she keeps feeling the spirit of her dead grandmother close by. And secondly, the newest development, Keira is clairvoyant and can see ghosts: specifically, the most popular athlete in the school, Jimmy. When he shows up in her room bleeding from a massive head gash and not remembering his death, she doesn’t know what to do, but as a friendship develops with him she feels obligated to find his killer. It’s not easy, though, with his brother Dan (whom she’s been crushing on like crazy since she made a huge mistake years before), his girlfriend Aimee, and the police chief, Charlie, suspicious. Can Keira solve Jimmy’s death and bring him peacefully to the other side?

Keira was a decent character, a little cookie cutter in my opinion. She was pretty simple. She had compassion, empathy, bravery, blah blah blah, a very basic character within the throngs of YA female protagonists. I had one problem with her I’m going to nitpick at. It’s probably the stupidest issue I could have but I could not let it go: her eyes always “teared up”. The amount of times her eyes would get wet but she wouldn’t actually start crying was substantial. In the first couple chapters, I feel like it happened five times. Obviously this isn’t something that you need to not read the book because of, this is just something that caught my attention, and you can easily ignore it if you don’t focus too hard.

Dan was an okay love interest. He was at least a more interesting character than Keira, with his artist skills and humor. Ever since Becky’s Closet, Keira’s relationship with him has been strained, to say the least. When they got chosen together for seven minutes in heaven, Keira made the mistake of letting slip she was hoping to be paired with his brother Jimmy. As soon as he got upset and left, she realized oh no! It’s been him I wanted all along! Obviously that was awkward, and Keira definitely longs for the easy chatter and friendship they had BC (before closet). Eventually they regain that and though Keira makes a couple more dumb mistakes, they forgive each other.

The mystery in this book had two parts. One was where Jimmy was supposed to end up. Would he be stuck to roam the earth with Keira as his guide, without moving on, forever and ever? Or would he go to heaven, or the afterlife, or whatever really exists after death? If so, how will they get him their? This was resolved pretty cleanly and I didn’t have problems with how it turned out. The other part of the mystery, however, I wasn’t a huge fan of. Basically they want to find Jimmy’s killer. There isn’t a trail of clues. It’s basically Keira testing who she finds suspicious and hoping she ends up with the right person. She stumbled along in the dark ignoring what was in front of her all along. My suspicion was correct all along, it was pretty obvious, although I was annoyed that her/his real motives weren’t reveled until the person was.

In the end, I found this book disappointingly underwhelming. It was enjoyable enough, I guess. It was paced well and the plot was solid. But the book didn’t add anything unique to the genre at all. It was cookie cutter characters, cookie cutter plotline, simple writing style. Nothing really special. There was humor, and I liked that. It was nice to get the chance to laugh during the story. I think that this book will be more enjoyable to others, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

Notable Scene:

Jimmy had everything – looks, brains, popularity. Those were the things that drew people to him. Those were also the things that made people insanely jealous.

And if that’s the case, everyone’s a suspect in Jimmy’s death.

FTC Advisory: Bloomsbury Spark provided me with a copy of This is Your Afterlife. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.… (meer)

This is Your Afterlife is the debut novel from Vanessa Barnevald and I can't wait to see more from her. I enjoyed the characters and the story line was rather engrossing, although there were moments that were perhaps a little slow in pacing.

There were so many things to like about the main character, Kiera. I love flawed characters, characters not created to be anything more than a real person. That is Kiera. She is not the popular girl. She has made mistakes. She has real problems. That makes her someone I can relate to and understand. Her character is grieving for her recently passed grandmother, something I can all too easily understand. Her grandmother had her own special gifts, gifts that Kiera herself may finally be inheriting.

Dan and Jimmy are brothers and a source of contention for Kiera. The two brothers could not have been more different and the contrast and how Kiera relates to each of them is interesting. In a bittersweet twist, it was death that brought the three of them together in the ways that it did. There was definitely a touch of irony in that.

Even the antagonist, though this is a person that you are predisposed to dislike, was an interesting character. There were some deep issues there and it made for an interesting twist.

This story had a great blend of themes... friendship, betrayal, loss, adjustment, family, love, forgiveness, loyalty, right along with a little bit of humor.

My Recommendation: Barnevald's storytelling is quite nice and this is a story that touches on some very real issues without going overboard with the heavy emotional toll.… (meer)