Strange In Skin by Sara V. Zook Review
Title – Strange In Skin
Series – Strange In Skin – Book #1
Author – Sara V. Zook
Genre – Paranormal, Fantasy
Publication Date – July 24, 2012
Publisher – Imagine Press
Cover Artist – Brenda Grate
BLURB:
From the moment Anna James meets the strange prisoner Emry Logan, she becomes instantly obsessed and will stop at nothing to try to get another interaction with him. But going against her family and church aren’t without consequence. She is deemed a traitor as she quickly realizes that there’s more to Emry’s past than just murder. He has a special ability that is far from human that he only shares with her. Feeling this magical connection, Anna has to free her beautiful inmate so that they can be together finally, but someone else knows about Emry’s secret and wants Anna to stop digging for answers as she finds herself in the midst of a modern day witch hunt. The life of an innocent pastor’s kid suddenly is turned upside down in a war between good and evil as Anna begins to wonder which people in her life are on the side of good, and is she one of them.
Review:
When we first meet Anna she seems… well, dull. She is a good Christian girl ( which there is nothing wrong with), She works at her mothers antique shop and lives at home with her parents in a small , quiet town. The thing I didn't really relate to was her still living at home in her twenties. She didn't go to college? Didn't want to explore what the world has to offer? She just stayed home and started working in her moms shop. It seemed kind of odd to me, but that could simple be a personal opinion.
The story picks up quickly around chapter three when Anna starts receiving letters from Emry, but some of the romantic elements seem a bit over the top. This connection between the Anna and Emry happened a bit too quickly I think. The supernatural element flowed well with the story line and seemed natural. I liked that this story was a bit different from most, and how the girl is trying to save the boy instead of the other way around and how it was not your everyday Paranormal. I found it very refreshing.
Anna changes in many ways over the course of this story but I think most of these changes are for the better and I now realize why the author decided to show her the way she did in the beginning of the book. Toward the end Anna finally grows a pair and handles Buck, which I really enjoyed because, well obviously…
The ending of this book left a lot of unanswered questions, I am still not sure I really understand where it is Emry goes, All in all I enjoyed Strange in Skin and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-In-Skin-Sara-Zook/dp/1478277556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387462303&sr=8-1&keywords=strange+in+skin
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15772328-strange-in-skin
** Also a special thanks to Sarah for allowing me to participate in her blog tour and My Family’s Heart Book Reviews for handling all the hard work setting everything up.**
More About Sara:
AUTHOR BIO
Sara wrote her first book at age six. Of course, it was only a few pages, handwritten by a 6-year-old and was about kitty cats. As a child, some days she would be out venturing in the woods with her older brother and cousins, but sometimes would stay inside and create stories, write them down in a notebook and then pretend to publish them by typing them up on her mother's old typewriter. "I know, what a weird child I was." From then on out, Sara didn't want to be anything but a writer. When others would ask her classmates what they wanted to be when they grew up, some would say the usual things, singers, veterinarians, astronauts, but not Sara. Sara would say writer, and then she'd get a strange stare. Writer? What child says they want to be a writer? Sara graduated from United High School in 2000, a small school out in the country where everyone knew each other from kindergarten up and could tell you every little detail about each other and still can. "It was a nice area to grow up, and I love going back." In 2004, Sara graduated from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown with a bachelor's in, you guessed it, creative writing. She had such a blast in college, met some of the greatest people that Sara still remains in close contact with along with her husband, Brad. They were married and had two children back to back, so while Sara was in "mommy land," her writing was put on the back-burner. Sara started writing again in the summer of 2010, and after three months, 'Strange in Skin' became the product of her imagination. Sara had so much fun writing it, she couldn't stop. She would work all day and then stay up late at night typing up a few more chapters. She didn't want it to end, so Sara decided she would have to write more books to follow it. The main characters, Anna James and Emry Logan, were people Sara could relate to, that she loved to relate to. There's nothing quite like a sappy love story that's so good it sucks you in. You want them to be together. They have to be together and you can't stop reading until they are together. That with a little paranormal twist, and voila, a book is born. Then Sara and Brad became proud parents once again. Sara is still in "mommy land" but also Strange in Skin fantasy land. The mix of both raising children and writing makes for some pretty entertaining days. Sara could write a million stories on her kids alone, especially the things that come out of their mouths that you're either so shocked they said or are so funny that you can't stop laughing.
