Review and Giveaway: Blood, She Read by Sara Hubbard

Blood, She Read
by Sara Hubbard
Published: November 2, 2012
Publisher: Etopia Press 

eBook, 351 pages

Keeping secrets from a psychic can be murder.

Petra Maras lives a charmed life, but only in the magical sense. Her absentee father is a criminal, her mother is emotionally dead, and everyone at her new school knows she comes from a family of witches. All she wants is to be normal, but that’s impossible, given her family. And given that she’s psychic.

When the police request help with a murder investigation, Petra reluctantly agrees. Which isn’t such a good idea since the prime suspect wants to date her, and she really wants to say yes. Her gut says he’s innocent, but since she can’t get a read on him she can’t know for sure. And when she discovers he’s been keeping secrets, she wonders if maybe she’s been following her heart instead of her head… --GoodReads

4.5 Stars

Review

Blood, She Read was a fantastic paranormal full of humor, bittersweet nibblets, and a romance that stands out among all of the other YA paranormal's love stories. Although it was a read that took me a while to finish, the reading experience I had while reading this book was the best so far this year. I know only been a month and a half of this year will have passed by the time this review is posted, but out of the dozen of books I've read so far, this is the one that stands out the most. 

When Petra helps the police with an investigation by using her powers to give clues toward the murderer of a girl in town, she knows that she's going to have to face consequences. Sadly, this turns out to be a threat from the suspect and his family, not to mention even more ostracization from the people in her town. With a mystery she has reluctantly begun to piece together and deciding between her new friend and the boy she's attracted to (Finnigan), Petra has to face a conflict that trumps the hazards that are plaguing her life.

As we are introduced to Petra and her realm, everything is revealed slowly, methodically, and unconventionally. Instead of becoming a flaw, this unconventional pattern of slowly revealing the layers of the characters is captivating and mesmerizing. The characters that we're introduced to first appear to be skewed on the good or bad meter, but as time goes on, the complexities of each character are exposed, causing them to be seen a completely new light . For example, we meet characters that seem deranged like Gina, Petra's sociopathic mother, and Tommy, the anger-prone brother of Petra's crush, that are both hateful toward Petra, but are exposed as normal people who received the bad end of the stick. The incidents behind their anger and malice may seem like excuses; however, they're not when the revelations are revealed without any exaggerated confrontation. Somehow through the course of the book, many characters are able to hide secrets that slip out so easily without any awkward disruptions to the story. There wasn't a troublesome scene where the antagonist just spill the humongous pile of secrets that the author couldn't manage to explain quickly enough.

Well part of the reason why there wasn't an idiotic revelation scene was because there wasn't much to the actual climatic mystery itself; the whole mystery of the murder was a bit obvious. The problem lied with the fact that there were only so many suspects that were offered up as an option. There will be no spoiling who was the murderer because thankfully, the focus of the story seemed to be the fiery relationship between Petra and Finnigan. This messy relationship is one that is surprisingly very convincing because there isn't any fluff between the two. Although there are lies that cause conflict, the key factor, empathy for each, exists between the two of them, which is enough. Unlike most paranormals that have a somewhat refined, a little too polished romantic connection between the main couple, Petra and Finnigan give everything to each other in a realistic manner. Rather than trying mold into the other's model of a perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, the two cuties learn to accept each other for what they are. This is what I hope is in the waiting for future romances.

With basically everything a book can have going for it, it's really surprising that Blood, She Read doesn't receive more attention. This is what a paranormal should be! No noble idiocy or any of that bull crap that forces the reader to need to strangle someone, nothing of that sort. Just pure heartfelt moments with the bits and pieces of twisting plot that slowly entrap the reader, never letting them go. Although hastily concluded with a somewhat generic ending, Blood, She Read is a read that will give you the good kind of tingles while you read it (I don't mean those kind of tingles).

Purchase Blood, She Read here: Amazon (Kindle)/ B&N (Nook)

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