Sunday, March 17, 2013

Review:& Giveaway The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett


The Nightmare Affair (The Arkwell Academy, #1)
The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett
Publisher- Tor Teen
Released-March 5th 2013
Purchase- Amazon / B & N / Chapters
Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.Literally.Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.Then Eli’s dream comes true.Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

My Thoughts:
It's hard being 16 years old, but it's even harder when you just came into your powers and start to crave the 'fictus' that is needed to replenish magic. So, that's why we begin this story with Destiny (Dusty) Everhart breaking into a house ready to sit on her subjects chest and enter his dreams. See, she's a Nightmare. Literally, and needs to dream-feed to live. Only she wasn't thrilled with the idea when she learned that the subject is no other then Elijah Booker, the really cute popular guy at her old high school. But 'The Will' has an elastic pull and Dusty has no choice but to do what she came for. When she enters Eli's dream, it's much more alive then most of the other ones, in fact she recognizes where she is, which is impossible since Eli is just an Ordinary.
Not only is Eli dreaming of a murder, but that murder comes true and it's at Arkwell Academy. 
Dusty's school, the school for all magical-kind.

The Nightmare Affair is one of those really cool books that has my name written all over it. It has all the fun and wonderful things I like in my escape. Academy setting, magical and paranormal beings, witty well developed characters, a whodunit mystery and a light bubbling romance.

I had a lot of fun with this one. Mindee Arnett manages to spin something completely new and refreshing in a genre where I thought I'd read everything. A Nightmare as a paranormal being? That is such a wicked concept and very well delivered as we learn what it entails. I also loved that this is also a whodunit mystery story. I guessed one of the culprits but the other half surprised me. I also thought it was all kinds of awesome that the legend of Arthur/Merlin and Excalibur was mixed into this. You wouldn't no it, but I'm a big mid-evil fan and thought that particular twist was very well placed and made it even more fascinating.

There are a lot of wonderful sassy characters that made this book really standout.
Dusty has always had to live with the knowledge that her mother isn't a person that is well liked within the magical community and being a Nightmare doesn't exactly give you cool points, but through it all, Dusty raises her head high and tries not to let it get her down. 
Eli wasn't a character I liked right away. He was very cold, distant and bitter in the beginning, but I guess I would be to if I didn't understand what was happening and thrown into world that wasn't technically suppose to exist. As the story moves on I started to like Eli a lot more. The dream-seeing connection between him and Dusty was pretty cool stuff to see and I found myself re-reading each one to see if I can catch any clues.
Selene is one of those really awesome best friends. She's tomboyish despite her Siren beauty, she supportive and funny and stands up for Dusty like a true friend would. She also has a spunky personality that I found contagious. She's one of the few good people in a magical school filled with misfits, mean girls and bullies.

Now, while I enjoyed a lot of what this book had to offer, my only issue was the flow of the story. The writing is well done and the pacing was fine, but the flow of information we got felt overloaded. There are so many different thing happening, it felt like we were learning it all in one breath. This world is very original with lots of wonders to learn about, but it felt overwhelming at times making it hard to just sink into the story.  

With that said, I still had a lot of fun with this book. It tuned out to be quite the entertaining experience. It's fun and creative and filled with colorful imagination. I'm not  sure if this is a standalone but I could see all the possibilities for more, which I think would be great. I'd love to see what happens with Dusty and Eli and their Dream-seer abilities next! 

 A fun read!

Find the author:
                                                                   4 Snowflakes
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27 comments:

  1. Ooo...magical! I like magical and paranormal. This looks really good! Thanks for the review and the giveaway!

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    1. That's my two favorite genre's as well and your very welcome:)

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  2. I've wanted to read this for a while now. The cover is fabulous! It does sound like a really fun read!

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    1. Hope you enjoy it when ever you get a chance to read it. The cover is very fitting for the book:)

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  3. I'm so thrilled you liked this Tina because I have this as well. I'm really excited to read it now. Great review! :)

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  4. Oooh this sounds like such a fun read!

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  5. This book sounds fantastic! Thanks for the great review!

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    1. It was great trying to guess the mystery, lot of good twists:)

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  6. oh gosh I have been looking EVERYWHERE for this book and can't find it! It sounds like an amazing read and the blog post also just proves how much I need to read it.:)

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  7. This book sounds like such an interesting idea. I've been looking forward to reading it, although I was a bit surprised that you said it was more fun and sassy--I guess I had expected something darker from the title, lol! Thanks for the review and giveaway :)

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    1. Yeah, it's hard to tell from the titles of books what to expect inside lol I thought it might have been dark as well, but I'm glad that the author took the lighter approach. It makes it more entertaining some how:)
      Hope you enjoy!:)

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  8. OMG I have been dying to get my hands on this book. I have seen a lot of great reviews on this book. I love the cover! I am quite interested to see how this book plays out with its sassy characters and overload of information (:

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  9. Great Review! the book sound and looks awesome the cover is very beautiful thanks for sharing and for the great givaway!

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  10. The books sounds and looks fantastic! I can't wait to read it.

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  11. I'm so excited to read this Tina, even more excited now after reading your review :D

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  12. Glad you liked it. Mindee's a cool author. Good review, by the way. And thanks for the giveaway!

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  13. I would do anything to read this awesomness. Seriously, this book sound so good! And your review is really nice, but I was already convinced that I HAVE to read The Nightmare Affair.

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  14. I've had this on my tbr for a little while and as part of the 2013 Debut Author Challenge. The whole plot concept really intrigues me, just as it sounds it did you. It's hard when authors try to cram too much info in. I'm still really excited to read it though. Thanks for the giveaway!

    Tressa @ Tressa's Wishful Endings

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  15. This sounds like a fun story, and I like sassy characters! Thanks for sharing your review!

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  16. Sounds like a cool story! Nightmare as a paranormal being? Give it to me! :D

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  17. I've been wanting to read this. Magic + school setting = yes please.

    I actually like info dumps, for the most part, because worldbuilding is one of my favorite things. So I think I'll like this. Good review!

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