Miscellaneous Monday: 2011 Aussie Author Challenge

I've been feeling as if my blog is a little aimless lately, so to remedy that I'm going to start doing a few personal memes to keep me on track. Miscellaneous Mondays is the meme where I can write about new books I've borrowed/bought or cool book related things I've stumbled upon. There will be other memes as the week goes by but that's another story for another day.

To kick off the first Misc Monday (as it will now be known because typing miscellaneous is a pain in the ass) I've decided that I don't read nearly enough books by Australian authors and I'm going to rectify that by participating in the 2011 Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Booklover Book Reviews.

The idea is to read and blog about Aussie books and share your reviews with other bloggers be they Australian or International. As an Aussie I will be participating in the True Blue category, which means I am going to have to read 12 books by at least 9 different authors! I've worked that out to be roughly 2.4 books a month. That seems doable....

So far the books I have chosen are:

1. Good Oil by Laura Buzo.
2. Graffitin Moon by Cath Crawley.
3. On The Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
4. Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres.
5. Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar.
6. Solace and Grief by Foz Meadows.
7. The Outcast by Patricia Bernard.
8. Wolfborn by Sue Bursztynski.
9. The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta.
10.My Big Birkett: The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly and Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan.
11. Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott.
12. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody.
This is all I can think of so far. The list might change depending on whether I enjoy the book. My policy of not forcing myself to read a book I don't like still stands. Wish I'd thought of doing this sooner because I could have included Thyla by Kate Gordon and Mercy and Exile by Rebecca Lim which would have knocked off three books!

Better go get reading!

*** THIS CHALLENGE HAS BEEN COMPLETE ***

Review: Mercy by Rebecca Lim

Title: Mercy
Author: Rebecca Lim
Genre: Paranormal YA
Release Date:1 November 2010

Summary:

As an angel exiled from heaven and doomed to return repeatedly to Earth, Mercy is never sure whose life and body she will share each time. Her only clue to her forgotten past are the vivid dreams of her beloved Luc, who is both tender and terrible.

Mercy 'wakes' inside Carmen's body on a school bus bound for Paradise, a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business. Carmen is everything Mercy is sure she's not. Small, painfully self-conscious and plagued with eczema.

When Mercy meets Ryan, she is instantly drawn to him for his resemblance to Luc and his unwavering belief that his twin sister Lauren, who was kidnapped two years earlier, is still alive. Together Mercy and Ryan must unravel the mystery behind Lauren's kidnapping before another girl disappears and before Mercy's curse makes her 'wake' in someone else.

My Thoughts:

Let me start off by saying that I am not big on novels about fallen angels. Usually they tread on the very thin line between ecclesiastical and downright creepy. Having said that, Lim writes the way Lea Michele sings. Absolutely amazingly (sorry! had to get a Glee reference in there!). Her writing is almost like poetry and I found myself flying through the book, eager to find out what happened next, to the point where I forgot to have dinner.

Mercy isn't your average angel. I love that she is more than a little jaded and is so unlike the idea of a typical angel that she seems almost...human. Mercy is flawed, sarcastic, at times uncaring and I love her all the more for it. Ryan has the requisite good looks of a typical love interest and it's refreshing that he knows it. When he comes out with this gem: "Got a crush on me, have you? That was quick work. You'll get over it; plenty have," I knew he was a winner.

The book itself is very fast paced, jumping into the action almost straight away. The budding romance between Mercy and Ryan is quite understated and this is a major positive because this is where other fallen angel books tend to slap it on a bit thick, thereby increasing the ick factor. Mercy's relationship with Luc is a little on the dramatic side and I tend to see it as less of a romance and more of a grapple for dominance which Luc is clearly winning at this point. I hope this changed in the second book.

The mystery of Lauren's disappearance lends a bit of well balanced intrigue to the plot and the obstacle of poor Carmen's bottom rung social status made me smile more than once. My only minor criticism is that the book is quite short and there were a few plot points that could have been fleshed out to make the story more believable. Like when Ryan sees Mercy glowing in the moonlight, she gives him some offhand explanation which he doesn't believe and then the scene cuts away and Ryan seems to suddenly accept that Mercy can do a full body ET??

On the whole though, I found Mercy to be thoroughly enjoyable and am very much looking forward to the sequel 'EXILE' which is next on my reading list.