GIVEAWAY!! Blog Tour: Earth (Elemental Series #1) by Shauna Granger

 Earth (Elemental Series #1)
written by Shauna Granger          
published by Shauna Granger via CreateSpace 

find it here: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Goodreads

Why did I pick this book: I am a stop on Ms. Granger’s blog tour hosted by YA Bound. (I received a copy of this book for review purposes.)

Did I enjoy this book: I did enjoy this book but not as much as I had initially hoped. For me, this book moved kind of slow. There were some great moments but I feel like it should have taken me much less time than it did to read.

Earth has a great premise and I want to see what will happen next. Most of the action was well-written. There was some mystery…why was she having those nightmares? Why did she wake up injured from her dreams? Who are the ones performing the dark magic? These are great elements to this story and these questions were what kept me reading. 

The three main characters – Shayna, Jodi, and Steven – were well-written and worked well together. They were different enough from each other but you could see why they were best friends. Shayna was my least favorite. She just seemed to lack common sense despite seeming to know the most out of the three of them. She received so many warnings and signs in her dreams, intuition, and from Deb and her friends yet she refused to follow any of them. Shayna was a great friend and protector of sorts to Tracey and that redeemed her for me. She truly cared for Tracey’s safety and well-being. Shayna did her very best to protect Tracey. 

We don’t learn that much about Jodi and Steven in Earth. But I do like them. They are great counterparts to Shayna. I hope to find out more about them in the remaining books in the series. I also enjoyed that the story combined elements of magic along with religion. It wasn’t a one or the other type of situation. The characters seemed to embrace both and made them work together. Usually, the story pits religion against magic and/or witchcraft. This book combined them in a different way. 

However, there were some unanswered questions for me. Do Shayna, Jodi, and Steven’s parents know about their powers and what they are doing? The parents do not seem to know what their children are up to or where they are or even when they skip school. It must be a different generation because I couldn’t imagine my parents not knowing if I was in school or not. Further, why didn’t these three run into Deb and the other adults that were monitoring the troublesome situation going on in their area? And the end was rather ‘neat’ for me. I understand it but I didn’t feel like it completely fit this story. 

I also wish that the magic – where it came from, how they used it, how it worked – would have been explained at the beginning, not in the last 50 pages. I think it would have helped me understand what was going on a bit more. There were some typos, consistency errors, and wrong words throughout Earth. There weren’t enough to be distracting but there were enough to be noticeable. 

Would I recommend it: I would with the caveat that it is kind of slow but it has an interesting plot.

Will I read it again: I will not but I will read Air, book #2 in the Elemental Series. 

About the book – from Goodreads: Shayna and her two best friends have the abilities to manipulate and control the four elements, earth, air, water and fire. While learning to hone their growing powers, they discover a new and malicious presence in their sleepy beach town. Someone is performing blood magic and threatens to expose their small magical community. So far only small animals have been slaughtered, but then the nightmares start. 

Shayna suffers nightmares of being chased and sacrificed only to wake up bloodied and bruised. She thinks her magical blood is the ultimate target for the final blood rite. When an innocent girl, Tracy, is kidnapped Shayna knows it’s only a ploy to draw her out; she can’t let someone die because of her.

About the author: I don’t do well talking about myself. So as basics go, I have recently self-published the first two books in my Elemental Series, Earth and Air, Young Adult Urban Fantasy novels. Look for the third installment, Water, coming in 2012!

I have been working on the Elemental Series for the last four years and plan for it to be a 5 book series. It was a hard decision to self-publish but it’s been an exciting and terrifying ride.

And to my readers (or fans of my covers), I have beautiful bookmarks that I would love to share with you. If you’d like one, drop me a note with your contact info and I’d be happy to send you one!

Find Ms. Granger here: blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads

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Air (Elemental Series #2)
written by Shauna Granger          
published by Shauna Granger via CreateSpace 

find it here: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Goodreads

About the book – from Goodreads: It was a rough start to the school year for Shayna and her friends, Jodi and Steven, but thankfully summer break is near. Trying to sort out her feelings for the new guy in town, Shayna agrees to let Jensen join her on a group date with her friends. While out they end up at a local coffee house where their classmate, social outcast Jeremy McCormick, is humiliated by his baseball star brother. When Jeremy runs away from the jeering crowd, Shayna and Jodi hear the unmistakable sound of a thousand wings chasing after him, but no one else seems to hear them. These are not like any air elementals that Shayna or Jodi have ever encountered before and they fear Jeremy has gotten himself tangled up in something too dangerous for him to handle. But when Shayna tries to help Jeremy control his magical abilities she realizes it might be the biggest mistake of her life.

Water (Elemental Series #3)
written by Shauna Granger          
published by Shauna Granger via CreateSpace 

find it here: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Goodreads

About the book – from Goodreads: Shayna’s first surfing session of the summer is interrupted by the screams of a mother who has lost her little boy in the water. Without regard to her own safety, Shayna swims out, rescues the boy, but must escape the clutches of something far worse than she could have ever imagined – mermaids.

Compelled to answer the sirens’ call, the boys of Shayna’s town are drawn to the sea, but when they return are afflicted by an unknown illness, a sickness which is draining them of their life force. Unable to tell anyone about the mermaids, Shayna and her friends are forced to solve the mystery before it’s too late, and in doing so, Shayna will finally have to face the full force of her powers. Whether she’s ready or not, she will have to face her true nature.