Solace & Grief by Foz Meadows

Solace and Grief follows the story of a 17 year old girl called Solace. She was raised in a foster care, but when she finds out she is a vampire she is compelled to run away. Soon, she finds herself within a group of other strange young adults. They are part of ‘the Rare’ and each one of them has a ‘Trick’, which is a superpower or a supernatural ability. For example, Jess is a psychic reader, and Solace is a vampire. But soon things start to get a little weird... A Faceless man is stalking her and Professor Lukin is a bit too interested in their ‘Trick’...

This is the first book of a series called The Rare. It is set in Sydney, Australia and I found it interesting that Foz Meadows has used real places in the city but added twists to make them supernatural. At the beginning of the book, the story seemed to be droning on to nowhere. However, some things that seemed irrelevant at the start actually ended up being important towards the end. I didn’t like how Solace and her friends went to the Gadfly and got drunk, then stayed home all day. This seemed to happen several times, and I think it stalled the story a bit. Nevertheless I continued reading, and I’m glad I did.

I loved the variety of characters in the book. They all have different ‘Tricks’ and personalities. I found it a bit hard to remember who was who at the start, because a lot of characters are introduced all at the same time.

Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

“Tucking my nose into a book makes me completely oblivious to my surroundings. I would have made a terrible spy in the army--the first person to hand me a novel would have been able to shoot my head clean off without me noticing.”  - Haunting Violet

Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey is the story of Violet and her new abilities to see the dead in the midst of 19th century society. Her mother was a fake spiritualist with a great desire and ambition to join the rich and live in luxury. Violet must obey her mother and follow her schemes however everything changes when Violet finds that an assassinated young girl wants her to solve a real ghost mystery. 

I quite enjoyed reading the book and I found myself pondering if real life spiritualists really do exist. I'm sure many are like Violet's mother, lying and deceiving just for fame and money. However, the world has such a numerous population, I really do think that maybe at least one person actually has this ability to see and talk to the dead. 

While reading this book I realise I would have really liked to be able to go to the past an spend some time in that era; in the richer side of the population, of course. All the dresses, no matter how uncomfortable thy are described as, hold some appeal to me. I realise how girls were treated as having to be all polite and obedient and that the thoughts there were very much sexist but I would like to spend just a week in that time so I can wear those clothes and live in such grandeur and splendour, with so many people to take care of you. 

Spoilers Below!!!