Book Review: All Wounds

All Wounds

By:  Dina James

Publisher:  Mundania Press

Publish Date:  October 2011

Format:  ARC, 224pgs

Genre:  YA Urban Fantasy

Series:  1st book in Stranger Things series

Recommendation:  OH MY YES!!  Even though it's YA you can't pass this one up.  Quick pacing and fun characters!

Book Synopsis:
It's said that when opportunity knocks on your door, you have only one chance to take it.

No one said what you're supposed to do when it kicks it.

All Rebecca MacDonnell wants to do is get through high school with grades good enough to win a prestigious scholarship so that she can finally leave her miserable life behind.  One evening, after a particularly bad day, she finds out that people other than her aging grandmother need her help, and desperately so.

Well, not "people," exactly.  Vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, goblins, and other things thought only imaginary all need help sometime, and Rebecca was born with the unique ability to heal ethereal beings.  She is about to turn seventeen, the age at which her talent will manifest in its entirety, and become a true Healer...if she lives through the event.  A war between various ethereal factions is brewing, and Healers are a valuable commodity to any side.  Those who wish to harness Rebecca's manifesting healing powers for their own purposes must get to her before her seventeenth birthday.

Only two vampires and a rogue werewolf stand between Rebecca and those determined to make her serve them, and the fact that Rebecca has no clue what she's doing doesn't exactly help matters.

Neither does being seriously attracted to more than one of those just trying to protect her.

For a soon-to-be seventeen-year-old Healer-in-training, that's a lot to handle.

Especially on top of her homework.

First Sentence:
The only thing in the room that made any sort of noise was the clicking keys of the old computer keyboard, pushed - no, more like jabbed - by a very annoyed secretary.

My Thoughts and Summary:
Leaving the Principals office with her best and only friend Robin after receiving their first ever detention, Rebecca thinks she sees a goblin type dude and wonders if she has the same disorder as her Nana, a mental disorder - dementia.  Ryan, the schools top bad boy, helps Rebecca but his help is known around school to come at a cost.  Ryan had caught Rebecca's attention in the principals office and now in detention... or had she caught his attention?  Rebecca is worried about her Nana and needs to get home as she takes more care of her than Nana of Rebecca.  But that night when Ryan is brought to her door bloody and unconscious Rebecca's world will change as she learns of strange supernatural creatures and beings and what she is or the females in her family are....healers of the Ethereal. Suddenly Nana is her old self with Syd and Ryan there, Rebecca learns secrets of her family her Nana tried to keep her from, but with a war coming to the Ethereal again, Rebecca's healing help is needed, and she has to learn quick.  Oh, and there is school too!

Oh My!  I don't know where to start.  So, I'm going to get the gushing done first... LOVED this book.  Quick moving and fun!  Really.  Loved Ryan, LOoOoOVED Syd! He is mine, no one else can have him.  And Billy! Oooohhh, he can come fix my car and make his den in the garage anytime.

Okay, curious?  Well, yeah.

This is a Young Adult book, and I think it is wonderful for all ages to read.  There is no major love scenes or alcohol or anything to the point where I would think the parent should read this book first and decide.  I would definitely hand it over with out another thought.

The characters... Ahhh... Okay, so as you can tell I fell hard for Syd.  Yes.  I did.  I tried my darnedest to do as Master Sydney told Rebecca in the beginning.  That sometimes an Acolyte takes the wrong meaning from what a Master Vampire does and feelings grow that are not reciprocated.  Dina's amazing writing had me fighting my emotions, along with the characters', through out the whole book.  Amazingly well done Dina.  I love how she put that thought into my mind and I tried so hard to follow it, just like he told his Acolyte to do.  But, I will admit I failed miserably.  I fell in love. *sigh* 

Okay, on with the review.  We have Ryan which I was wanting more of the mystery here, and I did get.  I love how I was left wanting to know more with the important part he played.  And we got the big man Billy!  Oh, he is the best friend anyone could ask for and he sleeps curled up on the floor in his protective family loving way.  Oh these are not the only characters, but the ones we spend most of our time with.  Amazingly well done as they are all so different and fit in this story so well. 

Our main girl, Rebecca.  This is a girl who has a full life of caring for her Nana and worrying about school and home.  What Rebecca learns explains why she is the way she is, and opens her up to evolve to so much more for her birthday so close.  But others want what she is becoming and will do just about anything to get it.  Rebecca really grows as a character from the beginning to the end of this book.  You will see.

When I started reading this one I didn't want to stop.  Dina had me wanting more constantly keeping the pages turning.  I came up with questions and she would answer them, leading me sometimes to more in depth questions which would be answered as well.  This book took on action as we went into the Etheral to face down the demons.  Oh, and Billy's car!  AMAZING he has the car I soooo want, and when you see here in the Ethereal.  Ha!  Love it.

The world here is so magical.  The whole idea of the Healers and their history.  And all the magical creatures we see.  I just enjoyed all the magic here.  The story of Rebecca coming into her own is wonderful.  I love the healer birth.  We learn some of the stories each character has as it slips right in the story at prefect times and even have a few little morsels to make us hungry for the next book as well.  Nothing to leave us starving, just looking forward to the next meal.

I will be purchasing a print copy of this one to keep on the shelves and go back to in the future.  And I WILL be looking for the next book.  And maybe keeping an eye out for Syd. ;)


I read this book for an honest review for Publisher

This book qualifies for YA Reading Challenge 2011 and Horror and Urban Fantasy Reading Challenge hosted by Book Chick City.