Discussion Questions: Embers by Laura Bickle

1. So if you had the chance would you have a pet elemental, even with the inconvenience of broken microwaves? Of course I would! I would just have to keep my laptop locked away in a cupboard but if it was anything like sparky, I would have one in a second. I was thinking about other creatures, not just a fire salamander. I was thinking about what could go with the other elements. Some sort of bird for air (duh!) like a hawk or an eagle or even an owl. Earth, hmm that could be anything really a burrowing creature would be good though, like a rabbit. Water is hard because so many creatures have fins, i was thinking maybe a frog, platypus or crab. Fire, I would want a salamander or a serpent, like a massive python would be sooo cool!
 
2. What did you think about the relationship between, Brian, Anya and Drake?
To be perfectly honest, I think Anya is a cheater, and the only reason Bickle put Brian in a coma was to get him out of the way so that Anya could sleep with Drake, which was pointless, and not have to worry about Brian finding out because oh, how convenient, he's unconscious for half the book. The demon Mimi was right, if Anya loved Brian she wouldn't have jumped in the sack with Drake. 

3. Did the book make you want to visit Detroit or steer clear? 
The book had an air of falseness, I didn't want to visit Detroit in the first place, and I still don't but Embers made absolutely no difference in regards to that decision. 

4. A big part of Embers surrounds paranormal activity and the whole Scooby style system....What do you think of shows like Ghost Hunter, Paranormal State and the such? 
Umm, Ghost Hunter? I will have to youtube that later. The Scooby style ghost hunting would have been good if there was some Scooby style ghost hunting...they did two. One at the start and one so she could end up with Mimi inside her, for the promise of ghost hunting, there wasn't much. 

5. Do you believe in the paranormal world around us or chalk it up to complete fantasy and make believe?
I have always wanted to believe in it, but I think that as much as I would like to, I don't. Sure I want to meet a demon, marry a vampire and have a werewolf as a bestfriend, all the while developing my kickass fighting skills and perfecting my magical powers but I think that now after wishing for so long and even dreaming that my boyfriend told me he was a werewolf, I don't think it's going to happen.
I do however believe in Tarot, Destiny, Spirits and Auras.

Book Review: Embers by Laura Bickle

Review: Embers

Series: Embers – Book 1

Author: Laura Bickle

No. Of Pages: 359

Release Date: 30 March 2010

TRUTH BURNS.

Unemployment, despair, anger – visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit’s unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.

Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya – who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern – suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil’s Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya – with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team – can stop it.

Anya’s accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she’s risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she’s ever faced.

My Thoughts:

Embers wasn’t what it could have been.

After an interesting start things started happening that were just plain odd, and not in a good way.

The storyline about a fire investigator was intriguing, it’s just a pity that we had about two chapters of investigative work and the rest was filler.

Anya presents as an interesting character, she is intelligent, quick-witted and gutsy. Anya is a Lantern, a fire elemental, and I just wish in one book involving powers that someone would actually be inquisitive enough to explore what they can do and be completely ignorant of them until halfway through the middle of the story. It became quite boring seeing how much Drake, the evil guy who is also a Lantern could do that Anya couldn’t.

My favourite character would have to be Sparky, which would be inevitable for most people as he is a funny little creature who is like a playful puppy. Sparky is a salamander with a taste for electrical currents and a love for his plastic glow worm.

The other secondary characters didn’t really fit in with the story, some were meant to, but others just didn’t work.

Ciro was excellent, smart and dependable. Jules was annoying because he was an overbearing bible basher that took everyone around him for granted, he was too narrow minded to really fit in with what he was supposed to be doing. Max was a pointless character who caused too much trouble, not in a funny way though, in a what the hell are you doing kind of way. Max didn’t bring anything interesting to the table at all. Katie is a witch, but I kept getting the feeling that she was fake, for all of the magical beings around her she just didn’t square up with her massages and salt throwing, and yet she relied upon for her “talents”. She just didn’t really work as a character.

Brian goes both ways for me; he’s almost a nerdy version of tall, dark and handsome. He also seems too good for Anya, and he was. He fell into a coma early into the novel, and it seemed like that was just so Bickle could get him out of the way while Anya consorted with other men whilst trying to convince herself she was in love with Brian.

The sex scene was kind of pointless, and I’m a person who likes a bit of smut in her novels, but the fact that the love scene was lacking the love interest and was just a one-night stand with some dude was completely irrelevant.

I have been taught when writing that if it doesn’t attribute to character development or the storyline, it’s not worth putting in. Bickle has obviously never heard this saying.

I know I went on a lot about the characters, but they are what stood out to me this story. There was no storyline, it fizzled out in the first four chapters, it was all Anya, and it was boring.

If I manage to snag a free copy of Sparks, from a sale or a contest, I will read it, but I’m not going to go out and buy it based on Embers.

Others in this Series:
Sparks

Available at:
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