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Showing posts with label boarding school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boarding school. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Whisper: A Lakeview Novel (Lakeview Academy Series, Book 1) by Stacey R. Campbell

Whisper (Lakeview #2)Whisper: A Lakeview Novel (Lakeview Academy Series, Book 1)
by Stacey R. Campbell


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite 

Lakeview Academy is a centuries old boarding school on 300 mountain acres in Canada, that started out for boys and now admits girls and boys for 8th thru 12th grades. It also holds its own secrets and resident ghosts, or so the stories go. Leigh is in her senior year, but her best friend Blakely's, who graduated last year, younger sister Halle is starting this year and Leigh is going to be her "big sister". Halle is overjoyed about the ghosts, the mysteries and secrets of the school and she can't wait to find out more. It helps that the original building that housed the founder's family is being renovated this year. The seniors are tapped to clean the attic since they are the only ones on campus at the time. Halle tags along with Leigh, and in the process finds an old diary. Whisper is the story of the adventure that follows as Halle entrusts a few seniors, Leigh and her roommate Christi, her boyfriend David and his best friend Callum, who just happens to be a descent of the founding family; to help find a lost treasure mentioned in the diary. Author Stacey R. Campbell creates an engaging and compelling story that make you want to keep reading and find out what happens.

Whisper is actually the second book in the Lakeview Academy series, but it stands on its own quite well. I did not read the first book, and was able to follow along without problem, although now I do want to go back and read the first. Enough key information was relayed in this book that you are not lost. Not only do you have this treasure hunt going on, but you have this tension between Callum and Leigh, which has been going on since their first year. Author Stacey R. Campbell does a wonderful job writing characters that you want to know, you want to read, and you find yourself rooting for and wanting to see them find what they are looking for, among other things. This book is a great read for middle school on up readers. It is clean, there is no sex, although there are references to it, it's not actually seen or described, and there is no violence at all. I would be willing to let my 6th grader read this book. Enjoy readers!

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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Stray : To Plan by K. E. Strokez BOOK REVIEW

The Stray : To PlanThe Stray : To Plan 
by K. E. Strokez


Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .

Matthew Bridge has been accepted into a prodigious academy called St. Kenneth's. His twin brother Ken is accepted along for the ride, despite his objections. Life in this boarding school is going to be like nothing Ken has ever experienced before. Right from the beginning Ken begins having hallucinations. They feel real to him, but he is not sure what is really going on. As the story progresses we learn that nothing in The Stray: To Plan is what it seems to be, everything is an illusion and a trick. K.E. Strokez gives us a fantasy, science fiction, paranormal novel in which someone has set up a simulation world that runs in a bubble, and there are people watching it, yet it is not real. The gravity of the situation is enormous.

The Stray: To Plan turns out to be an elaborate simulation that has been running for a very, very long time, in fact at this point in time they are at Phase 83. The people in the simulation think it is real life and are living day to day, and yet there are people out side watching them, observing what they are doing. K.E. Strokez writes a story that is part fantasy, part science fiction, part paranormal and yet at the same time there is just enough technology available today that makes you stop and think, you know this might just actually be possible to pull off. Reading it gave me goosebumps and reminding me of reading George Orwell's 1984 back in 1982. There is just enough reality to make you take notice of what he is writing about and make you think about this as a possibility, not today, but in a few years. Great read for young adults and adults alike!

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