Dangerous Creatures (Dangerous Creatures #1) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl Review

Hey readers! Happy Tuesday to you all! I have a real awesome review post for you here today. I will be reviewing the first book in the spin off series to one of my favorite series of all time: Beautiful Creatures. Today, I will be talking about Dangerous Creatures by Kami Gracia and Margaret Stohl! Before I get down to the brass tax, here's some info about the book and each of our authors!

A new series returns to the world of Beautiful Creatures. Some loves are cursed...others are dangerous.

Ridley Duchannes will be the first to tell you that she's a bad girl. She's Dark. She's a Siren. You can never trust her, or even yourself when she's around. Lucky for her, Wesley "Link" Lincoln can never seem to remember that; quarter Incubus or not, his heart is Mortal when it comes to Ridley. When Link heads to New York City to start a music career, Ridley goes along for the ride-and she has her own reasons. As if leaving small-town Gatlin for the big city, trying to form a band, and surviving life with a partially reformed Siren isn't hard enough already, Link soon learns he has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthors of Beautiful Creatures, are back and casting another magical spell. Their signature mixture of mystery, suspense, and romance, along with a dash of fun and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.

*Add Dangerous Creatures to Goodreads*

Now here's a little bit about our authors:

Kami Garcia

 
Kami Garcia is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal & international bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures Novels (Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos & Beautiful Redemption). Beautiful Creatures has been published in 50 countries and translated in 39 languages. The Beautiful Creatures movie released in theaters on February 14, 2013.

Kami is also the author of Unbreakable, the first book her paranormal solo series, THE LEGION (coming October 1, 2013.

Kami grew up outside of Washington DC, wore lots of black, and spent hours writing poetry in spiral notebooks. As a girl with Southern roots, she has always been fascinated by the paranormal and believes in lots of things “normal” people don’t. She’s very superstitious and would never sleep in a room with the number “13″ on the door. When she is not writing, Kami can usually be found watching disaster movies, listening to Soundgarden, or drinking Diet Coke.

Kami has an MA in education, and taught in the Washington DC area until she moved to Los Angeles, where she was a teacher & Reading Specialist for 14 years. In addition to teaching, Kami was a professional artist and led fantasy book groups for children and teens. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, daughter, and their dogs Spike and Oz (named after characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Follow Kami Garcia by clicking the following links:  

*Facebook*     *Twitter*     *Goodreads* *Kami's Website*

Margaret Stohl

Writing has gotten me in and out of trouble since I was 15 (back then, mostly just in trouble.) For 10 years, I designed &/or wrote for lots of video games, one of which was nominated for “Most Innovative Game Design,” but I lost to a rapping onion. If you know games you get why my two bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby.

School: I spent more years in it than a person ever should, because let’s face it, reading books is so much better than having a job. I fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under the late great poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. I taught Intro to Film as a TA at Yale and Romantic Poetry as a TA at Stanford. Don’t tell the people at Yale but sometimes I taught the section before I’d seen the movie it was about...


I live in Santa Monica, CA, with my family, most of whom were enslaved into working with me in one form or another on my first YA book for Little, Brown. I’m not kidding; when my daughters wanted to go to school I said “Why are you so selfish? Get back in there and edit,” and by said I mean yelled and maybe threw things, it’s all a haze. Now the Beautiful series has wrapped, but you can see the movie on February 13, 2013 or read my new book ICONS on May 7th. Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

Follow Margaret Stohl by clicking the following links:  

*Facebook*     *Twitter*     *Goodreads* *Margaret's Website*

Side note for a second. As usual, I try to throw these in here when I can. Last year I got to meet Margaret when she came to Springfield, Missouri for an author event. It was an awesome experience to get to hear her speak as well as personally meet her where she remembered me from our Twitter conversations! It was awesome. She was the very first author I connected with, long before this blog became a thing! Here's a pic of me meeting Margaret Stohl!

My Thoughts

As any of my book friends will tell you, I was a HUGE advocate for Beautiful Creatures. Anyone who knows me knows two things about me. First, I love everything about the American South. The history, lifestyle, the culture: it's home to me so I love anything that has to do with it. Secondly, when it comes to paranormal stuff, Witches are my thing. I love magic, can't ever read enough about it. Beautiful Creatures was the perfect series for me, it encompassed EVERYTHING I love in one 4 novel series. You can only imagine how excited I was when I discovered that a spin-off series was in the works!

So far as the novel itself, I will start out with my very few criticisms before I love on to the awesome parts of it. My biggest criticism was that this book was really nothing like the Beautiful Creatures series, but not in a bad way. Dangerous Creatures takes place in a whole different world than it's predecessor. New York City. It's loud, it's dangerous, it's new, flashy, and full of excitement. Nothing like Gatlin, South Carolina. I guess I was just so used to the setting of the first series that it was really hard for me to adjust to Caster life in the big city. At times it felt overwhelming, much like NYC really can be to a small-town nobody, I am sure. Whereas the first series had to develop the entire Caster world, this one jumped right in with little to no description of the Caster world. Usually I would have really liked that, but I feel like it could have been off putting for someone who hadn't read Beautiful Creatures. Even I, as someone who read and loved the BC, series, was a little lost about some things, seeing as it has been over a year since I was inside the Caster world.

Now I realize I shouldn't be comparing the two series, but it is really difficult not to.

Onto more exciting and positive things: the characters. From the very beginning, when we first meet Wesley Lincoln, I was a fan. He has always been a favorite character of mine, while Ridley Duchannes was always kind of "meh". Link has always been a fun, determined, best-friend kind of character that I always really appreciated. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I have always seen Ridley as a brat and never really liked her, even after she became a big part of the BC series. Funny enough, this novel turned that on it's head. By the time the ending came, Ridley was my favorite character and I was completely fed up with the antics of Link. I am beginning to wonder if that was the point! I would have never expected that my views on the Rid-Link relationship would have changed, but in comes Lennox Gates and blew my thought process right out of the water. All I am going to say, without giving spoilers is that I am not Team Rid-Nox! Secondary characters such as Necro (a Necromancer), Floyd (an Illusionist), and Sampson (a Darkborn) really added to the story in ways I wouldn't have imagined! I really liked that this novel didn't have SUCH a large cast of characters, making it much more intimate and easier to keep up with.

Lots and lots of reviews I have read are ripping this story a new one and downing it because of the "cliff-hanger" ending. I, on the other hand, loved it! It definitely makes me want more! I know this is the first book in a planned series, but I cannot find any information about the next books! I will be sure to update and keep you guys in the loop as soon as I learn more!

All-in-all, this book is a must read for any fans of the Beautiful Creatures series. Kami and Margaret have done it again with their rare brand of storytelling: the drama, the darkness, the laughs and the excitement that only the story of a Siren and a "one-quarter Incubus/Mortal-Hybrid" can bring! I am anxiously awaiting book two!


Also of importance to point out to you guys is that there is a prequel out to Dangerous Creatures that sets the scene for the novel. I actually didn't know about the novella-prequel until after I finished DC, so going back and reading it helped out a whole bunch! At just shy of 50 pages, you'll have it read in no time. Here's the cover and synopsis for it!

Catch up with Ethan, Lena, and Link as they finally graduate from high school and get ready to leave the small Southern town of Gatlin. But when Dark Caster Ridley makes an appearance, the sometime bad girl can't resist picking a fight with her sometime boyfriend, Link. Angry and rebellious as ever, Ridley ends up alone in New York City and becomes entangled in the dangerous underground Caster club scene, where the stakes are high and losers pay the ultimate price.

Where's a Linkubus when you need him








Now for something really exciting. I was doing my rounds and came across this Hypable article where Kami and Margaret released a deleted scene from Dangerous Creatures which features more about some of our favorite characters from Beautiful Creatures, Lena Duchannes and Ethan Wate (Ethan was named after me, didn't ya know? Kidding, kidding... A guy can wish right?) Here's the link to the article with the deleted chapter!

*Click here for a Dangerous Creatures deleted scene* 

Now that you know all about the Dangerous Creatures, the novella, and the awesome authors, check out these graphics I made to promote Dangerous Creatures!

Alright guys, now that you've read all about Dangerous Creatures, you probably want to know where you can get your hands on a copy for yourself! As of right now the book is available in both ebook and print format! Here's a promo graphic for where you can get your copy of Dangerous Creatures today! Feel free to share/use this graphic! 

Are you ready for more? Head over to the Amazon and Barnes & Noble links below to order your copy of Dangerous Creatures today! 

 

Amazon                  Barnes & Noble  

 

Alright guys, that's all I have for you on the topic of Dangerous Creatures by the amazing duo of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl! I would really love to hear from anyone who reads this incredible novel so we can talk all about it! After you read it be sure to review it on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble! Review always are huge helps to authors. Recommend this to friends, they won't be disappointed! Until next time, Happy Reading!

 

-Ethan