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haleyelisereads's review against another edition
4.0
"But I’ll be damned if he’s going to stop me from seeing Christian."
Just when you think vampires have been done in every way possible in the literary world ….Tish Thawer comes flying in with a whole new paranormal world with vampires and demons! Vampires are good, they have clans, they have powers, they can turn dark…everything about Scent of a White Rose was such a fresh new concept when it came to vampires, actually it was just a whole new concept in general for the paranormal genre! This is a read any paranormal lover should read!
Scent of a White Rose had an amazing storyline, one thing wrong with YA novels these days I feel is their predictability. I would say about 70% (maybe more) YA novels I read I can always figure out what is going to happen next, I know the authors try hard to make things suspenseful, and a mystery, but in all honesty a lot of them fail at it. This does not mean I don’t enjoy their books, I still do..but when I come across a book that kept me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails over what was going to happen next and left me literally shocked at times, you know it’s a good read.
The characters were all very likeable too, although I must say I wish I could’ve gotten to know some of the ‘not so main’ characters. I am hoping throughout the rest of the series we will learn more about them, as far as the main characters go I really liked them. Rose was a likeable girl, I loved how independent she was, and how she was figuring out things all on her own. Most heroines have help (a lot of help) putting the pieces together, but Rose mostly did it all on her own! It gave me tons of respect towards her as a character. Christian I loved, I thought he was well first off he sounded like he was really sexy, which is always a plus, he was very protective of Rose, and you could really tell he cared for her tremendously. I also liked seeing how much he cared for his ‘family’ (other vampires in the clan), most books focus a lot on the romance aspect of love, it was nice also seeing how much he and his clan cared for eachother, not just how he felt about Rose. I really did love Rose and Christian and a few of the other main charcters, but I think my favorite was Jillian, Roses best friend, and the only reason for her being my favorite is cause I feel I connect with her and out of all the characters she reminded me a lot of myself, which was nice! Overall though Tish has put together an awesome cast!
When it came to the romance I really loved how it was different than most YA books also, the point that Scent of a White Rose starts at, Rose and Christian have already been dating for a while. This was weird to me at first since normally YA novels start out with the girl is alone and then meets some mysterious guy blah blah (you all know how it goes), at first I didn’t like the fact that we didn’t get to really read about the process of Rose and Christian falling in love, but the more I got into the story the more I liked it, it was kind of nice skipping the beginning of their relationship, it was deff a new experience reading it, and yet another way Scent of a White Rose is a fresh new take in the YA world.
Overall, this book was such a great read. If you’re looking for a new paranormal romance read and one that is more on the mature end of YA with awesome characters, then look no further! Scent of a White Rose will have its readers on the edge of their seat, and leave them dying for book two!
Just when you think vampires have been done in every way possible in the literary world ….Tish Thawer comes flying in with a whole new paranormal world with vampires and demons! Vampires are good, they have clans, they have powers, they can turn dark…everything about Scent of a White Rose was such a fresh new concept when it came to vampires, actually it was just a whole new concept in general for the paranormal genre! This is a read any paranormal lover should read!
Scent of a White Rose had an amazing storyline, one thing wrong with YA novels these days I feel is their predictability. I would say about 70% (maybe more) YA novels I read I can always figure out what is going to happen next, I know the authors try hard to make things suspenseful, and a mystery, but in all honesty a lot of them fail at it. This does not mean I don’t enjoy their books, I still do..but when I come across a book that kept me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails over what was going to happen next and left me literally shocked at times, you know it’s a good read.
The characters were all very likeable too, although I must say I wish I could’ve gotten to know some of the ‘not so main’ characters. I am hoping throughout the rest of the series we will learn more about them, as far as the main characters go I really liked them. Rose was a likeable girl, I loved how independent she was, and how she was figuring out things all on her own. Most heroines have help (a lot of help) putting the pieces together, but Rose mostly did it all on her own! It gave me tons of respect towards her as a character. Christian I loved, I thought he was well first off he sounded like he was really sexy, which is always a plus, he was very protective of Rose, and you could really tell he cared for her tremendously. I also liked seeing how much he cared for his ‘family’ (other vampires in the clan), most books focus a lot on the romance aspect of love, it was nice also seeing how much he and his clan cared for eachother, not just how he felt about Rose. I really did love Rose and Christian and a few of the other main charcters, but I think my favorite was Jillian, Roses best friend, and the only reason for her being my favorite is cause I feel I connect with her and out of all the characters she reminded me a lot of myself, which was nice! Overall though Tish has put together an awesome cast!
When it came to the romance I really loved how it was different than most YA books also, the point that Scent of a White Rose starts at, Rose and Christian have already been dating for a while. This was weird to me at first since normally YA novels start out with the girl is alone and then meets some mysterious guy blah blah (you all know how it goes), at first I didn’t like the fact that we didn’t get to really read about the process of Rose and Christian falling in love, but the more I got into the story the more I liked it, it was kind of nice skipping the beginning of their relationship, it was deff a new experience reading it, and yet another way Scent of a White Rose is a fresh new take in the YA world.
Overall, this book was such a great read. If you’re looking for a new paranormal romance read and one that is more on the mature end of YA with awesome characters, then look no further! Scent of a White Rose will have its readers on the edge of their seat, and leave them dying for book two!
merlin_reads's review
1.0
That pretty much sums up my reading journey. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how this book has so many 4 and 5 star ratings. Everything about it was pretty horrible.
Rose is a 21 year old college student who, after the death of her mother, is pretty much put on house arrest from her over bearing father. But that doesn't stop her from sneaking out to meet her boyfriend during his breaks from his job as a club security guard. But wait, not all is as it seems, and Rose's boyfriend is actually a vampire. Oh, there's more. Rose actually knows that Christian is a vampire and her plan is to get turned and surprise him with her knowledge of his kind! That sounds logical, right? I mean, it makes even more sense after learning that her mother was killed by a vampire. KILLED. But whatevs, she's in love and her plan is fool proof. A plan that she makes after seeing a vampire feeding on her mother. Her legit response was, "Oh vampires are real. Can you help me with my history paper?"
There was just so many things wrong with this book that I don't know where to start. The plot was ridiculous with so many things that didn't work or flow. I blame a lot on the writing. It was poorly put together. The author chose just to "tell" us everything that happened instead of showing. Because of this we got 5 different POV's. 5. Including one from Rose's father. WHY? These were the most pointless chapters I've ever read. All of this information would have been better introduced in interactions with his daughter.
Another issue was the "relationship" between Christian and Rose - or lack thereof. They basically only see each other at night during his breaks from work to make out in his car... HOW THE HELL ARE YOU IN LOVE? Even worse, Christian fell in love from the moment he saw her and caught her scent *rolls eyes*. I felt nothing between them the entire book. Relationship fail.
The characters themselves read very immature. Rose was supposed to be a college student and every time they mentioned school I immediately thought high school. I had to force myself every time to remember that she was 21. She read like a 16 year old. Also vampires who have apparently been around for centuries read like they were literally turned yesterday. No one was believable in their roles.
I almost gave this two stars because I did like the different lore with how vampires are made and the connections with sires, but I couldn't bring myself to do this with how the book was written. It's safe to say that this is one series I will not be continuing.
berls's review against another edition
3.0
This review appeared first on Fantasy is More Fun
Scent of a White Rose got off to a rough start for me, with quite a few eye-rolling moments, but redeemed itself big time in the second half. I still have some things that seem a bit ridiculous to me, but overall, I really enjoyed this different take on vampires.
Stephanie Bentley did a good job narrating Scent of a White Rose. The voices were distinct and had personality. I wasn't blown away, but it was a solid performance. The one thing that bothered me was the way she said the names of characters when the point of view changed. It was super airy, like she was trying to sound very sensual, but instead it made me laugh almost every single time.
Rose is a really immature, naive 20 year old. And that got on my nerves a bit. At one point I thought she was also incredibly stupid, but thankfully I was wrong on that count. Her mother was killed just 6 months before the start of Scent of a White Rose and her father is being understandably protective. Sure, he's going a bit overboard, but Rose's reaction to his protectiveness felt very immature. I think this threw me off because I went into this expecting an adult read, but really got a young adult one, complete with teenage angst.
The other element that felt really immature to me was her relationship with her boyfriend, Christian. These two are talking about loving each other, but every time they're together it's just "let's makeout." Don't get me wrong, I'm all for some sexy goodness, but that's lust. Y'all don't talk enough to be in love!
What I really really liked about Scent of a White Rose was the unique take on vampires. We get a pretty neat origin story a good ways in that I enjoyed and they are very different from your typical vampires - but still recognizable as vampires (they drink blood, don't go out during the day, etc). I particularly liked two things the most - (1) only one vampire in a line has the ability to sire (i.e., create) new vampires at a time and once they lose that ability it takes time for a new sire to rise. (2) Vampires drift between light and dark --- intense emotions can trigger the drifting, which is manifested in a change in appearance to darker features --- but true darkness manifests in the way they treat their prey and is policed.
The vampire mythology really pulled the story along for me, because the actual plot for Scent of a White Rose was FAIRLY predictable. I say fairly because there were a couple of twists that I didn't see coming from the get-go, but once certain plot elements happened, I ended up seeing them before the characters did too. I had one frustration - there's lots of points of view in Scent of a White Rose, which is fine in general, but sometimes the timeline was all over the place. You'd be with one character tonight, the other character tomorrow morning, back to another character still tonight, and then it's morning again, back and forth. That was irritating and a little hard to keep track of at times (especially since it happened most towards the end when everything was really happening).
Although the characters weren't my favorite, I found the vampire mythology really fascinating and the potential story line established in Scent of a White Rose is intriguing enough that I plan to continue with the series.
My Initial Reaction...
Scent of a White Rose got off to a rough start for me, with quite a few eye-rolling moments, but redeemed itself big time in the second half. I still have some things that seem a bit ridiculous to me, but overall, I really enjoyed this different take on vampires.
The Narration...
Stephanie Bentley did a good job narrating Scent of a White Rose. The voices were distinct and had personality. I wasn't blown away, but it was a solid performance. The one thing that bothered me was the way she said the names of characters when the point of view changed. It was super airy, like she was trying to sound very sensual, but instead it made me laugh almost every single time.
The Characters...
Rose is a really immature, naive 20 year old. And that got on my nerves a bit. At one point I thought she was also incredibly stupid, but thankfully I was wrong on that count. Her mother was killed just 6 months before the start of Scent of a White Rose and her father is being understandably protective. Sure, he's going a bit overboard, but Rose's reaction to his protectiveness felt very immature. I think this threw me off because I went into this expecting an adult read, but really got a young adult one, complete with teenage angst.
The other element that felt really immature to me was her relationship with her boyfriend, Christian. These two are talking about loving each other, but every time they're together it's just "let's makeout." Don't get me wrong, I'm all for some sexy goodness, but that's lust. Y'all don't talk enough to be in love!
The Story...
What I really really liked about Scent of a White Rose was the unique take on vampires. We get a pretty neat origin story a good ways in that I enjoyed and they are very different from your typical vampires - but still recognizable as vampires (they drink blood, don't go out during the day, etc). I particularly liked two things the most - (1) only one vampire in a line has the ability to sire (i.e., create) new vampires at a time and once they lose that ability it takes time for a new sire to rise. (2) Vampires drift between light and dark --- intense emotions can trigger the drifting, which is manifested in a change in appearance to darker features --- but true darkness manifests in the way they treat their prey and is policed.
The vampire mythology really pulled the story along for me, because the actual plot for Scent of a White Rose was FAIRLY predictable. I say fairly because there were a couple of twists that I didn't see coming from the get-go, but once certain plot elements happened, I ended up seeing them before the characters did too. I had one frustration - there's lots of points of view in Scent of a White Rose, which is fine in general, but sometimes the timeline was all over the place. You'd be with one character tonight, the other character tomorrow morning, back to another character still tonight, and then it's morning again, back and forth. That was irritating and a little hard to keep track of at times (especially since it happened most towards the end when everything was really happening).
Concluding Sentiments...
Although the characters weren't my favorite, I found the vampire mythology really fascinating and the potential story line established in Scent of a White Rose is intriguing enough that I plan to continue with the series.
littleread1's review
3.0
***2.5 STARS***
Where to begin ... these are always the hardest reviews to write. The story kept me entertained enough, but I still had some ... complaints? Let's just jump in with both feet.
I would categorize this as NA (New Adult) because the main character, Rose, is 20, going on 21. Her age is actually really important in the story, because her boyfriend Christian, works at a night club and bar, so she can't go in. When you first start, you find out that Rose's mom was killed in a "freak accident" roughly 6 months before where the story starts. Rose had been seeing Christian before this event, and continued to see him after. But I got the impression that she snuck out to see him whenever she got the chance, waited for him outside by his car, they made out on his breaks, then he went back to work, he never came up to see her, and they never talked on the phone - yet they are in love. O_O Ok, dating just under a year is plenty of time to fall in love, it's just with the way it is written I didn't get the impression their relationship was more than just making out.
The story itself was kind cute, if REALLY cheesy, and very reminiscent of Twilight in certain aspects. While not the most amazing thing ever written ever, I was still entertained the whole way. Even when I was rolling my eyes at things said or done, it was still with a grin on my face.
Something that bothered me over and over ... Rose's school. She says repeatedly she is in college, and she is writing a thesis (which I thought didn't happen until higher levels as my BS didn't have anything resembling a thesis but whatever) HOWEVER she goes to school and comes home at the same time every day, has to ask permission to leave a "study day" in one class to go to the library, is dismissed by bells, and at one point, when she gets in trouble for disturbing class, the teacher says to meet him at the end of the day. All which sounds WAY more like High School than any college I have ever heard of. Again, not a big deal in the scheme of things, but for some reason every time it was brought up it irritated the crap out of me.
There are also several different POV's (points of view) with which the narrator does a good job distinguishing between. Though the weird "whispering" of the names at the beginning of each section was just ... weird. *shrugs* I didn't think all the POV's were needed either. About half way in we start getting some from her dad, and another woman you meet later on. I honestly didn't think either of them were needed for the story. Their sections were always really short as well.
Overall, with the overprotective father (which I didn't even mention), the immaturity of the MC, and the things that happened ... or didn't ... in this story, I think it would have been better suited to a YA (Young Adult) book, rather than have the characters be the ages they were. It would have made more sense. Even with such a low star score from me, I am still curious to see how the story plays out and might continue with this trilogy.
Where to begin ... these are always the hardest reviews to write. The story kept me entertained enough, but I still had some ... complaints? Let's just jump in with both feet.
I would categorize this as NA (New Adult) because the main character, Rose, is 20, going on 21. Her age is actually really important in the story, because her boyfriend Christian, works at a night club and bar, so she can't go in. When you first start, you find out that Rose's mom was killed in a "freak accident" roughly 6 months before where the story starts. Rose had been seeing Christian before this event, and continued to see him after. But I got the impression that she snuck out to see him whenever she got the chance, waited for him outside by his car, they made out on his breaks, then he went back to work, he never came up to see her, and they never talked on the phone - yet they are in love. O_O Ok, dating just under a year is plenty of time to fall in love, it's just with the way it is written I didn't get the impression their relationship was more than just making out.
The story itself was kind cute, if REALLY cheesy, and very reminiscent of Twilight in certain aspects. While not the most amazing thing ever written ever, I was still entertained the whole way. Even when I was rolling my eyes at things said or done, it was still with a grin on my face.
Something that bothered me over and over ... Rose's school. She says repeatedly she is in college, and she is writing a thesis (which I thought didn't happen until higher levels as my BS didn't have anything resembling a thesis but whatever) HOWEVER she goes to school and comes home at the same time every day, has to ask permission to leave a "study day" in one class to go to the library, is dismissed by bells, and at one point, when she gets in trouble for disturbing class, the teacher says to meet him at the end of the day. All which sounds WAY more like High School than any college I have ever heard of. Again, not a big deal in the scheme of things, but for some reason every time it was brought up it irritated the crap out of me.
There are also several different POV's (points of view) with which the narrator does a good job distinguishing between. Though the weird "whispering" of the names at the beginning of each section was just ... weird. *shrugs* I didn't think all the POV's were needed either. About half way in we start getting some from her dad, and another woman you meet later on. I honestly didn't think either of them were needed for the story. Their sections were always really short as well.
Overall, with the overprotective father (which I didn't even mention), the immaturity of the MC, and the things that happened ... or didn't ... in this story, I think it would have been better suited to a YA (Young Adult) book, rather than have the characters be the ages they were. It would have made more sense. Even with such a low star score from me, I am still curious to see how the story plays out and might continue with this trilogy.
uberbutter's review against another edition
3.0
Anyone who knows me knows that paranormal romance is a genre I rarely touch. So I didn't know what to expect. But I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I found the characters to be well developed. I enjoyed the way the story is told from several vantage points, keeping it fresh. And it definitely kept my attention, keeping me on my toes on what will happen next. Still not my favorite genre but I do look forward to the rest of the series as it is released. A great start to a series from a first time published author.
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