Review: Hidden Among Us By Katy Moran

"When Lissy meets a mysterious and strangely beautiful boy on her way to Hopesay Edge, she is deeply unsettled by their encounter.

She discovers that the boy, Larkspur, is a member of the Hidden, an ancient group of elven people, whose secrets lie buried at Hopesay Reach. Before long, Lissy and her brother Rafe find themselves caught by a powerful magic and fighting to escape a bargain that can never be broken" taken from Goodreads

Although having a copy of this book since last year, I unfortunately hadn't gotten round to reading this.  Luckily the book group I belong to chose this as our April read, giving me the much needed push to read it.

The cover is rather beautiful.  The imagery going from dark to light is stunning.  Somehow I totally missed the swans head when I first saw the cover and thought it was angels wings, giving me a very different expectation for the read.  My lack of sight gave me a nice surprise when I finally got into it.

The book is told in parts, all of it from different perspectives.  I love the fact that each person knows different things so is able to give you new and varying information, helping you to build up the story piece by piece.  This is all done very gradually, so has your suspense growing steadily.

This book had a very unique aspect for me and that was that you got to read from the perspective of a mother.  For me it seems incredibly rare to read a young adult book that is even partly narrated by someone that isn't a young adult.  I found this so enjoyable and fresh, its made me wonder why this isn't done more often?

At times I was a little confused what with the changes of narrator and what role they were playing in the story, but with a bit of persistence things became more clear.  By the time I'd finished I had sorted everything out and so the end made full sense.

That's not to say that we're not left on somewhat of a cliffhanger though.  You are given some very important information on the last pages and I am desperate to find out where things will go next!!

Rating 4 Out Of 5

Published In The UK By Walker Books

This Can Be Purchased HERE and from good book sellers

Meeting Stephenie Meyer

I'm a fangirl.  I am more than happy to admit this to anyone.  I'm into a lot of fandoms past and present.  I quite happily go to conventions and signings of all sorts to meet the people that have created the worlds I love so much.  I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of my idols, so when I heard that Stephenie Meyer was making a very rare appearance in the UK, I was compelled to go.

It seemed for a while that I wouldn't be able to attend and although I put this down to fate and what was meant to be, I was kind of gutted that I couldn't go.  Then at the last minute, things fell into place and I could go.  I was big fan of fate again now I was getting to do what I really wanted.

So accompanied by my ever patient Mum we travelled along to Waterstones at Piccadilly Circus at 10am - the signing wasn't till 6pm and we only live about an hour away.  We were in for a seriously long wait!!!  But were numbers 23 and 24 in the queue.

Once again luck was on our side and we had the best weather of the year so far.  So although the pavement being rather hard, the day was pretty pleasant. 
We got to hang out with an old friend that I haven't seen for quite some time and had an awesome queue buddy in the form of Caroline from Big Book Little Book.  Although we brought books along to read, I didn't open my book once.  We were far to busy gossipping and getting over excited!!

I also got to have a lovely chat with Waterstones bookseller and fellow book blogger Nicole from The Reluctant Hypersomniac

Being in the queue was a joy, getting to see lots of familiar faces from my convention life and from my book blogging life.  It was like a huge collision of all my favourite things.

The long queue time went surprisingly quickly and in no time we were being ushered into the store to get into the proper signing queue.  It was really exciting to see the press photographers in their pen waiting for Stephenie just as we were.

 When the cheers started and the cameras started flashing I knew Stephenie had arrived.  Sadly at this point I couldn't see a thing, being 5 foot and standing in a corner my view wasn't great.  I could live with that though, I knew my turn was soon to come.

As I got to the table I really didn't know what to say.  I knew my meeting would be brief, so I had to make it count for something and so this is what I said -

Me - Thanks so much for this
Stephenie - Oh its a pleasure
Me - I do have to tell you though, that only two authors have made me cry and you have managed to make me cry twice, so well done
Stephenie - Oh I'm sorry, but I hope it was in a good way
Me - Oh definitely, I think any author that manages to bring about psychical reactions must have a done a pretty good job, so all is good
Stephenie - Well then I am thrilled
Me - Thanks again

 And that was it - my 7 hours in the queue and although short I got to say exactly what I wanted.  Stephenie was an absolute joy to meet and I'm thrilled to be able to tick another of my idols of my to meet list.

My rather awkward photo, but hey its me and Stephenie!!!

Massive Thanks to Waterstones, Atom, Little Brown Books, The Host UK movie team and most importantly Stephenie.  My day was amazing!!