Strong Heart by Charlie Sheldon is a fictional story about a teenager, Sarah, who is reunited with her grandfather, Tom. There are other things happening in the story – Tom and his friends are trying to save land from developers so they are going on a hiking expedition. Sarah joins the group and has a vision that alters everything that she believes.

The characters discuss the origins of man, ice ages and who has been where the longest. The characters discuss the origins of man, ice ages and how people came to different places. I thought that this was interesting. The story that followed this discussion was enjoyable.

The book begins with no back story. Basically, you’re being thrown into a scene without knowing what’s going on at all. The details come out a little at a time. For most of the first few chapters, I feel a little lost.

The dialogue seems a little stilted or forced, except in the part with Sarah’s vision. I think that the author was more comfortable telling the story while having a character tell a story. It seemed like when the author wanted to tell the story, it was awkward and rushed with either too many or not enough details.

There’s a section where Myra and Eye, two of Tom’s friends, are discussing the tribe. I felt lost again because there were so many details to absorb in a few paragraphs. I wasn’t sure how it related to the story of Tom and his granddaughter. It makes sense later in the book.

A large part of the book is Sarah’s vision. When she starts telling the story, I didn’t think it would mesh. It ended up being my favorite part of the book. In my opinion, the book could have been entirely about the vision.

I won’t tell you the ending but it was not especially satisfying. I felt like I didn’t have any answers.

I would give this book three stars. It was not my favorite book. It has potential but it needs a little work on the dialogue and the first chapter.

*I received an ebook in exchange for a review on the Onlinebookclub.com.

Have you ever wished that you could have the ability to use magic? In The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter, Gray Marshall once had magical powers. The powers disappeared after an incident at his university forced him to leave school and work at a Professor Callender’s estate as a gardener.

Gray befriends Sophie, one of the daughters of Professor Callender. They both discover that events leading up to their current situation are not what they seemed.

I thought that the characters were interesting. There was a clear sense of who they were. The characters that were supposed to be likable were and the characters that were supposed to be villains were definitely despicable. The only character that I wasn’t sure about until the very end was Mrs. Wallis, the housekeeper. She has a lot of secrets and I always wondered if she was plotting against Gray.

While reading this book, I really wanted Gray to overcome the challenges that he faced. On a side note, I kept picturing Gray as a redhead instead of having sandy blonde or brown hair.

The only thing that threw me off a bit was the spelling of certain words, like magic, which were spelled a little differently. By the end of the first 100 pages, I was finally used to it.

I would recommend this book for those who are thirteen and up. There is one section where Hunter discusses a honeymoon.  However, it is not graphic or explicit by any means. I think that if you enjoy fantasy or books about magic, then you will enjoy this book.

I would give The Midnight Queen four out of five stars.

*I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. The opinions are still my own.