Book Review: Infinity & Invincible

The Chronicles of Nick

Infinity and Invincible by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Published By: St. Martin's Press

Release Date: May 25, 2010 & March 22, 2o11

Buy it at Amazon here and here

Source: Owned By Reviewer

My Thoughts:

Ok, confession time – I am in love with Nick Gautier. Give me 14 year old, wise-cracking Nick, or dark, broody Dark Hunter series adult Nick - I love them all and in this series you get both. Today I’m talking about the Chronicles of Nick, the YA series by Miz Sherrilyn Kenyon, which scribe Nick’s earlier years; with a twist.

If you have gotten to know Nick in the Dark Hunter series (as in an adult, please for the love of Liza, do NOT give your kid one of the DH books. So not YA!), you know that his life takes a pretty nasty turn. This is where he goes back (The first book has been out a while, so it’s not a spoiler!!) to change his past and save the world. So we have 14 year old Nick, who’s clueless to his heritage, and Ambrose, who is really grown up Nick, posing as his younger self’s uncle to help him change the past and save the people they/he loves most, while he still cares. Young Gautier has to learn the 10 lessons necessary to harness the powers of the Malachai...Or the world ends. And that’s worse than any restriction his mom can dream up.

Still with me? Ok, good.

What I have always loved about Kenyon’s writing is the sharp wit and the life she breathes into her characters. And all your favorites are there – The Peltier bears, Kyrian, Ash and Simi, for whom I have a soft spot for and feel a kinship with. A new-on-the-scene favorite of mine is Bubba Burdett – Redneck computer genius and Oprah fanatic. This character gets a “sit up in my chair and grin like a fool” reaction from me when he steps onto the scene. And I also love getting to know Nick’s mom, Cherise – She takes that lippy 14 year old boy and puts the fear of God into him, even though she’s a foot shorter than he is. I want to be her when I grow up. There’s really nothing I don’t like about these books. They are smart, action-packed and have zombies.

I will warn you, though: The cliffhangers! Oh the cliffhangers! It drives me nuts, in the best possible sense. I am foaming at the mouth every time its time for the next installment. Hysterical dialogue and larger than life characters make this one I will read and reread again and again and CON will definitely be put aside for my son when he’s a bit older.

Infinity Synopsis:
At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

Invincible Synopsis:
Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse...

Nick Gautier’s day just keeps getting better and better. Yeah, he survived the zombie attacks, only to wake up and find himself enslaved to a world of shapeshifters and demons out to claim his soul.

His new principal thinks he’s even more of a hoodlum than the last one, his coach is trying to recruit him to things he can’t even mention and the girl he’s not seeing, but is, has secrets that terrify him.

But more than that, he’s being groomed by the darkest of powers and if he doesn’t learn how to raise the dead by the end of the week, he will become one of them.