Book Review/Guest Post: For Always by Janae Mitchell

For Always, by Janae Mitchell
2013, 453p, YA Paranormal Romance
My Rating=4 Stars
Source: Received copy from the author for an honest review



Malyn Reed meets, and quickly falls in love with, Beau Brogan, who seems to be perfect in every way…

Except for the fact that he died in 1910…

Malyn Reed has been able to see spirits her entire life. Now that she’s almost seventeen, she has learned to differentiate between the living and the dead, making her gift feel less like an evil curse. She ignores the spirits she encounters on a daily basis, which has made living side by side with them slightly easier…until she moves to Dandridge, the second oldest town in Tennessee.

Beau Brogan was a hard working country boy from Dandridge, Tennessee who loved his family and stole the hearts of many southern belles. But all of that came to a tragic halt at the age of nineteen when his life came to an untimely end. For the past hundred years, his spirit has been entombed in a ghostly life of loneliness and misery that he wishes would just end…until the Reeds move in.

This storyline sounded intriguing to me. Beau is a ghost and Malyn moves into his house with her grandmother, Nellie (both of Malyn's parents have died). Malyn can see and communicate with ghosts and Nellie can sense them but can't communicate with them. Malyn usually ignores ghosts but she makes an exception for Beau and gets to know him. She starts to fall for him and realizes how hopeless their situation is for her. In the meantime, she starts a new job and becomes best friends with Beth, who has a good-looking brother, Jace, who falls for Malyn.

Nelli's friend, Max, comes to visit and, while he's there, Beau accepts his help to move on. Malyn is upset and decides to give a relationship with Jace a chance. I want to say more but don't want to spoil it too much, so you'll need to read it to find out what happens.

If you enjoy love triangles, there's plenty of drama in this one. I personally enjoy them for that very reason. For me, this is a good one and I honestly don't know who I would have her choose since there are good reasons to choose each of them. I was bothered, though, when she would be intimate with each of them in the same night (she even expresses that this bothers her). The whole dead vs. alive angle is unique and complicates things a lot. She does make a choice but keeps the other one close.

I enjoyed Nellie and Max. Nellie is spunky and fun and Max helps give them some answers but there are still things that he doesn't know. I also liked Beth--she was a great friend that Malyn could confide in. There were some other side characters (both dead and alive) that added to the story as well and I enjoyed them all.

Towards the end, a new element was introduced that can seriously impact the rest of the series, but again, I don't want to say too much. I enjoyed this book and will be reviewing book two, For Now, tomorrow!! As a warning, there is some content to be aware of.

Content: Mild swearing, sexual innuendo and intimacy, teen sex (no graphic details).

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I got into Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files a while ago with my family and we especially loved the ghost episodes. When I read that Janae has been part of a paranormal team, I was interested to hear her take on ghosts.

Hey, this is Janae Mitchell, author of the FOR ALWAYS series, and I'm taking over Mel's Shelves Blog! Well... just for this one post, anyway. Melanie was nice enough to invite me to hang out for a bit, so I thought I'd talk about something she mentioned to me, as well as something I've been asked about at every signing I've done so far—the paranormal.

As a child, I heard stories about my aunt's house being haunted and really strange things that they had happen, which seemed to spark an interest in the unknown. Then, as a teen, we moved into a house that had once been slave quarters during the Civil War. After having several unexplained things happen, we knew we probably weren't alone. What was just a spark when I was young ignited into a burning desire to learn more about the paranormal as an adult, which prompted me to join a local paranormal team.

As a paranormal investigator, I've been to several locations that are rumored to be haunted, including Waverly Hills in KY, Old South Pittsburg Hospital here in TN, a local country club, as well as historic plantations, businesses, and private homes. I also got to investigate with Amy Bruni and Steve Gonsalves from Syfy's Ghost Hunters while at The Thomas House in Red Boling Springs, TN, which was awesome. Did I ever see a ghost at any of those haunted locations? No. But I did experience some strange things that left me scratching my head... once I slowed down and caught my breath. (Yes, I actually did run once... pretty fast, might I add.)

All of my paranormal experiences, as well as my desire to write and tell a story, made writing my first paranormal romance series inevitable. It mixes my two favorite things—love and ghosts. The story of Beau Brogan haunted my mind for a while before I secretly wrote "For Always". When I was finished, I told a few family members, who love to read, that I'd written a book and wanted their honest opinion on it before I did anything else. When they read it and said they loved it, I decided to go for it and try to get it published. When I signed a contract with Limitless Publishing just months later, I was ecstatic... and scared to death! Yet here I am, still semi-sane and about to finish my third book, "For Eternity", which I hope everyone loves as much as "For Always" and "For Now". *fingers crossed*

I'm so glad Melanie let me hang out and ramble and that you stuck with me to the end of my rambling. And just remember... dreams are meant to be lived, so don't let yours get smothered by fear and regret. ♥

Thanks, Janae! Now I need to check out Ghost Hunters. Come back tomorrow to hear my thoughts on For Now and to read my interview with Janae!

Janae has been a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Her genre of choice was poetry and short stories--until now. After falling in love with so many books over the past decade, she decided that she wanted to write a novel of her own and bring life to the characters that haunted her mind. It wasn't until 2012 that she pursued that passion and started on her first YA novel. 115,000 words later, For Always was born.

Having grown up in an historical Dandridge home that was used as slave quarters during the Civil War, she experienced several things that couldn't be explained. Due to these events, she sought out and joined an investigative team called Eyewitness Paranormal. Her interest in ghosts and the unexplained, combined with her love for telling a story, made writing the For Always series inevitable.

Janae was born and raised in East Tennessee, where she currently resides with her husband, two children, and their hairless dog, Slick. In her spare time, she likes to read, play tennis, and spend time with her family on the lake.

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