The Taking by Kimberly Derting

The Taking
(The Taking, #1)
by Kimberly Derting
Released |April 29th 2014 by HarperTeen|
Edition |eARC|
Source |Edelweiss|
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A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.
When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.
Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.
Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

I was pretty excited to get my hands on the Taking because I've read two books by the author and have enjoyed them. The Taking was different than any of the alien books that I've read. The main character Kyra gets taken after an argument she had with her father after her softball game. She's wakes up behind a dumpster and finds out that five years has past. She has no memory, whatsoever, of what happened to her during those five years. When she returned she thought it was the day after the fight with her dad after the softball game. That entire concept brought an entirely different twist on the story and I think I found that to be one of my favorite things in the book. I enjoyed the characters and the romance of the story, but it kind of took awhile for those action packed scenes to get started. Overall, the book was pretty good and I can't wait to check out the sequel.

The Essence by Kimberly Derting

The Essence
(The Pledge, #2)
by Kimberly Derting
Released |January 1st 2013 by Margaret K. McElderry|
Edition |Hardcover, 352 pages|
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“Danger, dread, mystery, and romance” (Booklist) continue in the second book of The Pledge trilogy, as Charlie’s reign is under siege from the most unusual of enemies.
At the luminous conclusion of The Pledge, Charlaina defeated the tyrant Sabara and took her place as Queen of Ludania. But Charlie knows that Sabara has not disappeared: The evil queen’s Essence is fused to Charlie’s psyche, ready to arise at the first sign of weakness.
Charlie is not weak, but she’s being pushed to the brink. In addition to suppressing the ever-present influence of Sabara, she’s busy being queen—and battling a growing resistance determined to return Ludania to its discriminatory caste system. Charlie wants to be the same girl Max loves, who Brook trusts, but she’s Your Majesty now, and she feels torn in two.
As Charlie journeys to an annual summit to meet with leaders of nearby Queendoms—an event where her ability to understand all languages will be the utmost asset—she is faced with the ultimate betrayal. And the only person she can turn to for help is the evil soul residing within.

The Essence was a strange read. It was interesting and it was also pretty good at the same time, but the content that it was made up of was just weird. The whole thing with Sabara's essence living inside of Charlie confused me at times. In this installment, someone is out to murder Charlie. So on top of Charlie and her people trying to stay alive and find out who the killer is, she's also battling Sabara's essence who is trying to take over and control her body.