Cara Lockwood Reviews

Added June 11, 2006

Wuthering High

A Bard Academy Novel

Author: Cara Lockwood
Publisher: MTV Books
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: July 4, 2006
Genre: Young Adult: Girl's Fiction/Paranormal
Format: Trade Paper
Price: $9.95
ISBN: 1-4165-2475-4
Author Email/Website: www.caralockwood.com
Author Email/Website: www.bardacademy.com
Reviewer: Safiya Tremayne
Rating: 8 Gargoyles

Bard Academy: where troubled (delinquent or hard-to-control) teens are sent to learn how to behave. A boarding school on an island, finicky electricity, strict rules and the means to enforce them. And I haven't even mentioned the teachers...

After nearly being date-raped, fifteen year old Miranda Tate borrows her father's convertible, hits a tree and maxes out her stepmother's credit card. To her great dismay, instead of grounding her or taking away her allowance, her mother and father announce they are sending her to a boarding school. Bard Academy is so far removed from the world Miranda knows; she immediately begins plotting ways to get her parents to change their minds. The bus ride alone provided plenty of reasons to get them to free her.

Miranda quickly discovers how interesting/frightening Bard Academy can be. First there's the brooding, but handsome Heathcliff who pretends to be the Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. The teachers and their odd tendency to only go by a single letter: Coach B, Ms. W, and Headmaster B. Let's not forget her odd, occultist roommate Blade who swears Dracula is loose on campus. And finally, there's Ryan Kent, one of the cutest guys to attend her old school and is now attending Bard Academy. Life at Bard might not be so bad after all, if it weren't for the ghost of Kate Shaw.

According to school legends, Kate attended Bard fifteen years earlier and disappeared, never to be found. Kate who bears a startling resemblance to Miranda has started to haunt Miranda's dorm. Try fitting into a new school and deal with ghosts, a gorgeous guy who wants to date you, and all the weird things that keep happening around campus. Could Miranda's life get any worse?

Wuthering High is a quick-paced novel with a heroine teen girls will easily relate to. After her parents divorce, Miranda is the one taking care of her sister and her mother. Dealing with a father who prefers to ignore her and becomes angry when she calls him on his bad judgment/behavior affects her in ways she doesn't understand until she reaches Bard Academy. And of course, Bard Academy works wonders on her ability to take a step back and examine her familial relationships while presenting a unique challenge. How do you deal with a school full of dead teachers and book characters that come to life?

Having read some of Cara Lockwood's earlier titles, I was delighted to review Wuthering High. She infuses this book with sharp wit, solid plot and relatable characters and sets the stage for a series that should be a lot of fun. Fun, fantastic and completely unforgettable!

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Added May 23, 2006

I Did (But I Wouldn't Now)

Author: Cara Lockwood
Publisher: Downtown Press, a division of Simon &Schuster Publishing
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: May 2, 2006
Genre: Fiction: Women/Chick-Lit
Format: Trade Paperback
Price: $13.00
ISBN:
Author Email/Website: www.caralockwood.com
Reviewer: Sharyn McGinty
Rating: 8.5 Gargoyles

OMG set aside two or three hours and dive into the zany, madcap lifestyle of Cara Lockwood's latest heroine, Lily Crandell!

Lily Crandell, trouble magnet. It's who she is and her family knows it and generally expects the worst. Take her latest problem: her rock star husband walked out on her with a silicone-enhanced bimbo, she's currently facing assault charges for kneeing said husband in the groin, and she's skipped bail by flying to another country. Could her life get any crazier?

Let's see...She's staying in London with Carter, her best friend and former boyfriend. Her older sister, tired of pet-sitting her Chihuahua, sent the overweight, un-housebroken beast to London. Carter is involved with a completely psychotic co-worker, one who has multiple personalities and a thieving habit. The famous soccer star, Sean Gates, thinks she's cute and wants to shag her. Throw in the fact, Lily's attorney can't convince her to stop spamming her soon-to-be ex-husband and the tabloids have plastered pictures of her and Sean Gates everywhere, and it's easy to understand why her family considers her a trouble magnet.

In the midst of all this craziness, Lily learns valuable lessons about herself and how to cope with life.

My first novel by Cara Lockwood, I Did (But I Wouldn't Now), will not be my last. If this book is any indication, Lockwood will easily join the ranks of my selective auto-buy authors. Lockwood writes with enthusiasm; it's easy to see she enjoys writing and that spills out into the pages, infusing her novels with a sense of fun and laughter and all-round joyfulness. Lily is so human in her responses, especially in the way she doesn't think things through. She reacts emotionally and bears the consequences from it, maybe not very well, but eventually she does learn from her mistakes. Even when Lily hits her low spots, the book doesn't drag the reader's emotions down because Lily doesn't obsess about her morose feelings, she moves on. She's unique in a world of heroines who mope about the problems in their lives.

I Did (But I Wouldn't Now) is an absolute treat!

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