"Sensational" is a sequel to Jodie Lynn Zdrok previous book "Spectacle". While "Spectacle" was an okay read, I found "Sensational" to be a bit better. It's definitely better paced and I liked the characters a bit more.

I really liked this one. I wasn’t as wowed as I was by the first book, but I still really enjoyed this book. The highlight, for me, was the settings.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

In Sensational, Nathalie Baudin has accepted the truth about her Insightful status, and now works alongside other Insightfuls to assist the police in investigating crimes, and murders. With her friends, and new beau, by her side, she can overcome just about everything. But when the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris is wracked by a number of murders on it's site, and the killer seems to be closer to home than ever, can Nathalie survive it all?

I liked this book, okay, but didn't love it. After the mystery and magic of book 1, I had high hopes, and for the most part they were met. However, I feel like there were parts missing from the story, and Nathalie's character has changed a little too much. The mystery definitely was worth it, and I enjoyed meeting some new characters. Nathalie's own challenge with her powers, and there after effects, definitely was a plus, but the ending was a bit of a let down. I just think there was so much more this book had to give, and it wasn't developed as much as it could've been.

Fantastic writing, beguiling characters, and an interesting plot make this one of my new favorites! I really enjoyed this YA novel and will be recommending it to all who love historical fiction with a fantasy twist to it.

Did not finish. This novel was not for me. I had a hard time connecting to the story and the characters.

Compared to Spectacle, I found this one a little forgettable to be honest.

While Spectacle was (generally) well paced this felt a little slow to start. And to get through the middle.

Nathalie once again takes a little bit of a back seat to the supporting cast. I found myself missing a certain character who featured prominently throughout the first novel (they are not dead) who is only featured a few times throughout Sensational.

While the plot could have been amazing, it is a novel that falls victim to the dreaded middle book syndrome and didn't really start before the final 30ish percent of the novel.

It unfortunately gets an average review as it is a fairly average novel

Not quite as good as the first book in this series, but an enjoyable read. I do love the unique abilities that the main character has.

This was a great story and I really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were great and I liked the setting that this book took place in.

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book!

I loved this book. I am loving the author more every time i read a book by her. I loved the first book in this series. I hope we get so many more books by this author following the stories she is telling. The atmosphere was everything I wanted it to be. I loved the plot and storyline in the book. I loved the characters in this story. It gave me all the feels I was looking for when I started reading this. I highly recommend this author. I loved the writing. I will be looking for other works in the future from this author.

I absolutely loved SPECTACLE and was SO EXCITED to read more of Nathalie's tale! Zdrok's world building is fantastic and I loved all of the plot twists. I'll be chatting up this book for a long time to come!

I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley. I read the first in this series and loved it and to say I was excited to read the second book early is an understatement. Love this one as much if not more the the first. Well developed characters who are so real and relatable yet also not at all... confused, I know, but it's the best way I know to describe. The story grabs you from beginning to end, it doesn't feel like a YA novel as much as many do, which is nice. Great story with unpredictable twists but not so much that they are unbelievable. I can't recommend these books more. Love

This book is a great conclusion to this duology! The plot was very intriguing, and the killer’s identity immediately spun me around. There was one thing that bothered me, and it was the filler between scenes. It bogged down the book’s pace and made some parts lagging.

Verdict: 4 stars!

I usually know if I'm going to like or hate a book very early on. With this one I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it. I wasn't able to finish it because of just not liking the way the story was going. I think I wanted it to go one way and the author made it go in the opposite direction. I love the writing and the story as a whole I just don't think this book was for me at all. I will suggest anyone that like mystery and slight supernatural read this series but I am sad to say I wasn't able to finish this one.

Sensational by Jodie Lynn Zdrok left me feeling happy when I finished it. The prose was elegant enough, and the characters all had me rooting for them and feeling their pain as if it were my own. The world-building with the Exposition and the theatrical world of the 19th century Paris made me crave more.

How to say things without giving anything away? I guessed the whereabouts of the killer but guessed the wrong murderer. What Gabrielle did for Nathalie was so sweet that it was hard to stay mad at her for smiling and hanging off of every word Christophe said (but then again, we are also getting information filtered through Nathalie so that could be a small part of it.)

The second is as good as the first, but that is also because I am no longer required to scheme of getting certain characters together.

I will buy this book when I can afford it because the copy that I had was plagued with random zeroes and ones in the middle of the words. (I am hoping that was an error in the text on NetGalley and not part of the actual book.

6 out of 5 stars

For more on my review, including spoilers, please check out my blog at https://bookgirlreviewsbooks.blogspot.com.

I genuinely enjoyed this book and thought it was a great conclusion for this duology. We follow Nathalie as she continues her work helping the morgue and police with murder investigations. She has a suitor, is still working with Le Petite Journal, and while everything is going well, is still recovering from the Dark Artist murders two years earlier.

I thought the plot was great and even when I thought I knew the killer, I was still shocked to find myself wrong. It was interesting having the events coincide with the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and to see what the exposition would have looked like through Nathalie’s eyes.

My only complaint was that there was sometimes too much of nothing in between scenes. The filler slowed down the book a lot in certain areas and it was preventing me from devouring the story like I did with Spectacle. Regardless, I like the plot, I like the ending, and I thought it was a great way to wrap up Nathalie’s story.

Solid 4 stars for me.

I really like when magic happens in a known period of time and environment. I liked how I could live the Exposition Universelle throughout Nathalie experience, discover the Eiffel Tower when it was built, and live with her the challenges of her gift.

Even if I predicted half of the intrigue, I was really surprised by the ending of the book.

Many thanks to Tor Books for the complimentary e-copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Sensational is the sequel to Spectacle and its advisable to read that first. The series follows Nathalie Baudin who is an Insightful meaning that she has a psychic/paranormal gift which allows her to assist the police with solving murders; Natalie is able to put her hands on a dead body and then have a vision of the murder from the perspective of the killer!!
A few weeks after the events of the first book a new killer is terrorising Paris, murdering people by decapitating them in the style of the French revolution: Natalie and her fellow Insightfuls including new beau Jules are in a race against time to help the police catch the killer. But each time Natalie has a vision she loses one of her memories and this seems to be getting worse with each new vision…
It took a while for the story to get going in this one compared to the first book but after the first quarter the pace picked up a bit and I began to enjoy it more. The writing is good and you get a strong sense of 19th century Paris which is fascinating to read about – the author has obviously done her research and it shows throughout. The mystery was intriguing and I loved learning more about the insightfuls and meeting more of them. Nathalie can be an annoying character at times but she redeemed herself as the novel progressed and learned from her mistakes.
I don’t think that this was quite as good as Spectacle but it was still enjoyable and worth a read if you enjoyed the first book and like the author’s style. This would be a good series if you like historical mystery and suspense but be warned it can be quite gory when the murders are being described!
Three and a half stars rounded up to four as I love the writing style and the 19th Century Parisian setting but I was a little bored at the beginning – thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book.

Ugh. I hate it when I go into a book expecting a standalone or first in a series only to find out pages in that it’s the 2nd or 3rd book! That’s what happened to me with Sensational by Jodie Lynn Zdrok though. So it automatically had points against it when I figured this out (I was only on page 3).


The Story:
The story begins with Nathalie meeting her two friends, Simone and Louis at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris. It’s there that a decapitated head is discovered among the exhibits, displayed upon a pedestal. Nathalie is an Insightful and has visions of murder scenes, which she uses in her role of reporter for a local newspaper but she also helps out the police at the morgue.

Through no fault of her own, the head is put into her hands and Nathalie is transported to the murder scene. She’s no longer herself, but the killer. Trapped in a man’s body as he commits the murder.

Nathalie’s visions of murder scenes – which began with the Dark Artist murders in 1887 – came from placing her hand on the viewing pane at the morgue, in the room where the public viewed the bodies. For every vision, she lost a memory, however, ranging from a few minutes to several hours.

Obviously, this isn’t a pleasant experience. It’s even more especially unpleasant since her visions cost her dearly. Using her Insightful ability isn’t without its costs. And the memory of the murder (or any murder she witnesses using her gift) steals her own memories. This is made worse when she touches the dead body directly instead of simply viewing it through glass at the morgue. The direct contact can cost her days lost forever in her memory.

I’m not sure if it’s just because I didn’t read the first book or what, but I had a hard time getting fully committed to this story. In the beginning, it seemed like it was just one coincidence after another setting things up. I was constantly thinking…


I enjoyed it for the most part, but it left me with the feeling of “could’ve been better” as we follow Nathalie through the story, trying to use her ability to track down a serial killer who kills using a guillotine.

The second half of the book was better for me than the first. It wasn’t too hard to read as a standalone so in the end, I wasn’t TOO upset about not realizing it was a sequel. As with the start of the story, the ending was a little “too convenient” for my liking and I could’ve done without the epilogue altogether.

The Characters:
Nathalie isn’t the only Insightful helping out at the morgue. There’s also her boyfriend, Jules. They have a seemingly sweet relationship but Nathalie is actually still (unsuccessfully) getting over her feelings for Christophe, the police liaison at the morgue (at least, I think that’s his job? ). This really rubbed me the wrong way with Nathalie because I thought it was really wrong how she did Jules. He’s a sweet and caring guy and considering the time period incredibly okay with Nathalie’s independence and reckless streak.

Probably my favorite part of this book, and my favorite character, was Nathalie’s Aunt Brigitte. She’s an Insightful as well, but her “gift” has landed her in a mental asylum. A whole other book could be written about Brigitte. I’d definitely read that!!

Overall, like the book, I thought the characters were “okay.” They could’ve been developed more but honestly, I just didn’t connect with them all that much. At times, Nathalie annoyed me and came across as too spoiled for the time she’s living in.

Again, this could be because I didn’t read the first book.

Conclusion:
Sensational by Jodie Lynn Zdrok was an okay read. It wasn’t too hard to read as a standalone and it kept my attention but isn’t something I’ll be reading again or that made me want to read the first book.

***Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing me with a free e-copy of this book. This did not influence my review or opinions.***

Sensational was a satisfying end to the Spectacle duology. I didn't find it as heart-pounding and exciting as the first book in the series, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I especially enjoyed the way the book ended, wrapping up the loose ends that I had hoped for when I finished reading Spectacle a year ago.

Nathalie now knows that she's an Insightful. She has the ability to see a vision when she touches a corpse (or a glass next to a corpse) of a murder victim, which shows her what happened from the eyes of the murderer. As we begin this second book, she is established at her job at Le Petit Journal, as well as an assistant at the public morgue helping the police solve crimes.

A new series of murders is starting to occur during the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. Nathalie, along with Jules, another Insightful who happens to be her boyfriend (he has the ability to hear the thoughts of the murder victim) need to try to solve these murders before too many people get killed. You'll have to read the book to find out what happens.

While I enjoyed this book, Sensational didn't quite have the same magic that Spectacle did. Some of the things that made Spectacle so magical were the shock of the public morgue, Nathalie discovering her powers, and the fantastic chase scene through the Catacombs. Nathalie has already discovered her powers and readers of Spectacle are already familiar with the gruesome public morgue.

Sensational is not without its own magic, however. It was fun to dip into the world of the 1889 World's Fair, to discover the world through eyes that haven't had the chance to hear about these countries before, and see the Eiffel Tower through new eyes.

I recommend Sensational, although not with the same enthusiasm that I did with Spectacle. Definitely read the first book in this series first, and if you want to find out what does happen to Nathalie (and her story does have a satisfying resolution) then continue on with this book.

God, what a great ending to this duology. I just love everything about it from the magic to the 1889 Paris setting; and how detailed and well thought the plot and characters backgrounds and interior motives are.

Let me warn though that if you're not a fan of gore the descriptions of murder scenes specifically can be disturbing, This is just as macabre as the first one, the murder mystery had a satisfying conclusion and so did the characters' plot.