Review: Firelight

Title: Firelight
Author: Sophie Jordan
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 323
Series: Firelight #1
Rating: 4.5 stars
From the book jacket: 
A hidden truth. Mortal enemies. Doomed love.

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki -- a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. The only bright light is Will. Gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will's dark secret: He and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slowly slipping away -- if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She'll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy.

Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.

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I shall begin by saying that I adore the cover of this book, because it is just gorgeous. But I shall move very quickly from the lovely cover into the equally lovely story within.

Dragons! There are dragons! Well, sort of. Technically they're draki, which are different from dragons. But still. Dragons make me happy. It's basically Forbidden Love, Draki Edition -- which has the potential to be boring and unoriginal, but it totally wasn't. Jacinda especially was such a relatable character. I just loved her. It was so hard watching her struggle to fit in, feeling like the outcast of her family...it was clearly fantasy, of course, but at the same time it was heartbreakingly real.

And then there's Will. I still can't decide quite what I think of him, but I think I like him. He certainly makes a good love interest for Jacinda. And Cassian and Xander are so easy to despise. I wish we had gotten to see more of Jacinda's best friends, Azure and Catherine, because they seem like great characters. We'll have to see what happens with that arc in book two!

Aaand the romance. My goodness. Mmm. Perhaps not the most realistic, but who cares? It was delightful to read about.

Firelight was not a perfect book. There were places where I just wanted Jacinda to shut up about Will and actually do something, and there were places where I was just confused. However, despite all that, I loved it, and I definitely think it's worth reading. Dragons and intrigue and danger and a literally sizzling romance...go read it now!

Links:
Sophie Jordan's website

Review: Intertwined

Title: Intertwined
Author: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 440
Series: Intertwined #1
Rating: 4.5 stars
From the book jacket: 
There's something about the new guy at Crossroads High...

Most sixteen-year-olds have friends. Aden Stone has four human souls living inside him:

One can time-travel.
One can raise the dead.
One can tell the future.
And one can possess another human.

With no other family and a life spent in and out of institutions, Aden and the souls have become friends. But now they're causing him all kinds of trouble. Like, he'll blink and suddenly he's a younger Aden, reliving the past. One wrong move, and he'll change the future. Or he'll walk past a total stranger and know how and when she's going to die.

He's so over it. All he wants is peace.

And then he meets a girl who quiets the voices. Well, as long as he's near her. Why? Mary Ann Gray is his total opposite. He's a loner; she has friends. He doesn't care what anyone thinks; she tries to make everyone happy. And while he attracts the paranormal, she repels it. For her sake, he should stay away. But it's too late...

Somehow, they share an inexplicable bond of friendship. A bond about to be tested by a werewolf shape-shifter who wants Mary Ann for his own, and a vampire princess Aden can't resist. Two romances, both forbidden. Still, the four will enter a dark underworld of intrigue and danger - but not everyone will come out alive...

**********

Before you start reading this review and think that I'm trashing this book, I want you to know that I really enjoyed it. It was excellent, and I'm definitely going to have to read Unraveled (the sequel) as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. But...

I'm going to start off with the stuff I didn't like. There were so many things that reminded me of Twilight! Vampires and werewolves involved in forbidden/impossible romances with humans, and a vampire + bodyguard named Victoria and Riley. Really? And I hate what the jacket flap says. It's way too long winded and it doesn't even get to the point about what the story is about.

What I loved, though, was the story itself, and the characters, and the paranormal elements. They even mentioned dragons at one point, although we didn't see them. For a long time, one of my Random Literary Goals has been to find a book that mentions vampires/werewolves and dragons, because I love dragons but they never appear in the same stories as the others, even though vampires and werewolves and dragons are all paranormal. So this book gets major points for that.

But getting back on track: the story was great. A little predictable in places (the whole Eve thing - you'll understand if you have read it or decide to read it, but I don't want to say more because it's spoilery), but one of the most original storylines I've found in a long time. Aden has these four souls living inside of him, and somehow he did something that called all the paranormal creatures to him - including the vampires, led by Vlad the Impaler, and his daughter, whom Elijah (one of Aden's souls) has seen in a vision. And then there's Mary Ann, who feels just as weirdly drawn to Aden as he does to her, and somehow negates Aden's powers. I really want book two to find out what's going on!

And the characters. It's not often that an author can create this many characters and give them all such distinct personalities - especially with two narrators - but not only do Mary Ann and Aden both feel separate and real, Victoria and Riley and the souls (Eve, Elijah, Julian, and Caleb) are also distinctive, particularly Eve.

Other random asides: I love the idea of the je la nune vampire-killer, and I love the name Aden.

Long story short: READ IT. You may initially draw a few parallels to Twilight but it goes away quickly. It's great!

Links: 
Gena Showalter's official fan page