You shouldn’t confuse the angels featured in this paranormal romance with your stereotypical greeting card angels. These are warriors, fighters, soldiers. Aka, they badass.
What’s it About?
My name is Evie Claremont and this was to be the making of me–my freshman year of college. I’d been hoping that once I’d arrived on Crestwood’s campus, the nightmare that I’ve been having would go away. It hasn’t. I may be an inexperienced seventeen-year-old, but I’m grounded…sane. I look for rational explanations to even the strangest circumstances. Since meeting sophomore Reed Wellington, however, nothing makes any sense. Whenever he’s near, I feel an attraction to him–a magnetic kind of force pulling me towards him.
I know what you’re thinking…that sounds fairly awesome. Yeah, it would be…if he liked me, but Reed acts as if I’m the worst thing that has ever happened to Crestwood…or him. But get this, for some reason every time I turn around he’s there, barging into my life. What is the secret that he’s keeping from me? I’m hoping that it’s anything but what I suspect: that he’s not exactly normal…and neither am I. So, maybe Crestwood won’t be the making of me, but it could be the breaking of me. I’ve been left to wonder if the dark future my dream is foretelling is…inescapable.
First Impressions
College can be a difficult time for most people. Oftentimes far away from home, having to make new friends, learn new things. It can be tricky to navigate. Well, Evie has the added burden of discovering that she’s only half-human, and she’s slowly starting to acquire some strange abilities as her half-angel side comes to the forefront. I must say I really enjoyed learning about the particularities of this world of divine and fallen angels. Evie is an anomaly in this world in that by being half-human she still retains a soul even though she’s an angel. She also has the ability to heal quickly, gains supernatural speed, and eventually even gets a pair of wings. I know they say you shouldn’t compare difficulties in life, but yeah I’d say Evie has me beat when it comes to having a stressful life. Not only does she have to deal with moving to college and becoming an angel, but she’s also encountering the unfortunate stress that so many young women get to deal with in college: men.
Love Triangle
Come on now folks, you just know this wouldn’t be an official young adult college romance without a little love triangle. And this one has an additional complication added to the mix considering that of the two men fighting for Evie’s affections, one is human, and the other is an angel. Reed is our angel, and Evie finds that the butterflies fluttering around in her stomach every time he draws near is more than just puppy love. It’s some kind of paranormal link drawing the two of them together. He too experiences the same fluttering every time she’s around. Reed has lived on this Earth since life began, and this is the first time he’s every experienced feelings of love for someone else. Seems like their love would be pretty cut and dry, right?
Nooope! Because then there’s Russell. He’s a human, which compared to Reed might not sound as exciting. But lo and behold, not only is he adorable and attentive to Evie, he just so happens to be her soulmate. As in…her actual soulmate. Reed believes that both Evie and Russell have consistently fallen in love throughout multiple lifetimes. Funnily enough, Evie has more trouble believing that she and Russell have loved each other in past lives than believing in a world of angels. This love triangle was initially extremely interesting, as it’s really hard to be “team” anyone. Both men have such great qualities, and both do actually seem like the right choice. Evie especially struggles with this, as her human soul is constantly seeking out its soulmate in Russell, but at the same time her angel side wants to reject this concept of the soulmate in favor of the drawing force linking her to Reed. Such an interesting predicament.
Here’s the problem though. This struggle stretches on foreverrrrrrr. There’s a constant back and forth, back and forth, like a never ending tennis match that you just…can’t…leave. I’ll admit, I did like the concept in the beginning. There’s no clear front-runner in the race for Evie’s heart, and you find yourself simultaneously rooting for both Reed and Russell to succeed. But the fact that this becomes the major story line for like 3/4 of the book? Can’t we get back to the fallen angels and discovery of new abilities already? I mean, we start off with Evie preferring Russell when she’s not quite sure what Reed is. After the big reveal she embraces her own angel side which is reaching out to him. But then he pulls away to keep her safe, making her run back to Russell. But then Reed just can’t stay away. My goodness it got to the point where I just wanted them to set up an Evie time share. Have her alternate weekends with each guy or something. Hell, I’d even take a threesome at this point!
Tales of Convenience
I’m always wary of college romances for one very big reason. They always tend to brush aside the whole “being in college” thing. You know, going to class, taking tests, studying. But what this novel conveniently does is utilize Evie’s new abilities as a reason for why her course work isn’t a prominent feature in the story. As she develops as an angel her cognitive thinking improves, meaning she can brood away in class just vaguely listening to lectures in the background, yet be able to repeat things word for word later on. She says it even makes midterms fun. Well, that would have been a nice ability to have with my own college lectures, thank you very much!! This isn’t the only time we get a convenient explanation for something that’s out of the ordinary.
I just love how in most paranormal romances featuring an immortal like Reed, we always seem to hear an account of how they stop aging in their prime. How convenient. It also makes it considerably less creepy when picturing a dude who is multi-thousands of years old getting intimate with a 17-year-old. Another rather perplexing feature which was explained away pretty quickly was the fact that it didn’t take that much for Evie to guess that Reed was an angel. Basically she could tell he was mysteriously different, and then after seeing a block panel painting in art class about fallen angels driven out of heaven she quickly surmises that Reed must be a divine angel. Quite a big leap of a guess right there! However, it’s clever how they brush this aside by Reed attributing it to her impressive new intuitive abilities. Sure, why not?
A Climactic Conclusion
If I had to find a silver lining to the seemingly endless love triangle debate which carried on throughout this book, it would be that it certainly lets your guard down. The majority of the novel has a very teen, young adult, non-dramatic feel to it. And then BAM! In the final act we are presented with an unexpectedly dark and gruesome twist to the story. By the end you have a floor slippery with blood and chunks of flesh. Angels gnawing on a human hand with the skin of their victim getting stuck in their teeth. Never before have I felt the need to floss so much in my entire life. It was such a shocking twist that I honestly did not see coming, and it has definitely piqued my interest to see what might be in store for our characters in the next book.
Series: The Premonition, book 1. I’m excited to see where the story will lead. Hopefully away from college life, and with more focus on the paranormal aspect than the love triangle side of things.
Should you read it? This first book is clearly laying the groundwork for the series. Gathering the characters together, introducing Evie’s struggle between Reed and Russell, etc. I really did enjoy learning about the particulars and unique dynamics involving angels. While at times Evie’s inner struggle between Russell and Reed was interesting, it didn’t take too long before it became tiresome and repetitive. If the second book continues with this back and forth of Reed vs Russell, it’s gonna get very old, very fast. I’m hoping we’ll see even more regarding Evie’s transition to becoming an angel, and all the possible repercussions that might entail. Maybe even some info about who her angel father is.
Smut Level: Just a few kisses. No hanky panky. Reed basically implies that if they had sex the probability of him hurting her was high because he had a certain strength as an angel she might not be ready for as a human. Aka, that’s one powerful penis.
Get it on Amazon: Click Here. $2.99 Kindle Price. CreateSpace Independent Publishing. 393 Pages.
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