This was an interesting read. I enjoyed it, but it was also extremely difficult for me to get through. The heartache is real in this book, man. It was bad enough reading about the main character dealing with her mom’s death, but when
the author killed off Blake–the heroine’s best friend who had been in love with her all their lives–
It doesn’t help that everyone pretty much blames her for Blake’s death, and when she’s told later on that he actually killed himself because he couldn’t handle her rejection, I was devastated. Until that point, I was kind of holding out hope that she would grow to love him. I had a huge soft spot in my heart for him and this was honestly the worst thing that could have happened in the book, in my opinion.
Somebody on GoodReads made the comparison to Twilight, and I have to say I can kind of see the parallels. There’s the somewhat reckless girl who makes some questionable choices and the two supernatural beings who are pining for her. Cat–short for Catori, which means “spirit” in Hopi–is torn between Cruz and Kajika, which becomes more apparent later on in the story. She’s impeccably drawn to Cruz–which causes a whole mess of problems with a dear friendship she has as well as with Cruz’s fiancee (whom he’s supposed to marry for political fae reasons)–and later on, she’s drawn to Kajika, who is pretty much Cruz’s opposite in every way. Honestly, I won’t lie; I was kind of hoping this would go in the RH direction because I loved these guys and couldn’t tell you who my favorite is. However, I know this isn’t an RH story, lol, so I know it’s going to be both interesting and devastating to follow the love story as she has to make a choice between the two.
Okay, so now that that’s out of the way …
The story was a good one. I quite enjoyed how the author mixed Native American folklore with fae mythology. It was a fascinating mix and one I wouldn’t have necessarily put together prior to reading this book, so I liked the bit of surprise in that. Now, I will say, the particular Native American tribe that the heroine is from was made up by the author. In the back of the book, she states that she didn’t want to offend the culture in any way by getting something wrong, so she made up a separate one instead. While a part of me thinks it would have been neat to build off the culture of an actual Native American culture, I enjoyed the made up one and thought it was clever.
Also, I just want to say, as a Michigan native, it was suuuper cool to read a story that takes place in Michigan. I loved having a general idea of the locations referenced and there’s also a solid Native American history in Michigan, so it was neat that that was brought to life in a new and different way. That was just a fun addition to an already well-written novel that I truly enjoyed 🙂
At the end of the day, I did enjoy this book, and I won’t lie–I’m dying to get my hands on the next one. I’m just hoping my poor little heart will be able to take it because if the first book was any indication, the next one is going to be just as heartwrenching. Agh.
I definitely recommend this book if you were a fan of the Twilight series or if you like the paranormal/fantasy genre–especially pertaining to faes.
Happy reading!
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