Anathema by K.A. Tucker
5 STARS
Goodreads Blurb:
Evangeline has spent her teenage years in obscurity. Her foster parents have the emotional aptitude of robots and her classmates barely acknowledge her existence. About to turn eighteen and feeling like a social pariah, she is desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.
When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash.
With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities... like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined.
In a world where everyone has motive to lie for personal gain, Evangeline must decide which deception is least likely to get her killed.
When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash.
With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities... like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined.
In a world where everyone has motive to lie for personal gain, Evangeline must decide which deception is least likely to get her killed.
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My Review:
My Evangeline and Caden:
“There are two kinds of spells.Evangeline is selfless, caring, diligent almost 18-years old girl who is always trying to help others. But after death of her mom five years ago, noone really paid attention to her. Until she meets Sofia, interesting and sophisticated woman who offers Evangeline a deal that is impossible to decline. And that is when all suspicious and crazy stuff begins...
Little, easy spells that you can learn and do anytime, anywhere—start fires, disguise yourself, that kind of stuff. But then there are other spells, where you’re directly altering fate—life and death. That’s a Causal Enchantment spell.”
Anathema is not your traditional YA paranormal novel. To be honest, I have never read anything like this. There was mix of everything - paranormal, magic, dystopian, suspence, action and romance. Paranormal world that author created in this book was like one beautiful but dangerous fairy tale. Everythings was so unbelievably fascinating that I devoured it in very short time. All lovers of paranormal genre should definitely read it.
At the beginnig, Evangeline was shy, unexperienced, too trusting but it never bothered me and I got to like her and her lovely personality. And Caden? He was dreamy... loving, caring, passionate but always underestimating himself. I loved the parts when he was present in the book the most and his interactions with Evangeline made this story perfect for me.
Anathema was full of unexpected twists and author kept me in tension all the time. Almost till the very end I was not sure who to trust and who not. And last couple of chapters? They blew my mind and I cannot wait to read next instalment in series.
