Tara may have spent years in an asylum, but that doesn’t make her crazy–just fearless.
Dropped in Moscow with a the group of enchanted Mayan descendants, seventeen-year-old Tara Weeble is forced to wait on the sideline while her best friend—the Stone Guardian— battles to reclaim a friend’s soul trapped in the underworld.
It sucks being ordinary when everyone else is superhuman…
A mortal girl … superhuman…
A mortal girl with a tainted past, Tara is left to deal with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. Her boyfriend, Peter, is a healer. Her best friend is The Guardian, and everyone else is a powerhouse of awesome strengths. Meanwhile, she struggles to leave her childhood of abuse in the past, and while Peter picks her up every time she falls, it becomes clear he deserves better.
When they opened Pandora’s Box, hell came pouring out…
When she’s given a chance to aid in the group’s mission, Tara is eager to pull her own weight, even if it means uncovering buried memories of being held prisoner by the underworld general. Now haunted with flashbacks of torture, Tara wanders from the safety of Peter’s arms into a city of depravity and corruption. And amidst all this evil is a young man with an agenda of his own, who leads her down a road that will either prove she is a hero at heart, or drag her into a world she’s always feared.
He wants revenge, she wants redemption. And in an underground ring of missing girls and bloody sacrifices, only the fearless can survive…
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This was such a great book! The second book in this series follows Tara, and we get to things from her perspective. We see her struggle with her past and come to terms with things in her heart.
What I liked
I really liked being able to see Tara conntribute more to the cause. She has been feeling so useless because she doesn’t have any powers like the rest of her friends, and I think that it was weighing on her. I do like Tara’s character much better than the main character of the series, Zanya. Seeing things from Tara’s point of view was refreshing.
I very much enjoyed seeing a different part of the story. In the first book you get to see the main issue involving Zanya and her friends, and in this book you get a loot at offshoots of the story. It really brings things together with a better understanding of what is going on. It provides more about the bigger picture of what they are facing.
In this book we get to see Tara’s decline, and I think that is is significant to the story. We see how she struggles with her nightmares, her past, and her hope for a relationship with Peter. Her character development is really expanded and goes so much deeper than the first book. Tara becomes so much more complex in this book and it shines a light on the kind of person she really is. It’s enlightening and beautiful.
What I didn’t like
While I liked seeing things from Tara’s point of view, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with Zanya and Arwan. I think that the book would have been much better if it had been written from both sides of the story including both Tara’s journey and also Zanya’s journey.
The book was quite short. It felt more like a novella to me. While it didn’t make the story lack at all, it didn’t feel quite like a full book. I prefer reading longer works. I think that if the story had included both sides of the story as I pointed out above, it would have been best.
Would I Recommend It
Yes. Reading this book is essential to the story being told by the series. It delves in even deeper and gives us a bigger glance at what the main characters are really up against. Tara’s character evolves so much in this and it is beautiful to read.
Tara is haunted by the memories from being tortured by Sarian, the evil underworld general. She’s afraid to admit that she isn’t strong enough to endure the dreams because she’s the only one without special abilities. Her health declining from lack of sleep and appetite, it’s only a matter of time before things get really bad. She deliberately sabotages her relationship to the only man she will ever love, delusional enough to think he deserves better. Meeting Malachi, she has the opportunity to help the group fight Sarian, but to do that she must become bait in a trafficking ring to ferret out the kingpin working for the power hungry general. Will she be strong enough to help her friends and the other women doomed to a horrible fate? Will her friends forgive her for running off to do this on her own? Can she trust her new acquaintance? I greatly enjoyed this installment of a YA Paranormal Romance. The action and suspense had me losing sleep, I just could not put it down. Please do yourself a favor and read this series. It’s so very unique and imaginative, the author has intrigued and captivated me. I can’t wait for the next in series!