For most girls at eighteen, life is just beginning: graduation, college, getting their own place. Unlike them, however, I’ve trained my whole life to be an Ischyra, an immortal soldier of the Olympian gods, and when high school ends, I’m going to Olympus to face my destiny, leaving all that I know behind.I’m a nervous wreck, of course, but making the transition from mortal to immortal, not to … not to mention finding out what my affinity will be, has me over the moon. Finally, I’ll be tasting what I was born for.
But not all is a bed of roses. Meeting the gods and the grueling training is nothing compared to the nightmares I’ve been having. Controlling my newly awakened powers is more of a struggle than I’d anticipated. Add to the mix a hot guy who I can’t make heads or tails of. And if that wasn’t enough, a bunch of the Titans who were defeated thousands of years ago have begun to gather forces, hoping to retake Olympus for their own.
As an Ischyra, my duty is to protect Earth from those who would seek to harm it, but first I have to get through my training year. Yet as my powers start to take on a mind of their own, I begin to realize the gods might have other plans in store.
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Greek mythology combined with paranormal romance often spells success in my book, and this is no exception. Sure, it’s not easy to keep track of all the gods and their relationships, but I try to just tag along and it works fairly well (an appendix would have been nice, though!).
We get both Tessas and Nates point of view and I really enjoy that. Since they can read each others minds it could have worked okay with just Tessa as narrator, but I prefer the dual POV. They fall for each other pretty instantly, which is rather common in YA books, but it actually didn’t bother me much.
All of the characters are well structured, it’s easy to imagine the scenary, and there are really no slow parts. It’s hard to believe that this is a debut novel! I like most of the dialogs, and even if it’s a long time since I could be called a “young adult” I never found it to be too “childish”. I’m so looking forward to the next book!
I’m always happy to read a new mythology (adaptation/retelling?) and this one was just what I needed! I loved the writing style in this one, and the story-line was interesting and original enough that it kept me interested and guessing at the different surprises that were hinted at throughout.
I was somewhat put off by the amount of cussing, and normally I wouldn’t have continued reading, but the story did hold my attention from the start, and I found it wasn’t as noticeable after the first few chapters. I don’t mind a bit of cussing, even all the F-s involved, but since it started in highschool, I felt like that might be how they talk, but wasn’t really needed.
I also feel like some places did a lot more ‘telling’ than showing, and I’d have liked to see more of he relationships mentioned, starting with Tessa and her earth family, both her mentors and the friends she has at school. I could see a bit of emotion, but the beginning showed Tessa to be almost ‘above’ the humans around her, and she seemed to only really feel when Nathaniel or other Olympians were around, but at the beginning they were essentially strangers, so it felt odd that she didn’t show any of these feelings around people she’s been around all of her life at that point. This is explained later in the story, and I quickly realized that something was going on, but enjoyed seeing the mystery unravel as the characters started trying to work together.
Timeline/time skips were also related to that. Much of what is mentioned or referred to is ‘off-screen’ between the skips, and I know that in places it only makes sense to skip the mundane day-to-day but it made all her relationships with friends or otherwise seem rushed or less important than they probably should have been.
Now for the good stuff, even with those points, I loved reading this, and can’t wait to read more! The lore/mythology is complex and I really enjoyed seeing/learning more about Tessa’s world and life. I did struggle a bit to keep up with ‘rank’ since it’s different with almost every story I’ve read, but perhaps a ‘who’s-who’ guide or something similar would be useful for new readers, and is something I’d also enjoy for reference as I read this series.
It was strange to see the modern take on the gods, but I actually enjoyed that the author, Lucy Roy, wasn’t afraid to make them her own in this adaptation. The other characters were also well done, and I just wish they were ‘fleshed-out’ a bit more, but I loved seeing the differences and personalities. The story is easy to read and follow, and I found that once I started, I couldn’t wait to read more and see what happens!
“Char” somehow gets accepted to an all boys Warlock school and rather than transfer to the sister school stays to learn more about her heritage and get caught up in lots of mayhem … did I mention she’s the only girl in an all boys school and these boys are HOT!! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this first book in the A Witch Among Warlocks series can’t wait for the next one because I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT