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3.5 Stars!

Bree Campbell, in her early thirties, has had a difficult life. From extremely overprotective parents to freak accidents to abusive husband, she has experienced it all and has emerged stronger as a person. Her experiences could have turned anyone bitter and untrusting, but Bree was a loving person who simply wanted to forget and move on. With her divorce in the process, she accompanies her grandmother to Las Vegas expecting one week of boredom. And my, could she be any more wrong? From the moment she laid her eyes on Steven on the bus to her hotel till she returns home after a week, her trip to Las Vegas turns out to be anything but boring. Raised as a human she has no idea about her heritage or the magical realm or that creatures like Vampires and Werewolves actually exist. She finds out that she is the Last of the twenty four Chosen Ones to be born to maintain the balance between the different realms. Her whole life so far had been full of lies and secrets and once truth starts to come to the forefront, Bree has to face more than she can imagine. Will she be able to handle her destiny or will it be just too much?

It was quite a change from the YA/Paranormal books that I have been reading recently. Instead of a teenager for the protagonist we have a thirty-two year old Bree Campbell leading us and telling us her story. Though her life has been a struggle for her from the very beginning and she has her own insecurities, her maturity and experience in life makes her stronger. Though there’s a bit of ‘nobody-wants-me’ and ‘why-me’ feelings on her part too, she doesn’t dwell on it too long like a teenager would have done. She takes everything that is thrown at her – and believe me when I say that ‘A LOT’ is thrown at her in a very short period of time. I like the way she doesn’t dwell too much on self-pity angle and takes charge from the very beginning and I love it when girls take charge.

There are a lot of side-characters that play almost equally important roles in the book. Steven, destined to be bonded to the last Chosen One, loves Bree with all his heart. Bradley, Richard, Stanley and Ryan are strong protectors. Gina, Sandy and Millie are all strong in their own way. Madalyn did get on my nerves at times but that only proves how well the author has built up her characters. But I love William (Billy) the most. He is such a Papa-Bear!

I have to admit that there are a couple of things that I didn’t like. Normally, with teenagers in the lead what happens is that they do not ‘talk’ much – to their family or partners or friends which result in a lot of confusion and me going – ‘Oh come on! Just talk to them!’ But in this book it is just the opposite. There’s just too much of ‘we need to talk’ and too much of actual ‘talking sessions’. Granted, a lot needed to be discussed in order to bring Bree and the readers up to date on the actual plotline – but I feel that the author went a bit overboard with the number of those sessions. The other thing that I was not able to take in was the Vampire lifestyle depicted in the book. With so many books on the vampires it is difficult to be original and the author has managed to bring in some originality in their lifestyle – but it isn’t something I could accept. Without giving out much spoilers – let’s just say that I am a human and that lifestyle isn’t really for me!

The plot is amazing. There are quite a few unanswered questions in this book but I am quite sure that they have been intentionally left unanswered and would help take the plot further in books two and three.

Having said all that, I’ll be sure to pick up the next two books in the series.