June 7, 2011

Anathema by K. A. Tucker


Author Summary: 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 cafĂ©, 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 Take:  Yay! I was given the opportunity to review another fabulous book! And guess what? It is a Vampire romance!

K. A. Tucker has created both a fantastic Urban Fantasy setting (set in New York) AND a completely separate Dystopia Fantasy world! Can it get any better than that? The Fantasy world Tucker created mirrors earth (Urban Fantasy setting) in a lot of ways, but the other, Dystopia world has been completely taken over by Vampires and humans have been extinct for 700 years, AND their world has gone downhill ever since.

Evangeline is the main character in the book and I just adore her! She trusts easily and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. If a person (or vampire LoL) breaks Evangeline’s trust or shows signs they should not be trusted, it takes actions not words to gain her trust back. I noticed this in her character right away because that is exactly how I am and this is exactly what I would look for in a friend! And, throughout the book I was in conflict with who Evangeline should trust, right along with her!

Evangeline was orphaned when her mother was killed in a car accident. Throughout her whole life she’s had a hard time getting close to anyone other than her mother, and then she loses her. In the beginning of the book, she is about to turn 18 and she is offered an amazing job making a lot of money that requires her to travel with this wealthy lady to New York!

But after she gets to New York, weird things start to happen to her. When she goes to sleep, she vividly dreams that she is actually waking up in strange places and meeting strange people. Her dreams are so vivid that, at the end of the night when she wakes up in her own bed, she can’t believe they were only dreams. What’s happening to her? And, why is this happening? Is there a reason? Who are these strange people she sees when she goes to bed? Is she living in the real (LoL) Urban Fantasy world . . . or living in the separate Dystopia Fantasy world! You will have to read and find out!
The romance in this book gave me butterflies and tingles! My stomach actually did flips a couple times. What I’m getting at here is that I am, once again, in love with a fictional character! Ooo! La! La!

K.A. Tucker included plenty of unexpected twists and turns in this story, and she has written an amazing, phenomenal, and, at the same time, heart-wrenching cliff hanger of an ending!
I LOVED it! I am really looking forward to K.A. Tucker’s next book!

Buy it on Smashwords Here: Anathema by K.A. Tucker

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10 comments:

Jamie Kline (Bookerella) said...

(Weekend Review Club) This book really sounds good! I like that you said there are twists and turns throughout the book, I love not knowing what's coming next. Some people find cliff hangers frustrating, I love them because they get my psyched for the next book to come out! Sounds like I'll enjoy the romance in this one too!

Jamie @ Bookerella

Sonia Lal said...

This book sounds like exactly my kind of thing. Urban fantasy and dystopian all in the book! I like twists and turns, but I am not overly fond of cliffhanger endings.

Katja said...

Great review! The blurb left me a bit wondering, but your take on it really made me want to read this.

Cliffhanger endings are something I dislike with a passion though. But if it's good otherwise, I might overcome it. My only fear is, that what if the sequel never comes?

Jamie Kline (Bookerella) said...

Just an update - I'm reading this right now and am SO in love with it! I'm about halfway through, just can't seem to want to put it down!

Marjie Pride said...

WOW! I seen this around on Goodreads and the likes, but for some reason it never really caught my attention, But I am GLAD i read your review because I might have passed by something REALLY good otherwise! This sounds great and I have added it to my TBR list on goodreads so MAJOR THANKS MINDY!!!

Leia-Ann said...

(WRC) Excellent and very thorough review - I know exactly what to expect (in a good way, yay UF Dystopian!). I don't even mind cliffhanger endings, so this one should be perfect for me. Thanks a lot!

Jenn of Frequent Reader, Infrequent Blogger said...

The double world thing sounds really confusing, but it's clear that you enjoyed the book.

Julie S said...

Wow 5 star review. Sounds really interesting. Now I want to read it. Please enter me in the giveaway for the ebook.

Question for Author: How did you go about being published?

juliecookies(at)gmail.com

Lisa Richards/alterlisa said...

I love twisty turns in a story and think every book should end in a mind-blowing cliffhanger (can I help it if I never want a favorite series to end?)

Tucker--If you were to make the newspaper front page, what would the headline read?

(\___/)
(='.'=)
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alterlisa AT yahoo DOT com
http://lisaslovesbooksofcourse.blogspot.com/

K.A.Tucker said...

Lisa - I'm the same as you. I'll take a series over a standalone book any day.

Your question is good. Very good.

"Desperate Woman offers $1 Million Dollars To Poor Sucker Willing To Adopt Deceptive Chug" (the howling downstairs at this very moment just inspired that. Check out Day 4 of my blog stop and you'll understand COMPLETELY!) :-) and note, I don't really have a million dollars. I'm willing to lie to lure the next sucker in.

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