Saturday, December 27, 2014

Darkness Awakened (Order of the Blade Series) by Stephanie Rowe

   Quinn Masters is an immortal Calydon warrior, and more importantly he is of the Order of the Blade.  They are the elite group that has the ability to do whatever it is necessary to protect the innocents against rogue Calydon warriors. Why do they go rogue?  Mostly because they have met their sheva.  A sheva is a soul mate and a very complicated matter.  There are several steps that a sheva and a warrior must go through to complete the bonding process and once it is complete, it will cause the warrior to basically go mad.  It is a destiny that all of the Calydons must face unless they never let the bonding process happen.  Quinn is determined to never let this happen to him until he sees Grace Matthews on his front lawn.  She is determined to get help finding her sister and she feels like this is the man to do it.  The bad news?  Well there's lots of it.  Ana (Grace's sister) is in a load of trouble and has been kidnapped, one of Quinn's blood brothers just took out all of his trainees and left him for dead, a bunch of Calydon warriors will soon be on their way to find Quinn because he knocked out his other blood brother in an attempt to get to the possibly rogue one first, Grace is an Illusionist who can't control her own illusions, oh and of course Grace is Quinn's sheva.  Not that she believes much of this sheva business because she doesn't really.  But when things start happening, she and Quinn get more and more worried that the bond will be completed.  Things just go from bad to worse when they find information on who could be behind all of the stuff going on.  It's a worst case scenario indeed.


   This was a really interesting book about not just immortals, but humans as well.  In a world where the lore of these warriors can be found on the internet, it seems very much like ours with a few differences, like the whole immortals being around and Illusionists like Grace and Ana.  They both are more powerful than what their kind is really supposed to be like.  They are powerful enough to cause actual injuries by making the mind think the body is being hurt.  It's an insanely scary gift to have for Grace.  In fact, she thinks it's a curse until she finds Quinn.  In him she finds the freedom and acceptance that she has wanted so badly but thought that she would never have.  Bad things have happened in her past and she doesn't like to get close to other people because they could get hurt.  But not Quinn.  He has ways to combat illusions and he's virtually impossible to kill.
   As much as I liked this really cool and weird world of the Calydon warriors, there were some things that I just didn't understand.  Like this need to fight something that is going to happen any way you put it.  They try so hard to keep from going through the steps of the bonding process, but every time one of them happens, they don't seem that messed up about it.  In fact, the closer they come to completing the bond, the happier they are every time one of the phases is complete.  For them to be fighting it so hard, sometimes it looks like they are diving into it headfirst at the same time.  Why fight something like that then?
   One other thing I didn't like about the book was how their ability to have a choice in the matter was taken away completely.  Or it kind of seems like it.  This whole sheva thing seems to take any choice out of the matter of who is your mate and what will happen once you bond.  It's kind of crappy if you ask me, not having a say in your own fate.  Because of the warriors going wild when they find their mate, the shevas are often killed.  They are more expendable than the warriors are.
   What I do like?  The fact that Quinn and Grace are both determined to beat the sheva curse.  It was a pretty good read and free on kindle right now!!

4 out of 5 stars!

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