Arcadia Awakens
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
When troubled teenager Rosa escapes her life in New York to stay with family in Sicily, she stumbles into a sinister Mafia underworld of murder, corruption and bitter, generations-old rivalries. How is handsome, mysterious stranger Alessandro involved? And why is Rosa so powerfully drawn to him, even though she knows he spells danger for her and her family?
Simmering at the heart of the conflict is an ancient myth surrounding the vanished empire of Arcadia and its people, who, in the tales of legend, could shapeshift into animal form. Can Rosa unravel the dark secrets of the past before untamed savagery is unleashed on the present?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the lethargic first book in a planned trilogy from Meyer (the Dark Reflections trilogy), 17-year-old Rosa Alcantara leaves Brooklyn to join family in Sicily, uncertain whether she's running away from her problems or trying to find herself. After meeting Alessandro Carnevare, the two explore their attraction, even though the Alcantaras and the Carnevares are rival Mafia families. But this Romeo and Juliet story has a paranormal twist: the clans are shape-shifting predators descended from the legendary Greek Arcadians, making the politics downright bloodthirsty. As Rosa and Alessandro find a potentially game-changing clue to their families' history, the truce between their factions explodes. Despite the fresh premise, Meyer's characters aren't engaging Alessandro is a cipher, and even with an ugly backstory and a bruised psyche that have turned Rosa into a passive-aggressive risk junkie, she is short on depth. The Mafia aspects of the story are realistically ugly, and mature themes (rape, abortion, human trafficking) run through the plot, but Meyer's flat story unfolds slowly before finally sparking late in the book, leaving threads hanging for the second installment. Ages 14 up.
