Awakening
A Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Publisher Description
★★★ "CINDERELLA MEETS TWILIGHT" - BOOK REVIEW ★★★
After her mother’s death, Taylor Hale goes to live with her father on the remote island of Dawnhaven. She’s dreading it, but she has a plan: she'll keep her head down, survive senior year, and ignore that her wicked stepmother treats her like trash.
Then she meets wealthy summer resident James Champlain, and everything changes.
James is tall and strapping, with a square jaw. In addition to his looks, he’s charming, funny, and kind. Taylor is increasingly drawn to him, but they're from two different worlds. She was on food stamps, he lives off a trust fund. Then there are the rumors: the locals say he’s running some sort of cult at his estate.
Taylor doesn't believe it, but James is definitely mysterious--as is Dawnhaven itself. There’s something dark in the island woods, something dangerous. When Taylor encounters it, she learns that not only is James not what he appears...nothing is.
★★★This is the first book of a new series, perfect for fans of TWILIGHT and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. Best for older teens: contains adult language and themes, and there are some scary parts.★★★
Customer Reviews
Amazing
I fully enjoyed this entire book I literally read it in a day or two. I was hoping for more from James and Taylor’s relationship but they really just started dating so a girl can only hope. Amazing writing by the way I love the twist on the traditional vampire story.
Pleasantly surprised
I went into this with a skeptical mindset because there are so many vampire books out there, but found myself actually enjoying the characters and feeling involved and invested. This take on vampires genuinely is one that has potential. I really liked that by the end of the book Taylor also didn’t hold back or bite her tongue so there was decent character development. I genuinely liked the book and was upset that it ended at the climax! So I bought book 2!!
Only downsides in my opinion were
1: I wanted to see more variety in James personality. I don’t think a vampire who spent decades killing would stop brooding or feeling extreme guilt etc. He was a bit one toned, not in a bad way-but there just wasn’t any drama or highs and lows. So his niceness and love for Taylor I couldn’t feel deeper.
2: The fashion descriptions had me cringing just a bit because it felt very outdated and not realistic to what teenagers of the time and lifestyle would wear. The Party at the end was fine but all of the outfits prior just sounded awful.
3: The love story fell into place a little odd to me because they didn’t talk about their interests or deep things like ever. They claimed to like each other for who they are- but I ended up having to gaslight myself into thinking it wasn’t infatuation. Their conversations just didn’t get on a deeper level to me on their own-circumstances had to force it out if at all. Maybe I don’t understand or know how love works but to me it just seemed not that deep? Like the emotional turmoil and drama near the end is what I wanted to see bits and pieces of earlier so I could understand the attraction.
Read it
This book was amazing