I'm excited to participate in Devon Ashley's blog tour to promote book one in the Immortal Archives series, Ordained. Below is my review of the book, but be sure to head on over to Devon's blog where she is having giveaways for paperbacks, ebooks and signed bookmarks.
Author: Devon Ashley
Genre: YA Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Devon Ashley (Mar 19 2011)
Get it: Amazon | B&N | Smashwords
Goodreads Synopsis
Normally, the school creates the hunters - not the monsters.
Abby Sorrensten likes to play rough. Ripping the horns off the foreheads of demons, manipulating lightning and setting things on fire with the flick of your wrist can give you a serious rush. So she probably wasn’t the best choice for the Order’s experimental training program. Thirteen years of isolation, lack of affection and a bruised and broken body from horrendous training sessions creates more than just an exceptional fighter, it creates an evil within - an evil responsible for several deaths the night she left.
Two hundred years later Abby resurfaces as the very thing the Order trained her to kill: a vampire. A mythical demon has set his sights on the school and only the ordained hunter has the powers to face it. Unbeknownst to the Order, Abby’s their precious ordained one and their only chance for survival. As much as she would love to leave them hanging, she’s not willing to risk the life of Emily, a fellow friend and hunter also fed up with the organization.
But for Abby, locking herself away in a fortress with angry descendents of those she killed causes suspicions and tensions to run high. Abby must learn the demon’s weaknesses for battle before the Order learns hers.
REVIEW
The Order trains hunters to kill vampires, but they are aware of a demon (Eraticus) that kills hunters for their auras on their 25th birthdays, as that is when their auras become the strongest. The only thing is, the Order never warned any of the hunters of their fate nor taught them how to defend themselves against anything other than vampires. So when Emily Davis survives the demon, they think that she's their only hope of fighting off another demon (Morphus) that is headed their way despite the fact that Emily doesn't carry the mark of the ordained huntress on her body.
Emily met Abby Sorrensten on her 25th birthday when she was fighting off Eraticus. Abby helped her, which is why she survived. Abby is a huntress who was turned into a vampire by her guardian, Noel. However, Noel and Abby are pure blood vampires, not the mutated versions that the Order trains hunters to kill. Still, the Order is not aware that Noel and Abby are vampires. Although they are fearful of having Abby around because of what happened when she was originally being trained as a huntress, the Order calls her and Noel in to help with the Morphus situation.
During Abby's time at the school, she basically had no family, and because of that, the Order figured they could push her farther than any of the other hunters. She was basically tortured for 13 years. Forced to fight while broken and bruised. I tell you, when I initially read this book -- I read it twice -- I had tears in my eyes while reading about what Nathaniel, her advisor, did to her when she was 6 years old. Of course, that continued throughout her years at the school.
I really, really enjoyed Ordained. It was well written, intense, exciting and I really liked the characters. There were some sarcastic, funny comments that I loved. I actually wished that there had been more of that but it was mainly used to lighten the mood from time to time. And although the book isn't a romance, there is a tad bit of romance in it between Noel and Abby which I liked. There were some heartbreaking moments too.
Besides Emily and Abby's friendship, I rather liked the friendship that developed between Abby and Valerie, another huntress at the school who is clairvoyant. Despite Abby not making friends easily, there is a sort of bond between them. They are alike in some ways.
The only issue that I had with the book was that on occasion I would go from one paragraph to the next and it would be a separate scenario. A different time or place or person's story with no obvious break. So the flow was off for me in those cases, but it didn't happen often. Otherwise, the story flowed well.
I'm really glad that I signed up to participate in this blog tour for Ordained because otherwise, I might not have gotten around to reading it as soon as I have. There is so much to learn about Abby Sorrensten throughout the book. Her past unravels little by little. And although there is no cliffhanger ending, it does end in a way that leaves you wondering about some things. So I'm really looking forward to reading the next book.
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