Everbound Review

TITLE Everbound (Everneath #2)
AUTHOR Brodi Ashton
PUBLICATION January 22nd 2013 by Balzer + Bray
READ January 23 to 24, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Nikki Beckett could only watch as her boyfriend, Jack, sacrificed himself to save her, taking her place in the Tunnels of the Everneath for eternity — a debt that should’ve been hers. She’s living a borrowed life, and she doesn’t know what to do with the guilt. And every night Jack appears in her dreams, lost and confused and wasting away.

Desperate for answers, Nikki turns to Cole, the immortal bad boy who wants to make her his queen — and the one person least likely to help. But his heart has been touched by everything about Nikki, and he agrees to assist her in the only way he can: by taking her to the Everneath himself.

Nikki and Cole descend into the Everneath, only to discover that their journey will be more difficult than they’d anticipated — and more deadly. But Nikki vows to stop at nothing to save Jack — even if it means making an incredible sacrifice of her own.

In this enthralling sequel to Everneath, Brodi Ashton tests the bonds of destiny and explores the lengths we’ll go to for the ones we love.

Can I get a hell yes for this year continuing to be the year of awesome sequels? *waits for it* Ok, thank you. So you can tell where this review is going. I have not run into one sophomore slump yet this year and I hope to goodness that it stays that way. Everbound was Everneath on crack, which means that the angst was amped up and the action was coming at me in droves. I enjoyed this follow-up so much, maybe even more than its predecessor.

I have admit that I remembered barely anything of Everneath when I went into reading this novel. Thankfully Ashton does a wonderful job of recapping all of the important bits without it feeling like a giant info dump right off the bat. Nicki is dealing with the loss of Jack and she feels responsible for him being in the Everneath. I think Nicki could probably be taken as pretty whiney in this installment but after all that she went through and her sudden loss of Jack I think it was warranted. I loved how she wasn’t just wallowing in it, she was being proactive and trying to find anyway that she could save him. Once Cole comes back into her life, she sees an opportunity to go down (up?) and save Jack and from there the story moved at a break neck pace.

I mentioned that I don’t really remember too much from Everneath, one thing I definitely don’t remember is it being as funny as I found Everbound. The way that Cole and Nikki pick at each other had me laughing in more than one instant and it made reading this novel that much more fun. I am a sucker for a bad boy and a huge Cole fan. This one made me even more so because we see a completely new side of him and I think Nikki may be softening him up a bit. It was frustrating that Nikki seemed completely oblivious to how much Cole loves her, there were so many times that I just wanted her to grab him and smooch his lips off.

One thing that we get a lot more of here is the world of the Everneath. It was exhilarating reading Cole, Nikki & Max go through whatever the Everneath threw at them and I loved getting to know more about it. Through that we also got a lot more mythology weaved into the tale which worked seamlessly. It really felt like the action didn’t really let up in the last half and right when the story was wrapping up Ashton threw a twist at me that I had NO IDEA WAS COMING. I didn’t even suspect it, it didn’t cross my mind and I almost threw my book when I realized it was ending on that note.

Leaving off at a definite high point and leaving me with a plethora of questions, Everbound is an awesome sequel that I won’t soon forget. I think this is one people will be talking about for a long time to come.

Everneath Review

TITLE: Everneath

AUTHOR: Brodi Ashton

PAGES: 249 (eBook)

RELEASE DATE: January 24, 2012

PUBLISHER: Harper Collins / Balzer + Bray

READ: February 17, 2012 - February 19, 2012

BUY THIS BOOK AT: Amazon / Kobo / Chapters.Indigo

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

"In the dark, dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory.  And there would be a flicker of candlelight.  If only for a moment."

What a breath of fresh air!  This book had all the elements that I look for in an Alluring Read.  It had perfectly developed characters, an excellent plot and some great romance. I read this not knowing the tale of Hades and Persephony, but did this ever spark my interest in Greek mythology.

There is a love triangle in this centered around our protagonist and featuring the boy next door and the not so villainous villain.   I LOVED Cole and I felt for him. Throughout the book I wanted to shake Nikki and make her see that even though he was the bad boy, deep down he loved her in a way that was completely foreign to him. The rise in Nikki and Coles relationship was so well executed that I was thirsty for more everytime the subject matter changed.

What I admired most about Brodi Ashtons writing was how she created this new world where impossible things were possible and I believed it.  I wasnt left wondering how it all happens and feeling like parts of it didn't make sense. For me, the style of this book was reminiscent of Article 5 in the way that it went back in time here and there, which was an element that I loved in both novels. This is definitely a novel I will be talking about for a while and recommending to my fellow readers!

Here is a trailer to wet your appetite!