Discussion Post: Origin by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Origin by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Series: Lux #4

Release Date: 27th August, 2013

Publisher: Entangled

Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Goodreads Summary

Daemon will do anything to get Katy back.

After the successful but disastrous raid on Mount Weather, he’s facing the impossible. Katy is gone. Taken. Everything becomes about finding her. Taking out anyone who stands in his way? Done. Burning down the whole world to save her? Gladly. Exposing his alien race to the world? With pleasure.

All Katy can do is survive.

Surrounded by enemies, the only way she can come out of this is to adapt. After all, there are sides of Daedalus that don’t seem entirely crazy, but the group’s goals are frightening and the truths they speak even more disturbing. Who are the real bad guys? Daedalus? Mankind? Or the Luxen?

Together, they can face anything.

But the most dangerous foe has been there all along, and when the truths are exposed and the lies come crumbling down, which side will Daemon and Katy be standing on?

And will they even be together?

Our Rating:

Rashika: Nope nope nope. I am so done with this series. Yes I guess this wasn't what I wanted. I was hoping that perhaps I was wrong when I read Opal, I was hoping that maybe this book would change my mind but it didn't. I don't care for this series anymore. 

Paulina: I know right?! What the hell was this, like seriously. I love Jennifer but she needs to learn how to stop something before she ruins the series. 

Rashika: Look at the two of them. They are both impulsive and don't think twice before doing something. In real life they would have been dead by now because of their stupidity, lucky for them they somehow ALWAYS survive. I know I should be glad that Katy's mind couldn't be changed but seriously. She really should at least consider the fact that there are evil Luxen who want to take over the world and destroy humanity. They *ARE* aliens and they *ARE* a lot more powerful than humans. Isn't it possible that they want to destroy the Earth? Just because you're in love with a 'good' alien doesn't mean the lot of them are like that.

Paulina: Don't even get me started on that. Seriously Daemon seemed so obsessed with everything. I get it you love her but chill your beans. I get the whole Arum vs Luxen thing. One being bad one good but not everything is so black and white. 

Rashika: Speaking of Aliens. Why are they so hot? and on that note.. can these two stop talking about how hot the other person is. Seriously. Considering that Daemon's beauty is actually superficial (it's not what he actually looks like), why is it so emphasized?

Paulina: When I first started reading the series (so many years ago) I was superficial and liked the whole Alien being hot and sexy. But it's not all about looks. Look at me being grown up. 

Rashika: We're both so grown up and mature now :'). Opal wasn't all that good but I though the dual pov would help in this book. It didn't. It so did NOT work. They two of them sounded exactly the same. Like 13 year olds. Silly little immature teens who are impulsive, don't think twice of their consequences and their world is centered around their own needs/wants. Neither of them act like the adults they are. Daemon still treats her like this fragile flower and also says stuff like "I don't love you for your brains". I get that it's a joke but... I don't actually see him once complementing her on anything that would actually mean something. He says stuff like she is gorgeous and how she is too good for him but.. yeah. Cheese alert. I drowned in it. Just sayin'. 

Paulina: Okay so I kind of liked the dual pov... But it was so hard to get used to it. I totally agree with you about the 13 year olds comment. Everyone annoyed me in this book. Just so annoying. Did I grow up or was the book kinda crap? 

Rashika: I think we both grew up :P The only good thing about this book was Luc. I liked him. I liked Blake too. He was my favorite character but what became of him early on in the book stopped him from being a plus. I hate how Katy acts like she is better than him. She admits she would have done the same thing but then she also contradicts herself. It pisses me off to no end. I loved Matthew in the first 3 books but he wasn't around a lot in this one.

Paulina: Matthew used to be my favourite character. Blake I didn't really have feelings for... Also Katy annoyed me from the very first book. The whole "oh I don't deserve him" crap. She was just annoying from the start. She grew on me during the second and third book but I was not impressed with her here.

Rashika: I wasn't impressed with the plot either. I basically had to force myself to finish the damn book. There was nothing happening till the end and then everything happened at once. And too many stupid things at that. I could probably list them all out but I cannot because spoiler alert. Darn it. I was pulling out my hair by the time I got to the end. 

Paulina: I was not looking forward to reading this book at all. I wanted the series to end. Seriously the whole plot line is just a massive cliche. Everything was just so easy to foresee. Seriously what was up with that? Nothing surprised me at all. 

Rashika: Predictability for the win (sarcasm). I knew people would die. I didn't even care. I only felt annoyed that the triplets always made it out alive. What makes them so special? Nothing I can see because they are a bunch of useless pathetic idiots.

Paulina: Usually a death has to happen to make me really like the book. Just for the emotions and feels. But here I didn't care. I completely agree with you about the triplets being "special" I get why. Because they are the main characters but that doesn't mean they need to be alive and amazing. 

Rashika: LOL. I'd rather my main characters survive but common, Dawson and Beth? At least THEY could have died :P Look at me being all morbid. I went into this book expecting brain candy and brain candy I did not get. Instead I got a main dish of cheese with a plot on the side. I am beyond frustrated. Yes this was still not bad enough to get a 1 but it was bad enough that I simply cannot carry on with this series any more. I am not the girl I was when I started it. This series no longer does anything for me. Daemon does not make me swoon. He makes me want to punch something. Katy isn't awesome. She is a pain in the ass. Their romance is not swoon worthy, it's puke worthy. This series is no longer one of the best things ever. It is bland and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I won't re-read the first two books so as to preserve the magic of the past but I will not be reading the last book and will have to ask Paulina dear to spoil it for me.

Paulina: Yeah... I will finish the series. I need to so I can spoil it for Rashika. I'm so very disappointing with the book!!! I have no words. I need to have a think about it :/

Book Spotlight: The Wind Whisperer by Krista Holle

The Wind Whisperer by Krista Holle 
(young adult—paranormal romance):  

Publication date: Coming this October 15, 2013 

Publisher: (Independent) Sweet River Romance 

Pages: 302 

Buy: Amazon | Kobo 

This love triangle just got dangerous… 

At fifteen, Anaii is the most important member of her tribe—and the most mysterious.  Ever since Anaii can remember, the spirits of the wind have whispered of fertile hunting grounds and imminent enemy attacks.  But when her people are ambushed by a brother clan without any apparent cause, the spirits remain eerily silent. As the village prepares to retaliate, Anaii is pressured by her best friend, Elan, to marry him.  It’s an old plea—Elan has spent a lifetime loving her, but Anaii only sees a childhood playmate out of an imposing warrior.  Stifled by Elan’s insistence, Anaii escapes into the forest where she meets Jayttin, the beautiful son of the enemy chief.   Enamored by Jayttin’s carefree spirit and hope for peace, she repeatedly sneaks away to be with him, but when her deception is discovered, Elan is devastated.  Pledging his lifelong affection, Elan gives her a passionate kiss, and Anaii begins to see her friend in a new light.   While Anaii is tormented over which man she must choose, the wind whispers of a new threat that could destroy both tribes.  Only a union will afford a chance at survival, but the reality of that union is based on one thing—which man Anaii chooses to die. 

Excerpt: 

I looked around cautiously before freezing at the sketchy outline of a muscular man partially hidden in the grass.  A man!  He was sprawled on his back and golden pink from too many hours in the sun.  My heart pounded to see the unfamiliar pattern of a deer on his breechcloth.  I had marched myself directly into the reach of a Zennite warrior!  

I gingerly took a step backwards, but to my horror, the man’s black eyes fluttered open.  I turned and hurled myself back across the meadow, just as the man shot up and flew after me like a predatory bird.  My muscles burned and strained to lengthen the space between us, but getting away was hopeless.  I was not a challenge to even the young boys in the foot races. 

After a few powerful strides, the warrior tackled me to the ground, painfully grazing the skin on my cheek.  I wheezed a few times before my lungs filled with air.  

“A Chippoke?” he asked between breaths.  

I feverishly punched and kicked to free myself.  “Get—off—me!” 

“Stop! I’m not going to hurt you,” the warrior chuckled as he struggled to pin my arms and legs.  His voice was calm and pleasant, but lying was no different than breathing to a Zennite. 

“I cannot promise the same,” I wheezed as I fought.  

“You’re a bobcat,” he said with a laugh.  “A bobcat with no teeth or claws.” 

“Let me go!” 

“I will when you’re calm.” 

Strong hands held my wrists while his full weight pinned my torso against the earth.  Fighting him was as useless as running.  “You are not a boy,” I spat angrily, fully taking in my attacker.  It was little comfort that he didn’t look like a bloodthirsty killer.  He was admittedly handsome with an angular face and sleek black hair that hung well past his shoulders.  He was not as tall as Elan, but his muscles were narrow and built for speed.  There was something different about his eyes too.  They were as black as soot—very unlike the brown woodsy colors from our tribe. 

The warrior smirked down at me.  “My mother will be very surprised to hear that.  All this time she’s assumed…” 

My face heated, but I fiercely met his gaze.  The Zenni were like wild dogs and pumas—they could smell emotions. “What I meant was, you are a man, not a boy.” 

“Oh, I see, but you must understand, I’m not a man yet.”  

“You must understand I’m a squirrel!  Get off!  You’re hurting me!” I ordered with a useless heave.   

“No,” he said with a smirk. 

It was then I realized I might die—right after I was lulled into a false sense of security.  My chest pounded as I searched for the killer’s weapon.  “Are you going to kill me?”     

“I do not feel like killing you just yet,” he said as his long hair swirled in my face.  Were we to play a game before he killed me?  

“I am glad the mood doesn’t strike you,” I snarled.  The warrior studied me with a drawn brow.  Was he guessing that I was the forest witch?  I didn’t think I looked like a witch, but I wasn’t certain what one should look like—evil at least. 

“I don’t understand something,” the warrior said.  “Your eyes are blue—the blue of an angry sky.  Are you the daughter of a god?” 

“Yes,” I said, heaving against his weight again.  “Now get off me, or my father Achak will strike you dead with lightening.”  

Author Bio:  

Krista Holle is an award winning author who stepped up her writing after reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.  It occurred to Krista that there is an insatiable audience of women and girls who want to read books filled with stories about true love—not just vampires.  When Krista is not writing, she loves to collect seashells, watch movies, and eat obscene amounts of pizza.  Krista currently resides in Montpelier, Virginia with her husband, four daughters and an eccentric cat with a weird attachment to the family’s socks.   

Find Krista here:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon

Other Books by Krista Holle: 

The Lure of Shapinsay

(Winner of the Reader’s Choice Award for  

Paranormal Romance 2012) 

Published: December 2011 

Buy: Amazon | Barnes and Noble 

Severed by Sarah Alderson

Title: Severed

Author: Sarah Alderson
Series: Fated #2
Publisher: Amazon
Date Published: November 28, 2012
Buy: Amazon

 Goodreads Summary

 Fate brought them together.
 Now it’s threatening to tear them apart.

 As the last in a long line of demon slayers, Evie’s destiny is to end the war that has raged for centuries between humans and demons.

Lucas, the half-Shadow Warrior half-human who was sent to kill her, has betrayed his own Brotherhood and his family to fight alongside her.

With an army of unhumans on their tail, Evie and Lucas are forced into an uneasy alliance with a group of rogue Hunters who offer protection and the promise of answers.

As the past is untangled and the dark history of the Hunters revealed, Evie discovers that severing the realms is going to require a lot more than just fighting. It’s going to require a sacrifice – one that only she can make.

…More than realms will be severed.

I had read Fated not realizing that the sequel was not available yet and when I realized there wasn’t more Lucas and Evie to read I went into frenzy. Then I realized I only had to wait a month or so for the sequel so I calmed down a bit. Even though the last book didn’t end on a cliff hanger I felt as though it did because I had fallen so head over heels in love with the book that I wasn’t ready to let it go.

So I stalked Severed until it finally came out. I may not have waited as long as most people but believe me when I say it was long enough for me. I read this book so quickly I am not sure I did anything else. Right from the start to the end I was constantly on the edge.

The author doesn’t skip a beat and dumps us right where Fated ended, with Evie and Lucas on the run from the brotherhood and the hunters. Evie still has to come to term with being the White Light. She isn’t sure what she has to do but she doesn’t like the fact that she doesn’t have a choice. Lucas wants to help her fulfill her prophecy but at the same time protect her.

If you thought Fated was amazing… Severed blew minds. Well at least it blew mine. The first one was merely an introduction into the world of Fated, the second one was full of action. At every corner there is a new challenge awaiting them and Evie and Lucas fight through everything together. In this book we can see their relationship strengthen. They grow stronger and learn from their mistakes, they don’t doubt each other, they only want to protect one another.

Both the characters develop and learn from their past mistakes and become each other’s rocks. They don’t just change all of a sudden, like in Lucas’s case he needs to let go of his prejudices but he learns. There aren’t any personality transplants because no one can just change over time.

Also I am going to use this quote to describe Lucas, I would have used it in my review of Fated but well the quote is from Severed and I really need to use this quote. Like right now.

‘What is it about him? What is it that makes you females of all the species lose the plot so entirely?’

I’ve had this quote for the past 3 months. I stare at it every single day because seriously, I am over my head in love with Lucas.( *shies away*, I know there are a lot of guys I am in love with.. leave me alone okay?? I am just an innocent creature)

One of the things I am really happy about that is despite all the pressure one her, Evie still manages to retain her wit, she doesn’t let all the things going around weaken her.

I still haven't mentioned Cyrus. He was fun to have around. Lucas as we know is our serious guy, he may crack the occasional joke but he has too much on his mind to actually let loose properly. Cyrus though, he is the funny guy always saying the hilarious things to lighten the mood.

This book isn’t for the light hearted. After finishing the book I hated Sarah so much because I felt so heart broken, but then I started making my own theories and she announced that Shadowed would be released early in 2013 (now at the end of March) so I was able to forgive her (I love her too much to hate her anyway.. it has hard). But all fans of Fated, read this. I command you to and if you haven’t read Fated, what the hell are you waiting for? The apocalypse? (OMG I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT)

P.S. I didn’t give this a five because I was really upset about the ending alright? I think I worried the hell out of everyone with my behavior.

Fated by Sarah Alderson

Title: FatedAuthor: Sarah Alderson

Series: Fated #1

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Date Published: January 5, 2012

Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

What happens when you discover you aren’t who you thought you were? And that the person you love is the person who will betray you? If your fate is already determined, can you fight it?

When Evie Tremain discovers that she’s the last in a long line of Demon slayers and that she’s being hunted by an elite band of assassins –Shapeshifters, Vampires and Mixen demons amongst them – she knows she can’t run. They’ll find her wherever she goes. Instead she must learn to stand and fight.

But when the half-human, half-Shadow Warrior Lucas Gray is sent to spy on Evie and then ordered to kill her before she can fulfil a dangerous prophecy, their fates become inextricably linked. The war that has raged for one thousand years between humans and demons is about to reach a devastating and inevitable conclusion. Either one or both of them will die before this war ends.

If your life becomes bound to another’s, what will it take to sever it?

After finishing the Hunting Lila series, I felt really lost and lonely because that’s how you feel 

after finishing a good series, anyway so I started hunting (pun intended) for other books written by the author and came across Fated. It came of sounding a bit clichéd but by this point I had become a Sarah Alderson fan so I put aside my assumptions and picked this book up. I don’t think there are words enough to say how glad I am I did that. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met one of my all-time favorite guys nor read one of my all-time favorite series.

This was Sarah’s second book and I can see the different between the Hunting Lila and Fated. I wouldn’t say that it was that she got better as a writer (she was already awesome in my book), but that I liked Evie’s character a lot better. I always admired Lila but sometimes the whole Alex thing got on my nerves in the first book (although the second book was a bottle of awesome, no doubt). In this book you can see that Evie is a very independent character. She isn’t used to depending on people after all the things that happened to her recently. She was betrayed by her best friend and boyfriend, her father died and her best friend died. This all happened in a short span of time so it changed her as a person. She became more closed off. She has always wanted to get out of town but now she wants it more than anything else. She cannot stand the stares. So she works extra hard at the restaurant (owned by a family friend) to earn money. It is during one of these shifts she has to fight off these weird creatures she didn’t know existed and it is there she meets Victor and learns that she is a hunter.

On the other hand we have Lucas, *swoons*, one of my favorite love interests, who is a half human and half shadow warrior. I don’t think I can get enough of this guy (I love you too Alex (the one from Hunting Lila) but let’s keep this about Lucas shall we?). He has this very serious demeanor about him. I wouldn’t call him a brooding bad boy or anything along those lines because he isn’t that. He is a responsible person who has been through a lot. He saw his mother die when he was a kid, his father died recently and became the only shadow warrior to be killed at the hands of a hunter, he wants revenge. He is given his chance to infiltrate the hunters’ ranks and get his revenge when he is given the assignment to kill Evie.

This book is a combination of action, spice and everything nice. Now to paraphrase that, this book is full of action, sizzling romance, awesome paranormal stuff and chemical X (that being Sarah Alderson’s magic dust).

I believe that the romance between Evie and Lucas is perfect. They meet in an interesting way, there is an attraction present but the romance is slow to develop, both with Evie’s being closed off and with Lucas trying to kill Evie.

The concept of fate always gets messed up in books, it either comes across as too cheesy or well to confusing. Here it was neither. Sarah managed to make everything make sense yet give her characters some sort of choice.

She also does an amazing job with the world building. It is unique to what you usually come across in YA. She builds a world that manages to intrigue me and builds it along the way, she doesn’t just dump info about this world on us, she shows it to us.

This book could have easily become a common cliché with all the paranormal books out there, hell it could have become a reincarnation of The Mortal Instruments but Sarah Alderson manages to make it unique amongst all the other paranormal books out there.