 Nexi Jones—part witch, part guardian, and wannabe kick-ass warrior—can’t throw a punch or conjure the simplest magic. But that doesn’t stop her from hunting the werewolves who slaughtered her human family. She’ll have her revenge, but only if Kyden, the elite guardian, would get the hell out of her way.Kyden can’t decide if Nexi wants to get herself killed or if she just has no clue what she’s doing. But her father made it clear: keep Nexi safe…or else. Of course, the more Nexi runs toward revenge, the more she needs Kyden’s aid, and as she grows into her power and confidence, so does his desire to protect her. The only problem? She’d rather he dropped dead. But when a vampire paints a bull’s-eye on Nexi’s back, she’s hard-pressed to deny Kyden and the help he’s offering. Even if it means getting her revenge will be a little bit harder. At least it will still be as sweet. |
Number 1, I am angry that there is no way of knowing this has previously been published. I do believe it has been altered, so I will give that credit.
This book opens with Nexi screaming and running in fear as a werewolf stalks her after murdering her parents. Kyden, a Guardian shows up and rescues her with Drake a fellow Guardian. Drake is actually Nexi’s real dad.
Then we time skip. I hate time skips. Even by my beloved authors, because no one can seem to manage a simple ‘3 weeks later’ before the skip. But this one is particularly egregious. The reason being a lot exposition and character development appears to have occurred in this skip. So the exposition we get afterward is both clumsy and awkward, and you get given character exposition with no evidence.
After the break Nexi has used her super-rare witch soul bond to manipulate Haven her soul-sister into telling her where a werewolf that might have information on the werewolf that killed her adoptive parents. This comes across as pretty despicable when her father says she’s been doing it frequently. Let me put it this way, Nexi has been blessed with a soul bond that lets her share emotions with Haven and is described to be lucky to have this amongst witches on account of its rarity, and she manipulates her other half for her own selfish needs.
Oh, and apparently Nexi’s a half-Guardian, half-Witch. If you didn’t read the summary then you might be surprised to learn her birth father, Drake, had her powers bound when she was an infant and gave her up for adoption so that she would live (and die) a mortal life because he was so devastated when Nexi’s mother was killed. If you think that Nexi struggled with the decision of whether to become immortal and have a relationship with her father after this, you’re wrong, in the time skip she had her powers irreversibly unbound and she’s two years away from immortality which begins, like life apparently at 30.
Anyway Nexi attacks Briggs the werewolf Beta (for the entire world) for information on her adoptive parents’ killer and given that she’s completely untrained in any fighting, Briggs trounces her. Lucky for her he’s on the side of the Council and so he doesn’t kill her.
Kyden arrives to fetch her back for the third or so time since the time skip occurred. This is where the most annoying piece of missing character development is. Nexi spends every moment from now on bitching about how overbearing and rude Kyden is, when he is right. She’s untrained and risking her and other’s lives on her dumb crusade for revenge. And at no point do she even pretend it isn’t revenge. Kyden takes Nexi to the Council, where she campaigns to join the Guard as a Guardian in the hopes of being allowed to go on her revenge quest. For some reason they accept.
As a part of her training Nexi is told to go with Kyden to investigate a murder. Moments after being allowed to begin training she complains about what the training is, not wanting to see a dead body. Even when she inexplicably gets her own way she’s contrary.
Kyden trains Nexi who, somehow is good enough to be a fully trained Guardian in less than a month of training which seems silly, since only a chapter before this Kyden mentions how Nexi still has plenty of things to learn about fighting. After her induction Nexi’s surprised to learn she can’t just traipse off after her adoptive parents’ murderer because she has actual Guardian duties.
Oh and she’s still whinging about how Kyden’s so hot but so bossy, even though he has never actually told her not to do something when his reasons weren’t totally logical, like a lack of training and such. And how “weird” and “crazy” this new world is. Like if we’re told enough we’ll suddenly believe it’s actually a completely unique world.
Out of nowhere we get some exposition on Nexi’s mother’s killer. A vampire, Lazarus, is still alive and he wants to absorb Nexi’s witch power because surprise vampires can do that (except its not a surprise because the vanishing vampire from earlier in the story made it pretty obvious). This makes the title irrelevant, as Nexi doesn’t go after her adoptive parent’s killer and Kyden (the poor love interest stuck with her) is a Guardian. In fact the only way it applies is Nexi’s astonishing bigotry toward werewolves.
Kyden gets captured by Lazarus, and Nexi goes to rescue him. Lazarus kicks her ass hard until she get some kind of vision making her mad and awakening her super-special Spirit witch powers which she uses to defeat him. All in the shade of the special willow tree she grew up near (bet it had a bigger role in the original version), which apparently was her mother’s favourite tree, and after her death and Nexi’s adoption Zia, Nexi’s mother’s soul-sister witch and Mistress of all Witches transported it to earth so it would be near Nexi.
Nexi is a horrid selfish bitch, masquerading as an acceptable romance novel heroine. She’s a super-special half-witch half-guardian, because any other time two different supernaturals have kids the kids are one or the other. But not Nexi', she’s both. And she’s got a soul-bond something rare amongst witches. And Zia, the witch leader, was her mother’s soul-bond. Oh and Nexi’s a Spirit witch, guess what that’s rare and special, and her defensive element is Fire (rare, shocker huh?)
Poor Kyden is alpha through and through, but he is rational and reasonable, giving Nexi time to adjust before pursuing her romantically, saving her every goddamn time her dumbassery get’s her in trouble and accepting her berating when he does it. He deserves to be in a better written book.
Currently Listening: It Wasn’t Over, It Still Isn’t Over – Dropout Year
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