BOOK REVIEW - EVERNEATH By BRODI ASHTON - EVERNEATH # 1

By : Brodi Ashton
Published By : Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Simon Pulse
Released : 24th January 2012
Details: Paperback, 370 Pages

Thankyou to Simon & Schuster Australia

RATING : 4.5 JACK, HEROES DO EXIST STARS!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

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...


BOOK REVIEW:



Debut author, Brodi Ashton had me under a spell with Everneath. I felt totally compelled to keep reading Everneath until the very last page, I was swept away with this read.

I want more.

I want to know Cole the dark, dangerous, mysterious, smexi, persuasive, motorcycle riding, guitar playing, leader of The Dead Elvises, character more. Oh he is a bad boy, but we get this hint of a guy who has been changed under the surface by Nikki. I don’t think he even understands what he is feeling.


The Prologue had me so intrigued that the pages started turning, almost by themselves. I mean two people who wake up after 100 years, almost like their bodies have grown together, their skin stuck to each other. Eyes having to be peeled open, legs slowly pulled away from each other. The Feeding has finished.


100 years in the Everneath, is 6 months on the surface.


For 6 months Nikki had just disappeared.


Jack her boyfriend, we find through back story is consumed with finding her. His love is very strong for Nikki, but even he has his limits. He is such a patient character, who almost handles Nikki with kid gloves when she returned. I felt like he was afraid to spook Nikki, for fear of her disappearing again. I felt such compassion for Jack. He really is a great guy. He didn't push Nikki for answers to his list of questions. He waited, stayed close enough to share stolen glances, hoping to find the Nikki that he knew underneath the quiet, thin, damaged person she had become.


Cole has Nikki awake in the Everneath for a short time before Nikki remembers the boy that she left and she Returns immediately to the surface. For a hundred years Nikki saw Jack's face while the 'Feeding', happened.


To Nikki, she is a broken, damaged girl who left with Cole because he took away her pain. Her mother had been killed by a drunk driver, she feared her relationship with Jack was over, her father was too busy to spend time with her, she was in a bad place.


Nikki was preyed upon by Cole.


Nikki now knits, it is her calming thing she does.


Jack wants to understand Nikki, where she has been, he was frightened for her, but this isn’t the same Nikki he once dated. To everybody else she is a drug addict who disappeared and has now returned.


Nikki has 6 months to say her goodbyes, before the Shade that is inside her pulls her back to the Tunnels. She is now Forfeit. She gave up Cole and the Everneath. Cole hasn’t given up on Nikki, not in a long shot. He has found what he has been searching for and he doesn’t want to give her up.


I have never read about Hades, Persephone, Orpheus or Eurydice. I soon worked out Orpheus would be Jack, Eurydice would be Nikki. I want to now read more and understand this mythology.


Mary is an intriguing character who is frightened and yet brave, appears mentally lost, but is she?


I loved the way Brodi kept the reader intrigued by showing us the NOW of the story line and the backstory , keeping it clear to the reader. It all wove together to keep the mystery of what had happened to Nikki and how Cole came into her life and where it left Jack. Brodi takes us to where we need to be in her story, we as the reader follow.


Nikki wasn’t mentally a very strong character when she was with Jack, she had to grow through meeting Cole and having to decide if it was worth it to fight back. Not just to come back to say her goodbyes and disappear again on her family, Jack and Jules her friend. She had to want to fight through all the pain she felt and want to beat it, beat Cole, beat the Shades and the Tunnel.


There were a couple of great twists in this story which I really enjoyed and thought were quite clever.


Is it possible to escape Cole and the Everneath?


This is a great love story that I want to read more about. I feel like Nikki is going to have to roll her sleeves up ,dig deep and fight for what means most to her. It’s no longer about her pain.


When she thought she only had herself to lose..........

FAVE QUOTES:

  "Wait," he said.
I turned back. "What?"
  He shrugged, then spoke in a low murmur. "Just stop hiding behind your hair for a minute."
  I closed my eyes, but still I didn't turn away. "You're making things difficult, Jack Caputo," I whispered.
  "At least you remember my name."
  I remember everything. The first time he called me his girlfriend. The first time he told me he loved me. The first time I started to question whether or not I'd be able to hold on to him. The first time I knew I had to come back to see him again, at whatever cost.


"Why won't you help me? You could be a hero for once."
"Heroes don't exist. And if they did, I wouldn't be one of them."



Michelle