Title: Everneath
Rating:
Author: Brodi Ashton
Genre: YA/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Publisher: Balzer & Bray
Release Date: January 24, 2012
Review:
I have to admit, when I first found out that this story was based on the Persephone myth, I didn’t know what to think. It seemed like an intriguing premise, though, so I jumped right in, and found myself hooked from the Prologue. Ms. Ashton’s initial chilling account of Everneath, with the ‘feed’ and the Shades, left shivers running down my spine and many unanswered questions. Thankfully, we don’t have to wait long to start piecing the story together, as we begin to find out more and more about Nikki’s life, both before her disappearance and after her Return.
I really enjoyed the way the story alternated between before the ‘feed’ and after. At first it’s hard to imagine why Nikki has made the choices she’s made, but once we begin to get a sense of her backstory, it all starts to make sense. She has experienced the tragedy of losing her mother in a violent manner, her father has become distant, and she is torn between her feelings for Jack, her boyfriend and best friend for years, and the new ‘bad-boy’ in town, Cole. When a misunderstanding occurs between Nikki and Jack, it’s understandable that she turns to Cole to take her pain away, but little does she realize the price she’ll have to pay.
Cole, as the handsome, edgy frontman for a band, is everything that Jack is not. He also has a dark secret, and is drawn to Nikki from the moment he meets her. I have to admit, I’ve always been a bit of sucker for a bad boy, especially a bad boy in a band, so I’d have to say I’m ‘team Cole’. He does some pretty deplorable things to get what he wants, but in the end I understood his reasons too.
Much as I liked Cole, I found Jack to be quite endearing too. You really get the sense of how much he loves Nikki throughout the book. The way that Ashton portrays him as Nikki’s ‘anchor’ is quite beautiful and moving. Although I was never really sure whether he had betrayed Nikki until the very end, his ultimate sacrifice for her left no doubt in my mind.
The plot twists and turns really had me on the edge of my seat while I was reading this. Just when I thought I had Nikki, Cole and Jack figured out, some new piece of information was disclosed that made me reevaluate everything. Add an old lady named Mary and the Daughters of Persephone to the mix, and the mystery intensified. I really got the sense that I was on a journey of self-discovery and redemption with Nikki, and can’t wait to find out where her newfound knowledge leads her in the next book!
Synopsis:
Last Spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as Everneath. Now she’s returned – to her old life, her family, her boyfriend – before she’s 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 precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance – and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making ti happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.
As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is 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 queen.
Everneath is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton.
