Tuesday 12 July 2011

REVIEW - Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1) by C.C Hunter

 
Author: C.C Hunter
Pages: 416
Genre: YA - Paranormal
Publisher: Martin's Griffin

Synopsis (Goodreads)

One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever.  Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls—a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just “troubled.”  Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapshifters, witches and fairies train side by side—learning to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world.
Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either.  Or does she?  They insist Kylie is one of them, and that she was brought here for a reason.  As if life wasn’t complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas.  Derek’s a half-fae who’s determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas is a smokin’ hot werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past.  Both Derek and Lucas couldn’t be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart. 
Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear—Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs…


REVIEW: 3 out of 5 stars
Kylie Garen is having a hard time, her nana has recently passed away, she was dumped by her boyfriend, her parents are getting divorced for reasons she doesn’t understand, she is forced to see a shrink for night terrors and because she sees a vision of a man dressed as a soldier and on a night at a party which was raided by the police, she ends up at the station and as a result is sent off to a summer camp for troubled teens by her mother.

When she arrives at Shadow Falls, she realizes it is a place not of the norm; it is a place for vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, witches and fairies to learn how to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world with each other. Kylie is different to the other paranormals and feels there must be some of kind of mistake, she cant be ‘read’ and feels nothing but human so sets out to prove this.

Kylie feels like an outcast amongst the ‘freaks’, not understanding who or what she is and definitely not understanding her abilities; she is certainly in denial but reluctantly becomes friends with her room-mates Miranda who is a witch and Della a newly turned vampire, realizing they have just as many issues as what she does herself.

There are strange occurrences happening around Shadow Falls and if they aren’t sorted out the camp will be forced to close. This part of the story was interesting and I liked the resolution.

There is a bit of a love triangle (or shall I say square) with Kylie, he ex Trey who shows up at camp, Derek who is a half-fae, and mysterious Lucas who was a childhood friend/enemy, I am not a fan of love triangles at all, probably because I always seem to choose the opposite person to who the MC chooses which drives me batty but I found myself liking both Derek and Lucas but disliking Kylie’s indecision and constant lusting after and comparing all 3 guys.

I felt sorry for Kylie and the situation with her parents, she called her mother an ice-queen on many occasions, she lacked the affection she needed from her & her father was growing distant, there seemed to be no emotion or communication between Kylie and her parents, the reasoning was explained later in the book when there was a form of relationship mend between her and her mother but I felt it came too late.

I enjoyed this book although I didn’t ‘love it, the premise was great and the plot well structured; the secondary characters were amusing and bought humor to the story. There was mystery and a small amount of action. There was just no resolution to what Kylie is, just more questions and there are a number of unresolved issues which I am hoping are addressed in the next book. I am curious to know the mystery of the falls and find out more about Lucas.

It was a pleasant read and I look forward to reading its sequel ‘Awake at Dawn’ which has an anticipated 11th October 2011 release date.

1 comment:

  1. Good review.
    I'm a Lucas fan. ;) hehe. I love, loved, loved this book, though. And I had the wonderful chance to interview Ms. Hunter recently. She was very sweet- I also look forward to meeting her at a signing in October near my hometown in October. :)
    I think the sequel will be even better. Usually with books like this, they tend to be since the first book is mostly about character introductions, plot structuring, and the basics like that. Or at least that's the pattern I've always noticed when it comes to my favorite series. LOL.

    Anyways, this was a great review. I'm glad that you still enjoyed it nonetheless. :)

    <3
    Pixie

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