REVIEW: Anew (The Archers of Avalon by Chelsea Fine)

 

Author: Chelsea Fine

Series: The Archers of Avalon)

Pages: 385

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher: Acacia Publishing

Amazon: Anew

Synopsis. (Goodreads)

Two years ago, Scarlet awoke in the forest alone, afraid, and unable to remember anything. Lost and confused, her life was a mystery...until she met a boy with a familiar voice.

Gabriel Archer has a voice from her past, and Scarlet's determined to remember why. She immerses herself in his life only to discover he has a brother he's kept hidden from her: Tristan Archer.

Upon meeting Tristan, Scarlet's world becomes even more muddled. While she's instinctively drawn to Gabriel, she's impossibly drawn to Tristan--and confused out of her mind. As she tries to piece together her history Scarlet realizes her past...might just be the death of her.

REVIEW: 4.5 out of 5 stars

What a pleasant surprise Anew was! It is the first book in The Archers of Avalon series by Chelsea Fine and was a mysterious, romantic and captivating read.

Scarlet awoke alone in the woods in Avalon, Georgia at the age of 15 without knowing anything of her past, now two years later her inability to remember is something that plays on her mind constantly; the only thing she knows is a symbol she draws over and over again but doesn’t know what its significance is. She lives with her guardian Laura, who is absent often but generously provides for Scarlet.

Gabriel and Tristan Archer know Scarlet from her past, I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot to avoid spoilers but each have a curse placed on them for something that happened many centuries ago and in order to break the curse they need to take some pretty drastic measures. The whole curse was a big mystery, we don’t find out ourselves what it is until three quarters of the way through and it really made me question what was going on with the relationship between Gabriel and Scarlet as well as what had happened in the past between Tristan and Scarlet – I wanted to know so much more about their shared history and hope more will be explained in the sequel.

In Anew we meet some wonderful characters, I especially loved Scarlet’s fashion obsessed best friend Heather, she was a classic and what a true friend should be, she was devoted and protective which I really liked. The bad guy had me intrigued!

It was a wonderful adventure that had me riveted and left me wanting more, we are learning the history along the way with Scarlet which I really enjoyed.

Anew is intriguing and certainly unique, it is paranormal without having the usual vampires, werewolves etc. and kept me entertained and wanting to learn more. I liked the tension between the characters and the emotions Scarlet showed were quite realistic, she didn’t instantly accept what she was hearing; the way it was written was more believable.

I liked Ms Fine’s style of writing, it flowed beautifully and the pacing was spot on for me; I was so engrossed in this story and look forward to the sequel, Awry which has an anticipated Summer 2012 release date.

Notable mention should go to the beautiful cover as well.