S. Raquel Jimenez

Elle Falco is the last of her family. She grew up at Vermilion Cay, a bird sanctuary that has all kinds of bird from common to exotic like the phoenix. Elle’s family was the protectors of the island but when she was young someone killed all of them except her. From there she was kidnapped by Dr. Oswyn. Oswyn has an obsession with people with exotic genes and has created several prisons and laboratories to exploit those traits through genetic manipulation, experimentation, and torture. Elle was experimented on but managed to escape. She then healed and trained to help others escape.

Elle has her own little family of other people that they have rescued. They all find Vermilion Cay home and all have horrible pasts that bring them together to hunt down those that abused them. But while they hunt, Elle and the rest try to live like “normal” people would. But their ultimate goal is to completely shut down Oswyn’s laboratories and prisons.

When I started reading this story, it felt kind of like the X-Men. Everyone has some kind of ability and they use them to torture and kill those that had some hand in the Oswyn operations. Elle seems to be the leader of her little family although she really doesn’t want the role. Along with hunting down leads, you see the little escapes where everyone is trying to be “normal.”

We also meet Xander. He was captured a year after Elle in the same hub and they became pen pals of a sort. Elle helped him to escape and years later we learn that he has loved her forever but Elle doesn’t realize this. Sadly after she learns about Xander’s love the book starts focusing on that and everything else seems to go out the door.

I think this was a really good concept for a story. Unfortunately when Elle and Xander start focusing on their love for each I started loosing interest in the book. All of a sudden it’s about how Elle has fallen completely for Xander in a short time, them sleeping together all the time, and rushing into getting married.

This is not that bad of a book. I think it could have been refined and not so much focus on Elle and Xander’s sudden romance but more focus on destroying Oswyn and recuing others that were tortured and experimented on.… (más)

I received an e-copy of this book from the author through the Member Giveaways. Thank you!

The action in this book was really fun, it reminded me of an X-Men type story. I wish there had been a little more of it, especially the taking of the hubs or finding the people that had worked for the Oswyns. All of the "abilities" were creative and original.

The romance, on the other hand, I felt was really out of place. A lot of the sex scenes between Isabel and Xander (maybe even all) could have been cut out and the book would not have suffered in the least. As I was reading the romance section I felt as though I was reading a completely different book than I had started reading.

The end of the book was particularly gripping. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the author ties everything together in book two, especially given how this book ended!

Lastly, I noticed there were a lot of grammar errors, especially when it comes to homonyms. I did not take this in to account for my rating of the book because I feel it doesn't change whether the content of the book was good or not.… (más)

I mean no disrespect to the author and offer my apologies in advance. I had a very hard time getting through this book. I found quite a few grammatical errors, which a spell check would not have caught. When I find things like this, it greatly diminished my enjoyment of the book.

I still do not understand how the individuals in the novel got their "powers" and an still unsure of the complete plot. I can see that the author was very well-intentioned, but I wish that there had been more of an explanation of some things. Were the individuals "mutants"? There seemed to be a lot of "back story" that bounced the reader between the "present" and the "past", but it was difficult for me to determine which was which at times.

Again, I offer my apologies to the author with my negative review.… (más)