Free will is a pretty heavy philosophic topic to cover in a YA paranormal romance series, but its here, up front and in your face in Mephisto Covenant. Jax escorts souls to Hell on Earth, in a battle to keep his brother, Eryx, from claiming enough souls to overthrow Lucifer and take over. People choose to give up their souls to Eryx, only to find out he tricked them and his promises have loopholes. Consequences to free will choices will sometimes bite you. Jax has found Sasha, an earth bound human angel, who can get him what he wants most, the opportunity to possibly be accepted into heaven and peace for his tortured soul. But, and this is a big but, Sasha must choose, of her own free will to stay with Jax. Sasha is drawn to Jax and the things he makes her feel, but yet, she knows he’s bad and not good for her. Sasha is like the rest of us, who want to be loved, not used.

The romance in this novel doesn’t follow the normal path for a YA saga; Sasha is trying to find real love and questions her feelings, rather than totally falling head over heels, and pushing away the rest of the world for Jax. It’s also fairly graphic with the horrible things that have happened to Sasha, and the make out scenes with Jax. Other thematic aspects are similar to many novels though, in that the normal people want to be special and the special ones just want to be normal. If the whole series is picked up by the publisher, we can expect six books, one for each brother. Getting through the world building at the beginning of the book is time consuming, until finally, the story takes off. I hope that the rest of the books don’t have to rehash everything and don’t take forever to be published. At least the series doesn’t cliff-hanger and wraps up the story of Jax and Sasha neatly.
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3.5/5
Egalley thanks to Egmont USA

I just had a huge rant in Russian about this book, so I'll try to make this one as short as possible.

First of all, the book was pissing me off to no end until the main heroine grew herself a pair.
Sasha Annenkova is half-Russian, half-American and the amount of absurd details about Russia in this book was driving mad. Please, please, if you write a book without doing a good research, why not ask your fellow Russian to read it and point some obvious mishaps?
I'll spare them too you, because, honestly, what you don't know can't irritate you :)

Secondly, Sasha is my least favorite character. She is a victim. She cries a lot, she goes through unimaginable, unbelievable humiliation and does nothing. What the hell?! What kind of message is that?

Yes, she is Anabo. A true light, a soul that have an automatic ticket to Heaven. She doesn't get angry, enraged, jealous or hateful and she doesn't feel temptations. However, while not feeling is good, not doing something to stop what she is going through is really, really bad.

When Sasha and one of Mephisto's sons - Ajax - fall in love she starts acquiring some of his attributes, which make her strong and furious with Lost souls. She wants to fight injustice, she wants to fight back. Hallelujah!

That was the turning point for me. 3/4 along the way I started cheering for Sasha, and the book redeemed itself.

Now the good points. Trinity Faegen created a very interesting world very much like Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R.Ward but for young adult readers. Kudos to her for this!

Big, bad, leather-clad boys living in a mansion and fighting evil around the world and in their own souls? I'm sold.

Surprisingly, this is quite a dark YA, there is even underage sex, which made me raise my brows, because YA usually shies away from such topic.

So here it is. This is an undeniably interesting story with lots of potential. Despite my huge dislike for Sasha until later in the story I congratulate the author on a memorable debut. I do hope she stays away from Bella stereotype and gives us spitfire instead of a martyr later in the series. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: There are two sides of evil, and a girl must choose which side she belongs to. A good fantasy, filled with promises of forever.

Opening Sentence: “Your father’s ring is gone!”

The Review:

The Mephisto Covenant has a gorgeous cover. I remember when this first came out. It was something that I had to have and it looked like it belonged on my shelf. The Mephisto Covenant by Trinity Faegen is a great read. Paranormal is one of my favorite genres, and I think Faegen did a good job balancing the realm of good and evil.

Hell has two sides. One with death and destruction, and the other living life in purgatory. Of the two, the sons of Hell live their lives battling against their oldest brother. Jax looks to redemption from God, from a promise that he will find peace if he has found the love of an Anabo. Sasha does not know of this world. But the death of her father has opened her eyes to things she was never aware of. Promises of love, pledging her soul, Sasha must choose. And as for Jax? He must keep her safe, even if it means that he won’t be able to have his forever.

I enjoyed Sasha. At times, she was a bit bothersome, but that is the case for most teens her age. Given that she’s lost her father, about to lose her mother, it’s okay to question and be agitated. She lives with family that doesn’t necessarily want her, and that must hurt. Her voice was realistic, despite anything thrown her way. There were a few moments where I had to glaze over her scenes, but I felt that it became repetitive. Her actions weren’t something that I wanted to experience at that moment, but it has a lot to do with my age and less about the character and/or writing.

Jax was a perfect character to introduce me with! He was someone strong-willed and tenacious, but had this soft spot. The history behind Anabo’s and the sons of Hell is interesting, and looking at the story from Jax’s point of view made it much more enjoyable. His growth as a character was one of my favorite parts of the story. (As well as some steamy scenes that include him!)

I loved the mythology and lore behind The Mephisto Covenant. The religious theme behind Hell, Lucifer, the Anabo and the sons was a good twist. It made the content seemed updated, fitting for the young adult genre. Sasha and Jax stood out as a couple, but also as characters. Each with their own troubles, it was nice to see their parallels and contrasts.

At times, I felt that the content was a little too advanced for this specific genre. I worried about the context of the situations and wondered if I was overthinking the situation or if I had a valid thought. There were definitely scenes that were hot and racy, but as The Mephisto Convenant’s mythology dictates, things were bound to happen. They were some of my favorite scenes, but wow.

Faegen’s writing is beautiful. Her words flow so well that time passes by. Her world building is magnificent and I enjoyed each detail within. Her characters captivated me, demanding my attention. I cannot wait for the rest of the series to unfold.

Notable Scene:

Sasha hurriedly finished the rest of her peas, then scooted her chair back and excused herself.

“Melanie,” Mr. Bruno said, “surely you can find something more for her to eat? We can’t have our new student fainting from hunger, can we?”

“Would you like some flaxseed cereal?” Melanie offered, halfheartedly. Yeah, and maybe a side of dirt to go with it. “No, thank you.”

“It was a great pleasure to meet you, Sasha, and I look forward to getting to know you better. I take special pride in my friendships with my students. It’s the whole reason I organized the Ravens.”

… but deliver us from evil.

She ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time to the landing, then down the hall to her room. She barely made it to the bathroom before she lost the peas, his voice repeating in her head. Ravens. Ravens. Ravens.

FTC Advisory: EgmontUSA provided me with a copy of The Mephisto Covenant. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Aaand... abandoned.

I really wanted to like this book, but the writing was just too stilted for me, and it just didn't flow naturally. There was also way too much dialogue and not enough focus on our narrator and protagonist. It really felt like Sasha was just a way for us, as the reader, to see how awesome and interesting Jax is.

YA PNR books unfortunately have a tendency to use weak female protagonists, and this book is no exception. ( )

I really liked this book. Well, I already knew I liked it because I've read it before.. BUT I liked it even more the second read through. There were moments when Sasha or one of the other characters would do something so blatantly stupid that I had to put the book down and facepalm, but otherwise, it was pretty amazing. ( )