What to say about STRANGE FATES… I liked this book. I thought it had some interesting ideas and a strong premise but it still lacked a little something for me. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why I didn’t love this book but I’ll start by telling you what I do like and go from there.

The series mythology is very strong. I love the idea that the three fates from Greek and Roman mythology have a fourth sister who runs away with her newborn son and his thread of life to save him. I love the idea that she dies and he’s left alone to hide and try to reclaim the magical items she sold while they were on the run. I love the idea that his thread is in one of the charms she sold off of her necklace. I love the idea that he wants to die because he’s tired of being alone and immortal. Despite this, I didn’t care that much about Nyx. I feel bad for the guy but I wasn’t rooting for him the way you do with a truly sympathetic character. Nyx has a great backstory but I feel like Perez could have done a lot more with it. She’s constructed a great backbone for her world and her leading man but I don’t think she really capitalized on the potential in her series.

The rest of the world building is also quite interesting. There are four magical houses, aligned with different Greek gods, and each house has a reputation. I thought this was a cool idea but we don’t learn too much about these houses since STRANGE FATES is a first person POV and Nyx doesn’t interact with all of the houses equally.

I also have a problem with the romance in STRANGE FATES. Nyx constantly says that he thinks there’s something going on with Gwen but he never really investigates it. He wants to be with someone but also doesn’t really since he just wants to die and I found this part of the novel to be rather frustrating.

I did, however, really like Talbot. He’s a cool dude. And I think Ambrose is going to be a character to watch so I will probably try the next book in the series but I won’t be in any hurry. I’m not terribly invested in Nyx Fortuna’s fate but I hope the are readers out there who had a more positive response to this novel.

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Nyx is the only son of the fourth fatem Lady Fortuna. Unable to die and filled with rage, Nyx has decided to track down his mothers murderers, who happen to be his aunts - the three Fates. For much of his life, his aunts have tried to kill him and now, Nyx is not only tired of immortality, he is tired of running.

After learning that his aunts have setup a business in Minneapolis, Nyx travels there but his mission to finally avenge his mother and die peacefully, are quickly sidelined when he meets Elizabeth. Before he knows it, Nyx is not only working for his aunts in disguise, he is also hunting down Elizabeth's missing brother. Time however is not on his side because the tracker is still looking for Nyx intent on killing him. Can Nyx help his new girlfriend save her missing brother and stay alive long enough to finally get the revenge he has waited centuries for?

The setting for Strange Fates is very unique. Descendants of the Roman Gods all exist and practice magic in the present day. They all bear markers of their allegiance, like a trident for Poseidon for example. We are told that the Gods are missing, but the descendants manage to continue to wage their petty wars and disagreements nonetheless. The concept itself should have been extremely compelling, especially for someone like me who is a bit of a mythology buff, but I found in many places that Strange Fates just fell flat.

Perez has an extremely repetitive writing style. The entire premise of Nyx being in Minnesota is to get revenge on his aunts and yet we are reminded of this continually throughout the book. To make matters worse, Strange Fates is set up as a sort of mystery, but a toddler could have figured out who the bad guy was long before the story ended. When this added to the convenience with which Nyx just happens to run into people, it makes the story absolutely simplistic.

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I received this book for an honest review from the publishers and I'll do just that, by stating that while the premise of the book interested me; the constant repeating of the same information became annoying and being forced to re-read several lines of the same stated fact was tedious to say the least. Nyx is an interesting character from the start, but his lack of maturity is surprising for someone his age. I wondered several times if his mind stopped developing the same time his body stopped aging.

The writing was very chopping and nothing flowed well, save for a few spare moments. There was just too much repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition...see what I mean. We didn't need to know every two sentences that his aunts are the Fates and his mother is dead and it's hard to think about her, but I'm going to anyway. Another thing that rankled me was, if his mother is Lady Luck why is the world did he have such a hard time finding the charms? He says this several times (there's that repetition, repetition, repetition) through the story but then suddenly finding them becomes increasingly easier with each go.

I really wanted to like this book, I really did, but it wasn't up my alley. ( )