Nocturnal Book Reviews

4.5/5
First of all, don't get put off by the drab cover. The story is fab.

It took me maximum three hours to read this book, it was flowing so fast on its own. Easy language, likable heroine, engrossing world. Some sort of dystopia with werewolves and vampires against humans huddled up underground.

Rachel Clancy has Warrior genes. It means that she belongs to a small part of the population who at sixteen go above ground and start fighting monsters in defence of their safe haven and in search of valuable resources.

On the day of her sixteenth birthday she finds out that the head of the Council plotted her first venture above ground in such way that she will inevitably die. She still goes and unexpectedly gets saved by werewolves.

Then all she knows about them as monsters crumbles when they tell her that since Apocalypse the world has changed, and there are too many things that people underground do not know.

She plays along with the pack's plan to show her some important truths and then let her be the messenger for her people, but what she doesn't count for is that she will fall in love with a wolf-boy Jason.

Rachel matures through the book immensely and shows incredible courage, strong survival instincts and ability for leadership. She is smart, has sharp sense of humour and tight grip on reality. She is one of these characters you can't help but admire.

The world described in the book is fascinating, but I could only catch glimpses of it, and it left me with more questions than answers. What happened during the Apocalypse? What was the agenda of the evil guys? Where did Warrior gene come from? Why some werewolves suddenly
came to their senses and some not? What about vampires?

I also liked that Rachel like any normal teenager didn't stick to her attraction to only Jason. She was open to other possible love interests. Chad and Deacon were *grinning* really promising characters, and I would like to see more of them in the second book (which is out, by the way).

All in all, great beginning of the series, which with a little more polish and deeper background story, also with a new cover will get a lot of fans. Do read it.