Synopsis

Foster Stewart knows she’s different. Her life has never been “normal.” Talking to plants and controlling cloud formations aren’t things most seventeen year olds are into. Tate “Nighthawk” Taylor is perfect. Star quarterback and all around dreamy boy next door he never thought about his “extra” abilities. What quarterback wouldn’t want night vision? That’s not weird, right? It’s cool! But on the night of their first meeting a deadly tornado brings them together and awakens their true abilities – the power to control the element air. Unbeknown to Tate and Foster, they are the first in a group of teens that were genetically manipulated before birth to bond with the elements. Which truly sucks for Foster, as she has to face the fact that Dr. Rick Stewart, her beloved scientist father, betrayed her and now wants to use her and the others for his own nefarious world domination plot.

Foster and Tate must stop Dr. Stewart and his minions before he destroys their lives and the world.

 

 

Review

3 stars

Well I am caught between a rock and a hard place here.

 

I love PC Cast’s books.

I have read her House of Night series, her Moon Chosen as well as her Goddess Summoning series and really loved them.

When I learned that she was writing a new series with her daughter I requested the first book as fast as I could open my browser and click “request”.

 

Yet now that I have read I must sadly admit that this may be the one book that was not for me.

 

Let me explain my reasoning…

 

The concept of the story is really promising as you have a scientist playing god and messing with the AND of embryos. As result you get kids able to manipulated elements like air, water, fire, earth.

Of course the first experiments are not flawless and you have kids who are adults now suffering from side effects of their powers. Said side effects could make them go mad.

The scientist changed his experiments and created others but I won’t give details as I don’t want to spoil anything.

 

This idea is very interesting and leads to many action scenes, another asset of the book as you have the first kids trying to get ahold of the younger kids.

The very opening of the book was puzzling as you jump into a very intense scene with a tornado wreaking havoc on a stadium and a whole town. People flee, others die. It was action packed but also deeply puzzling because you feel that Foster and maybe Tate have something to do with the disaster but not knowing what exactly. Snippets of information are thrown here and there but you have to wait to entangled the facts and get a coherent picture of what is happening.

 

When things went wrong for me was with the main characters Foster and Tate.

I know they both are very young adults as they barely turned eighteen and that they met in dramatic circumstances

BUT

I did not like the way they interacted at all.

Foster looked down on Tate considering he was a D-bag when honestly I could not see what he had said when they met to deserve that title. Tate reacted of course and called her the “B” word. Not endearing at all!

I get that they are big teenagers and they can have attitude because I have some at home yet it was not really pleasant to read. Maybe their element was the source of the mood swings but it was hard to follow and I needed something more to really grasp who they were. Sadly I must say that I could not really connect with them and this put a damper on my pleasure of reading.

 

I must also mention the drawings in the book. If on the one hand as an amateur of art I thought they were beautiful, on the other hand as a novel reader and not a comics reader it annoyed me as it “forced” me to pictures the characters a certain way while one of the best parts of reading novels is creating the characters in your head. I loved it in Moon Chosen but the drawings were mostly of plants and animals, not herding me in one direction to picture the main characters.

 

Will I read the second book of this series? Probably not as it does not seem to be the books for me.

Will I read other books from these authors? Of course as they have proven that they are excellent writers and no one can love every books a favorite author writes.

Many thanks to St Martin’s Press for gifting this book!

Let’s chat! Have you read other books written by these authors? Did you like them?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Sophie

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14 Comments

  1. I actually feel the same way .I really enjoyed house of night, I occasionally didn’t like the dialogue because it didn’t flow naturally. It just didn’t sound right, however I really enjoyed the story and I could overlook those times. This new book was the same only worse. It’s almost as if they were forcing Foster to be rude so that there was some friction. They could have created intrigue in a much more clever and better way. I also am not liking how they have the same exact relationship between granddaughter and grandma in every single book. You can have it in there but does it have to be a exact carbon copy every time? I’m sorry but I also will not be continuing this series and if there other works follow the same path I too will have to say goodbye to this Author. Unless I’m rereading House of Night of course.

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  4. I enjoyed P.C. Cast’s House of Night series but their new works are not working out for me. I haven’t read this book because i’m not impressed with the synopsis. I’m sorry you didn’t love it! Great review, though! 🙂

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  6. I’ve not read any of her books. I can see how the enjoyment was dampened by the character’s interactions. Sorry this new series didn’t wow you, as you sure enjoyed the other ones.

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  8. i’ve never really liked PC Cast to be honest. I did not particularly enjoy the House of Night series, and then she just fizzled out for me. But I get you. Great review Soph♥

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