Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult
Release Date: October 7th, 2014
Publisher: Balzer+Bray
Source: ARC from Publisher
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Forced to obey her master.Compelled to help her enemy.Determined to free herself.
Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Stuffed into a bottle and sold by a slave trader, she’s now in hiding on the dark caravan, the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command. She’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle.
Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to free Nalia from her master so that she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother—all for an unbearably high price. Nalia’s not sure she can trust him, but Raif’s her only hope of escape. With her enemies on the hunt, Earth has become more perilous than ever for Nalia. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle…and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him. Battling a dark past and harboring a terrible secret, Nalia soon realizes her freedom may come at a price too terrible to pay: but how far is she willing to go for it?
I think the most important thing for everyone to know is
that this isn’t a book for everyone. Some people will hate it and get so
disgusted that they’ll have to give up and other people are going to love this.
I know I did. Of course, had I not known a certain tid bit before, I probably
wouldn’t have.
Before going into this book, you need to know that there is
an awkward love triangle and one of the relationships in this love triangle is
unhealthy and abusive. It’s not meant to be romantic though and that’s what you
need to know. You need to know that this disgusting relationship isn’t being
romanticized. In fact it’s the exact opposite. You’re meant to hate it with
every fiber of your being.
Let’s start at the beginning thought. Let’s start with
Nalia. Nalia is an amazingly strong female lead and you feel for her. Sold off
in the slave trade when just 15, with her entire race dead and the only
surviving member of her family, her brother, sent to work camp, you feel for
her. She does not have it easy. Especially given that she has a crazy captor.
Malek is cruel yet on top of that all, he is also very
emotionally manipulative. Nalia, having been mistreated for so long, living
only on the hope of seeing her brother and freeing him, is immediately drawn by
his ‘gentle’ side and falls for his lies. I say lies because no matter how much
he claims to love her, he will never see her as anything but a possession.
It will break your heart to see her go through all these ordeals
and when Raif comes into the picture, you cheer, you cheer like crazy and hope
for Nalia to snap out of it and realize how unhealthy her relationship with
Malek is. It’s beautiful to watch her go through that character development.
Raif is a wonderful character AND a love interest. What I
love about him is that in spite of everything, he does put his faith in Nalia,
he chooses to trust her. It isn’t that he isn’t vary of her, heck yeah he is
but seeing that he needs her help, he, in the end, chooses to trust her instead
of making the whole thing some awkward dance.
It’s why their romance is so beautifully developed. It
starts with variness of one another and leads to trust. It may be a tad fast
paced but it’s still no less wonderful. Romance based on trust rocks doesn’t
it?
The world building in this book is amazing. Heather does NOT
hold back on us. She uses her gorgeous prose to paint beautiful pictures of
Arjinna. That isn’t it though, she makes this world come to life by creating
different races of jinnis thereby giving the book her own original twist and
she also throws in a fun language.
The plot was amazing. It keeps you on
the edge of your seat, on the tip of your toes and you kind of just fly through
the book. I mean it’s a big book but I
was surprised by how quickly I got through it. The stakes are quite high in the
book which really does amp up the anticipation levels.
I am definitely looking forward to where things will go with
the sequel and I only hope that Raif and Nalia’s relationship improves.
I’d recommend this to anyone who is looking for something a
little more original in Paranormal YA and won’t mind feeling some discomfort in the search of a good book.
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