Alice's Review: Embrace by Cherie Colyer

Released: 20th December 2011
Paperback: 207 pages
Price: $14.99
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Source: Publisher for honest review
Genre: YA, Romance, Paranormal
Series: --
Summary:

Madison is familiar enough with change, and she hates everything about it. Change took her long-term boyfriend away from her. It caused one of her friends to suddenly hate her. It’s responsible for the death of a local along with a host of other mysterious happenings. But when Madison meets a hot new guy, she thinks her luck is about to improve.

Madison is instantly drawn to the handsome and intriguing Isaac Addington. She quickly realises he’s a guy harbouring a secret, but she’s willing to risk the unknown to be with him.

Her world really spins out of control, however, when her best friend becomes delusional, seeing things that aren’t there and desperately trying to escape their evil. When the doctors can’t find the answers, Madison seeks her own.

Nothing can prepare her for what she is about to discover.
Dangerous, intoxicating, and darkly romantic, Embrace is a thriller that will leave you spellbound.

My Rating:

My Opinion:
I gotta say, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book at the beginning but I did end up enjoying it quite a bit. I would say that this is a light read to take with you to the beach (as I have done) or to read between homework as a small break. It's not that short actually, to fit in for a small break though, don't worry. This is a full length novel.

This starts off with a girl named Madison going to a party with her bestie and meting a guy - Isaac - and being really hot for him. They hook up pretty quickly, too, which disappointed me because I love to read romances where the falling in love part takes time as the leads get to know each other. But of course, this isn't part of a series so the author really doesn't have much time to develop a proper relationship.

Things start getting shifty when Madison receives a necklace from an admirer - which I thought was really stupid of her to do because she'd told him she'd never see him as more than a friend but still accepted the necklace. Umm, okay. I knew something bad was going to happen. What surprised me was that it happened to her best friend and it had me wondering why it was happening to Kaylee instead of Madison. This mysrery is solved and then the paranormal happenings begin!

For those of you who want to know what paranormal element this book has - vampires? werewolves? aliens?! - you'll have to read to find out. Though I myself was surprised! The paranormalcy didn't start till about the middle or so and that was when I started getting sucked in. The ending completely surprised me - like who the bad guy was - and I liked how it wasn't the obvious person!

I want to say that Madison wasn't my favourite character - Josh was. Josh is Kaylee's boyfriend and he's such a great guy. I kept picturing him as one of my friends whose name is also Josh. Josh really cares about Kaylee and turns out to be even awesomer than I thought he was, which was really cool. He and Kaylee played such an important part in this that I have to say that they're the it couple, not Madison and Isaac. 

My verdict: Embrace has a gorgeous cover and a good plot. While I didn't like some bits, I did enjoy reading this because it has good paranormals, some great characters and isn't part of a series - and I haven't read a stand alone book in quite a long time! It was a good break to my usual books.