BelleBooks: Review: Illumine (Illumine #1)

Name: Illumine (Illumine #1)

Author: Alivia Anders

Release Date: 7th Jan 2012

Date I finished it: 22nd Feb 2012

From: Kindle copy from Amazon

This is a book I only recently came across because the author Alivia Anders added me as a friend on Facebook, after seeing the book was only 77p on Amazon for Kindle and liking what I read in the blurb, I decided to go ahead and give it a go.

Illumine follows teenager Essallie Hanley as she tries to overcome the horrors of watching her boyfriend murdered in front of her by a demon.

Ever since then something hasn't been quite right, she's been able to conjure blue flames at will. Which she knows isn't a normal or human thing! With the help of the demon who killed her ex boyfriend she sets off on a quest to find out what she truly is. Along the way she meets some strange new characters and hits a few bumps in the road.

I read this book in one day, I actually fell asleep reading it (not that the book is bad or boring at all, I was just super tired!), then I finished it the next morning.

The book is pretty fast paced and at first it can been hard to keep track of the characters and what is going on, after a few chapters though you do start to know who everyone is and you get used to the pace. It isn't a big book and doesn't take too long to get through, which to me has both it's bad and good points. It's great if you only have one day to dedicate to reading something, you can easily manage this one in a day.

The plot itself is well thought out and easy to follow with a few explanations here and there. It is a very different concept from a lot of the books I've been reading recently, so it was a nice change for me. I really liked the mix of paranormal creatures all coming together but at the same time all having their own problems and issues going on as well.

I really liked Essallie as a main character, she is likeable but still a little young, naive and unsure of herself. Mix that with some crazy blue fire skills and you have a recipe for disaster totally worth reading about. Her story and her background is what really makes the book, there are moments when I wanted to slap her for being so silly and moments when I just wanted to hug her and give her a shoulder to cry on. She is well written and characterised in a way which grabs your attention from page one. You can't help but fall for this girl's story and hope for the best outcome for her.

The story actually reminded me of J.L. Bryan's Jenny Pox series, I honestly can't pin point exactly why. After I put it down it was one of the first thoughts that came to me. Now I love the Jenny Pox series so to compare anything to it is a big honour. I think maybe in my head I had the same small town setting as the one in the Jenny Pox series, who knows!

Overall Illumine is a fast paced, action packed paranormal which will sink it's teeth into you until you've reached the last page!