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A review by jscarpa14
The Redemption of Ajax by Trinity Faegen, Stephanie Feagan
4.0
RECEIVED FROM: Net Galley for Review
***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Sasha Annenkova is a seventeen year old Anabo, a descendent of Aurora, the child of Adam and Eve before original sin. She has no idea what she is, and no clue that she doesn’t experience emotions like jealously, greed, rage and hate like normal human beings. She’s just not made to have thoughts like that cross her mind. She discovers what she is the hard way, when she’s almost stoned to death by the Ravens, a secret group in her school who has forsaken God and worship a son of hell named Eryx. The only thing that prevent Sasha from facing a horrible death in the opening scene is Ajax DeKyanos and his brothers, the Mephisto – children of an Anabo and Mephistopheles, a fallen angel who collects the souls of hell for Lucifer.
Jax and his brothers also happen to be Eryx’s younger brothers, the difference between the siblings, Eryx wants to rule hell and take from humanity the free will that allows them the chance at Heaven, Jax and the rest of the brothers, want to stop him and want redemption. God gave the boys, who never should have been born, one chance at redemption. Each would find an Anabo destined for them and if that Anabo chose to love them and they to love her in return then when the world ended they would have a chance to enter Heaven. However, in return for that chance they must collect the lost souls stolen by Eryx and prevent him from taking Hell from Lucifer who at least gave humans the free will to chose to live a life either worthy of Heaven or Hell before taking their soul to Hell’s fiery depths. And even once they find their Anabo they must live a life worthy of entrance to Heaven’s gates if they expect to be admitted.
When Jax catches Sasha’s scent, he knows she’s meant for him and him alone. After having lived as an eighteen year old son of Hell for almost a thousand years he jumps at the chance at redemption offered in Sasha. But will she choose him over all the other safe guys living in the world? Worse when a set of circumstances leave Sasha living in the same house as two of Eryx’s followers can he protect her long enough to prove to her he’s worth it or will Eryx steal his chance of redemption too?
I know that’s kind of a long summary, but it barely touches on the plot, there’s so much set up to even understand the idea of the plot that without that background the plot itself is hard to explain. I’m going to do this review a little different than most. I want to start by discussing my concerns with this book rather than positives or negatives.
While I’m sure upon its release the publisher will place this book in a genre, the way the book is written it kind of falls between genres encompassing aspects of both but aspect that won’t appeal to all readers of either genre. For the most part this has a young adult paranormal romance set up. However toward the end of the book it does include one slightly graphic sex scene. The scene is written more like what you’d see in an adult paranormal romance novel. While it didn’t bother me, I think parents of teens will be concerned about the detail in this scene and I expect to see the book taking a lot of flack about the scene from the young adult crowd. On the flip side of that a seventeen year old heroine is not going to appeal to a lot of romance readers. While the sex scene would probably appeal to them, the age of the heroine might discourage them from picking up the book. I know there’s mention of sex in lots of young adult novels, but it’s usually more like a sentence or two making it clear the act took place, rather than description of the actual act. This is more like the description you’d find in an adult romance novel. It’s not dirty really, it’s not like she’s talking about teens hanging from chandeliers, in multiple positions, pulling out the adult toy box. But it’s a lot more detail that what you’d usually see in a young adult novel. In an adult romance it would be considered one of the cleaner sex scenes - in a teen romance for some it will cross a line. In the scene’s defense it makes sense with the plot of the story, occurs very late in the novel and accents rather than detracts from the story. I don’t have an issue with this scene, but I do expect the novel to take some serious flack from readers of both genres because of what I just mentioned.
My second concern is about the religious bent of the novel. As evidenced in the response to fictional novels like the Davinci Code by Dan Brown, devout Christians do not like the mythology of their religion messed with in any way. While I feel the tweaking of the mythology works and isn’t insulting to the religion in any way, I don’t see the pope walking up to the writer and telling her she did a good job. I could very easily see this book ending up on some banned book lists once it’s released just because it does tweak the religion of Christianity a little to fit the needs of the story. On the flip side of that -atheists, agnostics and others who don’t follow Christianity are likely to feel very uncomfortable with the frequent references to God and Christian beliefs. Because the plot of the book is saving the souls of humanity from burning in Hell, there would be no way to avoid speaking of God. But I can easily picture non Christians avoiding the book because they don’t want to read about God. I really feel this book is going to have a hard time finding a home among readers. The problem is that that really disappoints me because it is an excellent novel.
So now on to my review, there were actually only three things that I personally didn’t like about the novel. I happen to be agnostic, meaning I haven’t really made a decision of what I believe as far as religion goes. I may make one at some point, but I usually avoid works that make frequent references to God and have a strong religious push. I saw the need for it in this novel, but I was a little uncomfortable as a reader with it. That said, it wasn’t like I was reading passages from the bible or listening to a lot of praying as you’d find in some religious novels. The religious content was central to the plot and necessary but part of the reason I could see agnostics avoiding the novel is because some points were a little uncomfortable for me.
The second thing I really didn’t like was that the CIA and KGB plot twists felt like they were pulled straight from the old television show Alias. Her dead father is a CIA agent who married a Russian with former KGB ties. When he dies they blame her for blowing his cover whether she did so or not. They even had the best friend who had an affair with the Russian wife. Almost all of this stuff by the way also happened in that television show. She really didn’t need any of that to set up the story she was trying to tell. None of the CIA and KGB things were central to the plot in any way. It wasn’t a spy novel, adding the spy things were a little corny and really did detract from the story. If it was an adventure or spy story maybe I’d understand using similar plot and character points to a spy television show, but since none of the main characters are spies what is the point in adding this?
The final thing that bothered me is the opening seemed too contrived. The female heroine starts out living in San Francisco, while the hero lives in Colorado. By the second chapter her mother is deported and she’s shipped off to family that just happen to live in the exact same town he does. I know she needed to create a situation which would place the female and male lead together. However this just fell into place way too easily and coincidences like that just don’t happen in real life. If she had had the girl move to the same town for some other reason, before she randomly met the hero that I could see working. If the guy purposely rented an apartment where she lived to be closer to her, I could see that working as well. But coincidences lining up to put them living near each other after they meet, just didn’t work for me.
So far I’ve been really critical of this book; the weird thing here is I LOVED the book. I don’t think it was a quite a five star novel yet, but I’d definitely consider myself a fan of the series. I read ebooks on my ipod for the most part, the problem with net galley ebooks is the only reader they work with doesn’t allow you to change the font size on the ipod. So they try to fit a novel size page on a tiny ipod touch screen and the print ends up being about the size of that fine print on the back of your credit card statement. If you want to read the books at a normal size print you have to sit and do so at your computer and despite how nice your computer chair is that gets uncomfortable after a while. I seldom read a net galley read in one sitting just because it’s not convenient for me to read, either I get a headache from small text or I get sore from sitting at my desk too long. When I open this novel on my computer I only meant to skim it a little, glance over the text maybe come back to it later. I was engrossed in the story within pages and sat here until it was finished. Time flew and I was so involved in the story I didn’t realize how long I’d sat here until it was finished and the sun was rising outside my window.
It was fast paced, with wonderful point of view changes. The characters were multifaceted, easy to relate to and care about. The book was extremely well written with an intriguing plot that had me turning the pages as fast as my mouse would scroll. The Mephisto Covenant was an excellent novel and Trinity Faegen is not a writer to be missed. I think she will have a little trouble finding her fan base when this book hits the shelves, however when she does find those fans I expect that they will be devoted and loyal. I know that I can definitely be counted among those fans.
***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Sasha Annenkova is a seventeen year old Anabo, a descendent of Aurora, the child of Adam and Eve before original sin. She has no idea what she is, and no clue that she doesn’t experience emotions like jealously, greed, rage and hate like normal human beings. She’s just not made to have thoughts like that cross her mind. She discovers what she is the hard way, when she’s almost stoned to death by the Ravens, a secret group in her school who has forsaken God and worship a son of hell named Eryx. The only thing that prevent Sasha from facing a horrible death in the opening scene is Ajax DeKyanos and his brothers, the Mephisto – children of an Anabo and Mephistopheles, a fallen angel who collects the souls of hell for Lucifer.
Jax and his brothers also happen to be Eryx’s younger brothers, the difference between the siblings, Eryx wants to rule hell and take from humanity the free will that allows them the chance at Heaven, Jax and the rest of the brothers, want to stop him and want redemption. God gave the boys, who never should have been born, one chance at redemption. Each would find an Anabo destined for them and if that Anabo chose to love them and they to love her in return then when the world ended they would have a chance to enter Heaven. However, in return for that chance they must collect the lost souls stolen by Eryx and prevent him from taking Hell from Lucifer who at least gave humans the free will to chose to live a life either worthy of Heaven or Hell before taking their soul to Hell’s fiery depths. And even once they find their Anabo they must live a life worthy of entrance to Heaven’s gates if they expect to be admitted.
When Jax catches Sasha’s scent, he knows she’s meant for him and him alone. After having lived as an eighteen year old son of Hell for almost a thousand years he jumps at the chance at redemption offered in Sasha. But will she choose him over all the other safe guys living in the world? Worse when a set of circumstances leave Sasha living in the same house as two of Eryx’s followers can he protect her long enough to prove to her he’s worth it or will Eryx steal his chance of redemption too?
I know that’s kind of a long summary, but it barely touches on the plot, there’s so much set up to even understand the idea of the plot that without that background the plot itself is hard to explain. I’m going to do this review a little different than most. I want to start by discussing my concerns with this book rather than positives or negatives.
While I’m sure upon its release the publisher will place this book in a genre, the way the book is written it kind of falls between genres encompassing aspects of both but aspect that won’t appeal to all readers of either genre. For the most part this has a young adult paranormal romance set up. However toward the end of the book it does include one slightly graphic sex scene. The scene is written more like what you’d see in an adult paranormal romance novel. While it didn’t bother me, I think parents of teens will be concerned about the detail in this scene and I expect to see the book taking a lot of flack about the scene from the young adult crowd. On the flip side of that a seventeen year old heroine is not going to appeal to a lot of romance readers. While the sex scene would probably appeal to them, the age of the heroine might discourage them from picking up the book. I know there’s mention of sex in lots of young adult novels, but it’s usually more like a sentence or two making it clear the act took place, rather than description of the actual act. This is more like the description you’d find in an adult romance novel. It’s not dirty really, it’s not like she’s talking about teens hanging from chandeliers, in multiple positions, pulling out the adult toy box. But it’s a lot more detail that what you’d usually see in a young adult novel. In an adult romance it would be considered one of the cleaner sex scenes - in a teen romance for some it will cross a line. In the scene’s defense it makes sense with the plot of the story, occurs very late in the novel and accents rather than detracts from the story. I don’t have an issue with this scene, but I do expect the novel to take some serious flack from readers of both genres because of what I just mentioned.
My second concern is about the religious bent of the novel. As evidenced in the response to fictional novels like the Davinci Code by Dan Brown, devout Christians do not like the mythology of their religion messed with in any way. While I feel the tweaking of the mythology works and isn’t insulting to the religion in any way, I don’t see the pope walking up to the writer and telling her she did a good job. I could very easily see this book ending up on some banned book lists once it’s released just because it does tweak the religion of Christianity a little to fit the needs of the story. On the flip side of that -atheists, agnostics and others who don’t follow Christianity are likely to feel very uncomfortable with the frequent references to God and Christian beliefs. Because the plot of the book is saving the souls of humanity from burning in Hell, there would be no way to avoid speaking of God. But I can easily picture non Christians avoiding the book because they don’t want to read about God. I really feel this book is going to have a hard time finding a home among readers. The problem is that that really disappoints me because it is an excellent novel.
So now on to my review, there were actually only three things that I personally didn’t like about the novel. I happen to be agnostic, meaning I haven’t really made a decision of what I believe as far as religion goes. I may make one at some point, but I usually avoid works that make frequent references to God and have a strong religious push. I saw the need for it in this novel, but I was a little uncomfortable as a reader with it. That said, it wasn’t like I was reading passages from the bible or listening to a lot of praying as you’d find in some religious novels. The religious content was central to the plot and necessary but part of the reason I could see agnostics avoiding the novel is because some points were a little uncomfortable for me.
The second thing I really didn’t like was that the CIA and KGB plot twists felt like they were pulled straight from the old television show Alias. Her dead father is a CIA agent who married a Russian with former KGB ties. When he dies they blame her for blowing his cover whether she did so or not. They even had the best friend who had an affair with the Russian wife. Almost all of this stuff by the way also happened in that television show. She really didn’t need any of that to set up the story she was trying to tell. None of the CIA and KGB things were central to the plot in any way. It wasn’t a spy novel, adding the spy things were a little corny and really did detract from the story. If it was an adventure or spy story maybe I’d understand using similar plot and character points to a spy television show, but since none of the main characters are spies what is the point in adding this?
The final thing that bothered me is the opening seemed too contrived. The female heroine starts out living in San Francisco, while the hero lives in Colorado. By the second chapter her mother is deported and she’s shipped off to family that just happen to live in the exact same town he does. I know she needed to create a situation which would place the female and male lead together. However this just fell into place way too easily and coincidences like that just don’t happen in real life. If she had had the girl move to the same town for some other reason, before she randomly met the hero that I could see working. If the guy purposely rented an apartment where she lived to be closer to her, I could see that working as well. But coincidences lining up to put them living near each other after they meet, just didn’t work for me.
So far I’ve been really critical of this book; the weird thing here is I LOVED the book. I don’t think it was a quite a five star novel yet, but I’d definitely consider myself a fan of the series. I read ebooks on my ipod for the most part, the problem with net galley ebooks is the only reader they work with doesn’t allow you to change the font size on the ipod. So they try to fit a novel size page on a tiny ipod touch screen and the print ends up being about the size of that fine print on the back of your credit card statement. If you want to read the books at a normal size print you have to sit and do so at your computer and despite how nice your computer chair is that gets uncomfortable after a while. I seldom read a net galley read in one sitting just because it’s not convenient for me to read, either I get a headache from small text or I get sore from sitting at my desk too long. When I open this novel on my computer I only meant to skim it a little, glance over the text maybe come back to it later. I was engrossed in the story within pages and sat here until it was finished. Time flew and I was so involved in the story I didn’t realize how long I’d sat here until it was finished and the sun was rising outside my window.
It was fast paced, with wonderful point of view changes. The characters were multifaceted, easy to relate to and care about. The book was extremely well written with an intriguing plot that had me turning the pages as fast as my mouse would scroll. The Mephisto Covenant was an excellent novel and Trinity Faegen is not a writer to be missed. I think she will have a little trouble finding her fan base when this book hits the shelves, however when she does find those fans I expect that they will be devoted and loyal. I know that I can definitely be counted among those fans.