with Xpresso Book Tours
Hidden by M. Lathan
Hidden #1
Published November, 2012
Young Adult Paranormal
Premise:
Sixteen-year-old Leah Grant has given up on being normal. She’d settle for stopping the voices in her head, intrusive visions of the future, and better odds of making it to her seventeenth birthday.
That’s the thing about pretending to be human in a world where magic used to exist – at any moment, her cover could be blown and she’ll be burned to death like the rest of the witches.
Everything changes when she loses control of her powers and flees the orphanage she grew up in. She desperately wants to be invisible but finds her face plastered on every news channel as humans panic over the possible resurgence of her kind. And now the hunters won’t give up until they find her.
Making friends for the first time in her life and falling in love with one of them drives her to discover why she is unlike any being she’s ever met – human or otherwise. The dangerous powers inside of her that would repel Nathan, her new, handsome reason for living, are priceless to some. The locked up forever kind of priceless. And to others, they are too dangerous to allow her to live.
Let’s hope she can stay hidden.
Get your copy!
(Hidde is currently free on B&N, iTunes, Smashwords and Kobo)
Review
My thoughts:
Okay… this
review is going to be a tough one. It’s SO hard to explain this book without
spoilers that I don’t even know if I’ll be able to tell you much of anything… I’ve
been trying and trying to write and rewrite this thing for over an hour, so
here it goes my best attempt.
Hidden is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl
living at St. Catalina Orphanage since her parents died on a terrible war. She’s always
felt different and the kids she lives with had made clear that she is, so Leah
is depressed, lonely and angry. Sound sad but pretty normal, right?
Now… enter
the most amazing superpowers ever, a whole new group of people who understand
our main character, a lot of magic and paranormal stuff (including shape-shifters,
witches, hunters, copies, etc), huge revelations and betrayal. There you go! That’s
more like it!
The story
is told in first person from Leah/Christine (yeah, two names, it’s kinda
complicated, you should read the book…) POV and there was like a LOT going on.
It was a little hard to keep up, especially at the beginning of the book,
because we are thrown in this sort of dystopian world (after a huge war between
humans and supernatural beings occurred) and we have to figure it out to
understand what is happening to our protagonist. There’s a lot of information
to take in and try to wrap your mind around. So the beginning is a little slow
and kind of depressing because our main character is clearly depressed and it shows
–which I think is good because she’s entirely believable. The slow pace
normally would be a problem for me, but strangely this time it didn’t bother me
that much… I was so intrigued by the prologue, captivated by the writing style
and just trying to figure out what the hell was going on that I didn’t mind the
beginning being slow because I wanted answers and I was getting them a one at a
time.
But, the
slow pace didn’t last much longer than a few chapters… Because then, everything
starts to get out of control. Leah has been rescued from the orphanage by a
witch named Sophia and she meets a bunch of “people” who are like her (kind of.
Seriously… read the book). Between that crowd is Nate, a cute shape-shifter who
quickly becomes Leah’s best friend since they both have a lot in common. This
guy is the one that helps Leah out of her shell. He shows her that she’s not
the monster she believed and makes her understand that she’s worth loving. And
in the middle of that, they fell for each other.
And here’s
where I had some issues… The romance was developed way too fast for my taste.
And about two thirds into the story turns out that adorable, good Nate wasn’t
that good after all and he’s pretty harsh and mean to Leah who he’s supposed to
love… So, things don’t make much sense in this aspect of the story.
The thing I
really liked about this book was that it had the most unexpected plot twists
ever. I mean, seriously… I’m really good at predicting outcomes in books but I
swear that I didn’t see most of the big twist in this story coming my way, so
my mind was blown away multiple times through the story and that was fantastic!
Overall, I
think Hidden is a great addition to
the Paranormal genre. The author did a great job at creating an original and
captivating story that would keep you at the edge of your seat trying to guess
what’s coming next and rooting for a really well written main character. I’m
definitely looking forward to read Lost,
the next book in this series.
Rating:
Reaction:
About the author
M. Lathan lives in San Antonio with her husband and mini-schnauzer. She enjoys writing and has a B.S. in Psych and a Masters in Counseling. Her passion is a blend of her two interests – creating new worlds and stocking them with crazy people. She enjoys reading anything with interesting characters and writing in front of a window while asking rhetorical questions … like her idol Carrie Bradshaw.
Giveaway
One (1) copy of Lost (Hidden #2) by M. Lathan.
Must be at least 13 years old to enter the giveaway.
Open Internationally.
Thank you so much for joining the tour and reviewing! It was detailed without revealing too much. :)
ReplyDeleteTotally not my regular genre, but this sounds fascinating.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it, Kar! It sounds like a great read. I'm glad the slow pacing picked up not long into it I think I'd really enjoy this!
ReplyDelete