Excellent review and interview with Jessa, Lexie.  Can't wait for the release. 

Oh you have read her work?! wow, great review, I have read the teasers too and finding this thread, Origins sounds even more interesting now.

I must put it into my TBR priority list (I invented the priority and the not so priority list, i might as well create a patent out of it. I'm just jerking around pips!)

Gr8 review Lexie.

Summary

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Red pain, Red desire, Red need, Red hunger…

I have been plagued by the same dream for months now. A nightmare filled with red, dripping with death, where I am the hunter. There is no escape, no end in sight…. The nightmare has become a reality and I am forced with a choice – I can become one with the darkness that lives within that is clamoring, clawing to escape, or I can bury the demon, and the nightmares, once and for all.

It may seem like an easy choice, but not when I also have to choose between the father who has raised me or a mother whom I have thought was dead. Not when the choice is my humanity or Immortality….

Aided by a dark mysterious stranger, a hidden world is opened up to Adelin - a world full of bloodlust and death - the Black world of Immortals. Torn between the two, she faces the hardest decision she's ever had to make. Will she choose the safe, familiar life she has always known? Or will she let the darkness consume her?

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Review

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When I heard about this book, my first thought was 'another vampire story'. But this is not the case. Jessa succeeded to step back from the typical vampire concept and created a whole new world. And o boy what a world that Black world is!

Adelin is for me the typical girl next door and that made it easy to relate with her. She doesn't really stand out but there is just something about her . What I particularly liked is that Adelin isn't the usual whiny girl that needs to be rescued. She is strong and independent. One day she discovers that she isn't 'normal' like other people, that the mother she thought was dead is still alive, and that she has to make an impossible choice: staying human or becoming immortal. To make things even more complicated, this choice goes unavoidably together with choosing between the father who raised her and the mother she has never known.  Understandable, she is lost at first...

Then Adelin meets Vraiden Black (V)... A handsome, dark and dangerous immortal. While staying on Black Island and getting to know her long lost mother, Vraiden shows Adeline how the world of immortals looks like. There is immediate chemistry between those two, and we can't really blame Adelin for that. My feelings for V were a roller coaster through the book. I really liked him at first, I mean how can one not? He is charming, witty and drop dead gorgeous. I even kept liking him after discovering he did some gruesome things in the past . I could forgive him that cause he sounds like he regrets those things and wants to change. But then there appears to be one more thing he has done and I just can't see pass that. And that has everything to do with his older brother, Lucien...

Luc is for me the 'underdog' in this story. And I caught myself starting to like him more and more while reading. He made me smile and laughing out loud more than once with his smart-ass comments and witty retorts . In the end I liked his character most of all the characters in the book and yeah it's obvious I want more from him in the sequel. In most books you have the typical good and bad guy. Although Vraiden is portrayed as the badass one, I don't think of Luc as the 'good' one. He has a dry sense of humor, is rude, funny in sarcastic way and sadly ... damaged. He lost the love of his life and that left noticeable scars. He did something unimaginable that he will regret the rest of his life, but it gives him an extra edge. At first he doesn't understand the relationship between V and Adelin and the fact that his brother is capable to love someone. After a while he realizes that V wants to make a real effort to change and although Luc doesn't like his brother he does help out when it matters. He even brings his own life in danger while helping to protect Adelin and that makes him again more likeable.

Important to mention is, that this is not just another love story or love triangle. Although it might sound like that, it is not the focus in this book. The choice Adelin has to make is central : staying human or becoming immortal. Cause lets be honest: How can you chose between your humanity -something you take for granted because you don't know anything else; or immortality -a dark hidden world full of bloodlust that both appeals and disgusts you ?

Although Vraiden and Luc don't like each other they need to work together to protect Adelin against the first - and therefore most powerful - immortal before the choice will be made for her. So yes, there is also action! And some pretty gruesome parts if you ask me.

The book has a good pace, characters are believable and Jessa has such a beautiful way of writing and describing things. She managed to draw me completely in the story and I hope Jessa will finish the second book soon so I can go back to that Black World. Cause it is a world I really came to love!

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Book: Origins (Black #1)
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Mild Sexual Situations
Published: August 07, 2012
Rating (out of 5): 4 Stars

Hot-linked images removed
~drypen

My Review

Great read!

   Great start for a new fabulous series in the YA genre. I liked the mithology(It's NOT about vampires as we know them, thank god), the guys (Why I always pick the one that the heroin doesn't choose?) and mainly I liked the MC. Adelin is a great character, she is strong, she is extremely funny (I loved all her lines), she is caring.

  I am impressed with the author's writting since it is her first published work. Recently I've read a few YA from already published authors that gave me headaches, interesting premisse but boring-to-death writing style. This didn't hapen with Origins. It has an interesting premisse, likeable characters AND the writing is very good.

I wished the book were longer!!!

There were just a few small things I didn't like, though I have a feeling they will be explained in the next book. So I'm really anxious about the sequel.

1: <spoiler> Adelin just forgot about her human friends. They were introduced in the first and I got curious and wanted to know more about them how close they were to Adelin. Suddenly Adelin's world changes and "puff" she doens't talk about them... </spoiler>
2: Some things got a rushed explanation. Like the mithology about the Immortals. I didn't like the WAY that was explained like "That's it  and end of story." I would like to read the background or more information about the others Immortals and their world.
3: I didn't like the villain. (But I hope that changes in the next book)

PS.: I have to say that I absolutely LOVED the charcters' names, ALL of them! Great research and taste. This series have a great potencial, looking foward the other books.