Sunday, July 13, 2014

Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios


Genre:  YA Urban Fantasy
Dark Caravan Cycle, Book 1
Expected publication date:  October 7, 2014

Description (taken from Heather Demetrios' website):
Forced to obey her master.
Compelled to help her enemy.
Determined to free herself.

Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Stuffed into a bottle and sold by a slave trader, she’s now in hiding on the dark caravan, the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command. She’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle.

Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to free Nalia from her master so that she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother—all for an unbearably high price. Nalia’s not sure she can trust him, but Raif’s her only hope of escape. With her enemies on the hunt, Earth has become more perilous than ever for Nalia. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle…and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him. Battling a dark past and harboring a terrible secret, Nalia soon realizes her freedom may come at a price too terrible to pay: but how far is she willing to go for it?

Nalia has spent the last three years of her life as a captive on Earth.  Owned by the lucrative Malek, she spends her time granting wishes for Malek's clients.  Malek is a powerful man who never seems to get old.  And he has a very sly and cunning ability to work his way around the rules in order to get what he wants.  But as much as Nalia wants her freedom, he wants her.  As Nalia fights for her freedom, she finds the game between slave and master changes quickly.

Raif has left the Resistance in Arjinna to find Nalia.  He believes she can help her find a deadly weapon that will help end the war that's currently ravaging Arjinna.  All he has to do is get Nalia to agree to help him.  But as news of Nalia's existence reaches Arjinna, he finds there are other dangers circling after her.  As he fights to help free her, he finds himself making an unbearable choice.  Can he sacrifice the lives of his people for one person?

A book about genies: it sounds so interesting.  And this story had so much going into it that I was immediately interested.  But I kind of got bored.  Nalia is a beautiful character and we see a lot of heartache from her past, but I feel like too much of her emotion was barred from me, the reader.  And I just could not connect with her.  I also spent a good amount of time trying to determine what age group this book was meant for (my guess is mature young adult or new adult).  And as creepy as Malek was, I seemed to like him more because he wasn't the scene of insta-love.  And we got to see how much hate Nalia could fuel herself with around Malek.  There was just so much potential in this story that I really wished I could say I loved it.  But I was just bored.  I felt like the pages were too long for the story I received.

I wish I could say I loved this one, but I can't.  My only recommendation to readers is to check out as many reviews as you can before you decide to read this one.  Because I'm sure there are going to be those who absolutely loved this one out there.


Thanks goes to Around the World ARC Tours for providing me a review copy.

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