Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
The Athena Effect Series, Book 1
Description (taken from Derrolyn Anderson's website):
Country girl Cali has been kept a secret her entire life, raised in isolation by two very troubled people. Despite her parent’s disturbing fits, Cal is perfectly content, living at one with the nature that surrounds her, and finding adventure inside the pages of her beloved books. When an awful tragedy tears her away from her remote cabin in the woods, nothing she’s ever read has prepared her for a world that she knows very little about.
Girls and motorcycles are what bad-boy Cal’s life is all about. Brought up in a raucous party house by his biker brother, he’s free to do as he pleases, going through the motions on his final days of high school. Aimless, Cal stopped thinking about his future a long time ago.
Attacked by a gang of thugs while running an errand for his brother, Cal is in serious trouble until a fierce girl appears out of nowhere to intervene. She chases off three grown men, sparing Cal a brutal beating before disappearing into the night like a spirit. He can’t stop thinking about his mysterious rescuer, and when she turns out to be the weird new girl at school who goes out of her way to avoid him, he can’t contain his curiosity.
He’s never met anyone like her before, and the more he learns about the unusual girl who shares his nickname, the more he wants to know. Cal can’t help falling for Cal, but can he keep her from falling victim to a dangerous enemy from her parent’s tragic past?
Imagine placing someone, who's been kept away from our world, into society. Kind of like having a toddler in a grown body. Kind of, sort of. Cali went through this ordeal after her parents passed away abruptly. She was hidden away from society only to be dropped into it quickly. Common words, funny things we do that make sense, etc. don't make a whole lot of sense to her. So we can imagine how well she fit in at school. She's also got this cool ability to see how other people are feeling which kind of makes her a very good lie detector.
And of course, girl meets boy. The kind of bad boy that we all want to hate but somehow can't resist. Cal, a biker punk, who's spent life falling down and trying to work his way back up to normalcy. Of course, once he meets Cali and pays attention to her, he falls for her. And it's love from there on.
I liked the romance; it pretty much fills up the first two-thirds of the book. And then we start to see some good paranormal action. I still can't decide which part of the book I liked more. There's a character, Layla, that's in the later parts of the book that I would have really liked to have learned more about. But anywho, I did enjoy the story. There's a nice twist right at the very end as well.
For the girls that need a feel-good romance with some paranormalness, go read this one. It also helps if you like kissing details...
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