Mariella Teagen hasn't spoken a word in four years.
She pledged her voice to Orane, the man she loves--someone she only sees in her dreams. Each night, she escapes to Paradise, the world Orane created for her, and she sings for him. Mariella never believed she could stay in Paradise longer than a night, but two weeks before her eighteenth birthday, Orane hints that she may be able to stay forever.
Hudson Vincent made a pledge to never fight again.
Calease, the creature who created his dream world, swore that giving up violence would protect Hudson. But when his vow causes the death of his little brother, Hudson turned his grief on Calease and destroyed the dream world. The battle left him with new abilities and disturbing visions of a silent girl in grave danger--Mariella.
Now, Hudson is fighting to save Mariella's life while she fights to give it away. And he must find a way to show her Orane's true intentions before she is lost to Paradise forever.
For some reason, this book was really challenging for me to become involved with; however, about halfway through, I felt like it picked up and held my interest.
The characters felt a little two-dimensional to me. While I was in love with the concept of demons controlling dreamworlds and infiltrating minds, I wasn't interested in the characters who were actually being captivated by these worlds.
The instalove also turned me off. The relationships within the book felt rather childish and based on loneliness or good lucks more than actual substance. My favourite character was probably KT, a friend, for actually having loyal attributes, but even then, I didn't know much about her other than her sister and her friends.
I had trouble suspending disbelief at points. There were too many coincidences for me to buy. I also wanted more details on the demons that would probably lead to these coincidences making more sense, but if something that's barely more likely as snow in Bali happens to three people in one town, then I don't buy it.
The ending felt a little bit like too much of a set up for a sequel and was rather unnatural. I'd probably pick up the next book if it came along, but I won't go out of my way looking for it--this was solid, but
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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