Thursday, June 14, 2012

Angelini is a Goddess

Dreamless (Starcrossed)
When we read Starcrossed, we knew Josephine Angelini was a Goddess. Everyone I have convinced to read that first book of this trilogy was a) totally in love with the story and characters and b) totally devastated they needed to wait a whole year for the next book! Now that the second book, Dreamless, is here, you are going to feel the same way. Dreamless will leave you breathless, leave your heart pounding and leave you wanting MORE!


Helen is the Descender. She can go into the Underworld and is the only hope for the Scions to find a way to defeat the Furies. The Furies' curse leaves all Scions with an uncontrollable rage to murder anyone with a blood debt, even if their blood debt was protecting the very family member who is now overcome by the Furies and wants to kill them. It is a never-ending cycle that keeps the houses divided and families torn apart. Helen is the only hope, but every night as she descends, she loses a little bit of herself in the Underworld.


As Helen wanders around aimlessly, she feels her mission is hopeless, but when she encounters Orion, everything changes. Orion is another Scion, one she should be trying to kill, thanks to the Furies, but in the Underworld, all Scion curses and powers are suspended. Orion is undoubtedly an attractive young Scion, but Helen still can't get Lucas out of her mind. After she found out she and Lucas were cousins, she has tried to move on, but she just can't stop the feeling of happiness and joy when she is with him. But with her mission at hand, Helen puts aside her own desires to stop the Furies, with Orion at her side. Night after night, they descend and get a little bit closer to the solution, but their time is running out. Helen is dying as a result of her descending and she is caught between two impossible and beautiful loves: one who is a cousin and is forbidden to her despite her love for him, and one who she can only be with in the Underworld without wanting to kill. Can she stop the Furies AND sort out the terror in her heart?


Oh this was SUCH a good follow up to SUCH a good first novel that Josephine Angelini is my new favorite author. There are a lot of authors I love and follow, but Angelini will now be one of the select few I use to define my favorite reading experiences (and that is a limited crowd!). She has a way of spinning a masterful web of a story and leaving you to crave more and more and more. Her characters are amazing and so real and complicated you will find yourself wanting to know them for real (despite fully acknowledging that they are fictional and that would of course make you a crazy person). Sometimes I think it is easier to write an amazing break out novel than it is to write a follow up novel that lives up to the greatness of the first. But Angelini has accomplished that goal in spades. She will leave you remembering the greatness of Starcrossed while loving Dreamless even more!


The best part of this series is there is one more book to go (but maybe if we beg and plead there will be more than just one more to go!). This is an amazing series for anyone, adult or young adult, who loves Greek mythology or just needs some epic storytelling in their lives. It is one of the best trilogies I have found in a LONG time and I am so glad I found this author and this trilogy. If you need some summer reading to keep you going out on that beach or anywhere, for that matter, pick up this series. You will be thanking me later!

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