“Since the death of their parents, Triona Pryor and her brother, Ben, have lived with their aunt and uncle in Camden, Maine. Now in her senior year of high school, Triona loves her family and friends, but she has always felt that she didn’t quite fit in…in Camden, or anywhere else. Enter Caleb Wallace, the devilishly handsome man who has recently moved to Triona’s small town. While their attraction to each other is instantaneous, it also proves to be dangerous…and deadly. When tragedy strikes, Triona flees to London for solace and to start her life anew. It’s there she discovers from an unlikely source that her family has been keeping secrets from her – secrets about not only her birthright, but her ultimate destiny as well. Armed with this knowledge, Triona finds herself thrown into a whole new world and into a battle to save the lives of everyone she loves.”I was very excited initially to get my hands on this book, I have to say I’m left just a touch underwhelmed. The reviews I’ve read of it pretty much echo my own sentiments. The general consenus is this book should’ve been cut into two books and it’s a bit too much like Twilight. In case you haven’t read a review of it already, I’ll elaborate a bit. In the first half of the book, things are built up very well and a huge potential cliffhanger ends part one. In the second half of the book things are built back up and ends with another huge event (after a bit of tying up loose ends). It seriously reads like two books in a series. It wasn’t a huge negative with me, just felt a bit off.
As for being too much like Twilight, it does read like the Twilight series. It’s basically a romance with Celtic folklore tied in. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but at times it gets a bit repetitive. There were some exciting twists to Shades of Atlantis, so it wasn’t a total rip off.
The characters were decent and the few romantic scenes were very well-written. I did wish for more of the folklore and history of the “beings”. (I don’t want to reveal what they are, since that’s part of the build up.) I’m hopeful about a second book, though. I personally can’t wait to see what happens with the characters.