Written & Video Review: These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker & Kelly Zekas

These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Received: Bought
Publication Date: February 9th 2016
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Point of View: 1st Person Feminine
Recommended Age: 12+
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Family, Mystery

BLURB:

Jane Austen meets X-­Men in this gripping and adventure-­filled paranormal romance set in Victorian London.

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive, young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true—and that her sister is in graver danger than she feared.

REVIEW:

I thought I would regret buying this book.

When I pre-ordered it on Amazon, it had something like 4.15 of average as a rating. The description won me over and you know when you just feel it in your bones that you’re going to like a book? That’s what happened to me when I first saw this book.

But then the ratings started dropping.

They went from 4.15 to… 3.84 in less than two weeks. I was scandalized and quite scared that I would end up hating this book which equals wasting an hour of working for naught. Plus, I’m really not the type to pre-order books; I don’t know what happened. I think this book may have cast a spell on me.

I repeat, I think this book may have cast a spell on me.

When you’ll enter Evelyn’s world, you’ll never want to come out of it. The world-building the authors created and the characters they skilfully weaved into the story fascinated me. Evelyn is not the only character you’ll connect with, believe me. These authors understand what it means to have a set of distinctive characters in a story and that’s exactly what they did: they added protagonists and antagonists that are all interestingly linked to one another and that show different personalities.

Some will make you humph, sneer and scorn while others will make you smirk, smile, laugh and even swoon! I felt like Jane Austen herself supervised the editing of this book and added her touch here and there. Let me tell you something: the brooding love interest gave me butterflies because…

He’s Mr. Darcy with paranormal abilities!

Can one truly say no to that? I sure would have loved to be in Evelyn’s place. So she has to save her sister from her kidnappers. So she doesn’t even know where to start and spends her time falling into traps. So she’s betrayed and manipulated. I still very much would have loved to live all she does accompanied, of course, by two handsome gentlemen.

Never fear, the love triangle is nothing but mild! You won’t even feel like it’s there! I sure didn’t mind it for a bit.

Other things that deserve applauding: the writing that is suitable for a historical novel, the romance between Mr. Brooding Darcy – not actually his real name – and Evelyn and the gentle Rose (sister) who is present in only 1% of this story but seems to always be with the heroine and the reader himself.

I really, really don’t know why this first-in-an-exciting-new-series book doesn’t have a higher average rating or more readership, but I can assure you that it is SUCH an entertaining read. If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.

Blog | Youtube | Twitter | Instagram | Google+ | Goodreads

Video Review:

Lola xoxo