*ARC* Forbidden: Discover the Legend - Review

Forbidden: Discover the Legend (Wolf Sirens #1)

By: Tina Smith

Published: July 20, 2012 by Outskirts Press

ebook, 380 pages

Source: Netgalley ARC from publisher for review (Thanks!)

(Goodreads / Amazon / Book Depository)

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Summary:

When Lila unwillingly moves to the country town of Shade, she can’t imagine the life-altering events that lie in wait for her. Shade has a curfew and has always been surrounded by myths. A central feature of the town is its famous statue of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, whose spirit is said to protect the innocent.

Lila falls in with a group of intriguing teenagers with luminescent eyes and soon she is drawn into the shadowlands of fantasy and reality, where destiny collides.

A mysterious local girl, Cresida, warns her to stay away, but Lila is drawn to them like a moth to a flame.

Cresida knows their fatal secret and she is honour-bound to protect those who are endangered. But she underestimates Lila’s passion for the mysterious and charismatic clan of youths. Lila begins to feel a call she cannot ignore. Yet her heart is filled with vulnerable desires that begin to turn the underworld upside down, for both hunter and hunted, as she learns they have been waiting for her…

Inspired by the legend of the mythical femme fatale, Wolf Sirens is an intimate tale of unrequited and forbidden love in the underworld, a masterpiece of romance fantasy.

My Review:
Unfortunately I had a hard time getting real invested in this story and its characters.  I loved the synopsis and had hoped to really love it.  But I felt the story was a bit scrambled at times and sometimes didn't make sense to me.  I'll be completely honest in saying the fact that these characters are British (which did take me a bit to realize) actually annoyed me a little.  Saying words like "canteen" for cafeteria and other phrases and words that I don't use just got on my nerves.  Total personal issue and in no way reflected in my final rating.  There are a lot of strong similarities to Twilight (unfortunately).  The forbidden love, the guy climbing through the upstairs window, the "addiction like heroin"...yeah as much as I loved the Twilight series, I can't stand when stories too closely resemble details from them.

Lila and her Mom (who she continues to call by her first name with no explanation as to why she does that versus calling her Mom, or as in this book "Mum") move to Shade after her mom and dad divorce.  Her mom grew up in Shade and thinks it's the perfect place to move to out of the city life they had been living. Shade has a lot of secrets and the classmates of Lila are far from friendly.  It's not that they are outright mean but everyone, both the cool kids and the uncool, are rather apathetic towards her, and ignore her.  It's not until a strange girl named Cresida talks to her that the cool kids also seem to take interest.  From there Lila is thrown into a supernatural world she had no idea existed, a world she was destined to be a part of.

Favorite Quotes:
"They had made me have a thirst for life, woken me up from a daylight slumber to a more wonderful dream.  I wanted to be tied to their world forever."

"I pined for him.  I desired him in every moment of every day and melted into a blubbering heap, inside, in his presence.  Every spare moment was dissolved in thoughts of him."

"I would still choose the same and the reason is still the same: never settle for anything less, because you'll live with regret."

"He was my trigger and my Achilles heel and my sole motivation to breathe."

Final Rating - 3.5 stars

This post is part of the new feature on Words Fueled by Love, called ARC Thursday.