Archive for May 1, 2012

Title: Neophyte

Author: Emmalee Aple

 

Description from Goodreads

Addisyn White thought that she had her new life, her after life, all figured out. Granted, death had not brought her to the pearly gates, she hadn’t even left Earth. But death had its perks; she got to live forever with her best friend and her assigned Link of Angels in a beautiful beach house. Even with the changes she was going through to turn her human body into an angelic one, everything seemed pretty easy. Until a gray winged angel comes into her life, then all the secrets and lies her link had been keeping start crumbling away, exposing a whole new world of dangers she didn’t even know about.

Now Addisyn must fill in the blanks before things escalate too far. Will she save her Link? Or will she be buried in their secrets forever?

 

Here is my take

Addisyn was your typical teenage girl with dreams and plans for the future. That all changed the day she died. Three days after a school shooting ends her life she awakens to the best of her best friend Hunter. He, along with four other angels, is her Link. She is now a Neophyte, a changed angel, and they will be training and protecting her for the next five years until she becomes a full-fledged angel and gets her assignment.

It has been two years that Addisyn has been living with her link. When she is tricked into breaking the rules by Sebastian, a gray winged angel, she witnesses his death at the hands of her Link. Discovering that she can still die, she is furious and demands to know what other secrets they are keeping from her. Who was the strange angel and what did he mean about who she was? Not allowed to tell her what she wants to know, her fellow angels just make her more determined.

I really came to like Addisyn. She knew what she wanted and set out to get it. One of the things she wanted was Greysan, an angel in her Link. The romance grew slowly and made me remember the confusion and self doubt of young love. And the anticipation! Remember this feeling?

“Slowly, his perfectly sculpted face leaned in toward mine, his warmth surrounded my entire being as the moment of my much=anticipated first kiss neared. I could feel his fingers as they weaved through the hair at the nape of my neck, and tilted my face upward toward his. My heart raced in my chest, my breath caught in my throat, seconds slipped by like hours as I waited for his lips to greet mine.”

While the back and forth dialogue and babying by Addisyn’s guardians irked me in the beginning, the rest of the story really took off.

Not wanting to spoil it for you I will just say that there is so much more to this story and the ending, while leaving me with some unanswered questions, satisfied me and led me to believe the answers would be found in the next book.

Come read about angels in a whole new way!

4 STARS

About the author

Emmalee Aple was born and raised in Wisconsin, but always dreamed of life on the coast. Now grown, with a handsome computer geeky husband and two beautiful blonde monsters of her own, she uses what spare time she can manage to squeeze out of her day writing, sewing and crafting.

Emmalee lives off of carmel fraps and sprees. She strongly believes that a child’s imagination is the most important part of growing up, and that the cleaning elves are avoiding her messy house.

She loves a good book that sucks you in and doesn’t let go until the pages run out. And can’t get enough of the show Glee. (Although she will admit she DVRs quite a few other shows.) Growing up, her favorite movie was Annie and she knows all the lyrics to almost every Disney song.

Feel free to connect with Emmalee via her web page:

www.emmaleeaple.com