Monday, April 13, 2015

ARC Review: Entwined by Cherie Colyer

Entwined by Cherie Colyer
Entwined (Embrace #3)
By Cherie Colyer
Publisher:
Omnific Publishing
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher

To Sum It Up: Having made a contract with a demon to save her brother’s life, Madison now finds herself at Caden’s beck and call whenever he requires a witch’s assistance. This arrangement puts a strain on Madison’s relationship with her boyfriend, Isaac, and Caden only seems to enjoy fueling the tension. But the more time Madison spends with the demon, the more she questions whether Caden is completely evil, even as she helps him search for a dangerous magical object.

Review: Cherie Colyer’s Embrace series continues to be an excellent paranormal read. Its strength is in finely balancing the supernatural elements with the non-paranormal; protagonist Madison is a witch, but she’s also a high school student trying to juggle family, friends, and school. Despite Madison possessing magical powers and being in a coven with her boyfriend and two closest friends, she remains well grounded.

The previous book in the series, Hold Tight, brought fae into the mix, and Entwined puts the focus on demons. A demon named Caden, specifically, who was first introduced in Hold Tight. While the consequences of Madison’s bargain with Caden in Hold Tight form the heart of Entwined, her troubles with the fae in the second book are referenced here, which adds a nice touch of continuity. Another kind of paranormal creature also makes an appearance in Entwined, the unintended result of a spell cast by Madison’s best friend, Kaylee. The actual reveal is best left to the book because the mystery surrounding what Madison and Kaylee are dealing with is quite absorbing. It’s also humorous at times, as well as a bit poignant.

Caden the demon really steals the show in Entwined. I love characters who walk the line between good and evil, and Caden is one morally gray demon. His help always comes at a price, but he just doesn’t come across as soulless and heartless. Sure, he reads Madison’s mind, calls on her whenever it suits his schedule, and is always ready with a biting comeback, but I’m unable to dislike him just for that. Rather the opposite, actually—I loved his snark and was dying to know the details of his backstory because I found him very intriguing. There’s also no denying the chemistry between him and Madison, which causes some waves between her and Isaac. The potential love triangle was the one aspect of the novel that I wasn’t too keen on, just because I’m not a fan of love geometry in general.

Overall, I thought that Entwined was another solid entry in the series. Caden is largely responsible for that, and I vote that he gets his own novel in the future because it definitely sounds like he has many more stories to tell.

All in All: I’ve really enjoyed Cherie Colyer’s take on the paranormal throughout this series, and Entwined (and Caden) did not disappoint here.

4 comments:

  1. Gray characters are the best! Straight laced ones are not only boring, they annoy the heck out of me too! Plus he's a demon! He's bound to be bad ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gray characters are my fave, too. That's why I love GoT so much- almost every character is capable of both good and bad, and you never know which side they're going to show.

      Delete
  2. Your description of this reminds of the reasons why I love the show Supernatural so much. So many of the characters are so full of grey areas and are never fully good or evil. Makes for a much more interesting character when they are good and struggling to keep from doing bad or vice versa. Caden sounds like an interesting character.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He is! I liked that he was difficult to read and was neither too heroic nor too much of a villain.

      Delete

We love hearing from our readers and do our best to reply. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment!