Book Review: Merciful by Casey Adolfsson

Title: Merciful
Author: Casey Adolfsson
Paperback: 504 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace (April 6, 2011)

Ratings:

★ ★ ★ ★ 

My thoughts:

Acacia Moirgetes lives a boring life. When she turned seventeen, she began to experience weird things.. like disappearing from her apartment or from her work and finding herself in a middle of nowhere. Mostly,  it's just a short trip, minutes, hours, nothing else to see except she kept on appearing in front of an Acacia tree. One day, she could not go back home. She met a man named Blaise and told her that she is a goddess, a Goddess of Fate and her father Zeus, is constantly searching for her. Her memory quickly returns, that she left Olympus but she could not remember the reason why she left her world. Now, she must remember everything as someone is plotting to destroy the people of Olympus. 

I loved the story. Merciful started out pretty slow but eventually picked up after the first two chapters. The story is well-written. Loved the way the author wove the story with the Greek myth characters. It was really entertaining, if you are into Greek mythology, you'll love this too, I guarantee you.

Though there's one thing here that made the story a bit annoying for me. There are two heroes in this story, Blaise and Ash. They are both in love with Acacia and yes, Acacia loves both guys. I'm nearly hating stories with conflict in love triangle, especially when the heroine is indecisive. Twilight Saga's Bella and Calla Torr of Nighshade series to name a few. As for the book/book series that I enjoyed such conflict, these are Vampire Academy's Dimitri-Rose-Adrian, Sookie Stackhouse's Bill-Sookie-Eric and JeanClaude-Anita-Richard for the Anita Blake series. I can't tell exactly how I feel about this emo conflict but I would rather the story has a different conflict than a love triangle.

Overall, aside from the love triangle I mentioned above, it's still a great read. This book will be included in my "re-read" list. If there's book number two, I would definitely read it!   

About the book:

At 17 years old, Acacia Moirgetes is starting to feel like her boring, lonely existence is something of a tragedy. A Greek tragedy, that is. Acacia quickly learns that the life she thought she knew is a lie. More disturbingly, it’s a lie she’s been telling herself to avoid the terrible truth. Now she’s on a mission to corral the Greek gods of myth back to Mount Olympus before all Hades breaks loose. With the help of her guide, a curmudgeonly former goat named Amal, and her two Pyroskia— devastatingly handsome bodyguards, Blaise and Ash, whose devotion to Acacia runs deeper than either ever imagined—Acacia must follow the truth to its darkest ends. Along the way, she’ll have to recover her forgotten powers, come to terms with the woman she once was, and perhaps most importantly, discover why she left Olympus in the first place. Love, betrayal and mercy come to the fore in Merciful, an epic fantasy novel for young adults.

About the author:

Not long after I began my endeavor, I had the pleasure of conversing with an actual real author, Lauren Groff. When a New York Times Best Selling Author tells you something… listen. The single most valuable piece of advice I received I got from her.

“Write every day. Do something, anything with your work every day.” I did and it kept me close and tuned into my characters, no matter where I went they stayed with me. I wrote something new, edited something old, thesaurused things I’m not smart enough to know synonyms for, but I stuck with my story and I never let my characters or myself down.

As a mother of two, and an over volunteerer (is that a word?), I should put achiever… or “can’t say no’er” , there were a lot of nights I wanted to slide under the sheets, pull them up over my head and tuck them in enough that no one would notice I was there. I didn’t fool anybody with that trick and so… instead of hiding under the covers I hid behind my notebook and… I wrote.

My husband has been extremely supportive of my writing, but I don’t think he took me seriously until after I told him I had over a 100,000 words in my document. He peeked over my shoulder several times after that, I think mostly to be sure I wasn’t writing, “I love donuts. I love wine. I love cheese. I love chocolate” over and over. Ask him to name my four main characters… I dare you.

If you’re reading this it’s because I want you as a fan or you already are one. So it’s probably just you and my four closest friends.

I hope you enjoy Acacia and crew as much as I do.
-C
P.s Amal wants to know if you have anything to eat. Specifically a taco.






Note:
I received a review copy of this book free from the author, Casey Adolfsson. The review posted above is based on my personal thoughts while reading the book.