I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange of an honest review.

Stone of Destiny was fabulous. I couldn't give it a full 5 stars because I need a bit more drama, but overall I was still impressed.

Allison is still a determined young lady. In this book she is more open to trusting Liam and is still working hard to help her mother be reunited with him without a curse. Allison has her moments where she afraid, but she never lets it overtake her mind and her "mission" -- she is definitely a strong female character.

Ethan is such a sweetheart! I love him and his relationship with Allison. They are such a perfect couple. He made sure to stay with Allison the whole time through her ordeal with the Dannans. His secret crush he had on her was super adorable. Ethan is definitely a hottie in my eyes.

Liam is such an amazing father. Even though he didn't know about his daughters he made an effort to get to know them and become the father he couldn't be at the time of their childhood. He definitely a respectable man and has kudos from me!

Samantha, the long lost secret daughter of Liam and Aoife, seemed fishy at first to me. I thought she was there to help her mother, but the more I read on I began to like her. She only wanted to meet her blood family and make amends with them. What she did towards the end to help Allison and Liam was very awesome.

Aoife is a crazy lady! I mean what woman gives up her child because she doesn't want the baby to steal the attention from her lover? I purely hate Aoife, but she played the deranged, jealous woman to a T.

Saoirse is freaking horrible! How could she help her daughter knowing what her daughter did is wrong. I kind of understand from the parent POV, but at the same time, whether she has emotions or not, she should have reprimanded her daughter. Not help her escape and destroy humans. Such foolishness. Even though she still helps Allison I just think she should have never helped Aoife, but simply keep her in that damn Fey globe.

I definitely need to know what happens next. Is Liam died? Where is Samantha? Does Aoife do the binding? Does Allison go back? Does Aodhan agree to be with Niamh? Just so many unanswered questions!

This review is for the second book in the Danaan series, it will contain spoilers for the first book, The Forgotten Ones.

This book continues exactly where the last one left off. Aoife has escaped and is planning on performing a bonding ceremony in the hopes to trap Liam forever. 

If Liam is permanently bonded to Aoife it means there will be no hope of Allison’ mom, Beth, ever getting better. They must retrieve an amulet to break the curse Aoife has placed on Liam and Beth.

Besides all this, Allison has to deal with discovering a half-sister that is also a mind-reading fae. And the fact that Ethan now acts like he hates her and she fears she’s lost her chance with him after she’s finally decided to be with him. 

This book takes Allison further into the land of the faeries, where she learns that Aoife has been destroying the lands with blood magic that is forbidden among the faeries. She doesn’t know who to trust and the King, Aoife’s bored father, has been messing with Allison by tricking her and trying to enthrall her. 

I have the same complaints about this book that I did the first one and the same compliments. I feel like we still don’t get a good grasp on who Allison really is. We do learn that she likes to read but still no insight on her career aspirations, or major, nothing. It still moves too fast and abruptly ends. 

I thought my favorite character (Ethan) was becoming a huge dick but there is a small twist. I still can’t keep all the fae characters straight but once again I was engaged by the description of the land of the faeries. 

So far, it’s not a bad series. It’s entertaining, short and sweet, and full of imagination. It kind of reminds me of fanfic, which isn’t really a negative thing. I’ll definitely stick with this one to the end. 

Allison’s mother, Beth, is schizophrenic and has been since Allison was a child, though her condition has grown worse over the years. Allison blames herself, because she’s under the impression that her mother wasn’t this way before she was born. 

Allison lives a quiet life with her cousin Nicole as her best friend. She rarely socializes, focusing on work, school, and most importantly, her mom. She only wants to be able to properly take care of her mother. 

She even denies herself a relationship that she clearly desires with Ethan, a boy she’s known since they were both children and has loved just about as long. She thinks he’s a player and that dating him will distract her from her goals. He surely tries hard enough to get her to change her mind. 

Strange things begin to happen, her mother’s fits are getting worse and crows had suddenly started showing up in the yard. The strangest is Allison’s father that she’s never met randomly showing up on her doorstep, not looking a day older than Allison’ is herself. 

Liam claims he didn’t even know Allison existed until recently. He also claims to be fae and that he can cure Beth. She doesn’t know whether to believe him but when her mom goes missing, she has no choice but to ask for his help.

I’ve heard a lot about this book, and I’ve had it on Amazon loan since it came out. I have to say that I was ever so slightly disappointed. 

First, we know next to nothing about Allison. We know she has a mom with a mental illness, her cousin is her best friend, and that she crushes hard on Ethan. Other than that? Nothing. We don’t know her interests, what she’s going to grad school for, what she wants to be when she’s done with school. There is a mention that she and Ethan kissed once before and she seemed to regret it but we don’t know why or what happened between then. 

She calls him a player but he pretty much ignores other girls when she’s around. She constantly turns him down so it’s only natural he would date other girls. Overall, Ethan seems pretty nice, though a bit cocky at times. It’s obvious that he’s really into Allison. 

The first half of the book was more like a romance and the second half is where it starts getting into the fantasy. The fae part was pretty interesting, using some Irish mythology. There were a ton of fae secondary characters introduced that I couldn’t keep straight. 

It was really fast paced, but it was under 200 pages. It felt a bit too fast, I felt like Allison accepted things too easily. Also, it just kind of suddenly ends. Based on the ages of the characters (early twenties) it could be a NA book, but it reads more like a YA. 

So why am I giving a 3 Star rating when there seems to be so many flaws? Because FAERIES. I love Faeries. 

Plus, the book did keep me engaged. It’s a quick read, and I will continue the series (more to see how things turn out with Ethan than anything. Lol). There were some things that hopefully will be explained in the next book (which I already bought!).

I received this book for free from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

 

Here’s to another good blog tour read from Xpresso Book Tours. I’ve been so happy with how these tours have been organized. Some of my blog tour experiences just haven’t been good, which is why I stopped doing them for a while. Giselle’s just so on top of things and organized. I hope you lovely readers don’t mind me doing more blog tour reviews in the future.

 

I enjoyed The Forgotten Ones. By the time I got around to reading it, I had forgotten what it was about. That’s good, though, since I don’t like to read a synopsis before I read the book. Sometimes it ruins the story or creates expectations the book doesn’t meet. When I started and remembered it was about fairies, I was excited. For some reason, I just love reading books about fairies. The plot is pretty straight forward. Allison finds out about her father and the fairy world. In a broad sense, the nuts and bolts are a little reminiscent of The Iron Fey trilogy. Looking deeper, this is a completely different story. I liked Allison. She bears a lot of responsibility. She wants to take care of her mother, and she puts her family first. Because of that she pushes her friends away, which is sad sometimes. I wanted her to live a little more, though I totally understand her reasons for playing it safe. I think there could have been a little more in the way of world building. I wanted to learn a little more about the fairy world, so hopefully there will be more to learn in the coming books.

 

Overall, I thought it was a good read. Well worth my time. I did expect it to be YA, but the characters were in their 20s, so it turned out to be a little more NA. That’s good though, because we need some original NA that isn’t just a 20s version of contemporary romance.

I am always interested in books dealing with faerie lore, so was very intrigued when I first read the synopsis for The Forgotten Ones. It's not often that you find a book that uses faeries in a slightly different way - most really tend to focus on the two courts, for example - so this book was very unique because it has the faeries as descendants of the pre-Christian deities of Ireland. (This is actually a "real" mythological group of beings; Google Tuatha Dé Danann if you want more information.) And actually, I very much enjoyed this glimpse into these mythological faeries; for me, the lore behind them, their abilities, and the ways they interact with humans was the main draw of this book for me personally.

 

One thing I want to state upfront is that this was a very fast read. The e-book is listed at 197 pages, but it felt much shorter than that. Because of the length, I found that I never really connected with any of the main characters. Allison, our narrator, is sympathetic to the reader, because her mother is mentally ill and obviously Allison has had to endure a lot with that. She also has a crush on the very attractive Ethan, but for reasons she explains but I sort of eye-rolled at, she keeps pushing him away, even after he makes it clear he's interested in her as well. While I felt for her at times, I never really felt drawn into her narrative or like I cared one way or the other about her. It was sort of just a surface interest, and I found myself more intrigued by the mysteries of the story - and the revelation regarding Aoife at the end - than Allison herself. One character I am definitely interested in, though, is Aodhan. He really seems to have an interesting past, and not just because of what happened to him upon entering the Fae world. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of him in book two.

 

This book was also very well written in terms of grammar and construction. I was extremely impressed with some of the turns of phrase and the solid narration provided by Allison. You can tell that the author has a firm grasp of language and nuance, and definitely knows how to tell an interesting story. While I didn't love Allison, I found her well-constructed, and liked how she was headstrong and stubborn, and also willing to fight for those she cares about. I also liked the way the story was slowly revealed, and truths and facts were brought to Allison's (and the reader's) attention. While the book isn't very long, and things happened at a quick pace, I felt like the way the story was written was done in an un-rushed way that kept the reader interested and focused on what came next. While I would have loved a bit more character development and a slower introduction to the plot and characters - particularly once all the rather unpronounceable names started getting thrown about - I still found the book very readable and entertaining.

 

The Forgotten Ones is a good book for folks who like faeries but want something a little different. While there were certainly things I would have liked to see more of - like the reason Allison likes Ethan and he her, and a bit more insight into Allison's character to make her more relatable to the reader - overall I found this to be a very quick read and definitely a good way to spend an afternoon. I'm also extremely curious as to what's going to happen next, particularly since the book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I will certainly be tuning in to check it out!

 

A copy of this book was provided for blog tour purposes in exchange for an honest review.

 

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