Hope(less) (Judgement of the Six, #1)

by Melissa Haag

[Nicole Lynn]

Review to come!

--
UPDATED Finally posting the review from my blog

This review previously appeared on my blog, PopCrunchBoom Books


My Review


Hope(less) tells of Gabby’s journey with the supernatural. All her life Gabby was able to see tiny glowing sparks of people in her mind. Almost like a people radar system programmed into her brain. All she has to do is close her eyes and concentrate and she’ll be able to see where people are in a certain mile radius. This comes in handy before walking through the park at night, but isn’t the first thing Gabby tells people about herself. Then she meets a warewolf and is exposed to a larger supernatural world. The kicker? Gabby’s one of only a few humans that can be mated to a warewolf. Go figure no one clued her into that fact until she was already up at their compound. Now on top of trying to figure out what she is and what her abilities mean, she also has to worry about possibly loosing the independence she craves by being mated to a warewolf.

Enter in Clay. Clay is quiet and unkempt and not at all someone Gabby wants to be associated with let alone feel something for. Then at the last visit to the compound before college, Gabby meets him and knows instantly that she shares a bond with Clay. But Gabby will do anything to deny the bond and keep her newly found independence. However, Clay isn’t about to give up on finding his mate. He decides to follow Gabby into her new life. As feeling start to grow between the two, a new threat emerges. Gabby sees lights that she can’t label as human or warewolf and they’re stalking her.

—

This novel had a great premise when I first read it. I was excited to see how Gabby and Clay’s relationship would play out and what role Gabby would play in this supernatural world Haag created. Gabby’s supernatural ability was unique and definitely had me intrigued as to how Haag was going to describe and work-in this ability.

However, when I first began reading the book I was a bit disappointed. The beginning was a bit hard to plow through. There was a lot of unnecessary background scenes that would have been better worked-in later on in the story as well as some weird time transitions. I felt the beginning would have been a lot better if the story began with Gabby’s last visit to the fcompound as that’s where the story really seemed to pick up and “begin” in my mind.

I was also a bit unsure of Gabby’s ability. It seemed like a very unique ability for a character and one I have not seen in any other story as of yet. I was super excited to see how Haag would use it in the novel. However, it seemed a bit hard for me to picture the ability in the novel whenever Gabby described it. I was a little turned off from it and it took me a while for it to grow on me. Luckily later on in the novel, the ability was more clearly described and as the action picked up so did Gabby’s use and, later, understanding of her gift.

With all that said, I have to be honest and say that even though I had problems with the novel in the beginning I actually couldn’t stop reading it once I bypassed the rocky beginning. I was hooked on Gabby and Clay and wanted to see how their relationship would evolve and turn out. Would Gabby accept Clay as her mate? Would she let him in? I couldn’t put the book down.

This is where Haag truly excelled. Her ability to bring Gabby and Clay together and the way she wrote their relationship was perfect. I fell in love with this love story. I have to say that Clay might in fact be my new favorite book boyfriend, which is something highly hard to obtain from me ;). I absolutely loved the way he wooed Gabby; the way he sneaked into her heart without her really realizing it. It was a slow love story, but more realistic than the insta-love seen in most books. It was by far one of my favorite love storylines to read. And if you’re a sucker for those types of storylines than I highly recommend this book. :)

As a beginning of a series, Hope(less) was an alright starter. The overall storyline of “judgement has begun” and the mystery sparks of light were not done horribly, but didn’t keep my interest as much as Gabby and Clay’s relationship storyline did. However, towards the end the action really picked up and I think it was enough to easily relay into a second book. I will most likely be picking up the next installment to continue on in the series. However if you’re looking for a very well done paranormal series you might find some disappointment with this opener novel. Personally, I’m going to wait until the second novel before making any decisions on the overall series, but I can see how some might be turned off because of the first installment.

Overall, this story was a keeper for me based solely on Gabby and Clay’s relationship. Their love story was an epic one for me because it seemed so real and Clay was absolutely wonderful. As a paranormal series, this was an okay start, but I’m hoping the next installment will be better in this regard. In the end, I’d recommend this to “romance” lovers and just warn paranormal lovers that it might be a slow start to get through before being able to enjoy the paranormal storyline of this novel.

*I was given a free ebook of this novel by Mark My Words Book Publicity in exchange for an honest review. This has not influenced my thoughts or opinions of the novel that are written above.*