Title: Pledged by Gwynneth White
Published:
June 13th, 2012 by Smashwords
Source:
Provided by the author for review
Format: eBook
Challenge(s):
Grade rate: B-
Everyone has a soul mate. But what do you do when your soul mate would rather give his soul to the demons than be with you?Seventeen-year-old Erin has a problem. Seth has been hers forever, but now an ancient curse is tearing him away. And the demons who invoked it will stop at nothing – even murder – to claim him as their own.How can she win against a curse so binding that it has damned countless others to this same fate – an eternity alone?The answer lies in the past. To find it, Erin and Seth must risk all, travelling back in time to a dangerous world where love is forbidden, and life – and death – hang on a pledge.Follow Erin and Seth as they travel to ancient Shenaya and confront the curse that has plagued their families for millennia. Caught in a war between the Angelic Guardians and the Gefallen, the disembodied dead, they must fight to keep their souls intact and their love untainted.
My Review
Pledge has all the ingredients for a great story: young,
good looking people, soul mates, angels, and destiny. I did enjoy it, but not as much as I thought
I would.
When I was approached by the author to participate in the
blog tour I was really happy about it. I
love the promotional materials that were sent directly from Erin and Seth’s
POV, they seemed to be great characters and be so much fun. The problem for me is that their character is
not reflected in the book. I think I
liked Sophia and Jered more than I did Seth or Erin and other of the characters
(even the villains see to be better ‘fleshed out’!)
The plot is really good and well thought out. There are a lot of details and we are not
left to wander what is going on and I appreciate that. I liked the” time-travel”, but the going back
and forth between characters and location was a bit confusing and as a result
the story didn’t flow smoothly.
Overall, I did enjoy the premise of Pledge and I plan to
follow Erin and Seth’s adventures, especially since the ending was a big
cliffhanger :)
About the cover:
I really like this cover, the pendant and the diamond have such
significance in the story and Erin and Seth are touching it.
Now for an expert of Pledged
Meet Seth and Erin
. . .
Despite the heat, Seth felt icy.
Dread could do that to him. Or so he had recently discovered. Deep breathing
usually calmed him, so he sucked in a lungful of desert air and told himself to
relax. It didn’t help. By the time he’d walked from the aircraft to the
immigration hall he’d ripped off a jagged piece of thumbnail, already bitten
raw. He handed his US passport to the Botswanan border official, and, after a
frown, and a stamp, he joined the crowd at the baggage carousel. Botswana in
southern Africa was the last place on earth he’d ever have picked for a holiday
destination. But he wasn’t here on holiday. Not even close.
His backpack was slow in coming. Tired
from his long-haul flight from New York, he leaned against the wall and closed
his eyes. Almost as if to mock him, the hated vision that had brought him to
Botswana burst into his mind. In an instant he was back in ancient times,
watching a man he knew only as Gideon. As usual, Gideon was huddled on a
windswept hill with his band of hopeless soldiers, waiting to be slaughtered by
a huge army gathered in the valley below.
Seth snapped his eyes open to
stop the battle from waging in his mind. It wasn’t that he was particularly
squeamish; he’d watched enough movies to iron clad his stomach against gory
visuals. But no movie had ever left him icy with dread the way Gideon’s battle
did. And the reason for that was simple. The moment the visions had started, he
had known that the war, fought so long ago in a place he’d never heard of, was
far from over. And, as reluctant as he was, he too was being enlisted to fight
in a cause he didn’t understand or want.
He forced himself to focus on the
present: Erin, who waited for him in the arrivals hall; his brother Kyle, whom
he’d come to Botswana to visit; Kyle’s expedition to find the Lost City of the
Kalahari . . .
He ripped off another piece of
fingernail. Thinking about the search for the Lost City was almost as bad as
the war-vision. I hope Kyle never finds
the damned place. He slapped his hand on his thigh. Enough! Grabbing his backpack off the carousel, he set his face
into a smile and strode into the arrivals hall.
The first hurdle was finding
Erin. She was due to arrive an hour earlier on a flight from Cape Town in South
Africa, one of Botswana’s neighbours. He’d never met her, although they had
spoken over the phone once. Then she’d described herself as “a short,
seventeen-year-old (a year younger than him) with a mass of ginger hair.” She’d
sounded nice. Meeting her was the one ray of brightness in this otherwise dark
picture.
He stopped to scan the crowd. A
petite girl with shoulder length, reddish-blonde curls, dressed in skinny jeans
and a purple blouse, immediately caught his eye. It had to be Erin. Nice legs. What’s it with girls that they always under-sell themselves? He
studied her face with his artist’s eye.
Vermeer would’ve killed to paint her. Suddenly wishing he didn’t look so
grimy after his three plane-changes, he walked over to join her. “Hi, I’m Seth.
You’ve got to be Erin. My brother’s just married your sister Izzy.”
“And after only knowing each
other for about a week.”
Her dimpled grin was infectious,
making him crack his trademark crooked smile. “Madness.”
“Mysterious.” Erin cocked her
head to one side, seemingly appraising him. He knew he had been accurate when
he’d told her he was tall and dark-haired. But what he had failed to mention
was what girls had often said they liked about him: his strong, angular face,
softened by expressive brown eyes. He watched her eyes rove over his grey Muse: Resistance t-shirt, taking in his broad shoulders and chest. From
there they darted down his black camo-pants to his boots. Amused by her blatant
assessment, he cocked his head to one side, watching her. Suddenly Erin giggled
– was she embarrassed? – and picked up her bag.
“We’ve yet another plane to
catch. My fourth in the last twenty-four hours,” Seth said, hoping to explain
away his rumpled appearance. “To a place called Maun.”
“So we do. Let the adventure
begin.”
I have spent my entire life living in a parallel universe of make-believe characters, only coming back to reality for long enough to check that no one burnt the house down in my absence. A few years ago I decided to commit some of those ‘friends’ and their stories to paper. The Soul Wars Saga is the result of those efforts. Before that I co-authored two non-fiction travel books – The Complete Guide to 4x4 Trails and The Ultimate 4x4 Guide. Both books became instant best-sellers in South Africa where I live. And before that even, I studied a degree in African History and Politics at the University of Stellenbosch. When I’m not writing, I am a wife to Andrew and a mom to Stephanie, Erin, and Kate, our teenage daughters. My family and I live in a small town outside Cape Town with two dogs, a cat, a horse, and some neglected fish. Now that you know a little about me, I would love to get to know you.
Please
befriend me at:
Twitter: @GwynnethWhite
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gwynneth-White/172095512890074
Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7360328-gwynneth-white
Email: gwynnethwhite@4xforum.com
This one seems quite interesting! I will certainly put it on my TBR list ASAP.
ReplyDeleteHave a great week!