Rift by Andrea Cremer

Rift
(Nightshade Prequel, #1)
by Andrea Cremer
Released |August 7th 2012 by Philomel|
Edition |Audio|
Source |Library|
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Chronicling the rise of the Keepers, this is the stunning prequel to Andrea Cremer's internationally bestselling Nightshade trilogy!
Sixteen-year-old Ember Morrow is promised to a group called Conatus after one of their healers saves her mother's life. Once she arrives, Ember finds joy in wielding swords, learning magic, and fighting the encroaching darkness loose in the world. She also finds herself falling in love with her mentor, the dashing, brooding, and powerful Barrow Hess. When the knights realize Eira, one of their leaders, is dabbling in dark magic, Ember and Barrow must choose whether to follow Eira into the nether realm or to pledge their lives to destroying her and her kind.
With action, adventure, magic, and tantalizing sensuality, this book is as fast-paced and breathtaking as the Nightshade novels.

I've been really curious about starting the prequel to the Nightshade Trilogy since I really enjoyed the main books. But I was also skeptical to start the sequel since it would be a different batch of characters. I surprising enjoyed this book though :) Since I don't really read books that have a historical feel to it, this was a bit different for me. Overall, I enjoyed it.


The characters in this book weren't all that great to me. There were some that I really liked and some that I didn't. Ember was pretty interesting and I liked her. She never wanted to follow the path she 'should', but what she wanted. She was strong and had great intuition and instinct, which was a plus. I also liked Barrow. In the beginning, I didn't really know what to expect of him because he was really mysterious and sort of the quiet type, but as the book progress I think I started to warm up to him. I would really liked to follow the relationship between him and Ember a bit more. It wasn't the 'in your face' type of romance, but was more gentle. And then there was Alister, a guy I didn't like from the beginning, even though he was Ember's best friend. He was too aggressive and was easily influenced from outside sources. And I also didn't like how his jealousy always clouded his thoughts. I also didn't really care for Eira from the beginning. She was too weird and sneaky. Throughout the book I always figured out what she'd do next, so nothing she did was really that much of surprise to me.

There were some pretty good action moments in the book, but I found that in certain parts of the story I would get extremely bored and have to put the book down. But I did like how this was a story of its own. There was some parts that reminded me of the Nightshade trilogy, but was different. Different as in a good different. Overall, I thought the book was good. And I'm anxious to see what will happen in the sequel.