Rory by Ciye Cho

Rory
(The Ghosts of Palladino, #1)
by Ciye Cho
Released |August 10th 2013|
Edition |Ebook|
Source |Author|
Add to Goodreads

Far beyond heaven, earth and hell is a city known as Palladino, a place ruled by ghosts and filled with demons, magic, and all sorts of darkly beautiful things. A city where no one can ever escape.
Eighteen-year-old Rory is a cake decorator who makes stunning confections. But no amount of frosting or miracles can save her when a demon kidnaps her—and carries her to Palladino. Here, Rory ends up in a deadly charm school where young women are forced to become companions for the Ghost Lords. And for her to survive, Rory must become everything that she isn’t: graceful, elegant... and perfect.
But nothing is what it seems in Palladino. Not the magic. Not the ghosts. And definitely not Martin Marius, the bizarre Ghost Lord-slash-inventor who is drawn to Rory. For amid a thousand machines and a hundred cats, Martin holds a secret that could change everything. A secret that could either free Rory... or destroy her.

This was a very interesting ghost story and it was really different from a lot that I've read. I really like the different take the author took. In this book we meet a girl name Rory who is aducted from earth and taken to this place called Palladino. There she's put through tons of tests to become some sort of companion to one of the Ghost Lords. I thought the world of Palladino was very well written and unique. This place where ghosts live and they kidnap human girls and put them through hell with no way to escape because the city has a barrier around it. There were all these unique elements put together in a way that made the world seem so vivid.


When it comes to characters, I really liked Rory. She was tough and had great survival instinct, but at the same time she liked to put herself in danger. All her life, she thought her mother sort of crazy because she always spoke of creatures coming to kidnap Rory in the dark. Her mother was paranoid of the dark and she always wanted Rory to stay in at night and to always carry flashlights with her. But one day Rory was caught in the dark and was taken. She didn't think her mother was so crazy after that! When Rory got to Palladino all she could think of was escaping back to Earth and I admired the fight that she had. I don't really know how I feel about the Ghost Lord Martin, but I really liked Manny the Skine :) He was a great addition to the story and I really liked how he would help Rory. But I wish there was more there or more of him. And then we had the TALKING CAT, Cookie! Oh My Goodness, that cat was hilarious. He brought a whole new element to the story that I really enjoyed.

Romance wise, I don't know if there was any. Was there suppose to be something with Manny or Martin, I couldn't tell you to be honest. You could a connection, friendship wise, to both characters but I don't know about romance. The action of the story was pretty good, not too much, but also not too little. I really enjoyed the story and thought it was a very interesting read. I can't wait to check out the next in the series :)

I received a copy for review from the author. All thoughts are my honest opinion!