Runes Review

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

Runes by Ednah Walters
Narrator: Stephanie Terry
Series: Runes #1
Published by Firetrail Publishing on May 7th 2013
Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
Pages: 245
Format: Audiobook
Source: Provided for review through Audiobook Blast/Boom
Goodreads

Seventeen-year-old Raine Cooper has enough on her plate dealing with her father’s disappearance, her mother’s erratic behavior and the possibility of her boyfriend relocating. The last thing she needs is Torin St. James—a mysterious new neighbor with a wicked smile and uncanny way of reading her.

Raine is drawn to Torin’s dark sexiness against her better judgment, until he saves her life with weird marks and she realizes he is different. But by healing her, Torin changes something inside Raine. Now she can’t stop thinking about him. Half the time, she’s not sure whether to fall into his arms or run.

Scared, she sets out to find out what Torin is. But the closer she gets to the truth the more she uncovers something sinister about him. What Torin is goes back to an ancient mythology and Raine is somehow part of it. Not only is she and her friends in danger, she must choose a side, but the wrong choice will cost Raine her life.

 Julie’s Review:

I’ve had Runes on my to-read for a while and was happy to receive the audio for review since that meant I would actually get to read it (since just about all of my reading is on audiobooks on my commute these days).

I like Raine, she’s a bookworm and also a Supernatural fan. We’d get along. Her friend Cora though is a bit annoying. Also, I kinda have a rule that a book loses stars for every “I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding” – and early on in the book there are two instances of that obnoxiously cliche line.

However, the book recovers and gets quite interesting as well as infuriating with keeping the secrets of the immortals from us, and Raine.

While I studied Greek mythology quite a bit in school, we never really touched on the Norse mythology (other than of course everyone knows Thor and Loki). I think if I was more familiar with it, I would have gotten some of the hints faster and things would have made a bit more sense to me. I was about as lost as Raine for most of it, which I guess kind of made it fun to try to figure it out along with her. I’m not going to spoil it with saying what these Immortals are, but once it was finally revealed, I’m like “of course!!!” and then it made me think of the show Lost Girl since that just showed up on my DVR again. So that was a fun parallel. I do have to say I enjoyed learning about Goddess Freya with all the references in this book. Then we get introduced to Norns, and I still don’t understand what they are, so I want to learn more about this mythology.

Now let’s talk about Torin. First, he was this arrogant badass, but he quickly stole my heart like he stole Raine’s. This mysterious, sexy stranger, all secretive and broody, how do you resist that? I enjoyed the way the relationship between Torin and Raine developed, and so the ending was quite the shocker. No spoilers here, but what a devastating cliffhanger.

There were things that bugged me about this book, though. Some things seem to happen with no explanation and are just accepted. Or, what I hope is the case, they will get more explanation in the further books. Like Raine’s Dad. Tell me what happened! And if the big surprise about Raine’s bloodline was supposed to be a surprise, it wasn’t. And what does Eirick know? He has to know something, right? Tell me more! So with that and all these secrets still out there, I must read on.

I went back and forth between 3 and 4 stars for this book. I finally decided on 4 because it got me thinking, got me wanting to learn, and is urging me to keep reading. That’s definitely 4-star quality, despite some of the issues I already mentioned.

 

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