Anathema by K.A. Tucker

Anathema by K.A. Tucker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Evangeline has spent her teenage years in obscurity. Her foster parents have the emotional aptitude of robots and her classmates barely acknowledge her existence. About to turn eighteen and feeling like a social pariah, she is desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.

When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash. With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities... like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. 

When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined. In a world where everyone has motive to lie for personal gain, Evangeline must decide which deception is least likely to get her killed.

"Hello, my name is Jamie and I am free kindle book hoarder."

I literally download every single kindle book I see that is free and I might, maybe, someday read. Does this mean I read them all? No. Absolutely not. Most of the time I just sit there and look at them and then go and buy a book for 2.99 that I really wanted to read or that got rave reviews somewhere.

Anathema was a book I got for free and it sat on my kindle for awhile. I was flipping through my books and saw it and thought hey, that is kind of a cool cover and then I also thought what the heck does Anathema mean? So I decided to sit down and read it.

Thank goodness I did! Anathema really is a hidden gem! This is saying quite a bit because I haven't read a vampire book that didn't seem trite and boring for me in ages! I didn't even know it was a vampire book going into it. I was just intrigued by the cover and the title. The characters are amazing. K.A. Tucker has a way of giving details of the characters in a way where it seems natural, not a run down of their history that is out of place and bogs down the story.

Caden is a great romantic interest. I can't wait to see how he adapts in the later books. He was mysterious, strong, intriguing and just sweet enough to make you want to hug him. Rachel was a heinous, evil wench and the best kind of villain - the one you love to hate. I seriously had the urge to scratch her eyes out myself. Evangeline for me, flip flopped from being a great lead to someone I wanted to shake. She is extremely naive and very gullible. The thing that kept me liking her though was that she knew she was naive and gullible. It wasn't just a plot device. It was an acknowledged fault and downfall of the lead character. Because of that, I was okay with it even though at times I wanted to yell at her to stop being so darn trusting!

Anathema really left you wanting more from beginning to end. It beautifully entwined two separate story lines and brought them together in the last quarter of the book. There was so many loose ends tied up and it was like the light bulb moment - everything suddenly started to make sense. It was a great book and I will definitely be being the second one. I can't wait to see how things turn out!

Oh! Side note, I am not quite sure why this book is titled Anathema. The definition of Anathema...

a·nath·e·ma/əˈnaTHəmə/ Noun: Something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. A formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine.

Did I just miss the part of the book where it explained this? Is it implied because she is hated by...well, I don't want to give anything away. That was the only part I was confused about! 

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**Anathema is free as of the time of this posting.**