Raine has a lot to prepare for going back to school,
particularly her place on the swim team, keeping up with friends and finally getting
Eirik to see her as more than a friend. But under it all is her nagging worry
and grief of her father’s disappearance that sets a pall on everything. Add in
the possibility that Eirik may be leaving and things look bleak
And into that arrives Torin, new super-sexy neighbour who is extremely interested in Raine. More, he can do things, things that make no sense; he and his friends who arrive with him. They paint runes on things that cause literal magic to happen and they talk of gods Raine knows nothing about. Much to their surprise, Raine isn’t as blinkered as the rest of the school and she can see them when they hide and the powers they possess.
This could be a problem for their mission at the best of times – but it’s far more complicated when Torin becomes more and more drawn to her and she becomes more determined to find out exactly what they are.
The problem I have is that while this book has a
seemingly fascinating concept and definitely an interesting world, too little
has been explained. We have hints of the world, of its background of the whys
and wherefores of the magic and the characters – but only hints. In fact, if it
weren’t for my own research into Norse mythology, it would be even more
frustrating (though it also meant I was saying “he’s a {redacted for spoiler}”
over and over again since I twigged it long before the protagonist. The
ignorance of the protagonist, everyone else’s insistence that she be kept in
the dark because of the rules and her own inability to figure anything out make
the book immensely frustrating.
What annoyed me more, especially with my early (accurate) guess is that she was still confused even long after she should have figured it out. She was given enough clues and was actively researching – at that point mere access to Wikipedia should have let her put 2 and 2 together.
