"Hyde, An Urban Fantasy"
by Lauren Stewart
Published July 8, 2012 by Off the Hook Publishing
Kindle Edition from Amazon - 418 Pages
Nook Edition from Barnes & Noble Coming Soon
Smashwords Edition
Digital Copy Received Directly From Author
For Review & Discussion
Connect with the author
Lauren Stewart:
Website
Excerpt from Goodreads:
To survive, they must embrace what they most despise . . . in themselves and each other.
Mitch Turner is everything women want most in a man—charismatic, successful, drop-dead gorgeous. Except he’s not a man—he’s a monster.
The only way Mitch can protect others from his monstrous side is to stop them from getting too close…that and a 7x7 foot cage. Isolated by his genetic curse, he spends his life hurting people emotionally, driving them away before Hyde can harm them physically. But, after a night of the best sex Mitch has ever had, he realizes that might be impossible. Except the woman he was with claims she doesn’t remember any of it.
Eden Colfax is everything men want most, men other than Mitch, that is. She’s kind, honest to a fault and sickeningly sweet. To rid herself of the monsters that haunted her broken childhood, Eden doesn’t lie, doesn’t curse, and definitely never wakes up naked in strangers’ beds…until the day she does.
Then the flashbacks start—places she’s never been, people she’s never met, blood she’s never spilled. She discovers she’s split into two parts—the woman she thought she knew and another who is capable of anything. And the only person with any answers is the one man she never wants to see again.
What neither of them know is that someone is watching them both, manipulating them, determined to see just how evil the two of them really are. And when the truth begins to seep through the cracks, leaving them nowhere to turn but each other, they will be forced into a partnership neither had expected.
Because in life, who you trust is as important as who you are. And when you can’t even trust yourself, sometimes the only person you can rely on is the last person on Earth you should be falling for.
*** This novel is intended for adults only, as it includes lots of cursing, descriptive sex, biting sarcasm, and themes similar to those in Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, from which this story was inspired.
My Review:
This book was a breath of fresh air. I absolutely love paranormal romances: vampires, weres, demons, etc... I've never read something like this before though. It's hard to come across good reads that are creative and original - the likes of something I've not read before, but Lauren does it! This spin on the "Jekyll and Hyde" concept makes for such a fresh, suspenseful romance. This book could've been written wrong... but Lauren Stewart did it right.
Lauren created really strong characters. They have their own personalities and they are both strong willed when they need to be. Mitch Turner - he is the good looking guy who thinks he's a horrible monster because of his "Hyde" side but he's really the good guy. You get attached to Mitch throughout the story because he's the big, bad tough, sarcastic character who just wants to push everyone away for their own safety... who of course has a soft side that shows for brief moments at a time. Those brief moments suck you in completely. He acts like such a jerk because he thinks it helps control his, what I'll call, "Hyde outbreaks." Then you have Eden Colfax - she's the girl with the onset of problems that she needs help with and the only person who can actually help her is Mitch. She thinks her life is working out okay until her "Hyde outbreaks" start occurring and she ends up on Mitch's doorstep a few times with only a few memory flashes that trickle in after the fact. Of course they banter back and forth... it's the hate relationship that you, the reader, just want them to get over because deep down, you, the reader, know that they should get over themselves and just be together. Then of course we have to have the "bad" guy in the story. Those characters are just beginning to become known but for this first book, you have Jolie... she's the character we all love to hate and despise because, even though it's not exposed in the beginning, you automatically get the feeling she's up to no good. Then there's Carter - who you think is a great guy but start seeing something going on behind the scenes... you don't know if he's still a good guy or if he needs to start falling in the bad guy category...
Overall, "Hyde" has paranormal characters with suspense, mystery, romance, great sex scenes that make you want to re-read before moving on to the next chapters (not to mention, make you extremely envious of Eden), confrontations, danger, death, twists, turns... There's a little of it all in "Hyde." It really makes you explore what you really think are the dark and light sides of people... those you might think are dark (or those characters who consider themselves dark), turn out to be light and vice versa... There's moments of pain and moments of passion that will leave you breathless and wanting the pages to be turned faster than your eyes can keep up with...
Needless to say, I can't wait for the next book! I hope there's more insight into their "Hyde" personalities & some scenes from their perspectives maybe? I wonder what the two "Hyde" personalities would be like together, in the same room... Hmmmmm
My Overall Rating: 5 Stars
Cover Rating: 5 Stars
(I think this is such a great artistic representation of Eden)
Thanks for the great review, Kayla!
ReplyDeleteA little-known fact about the cover design is that it was a gift from an amazing writing friend, who was fifteen years old when she gave it to me. It was love at first sight, and I never even bothered to look at another design. And no, she hasn't read the book. :)
Thanks again!