Tormented (Immortal Saga) - J. Ann

Description
It's been over 200 years since Humans drove the affected into hiding. Now out of nowhere, people are dying on both sides. When one of the few female specially trained fighters; also known as an Ultorum, is added to the body count, Angelina is forced to make a decision. Now she must betray everything she knows, including her best friend Michael, and follow the one creature she doesn't trust.

Ethan watches this young Ultorum with leery eyes. He is deeply impressed with her abilities, and even more so with her determination. It's just to bad she smells so good.

Together they set out to find the one responsible for all the killings, but what they find, they are not going to like.

My Opinion

As you can probably tell from the books I read, I am a paranormal and romance lover and when I got asked if I would read this book I was instantly intrigued by the description, even if I wasn't keen on the cover. I know the vampire/werewolf genre is getting slightly over used now and maybe becoming a little predictable so I was slightly worried about whether J.Ann could bring anything different to the genre. I must say this book was a pleasant surprise though and it hooked me more than I thought it would.

Even though vampires and werewolves are included in the novel, the story focuses more on the Ultorums (stronger humans) and I loved that fact. It meant that the book strayed from the stereotypical vampire novel and separated it slightly in the overwhelmed genre. It mostly follows the life of Angelina -but did switch between different people's lives at certain points - and how her life changes when a near death causes her to meet the Vampire Ethan. I loved Angelina, she was strong, determined and knew how to fight so in a way it made the book remind me of Rachel Vincent's Blood Bound, which is one of my all time favourites. 

The story line was intriguing and gripping. The action moved at a faced pace and I had trouble putting it down, I probably would have been up all night finishing it if I hadn't had college the next day. I loved the romance triangle that started to develop and J.Ann did a brilliant job of making the reader connect with her characters. At first, before the (predictable) love triangle emerged I thought that I would stay on Micheal's side as he was strong, kind, supportive etc and when Ethan appeared I thought I would grow to hate him. However by the end of it I was torn as to which guy I preferred and would want Angelina to be with and if you think everything will be resolved you are wrong, Tormented leaves you on a terrible cliffhanger and will leave you wanting more.

There were a few downsides to this book though. At times, when the book switched perspective I found myself a little confused at first at what I was reading but this was sorted out as I began to learn the characters more. It also jumped a lot with J.Ann using "***" to move the story along. I'm not against this but maybe it needed to be less frequent so as not to disrupt the flow too much. There were also a few minor grammar and spelling issues that caused me to re-read  a few sentences (breaking up the story) to make sure it wasn't me just reading something wrong and figure out what was meant to be there instead. These were however minor and infrequent so didn't detract too much.

Over all this book was a nice surprise. It brought a slightly different twist to the vampire genre and was easy to understand. This book is a quick read (maybe too short if you enjoy it as much as I did) but packed with action, romance and suspense. It was well written and the characters were developed brilliantly. I can't wait for the next installment to find out what happens and would highly recommend this book to paranormal/romance lovers!