Book Spotlight - The Metamorphosis of Elissa Brown by Rebecca Lawrance

The Metamorphosis of Elissa Brown

Description

Folk have been heard to say, 'There's madness in my family.' How would you feel if you found yourself saying, 'There's monsters in my family,' or even, 'Supernatural beings?'

Elissa Brown is an average, orange haired teenager who deems herself a geek. She lives with her Grandmother in a small village surrounded by sea and roaming hills. Her mother is dead leaving nothing but a few oddments and a smelly book of tales full of strange beings and stories of magic, love and loss.

Her heart yearns for the boy next door. Her love is unrequited until she stumbles into a world where romance becomes reality and the monsters of fairy tales are just a strand of DNA away, waiting for a catalyst to unleash them.

Buy Link: Amazon

About the Author

I always considered myself an artist who loved telling stories through pictures. For a short period of time I was an exam invigilator and the one thing that stopped me slipping into an abyss of abject boredom was my imagination. After three hours watching students, heads bowed, busily writing for their futures, I realised that I had envisioned a feature length film of my own creation, from start to finish, in my mind's eye. I came too from my internal reverie to find a poor student waving frantically, desperate for the toilet.
From then on I was obsessed with writing. I found a treasure trove of stories on browning paper, scrawled with my own childish script. Reading them I was filled with a mixture of pride that I had been an ardent writer from such a young age, and sadness that I had forgotten this storytelling passion and left many tales unfinished.
I still love drawing, especially with my children, but I am over the moon I have told a story from start to finish. Many challenges barred the way. I lost thirty thousand words when my computer crashed and I've had two children necessitating writing this novel in the wee hours of the night and in the quiet time before dawn and their rising.
The second book in this series is already underway. The time it takes me to write it depends on my little ones going to bed and being quiet until morning - here's hoping!

Review ~ The Metamorphosis of Elissa Brown (The Elissa Chronicles) - Rebecca Lawrance

Ebook received from the author in exchange for an honest review

ASIN: B00B10MFJM

Pages: 417

Description

Elissa Brown considers herself to be a bit of a nerd with her muddy orange hair and vaguely green eyes. The one feature that does set her apart from the crowd is her scars. Upon first inspection it would seem that, at some point in her life she was impaled through her head and her heart. She has no recollection of how she got these scars. The only person who could have told her is her mother who died before Elissa could remember her existence.
Unfortunately Elissa lives next door to the most sought after boy at college, Jaret, whom she pines for on a daily basis, conjuring all manner of imagined scenarios that she hopes will bring them together but to no avail.
Until one day Jaret does something completely unexpected that has rumours rife in the college and Elissa confused and desperate to know what he meant by it. Whilst seeking explanation and chasing her dreams Elissa fails to notice that the altercation between her and the love of her life has ignited other changes, changes that catapult her and her friends to delirious heights before the fairy tale warps into a nightmare where monsters and supernatural beings are a mere dormant strand of DNA away.

My Opinion

The Metamorphosis of Elissa Brown was and interesting novel that kept the suspense throughout the entire book. It started off quite slowly but soon picked up and was hard to put down as it made me questions what was going on, who people really were and why they were doing certain things.

The book starts off with quite an eerie atmosphere so the reader knows that something is not right. I loved this as it kept me guessing what was going to happen. As well as this the random messages from someone who goes by J only add to the suspense as they give little hints about a bigger plot that is developing.  

It takes a while for certain things to become clear but the author did a really good job of keeping the reader's interest even though the paranormal aspect wasn't revealed. The romance with Jaret was one of the ways I stayed interested. Like with everything else in the book I found myself questioning whether it was real or whether Jaret really was the 'bad' guy so it kept me reading as I wanted to find out who was playing Elissa.

There were however a few points I wasn't so keen on. When supernatural element was revealed around the 60%and I found out what everyone was I did feel slightly disappointed. Up until that point I thought the book was a really original story and believed that there was something new I hadn't read about before, yet when it all became clear the creatures were more of the standard paranormal species and I felt it ruined part of the originality and the eeriness as they were too common. The book still did keep my interest though as I wanted to find out what was going on so it didn't put me off.

The only other thing I had an issue with was some of the writing. Although it keeps your interest I feel that some parts can be cut down considerably as they were a little wordy and filled with too much description (especially the start). By the end though I think the author had got more into the style and flow of writing and this didn't seem to be a problem. As well as this I didn't really like the switching between the third and first person. I have read a few books where this works but for me in The Metamorphosis of Elissa Brown it broke up the writing too much for me as sometimes the story continued and other times they were just thoughts which confused me slightly. Maybe if they were just thoughts it would have worked better.

Towards the end the writing became more fast paced and action packed which was great. I was left feeling slightly confused about what was going on and there wasn't a definite resolve.   I don't know if there is going to be a sequel but it does leave you on a huge cliff hanger though that poses new questions.

Overall The Metamorphosis of Elissa Brown was an engaging and intriguing book. Parts of it were really original and it keeps you in suspense the whole way through. If you like paranormal, mysteries and romance I'd recommend checking out this book.

Rating: 3.5