Rowan by Christina ChannelleFirst Published: 26th April 2013
Publisher: Christina Channelle
Genre: Young Adult: Fiction
Series: Blood Tears #1
Looking for my other reviews of the series?Dahlia –
Blood Tears #1 [
Here]
Fallen Tears –
Blood Tears #1.5 [
Here]
Synopsis: Dark. Night. Death.
Things Rowan has been trying to avoid for many years since she was first turned. Her choice: to sleep away the darkness; it beats having to deal with the craziness of life. Or rather, death. However soon after awakening, she stumbles upon a lone figure whose presence is shrouded with mystery.
She assists him in his search for answers making it even more difficult for Rowan to forget her past. She realizes she can't hide forever as she is literally being sucked back into her chaotic world: a world where both fallen angels and vampires exist, manifested on earth as lapsus and lamia.
Not particularly... friendly with one another.
Rowan struggles to resist her hunger as a demon vampire whilst dealing with unwanted desires for a fallen angel from the past: a relationship that could only spell trouble. Not to mention the unresolved feelings she still has for a loved one from long ago. While all of this is happening, they much all seek the hidden evil that hunts them - for there's an ancient fighting to wake up and destroy everything Rowan holds dear.
Review: 4 / 5 stars
I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Rowan by Christina Channelle for review as part of a book tour, this has in no way reflected my opinion. Please note: I will try and keep this review as spoiler free as possible for those of you who haven’t read the series, but I can’t promise there will be zero spoilers.
I say lucky enough because after I finished the other novel and novella in this series I predicted that the second book would be even better and most likely my favourite of the three and I was in fact correct – though of course I may be a little bias as this book is from the point of view of Rowan who is a vampire and vampires are indeed my favourite mythical beings, but shhh. Any how back to the review, as I mentioned this is all from Rowan’s point of view and after four years of sleeping away the pain and need to feed – which hey does not seem like too bad of an idea at times to me, I mean we all have those days we’d rather just sleep through, but of course it also means that she’s ignoring other things and people that probably shouldn’t be ignored – she resurfaces into the city of Fallen and starts off by what any vamp would do, finding some food. Once full and refreshed with life/food she takes a proper look around where she is, and to those of you who aren’t as big of a fan as vampire’s as I am, I guess this is the part it gets interesting, because not far from her is a body. A body which isn’t alive but also not quiet dead, a body who we’ve previously met – Sam! Which if you forgotten like uh well I did (d’oh) is Dahlia’s brother from the first book, I blame reading at 1am for not making the connection. So Rowan does what any vampire with their humanity in tact does with a body that is neither dead or alive, yeah you guessed it, she turns Sam into a vampire.
So that is two of the main characters mentioned, the third is Remy and if you’ve read Fallen Tears you’ll know that he is one of the fallen angels, but one of the good ones, part of a family that have helped the last remaining vampires survive and stay hidden, and he’s also a total babe with the hots for Rowan. Of course. Everyone needs some form of romance in their lives.
This unlikely trio have to work together to find answers to questions, some of which they’re not even aware of. Why was Sam in such an odd state? Who has the power to do that to a person? Why does he have no memory of what happened to him and what was so important or scary that someone had to remove these memories from him? Why is a bear attacking them in the sewers? and what has happened to Sam’s family? Finding answers to only a few of these questions opens up a larger can of worms that none of them could ever be prepared for.
We eventually meet up with Dahlia and Greyson and their stories start to tie together and we get some long needed development of Rowan and Remy’s relationship as well as some unfortunate and deathly events. Like I said I don’t want to give too much away but I did really enjoy this book, there wasn’t a dull moment in it for me and seeing how the two books come together was very nice and left open an interesting chain of events to follow for the sequel. I felt like a few scenes were a little rushed towards the ending but this didn’t effect my opinion too drastically. Overall a lovely read and hasn’t suffered the terrible two’s that can often follow with series.
A dreamer, Christina Channelle holds two degrees in health sciences but has always had a passion for writing. You will find her reading other young adult novels, or typing up a new story on her computer. Outside of writing, she enjoys movies, music and has recently embraced a new-found love for sushi. She resides in Ontario, Canada.