Haven ~ Kristi Cook eARC review

Haven
Simon Pulse
February 22, 2011
416 pages
Buy/info @ Amazon

When her stepmother accepts a prestigious new job in New York, Violet has two choices, stay with her grandmother in Atlanta where she's lived her who life or move to New York with Patsy. Worried that her grandmother can't manage taking her on, Violet decides on New York--and a boarding school: Winterhaven.

The girl that even her friends would half jokingly call a 'freak,' Violet has been told she has a seizure disorder. Only Violet knows she doesn't actually have seizures, but psychic visions. Visions that are usually violent or dangerous and always involve someone close to her.

Violet hopes to have a fresh start at her new, beautiful, elite school outside of New York City. What she doesn't know is that no one at Winterhaven is going to be calling Violet a freak because Winterhaven is a school for those with psychic abilities.

In more ways than one, Violet is going to find a lot more than she expected at Winterhaven.


I've seen Winterhaven compared to Twilight but I think it's more like Evernight or even Dead Beautiful than Twilight. Also, Amazon once again has mega fun spoilers in its synopsis if you ask me!!)

Paranormal books set in boarding schools start out made of awesome for me and either go up or down from there so I do have to admit that I started this book with high expectations . . . and it mostly met them. I loved the introduction of the school and Violet's roommate and her friends.

There was some mystery with one or two characters and just what their role both in the story and with other characters was that added some intrigue--which I loved.

I missed some of the development between Violet and her romantic interest in the book. I would have liked to see more chemistry, I guess between them but I think some of that had to be left out for the rest of the story so I can easily forgive it. (I think I also have super high standards in that arena after reading a few books that really blew me away there!)

I also don't know if it was the layout of the eGalley but sometimes (time) transitions seemed to happen just one paragraph to the next with no breaks which was a little confusing . . . (if I see a finished copy I will try to check on that!)

The beginning of the book was a fast, engrossing read that really drew me in. Then, a little bit of the middle did go a little slower, but definitely stick with it because the ending (and middle/end) really gets going again and draws you right back in! Overall, I really did enjoy this book and hope for more from Kristi Cook!

8/10


Read thanks to Simon & Schuster's Galley Grab



(nb: the only thing I can figure for why there's a butterfly on the cover is because a [yellow]butterfly was flitting around my backyard for a long time while I was reading the middle/end-ish of the book . . . Other than that, I'm not sure.)