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Friday 15 July 2016

DECEPTIONS by Kelley Armstrong


Last year I reviewed the third book in the awesome Cainsville series for Hachette Australia.

This year, the paperback will be released from Penguin Random House.


Olivia Taylor Jones’s life has exploded. She’s discovered she is not only adopted, but her real parents are convicted serial killers. Fleeing the media frenzy, she took refuge in the oddly secluded town of Cainsville. She has since solved the town’s mysteries and finds herself not only the target of its secretive elders but also her stalker ex-fiancé. 

 Visions continue to haunt her: particularly a little blond girl in a green sundress who insists she has an important message for Olivia, one that may help her balance the light and darkness within herself. Death stalks both Olivia and the two men most important to her, as she desperately searches to understand whether ancient scripts are dictating the triangle that connects them. Will darkness prevail, or does Olivia have the power to prevent a tragic fate?


To celebrate the release, I thought I'd post my review again...


I really enjoyed the first two books in the Cainsville series, so I was looking forward to finding out what was going to happen next.

Olivia Taylor-Jones has been through a lot of weird stuff since she found out she wasn't the biological daughter of the privileged Chicago family who raised her. Her parents are actually convicted serial killers, and are both in prison. But that's not all that's turned her life upside down. She can see omens, and has recently started to have visions which are taking a huge toll on her sanity and body. Yet, these are visions that she must allow to happen if she wants to find out the truth about Cainsville, her heritage, and if the Larsens really did commit the horrible crimes they were imprisoned for.

That's made harder by the fact that there are mysterious, dark forces at play. Creatures from the old world who are playing games and/or causing chaos in her life, and in the lives of the people she cares about. Not to mention that her ex-fiancé has become a seriously creepy stalker, and that her friendship with Gabriel seems to go through so many ups and downs she's not sure if they're okay half the time.

At least she's got Ricky. The biker and all-round nice guy who is fun, attentive and respectful. The one person who is not involved in all the craziness in her world and can make her forget about everything. Until she finds out that he's also involved in the sequence of events two different sides of the fae coin are trying to play out. 

This book was just as good as the two before it. Not only does it delve even deeper in the fae side of things so that we start to understand exactly who Olivia is and why the fae want things to happen a certain way, but we also get to find out a lot of truths. Of course, there are a bunch of deceptions laid out along the way, and some even threaten to drive Olivia insane. But what I really liked was that her visions have led to a place of understanding, so she can finally realise how important both Gabriel and Ricky are to her. 

Plus we finally get to find out the truth about her biological parents. Yikes! Didn't see that coming. 

Deceptions is another intriguing instalment in this thrilling series. I love how easily Kelley Armstrong is able to hook me into her stories and keep me glued there until bits and pieces of the bigger picture are slowly revealed. She's also created a fascinating trio with a very interesting angle. And I particularly love how she mixed so much myth, folklore and preternatural elements into an excellent thriller. 

The only thing I missed was Cainsville and its mysterious residents, which did make an appearance but were mostly in the background this time around. 

Still, I'm definitely looking forward to finding out more.


Here are the buy links for the paperback:

Amazon  


Happy reading!

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