Book Review: Becoming a Legend

I loved the first book, The Legend of the Blue Eyes by B. Kristin McMichael, so much that the author graciously supplied me with a copy of the second book in the series. This in no way effects my final review of this book.

Title: Becoming Legend

Author: B. Kristin McMichael

Series: The Blue Eyes #2

Publisher: Lexia Press

Original Publication Date: June 6, 2013

Format Read: kindle

Genre: YA Paranormal

Purchase: Amazon

Find on Goodreads

Description from Goodreads:
Arianna Grace is about to turn seventeen and her life has been very complicated lately. She is the leader of four clans of night humans: dearg-dul, baku, tengu, and lycan. While the four clans seem to get along better with each other, there is internal conflict on both sides of her family, not to mention the three boys vying for her attention.

Edward Lucan is making a chase for the power to lead the baku clans and is playing his cards by using his nephew Andrew to lure Arianna into a trap. Unfortunately for Lucan, Andrew has his own plans. He has spent the last year waiting for Arianna to see him as more than a friend, and he now finds it necessary to make a move for her affection, despite his uncle.

In the dearg-dul estate, Arianna discovers that the ambitious Lord Seeger has been laying his own strategies for power and is slowly poisoning her. After getting away with her grandfather's murder, he is setting his sights on her. Luckily for Arianna, her team is on to all of the plans and is making some plans of their own. Will it be enough to keep Arianna safe? Several people close to Arianna have been keeping secrets. If Arianna is to take power and control of the night, she will need to know the truth. Will someone finally tell her what it truly means to become the legend everyone is waiting for, before it is too late to turn back?

This book picks up about a year later from the first book. For most of the book Arianna remains just as ignorant about the world of night humans as she did in the first book, except it's a year later. I felt like she should have known a little more at the beginning of this book. I felt like she should have been training both physically and mentally during that year to truly be the leader of the four clans. But clearly she hasn't.

While I liked it, I did not like it as much as the first book. For me, it felt like it suffered a little bit from The Middle Book Syndrome. The entire time I was reading it, I felt like it was just setting me up for the final book in the series. Which I do have to say based on where book two ends, sounds like it will be an awesome end to the series. Plot-wise though, I didn't really feel like this book had it's own individual story arc in the series. Maybe I missed it? That's not to say that you don't continue to learn new things about the world McMichael created, you do. It's a whole lot bigger than we are lead to believe in the first book. You also learn a little bit more about the legend and there is some plotting from various bad guys on how they can either kill Arianna or use her to get the power they crave. 

With all of that being said, I'm still looking forward to the third book, Winning a Legend. 

My Rating:

Book Review: The Legend of the Blue Eyes

Good evening, today I'll be reviewing, The Legend of the Blue Eyes by B. Kristin McMichael. It is the first book in The Blue Eyes Trilogy.  I received a copy of this book for free in return for my honest review, through the Never Too Old For Y.A. Books Group on Goodreads. However, I received a copy of the through through Smashwords using a special coupon code from the author. This in no way effects my final review of this book.

Title: The Legend of the Blue Eyes

Author: B. Kristin McMichael

Series: The Blue Eyes #1

Publisher: Lexia Press

Original Publication Date: March 7, 2013

Format Read: kindle

Genre: YA Paranormal

Purchase: Amazon

Find on Goodreads

Description from Goodreads:
Arianna Grace liked her boring, Midwestern, teenage life where she ignored the many unanswered questions of her childhood. Why were her parents dead? Why did she not have family? Where was she raised until she was five? When someone offers to explain it all, Arianna thinks she’s just getting answers. Instead, she is thrown into a world of night humans who drink blood.

On Arianna's sixteenth birthday, her world is thrown upside down when she changes into a vampire. Night humans, or demons, as some call them, live in normal society. Learning all of the new rules of a world she didn’t know existed might be hard enough, but it's further complicated by two former-friends that now want to help her take her role as the successor to her grandfather. 

There is a war going on between the night humans. Sides have been taken and lines are not crossed. Four main clans of night humans are struggling for control of the night. Divided into two sides, clans Baku and Tengu have been at war for centuries with the clans Dearg-dul and Lycan. That is, until Arianna Grace finds out the truth; she’s the bridge of peace between the two sides. But not everyone wants peace. With the night humans divided, Arianna is now a pawn in the war between them. She must choose a side—her mother’s family or her father’s—and for once in her life, decide her own fate.

In the Acknowledgements the author thanks her husband for pushing her to go further with this novel. It would seem she originally wrote it two months before Twilight came out. We all know how that went down with crazed girls, sparkly vampires, and a slew of similar books. So, before we go into what I thought of the book, I just want to thank the author for listening to her husband and taking a chance in publishing this book.

Aah, the world/creature building in this book is wonderful! I love the four different types of night humans the author came up with. We all know about vampires, lycans, and the such, but Mrs. McMichael manages to put her own unique spin on them. I will admit the whole warring races in this book, did remind me a little of Underworld, but I was okay with that. 

Basically, you have this "hidden" world filled with four different races of night humans, that live among us regular folks. You have the Dearg-duls, who are basically vampires. They need to feed on blood and are sensitive to sunlight, mostly between the hours of 10am-2pm. The Lycans or werewolves who are sided with the Dearg-duls. They look a little different than other versions of werewolves that we know. They can travel during the day time. Then there are the Baku, who can only fully manifest at night. They turn into these big pale creatures with long hair. In my head I picture a cross between the Castithan and Biomen on the Syfy show Defiance. Aligned with them are the Tengu. They are a night human with bat like wings. Both the Dearg-duls and the Baku need blood to survive and the Lycans and the Tengu are more of raw meat eaters. The disagreement between races originally started over their food sources.

Now poor Arianna, on her sixteenth birthday gets thrown into this whole mess. She never really knew a whole lot about her parents, but it appears they had a whole Romeo and Juliet type of relationship going on. At the age of sixteen she manifests as a vampire or Dearg-dul, but that's not all she is...What side will she ultimately chose? 

I really liked this book. I'm actually quite sad that the author didn't manage to get this published BEFORE Twilight. Mrs. McMichael's world is so much richer and intriguing than the one Stephenie Meyer's created. I would rather see young adults read this book over that one. While Arianna does tend to get rescued in this book I can see her coming into her own in future books and being more than able to take care of herself and even do some of her own rescuing (of herself and others).

I look forward to reading the rest of this trilogy and recommend that you check it out too!

My Rating: