Fiction Fare

First - look at that cover - it's gorgeous! I'm a total cover hoor and this one caught my attention immediately. When I was at the RT Convention in Chicago this year I had the chance to meet Ms. Ashton and she had just gotten the cover for the second in this series and showed it to us.... it's just as beautiful.Now - about the actual book! I really really enjoyed it. This was a quick and easy read with characters I liked, and characters I wasn't sure if I was supposed to like but did, and characters I didn't like at all! LOL which just means that my emotions were all over the place on this one. We meet Nikki Beckett as she's waking up... Last spring she disappeared, taken into the underworld known as the Everneath. The 6 months she was gone in the real world was a century's worth of time there. She comes back but she only gets 6 months to say goodbye to everyone before being trapped in Everneath forever. Cole is the immortal who spent the last 100 years feeding off of Nikki's emotions and he's convinced she is his queen and he's bound and determined to make her his. But what he doesn't expect is her lingering attachment to those on the surface, especially her (ex?) boyfriend Jack. At times I loved Cole which is why I was so confused on how I felt about him and her and him and her together... Ashton really builds the conflicting emotions for me and makes me struggle with whether or not Cole is genuine about how he feels about Nikki or is he just out to use her once he convinces her to be Queen of the Everliving? But then... then we get Jack. *sigh* he's swoony guys, I won't lie. Over the six months that Nikki was gone, he never gave up on her and when she returns he knows something isn't right but he patiently waits for her to spill. No threatening, no ultimatums, just sweetness and support and I loved it. So.. of course there is a bit of a love triangle here - but Nikki has basically already made her choice, the other guy is a necessary evil LOL. If you don't like love triangles, don't let that keep you away from this book because I don't feel like it is a love triangle in the true sense of what we think it to be.Ultimately the book is about redemption - Nikki has 6 months to make things right with her friends and family. We see her doing that throughout the book and I'm glad that the basic plot of the book wasn't abandoned just to give us more romance. The end, while I wasn't surprised by it, I think it was done wonderfully. I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in this series! I need to know where she's going to take this story! Pick this one up if you're looking for something different in the YA/paranormal genre! I think you'll really enjoy it!