Adamant
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the author!
In an alternative 21st century, Earth is one of many in the Multiverse. The Inter-World alliance exists to keep the peace and keep the monsters out.
Ada Fletcher is twenty-one, keeps a collection of knives in her room, and is more interested in fighting than her day job as a cashier. She also risks her life on a daily basis, helping refugees from a devastating magical war on her homeworld hide on the low-magic Earth. But when she’s taken into custody by the Alliance, her unusual magic makes her a prime suspect for a supervisor’s suspicious death.
For Kay Walker, whose family founded the organization, there has never been any doubt that his future is with the Alliance – even if it means dealing with sarcastic centaurs and dangerous monsters in the dark Passages between worlds. But when his supervisor is murdered, Kay discovers that a research project might have been the reason, and faces the choice of whether to ignore his instincts or risk becoming the next target, not to mention digging into the Alliance’s history and memories he’d rather keep buried. And there’s something not quite right about the strange, fierce girl he arrested as a suspect.
The last thing Ada wants is to help the infuriating Alliance guard who arrested her, but it soon becomes clear that the Alliance knows too much about Ada’s offworld origins. More, in fact, than she knows herself. Now she has to choose between loyalty to her family, and helping the Alliance save the Earth – and the Multiverse – from a deadly enemy.
Right, so, I tried to do my own synopsis, but the one on GoodReads and Amazon pretty much says all that can be said and if I tried to do my own it'd be full of spoilers and would leave you with no point in reading the book!
Fair warning, at this point I'm slightly sleep deprived and really tired, so sorry if there's excessive spelling mistakes, my Mac's autocorrect is driving me nuts, and I might ramble and make no sense!
So, I'm a bit of a fan of Emma's, I got to review Darkness Watching from NetGalley a while ago, and I loved it, it was unique and so when Emma asked me if I wanted to review this, I fangirled quietly, and calmly said yes! I had expectations from this book based from her other work, and I was not disappointed!
I feel I should mention the cover by the way, it's too pretty! I want it as a poster or something! But yes...back to the review!
I started to read it as soon as I could, and I settled down and prepared to be there for a while. I knew for a fact I would have to read this book in one sitting and I wasn't wrong! As soon as I started reading, I was sucked into this alternative timeline, and this totally awesome world that the author had created! I wanted to know more about this Earth, the Multiverse and other planets, not to mention the mysterious Enzar. I'd say more about that but spoilers!
The world was vivid, and imaginative. Most of all, it's what I love best, original, unique, I love things that are a little bit different and so I immediately fell in love with this world, especially as it was so well written and so well crafted, you got a lot of information on the world historically without bogging down the narrative, and you were left satisfied, but still wanting to know more, which we hopefully will in the next few books!
I was totally absorbed into the world, not just because of the excellent world building but because of the well written, and intriguing characters. Ada....she was a mystery, I was trying to work out what she is, or more accurately where she came from. I couldn't, I ended up being pretty surprised by that plot twist, which is why I'm not going to spoil it by going on about it! Anyways, Ada, I connected to her instantly, she made me laugh, she was written larger than life, or at least she seemed that way to me. She had depth, she was intriguing, you wanted to know more about her, and it's going to be interesting to see how she gets on with her magic in the next book and where she goes with this.
Kay was another well written character, he clearly had a bad past, and you where constantly trying to take guesses at it and you wanted to know more about him and what happened, he add a nice level of intrigue, especially as little tidbits where mentioned and to be honest, the mystery nearly drove me crazy, I suck at mysteries and this book is full of them, they all get answered, and they always shock you! I did like Kay though, bless him.
I enjoyed Kay and Ada's relationship, I liked how the romance developed slowly and naturally, and it was very well done, I think they're great together, and they have a chemistry that leaps off the page. Ada doesn't trust easily at all, and you can't really blame her, she's also a total badass, and Kay is trying to do his job, while working out why people are being killed and what for.....as well as facing the truth about his father and what he did, because guys....his dad is shaaaaaadddyyyy as fudge. I liked watching her open up to him slowly, and start to trust him, and it was 50 shades of cute!
Because of these two excellently written characters, the narrative was incredibly engaging, and as it was a dual point of view from both Ada and Kay, you got a real feel for both characters, their motives and so on, and you also got to see what was going on while the other was busy rather than hearing about it second hand, not to mention see how they see each other. I loved the multi POV because it was done right. The changes where at the right moment, and most importantly we didn't get the same scene from both POV's, there may have been a little overlap, but mostly it filled in what would have been gaps and just added a great level to the story.
The plot was fascinating and intriguing, I was pretty much along for the ride because I gave up trying to work out what was going to happen next, I'm beginning to learn I'm always wrong. ALWAYS. The plot was action packed, honestly the book was like a rollercoaster, it picks you up and sweeps you along for the ride, and it's thrills and spills the entire way through, I loved it, especially as the pace fit perfectly with the book and wasn't rushed, neither was it bogged down by the information we learn. There was a perfect balance. The fight scenes where hella awesome though!
Adamant is a fantastic start to what's going to be a fun, adventurous and super cool series, it's different, it's original, it's got cool creatures, cool magic, mystery, rich background and history to the world, colourful characters, both supporting and main (I totally loved Alber and Jeth not to mention the centaur and I'm itching to know more about all 3 as well as nell), it's imaginative and it stretches your imagination out too, it's got a world so well written and brought to life you can totally lose yourself in it, and it's utterly fantastic. A strong start to the series, perfectly setting up the rest of the series but not without sacrificing the plot of this book! Can't praise it enough!
In short, Adamant is a wild ride full of originality and imagination that will keep you engrossed in the world until the last page...
