Review: Recreated

Recreated
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Lily Young thought traveling across the globe with a reawakened sun prince was a grand adventure. Now she’s about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.

When Amon and Lily part tragically, he transports himself to the Netherworld—what mortals call hell. Tormented by the loss of his one true love, he’d rather suffer in agony during Lily’s mortal years than fulfill his duty to protect humanity.

Heartbroken, Lily seeks refuge on her grandmother’s farm. Yet she can feel Amon’s pain, and she has been having dreams—dreams of Amon continually suffering.

For before he departed, Amon gave Lily something very special, an item that connects them even though they are worlds apart. Now Lily must use this object to free him, and to free their realms from darkness and utter chaos. She will do whatever it takes. 

I've been deliberating over this rating for a while. I completely loved the first book, I loved the mythology and the characters and the romance. I loved the originality to it with the twists on mummies and Egyptian mythology. Both books are clearly well researched and I just LOVE all the mythology. But this book was hard for me to rate because there where a couple of things I had an issue with. I wanted to give this 5 stars but I think I'll have to give it four instead. 

All the things I loved from the first book where present in this. The rich mythology, the originality, the memorable characters that are easy to relate to and have depth to them, and the fast pace and smooth writing. Plus the romance. I love the romance between Lily and Amon, and I love how it's still going strong in this book, and they're so cute with each other and so in love. Warm and fuzzies people, warm and fuzzies. We got to see more of Anubis, and meet more of the Gods and Goddesses, Horus, Amun-Ra, Osiris and so on. I loved getting to see more of them, after meeting Anubis in the first book it was something I really wanted to see and Houck delivered! Could have done without Horus's moves though. Hassan is back, and so are Asten and Ahmose another thing I wanted after the first book as I loved the brothers so much! We got to lean more about Asten and his past, and I really felt for him, and from the way things went I'm assuming next book we're going to get to learn a lot more about Ahmose. Kinda like a book for each brother! 

As well as the old, we got to meet new characters, Cherty, Tia, the Mother Tree, Ashleigh who I really liked! She cracked me up! Tia I liked and I loved her friendship with Lily and how they interacted. That said, towards the end, once I realised what she was up to...well...I understood why she was doing what she was doing, I got it. But at the same time, I love Lily so much and so I wasn't really down with what Tia was doing. Ashleigh too at points. I understood why, and I got their point of view but still. Anyway, we got plenty of new characters to love, and get to know! There's even two more ships, and I ship them, but at the same time it's very complicated, and more on that later! 

Recreated is all go from the beginning, I love the mix of mythology, action and romance. I loved getting the creation story of the Gods and the story of Seth from Amun-Ra, I also liked the little story at the end of the book! There's a really great Relic Hunter feel to the book in the beginning, or Indiana Jones, whichever you prefer. There's a quest like vibe to it, sort of, as they journey through the Netherworld, I also felt like it was kind of Alice in Wonderland-y. Journeying through the world, and all the strange things Lily came across. I loved getting to see the Netherworld and learn more about the mythology that inspired the book, I loved how vivid it was and how it sucked you in to the book. It was original and fun, and imaginative and I love Houck's world building. 

Now there where also bits I didn't like. Lily undergoes a transformation in this book, hence the title Recreated. Lily really struggles with what she is, and I'm interested in how it's all going to end although I have a feeling I'm 99% right with what I think is going to happen. My problem is with the other people in Lily's head. For most of the book Tia is in Lily's head and it's hard to tell who is in control. When everything with Asten happens, it confused me and I didn't really like it. I loved Lily and Ramon's relationship in the first book and I loved the beginning and then this whole thing came out of left field and I really didn't like it. Call me crazy but yeah. Then we have Ashleigh in Lily's head. The attitude of both just irritated me more than once, as Lily, at least in Ashleigh's case, didn't really agree to having Ashleigh in her head and Ashleigh was taking over left right and centre. Now. I like the new ships. I ship them. It's cute. But not at the expense of Lily and Amon's relationship, and I'm just not down with the whole cheating thing that's going on, even though I know it's not really cheating, if you know what I mean? I'm 99% sure that they're all going to get separated and it's going to be totally cute with each of the brothers being all happy and everything, but for now, I'm not digging the whole Lily having three people in her head and what's going on with it. It just bugs me. And when it happened with Ashleigh at the end I knew it was going to happen and I was like okay, really? 

I also found the "effects" of the Heart Scarab a bit....too much. Like the whole Horus thing. I didn't see it as being all that necessary to the story, it was just there for whatever reason and I found myself rolling my eyes a little at it. So this book has been hard for me to rate, because I really really loved the first book, but this one kinda went down in my estimations. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, and there where plot twists that I didn't see coming. But now I feel like I know exactly what's going to happen with this series, or at least a large part of what's going to happen, at least with the romance anyway. It just didn't sit well with me, and at points I was a little confused about what was happening, really. 

SaveSave