Emerge by Melissa A. Craven
(The Awakening #1)
Release Date: April 1st 2015
Genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Format: Ebook
Where You Can Find It: Amazon | Goodreads

**I received an advanced copy of this book from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.**

Synopsis:
Allie Carmichael has always believed life is simple.

You’re born. You live. You die.
She has no cause to believe that equation works differently for her, but there has to be a reason the world treats her like a pariah.

When an unexpected move to Kelleys Island brings Aidan McBrien crashing into her life, Allie is thrown by his reaction. He doesn’t shrink from her touch. He doesn’t stutter or make a quick exit. He smiles and welcomes her into his circle of friends, who aren’t exactly comfortable with Allie, but they seem to get her in a way most people don’t.

Finally, Allie has a real shot at normal and rides that high right up to her sixteenth birthday when she wakes in agony—an experience Aidan insists they have all faced. She struggles in ignorance, uncertain of what is real and what isn’t. When she emerges, Allie is different. She has always been different, but even among her extraordinary friends, she and Aidan are special.

As Allie struggles to maintain her tenuous grasp on the power that threatens to overwhelm her, she worries she will lose herself in this strange new world. A dangerous world where she will have to fight tooth and nail to defend the power and freedom that is her birthright.

…only Allie hates to fight.

Review

We all have a fairly clear idea of how our lives play out. In the simplest of terms, we’re born, we live, and then we die. But what if you found out that the normal rules of life do not apply to you, in fact you will continue to live on long after many people have died. Essentially, you find out you are an Immortal. How do you think you would react? What if you sensed it all along based purely on how others reacted to you when you were around them or the fact that you seemed to move a lot when people got too close to you and your family? These are basically the thoughts Allie has before and after she finds out she is in fact an Immortal. Of course, finding out this life altering secret does not happen easily especially not in Allie’s case, she has been isolated from this world for the majority of her life as her adoptive parents have moved all over the world in order to keep her safe. It is only on her 16th birthday that she experiences what it truly means to be an Immortal as she goes through what is called her “Awakening” which is basically a very painful process in which her powers emerge. Afterwards, she begins to fully see life for what it is as an Immortal. It definitely helps that Aidan McBrien and his family is at her side when this happens because without them she would have been helpless in knowing how to make through her “Awakening” not to mention the rest of her life.

The overall concept revolving around the idea of Immortals and the powers they possess and how they have been around for thousands if not millions of years is very unique seeing as I have not read a fantasy book like this before. The beginning part of the book did start out a little confusing to me as it seems like things progressed fairly quickly between Allie and Aidan and his friends when she arrived on Kellen’s Island after living in New Zealand for the past two years. You are definitely left wondering why Allie’s life is the way it is and why, for example, people seem to be uncomfortable around her, flinching each time she comes into contact with them. I understand that it is meant to leave the reader intrigued therefore causing them to continue to read to figure out why this happening but for me I just felt a little too lost. I get that there was an air of mystery since Allie also does not know what is going on but after a while I just wanted there to be some insight of what was happening and the world that Allie was  about to a part of. The building of the world encompassed in the novel is a crucial part of a fantasy book for me and this one left me more lost than curious.

I will say once we did find out the world that Allie is thrust into and the history behind it, I really liked the concept of being Immortal and having these abilities/unique powers which traced back all the way to beginning of time. Also, the fact that she and Aidan and everyone else stops aging is a major perk in my book. In addition to that, Allie and Aidan’s relationship is another aspect of the book I enjoyed just because it was almost like you could feel the connection they had from the very first time they literally ran into one another in the woods. Allie’s ability of being very perceptive of people and who they are as a person accounts for why in the book she becomes such good friends with Aidan, Sasha, Chloe, Graham, etc. almost instantaneously. I was a little thrown off by it at first just because it felt rushed to me but after finding out about this instinct Allie has and how it is connected her being an Immortal it all began to make sense. Which brings me back to Aidan, and how from the minute they met Allie felt she could trust him, allowing them to become best friends almost overnight.Their sarcastic banter back and forth along with how caring and protective Aidan is of Allie was so much fun to read about and definitely was a positive element within the book.

If you are looking for a unique fantasy involving powers/abilities and the inability to age along with a budding yet almost electric romance then I would definitely suggest you check out Emerge by Melissa A. Craven.