This book was a fun story with a hard core latina female protagonist and some great complex side characters. The main character, Rose, has just lost her father and the beginning does a great job of drawing you into the story, and the complexities of the relationships within Rose’s family life. The cultural aspects of Rose’s life are weaved in expertly and add a refreshing feel to the genre.
The climax and the ending were action packed and exciting. The story line includes everything from a magic academy, and a mysterious backstory to witches, wereworlves, shifters and vampires. Rose is forced to attend the GRIMM academy against her will where she has to learn about how to defend earth from the ‘extraordinares’ who are magical creatures willing to attack humans. The book hints at a much expanded world with complex reasoning behind the current status quo where everything isn’t as good as it seems.
I really liked Javi and Grayson. I felt like they were well developed and complex side characters. Rose, I also liked although sometimes her attitude became a bit much. I’m hoping to see her really grow in the next book and hopefully do something badass. Like maybe save Grayson or something to justify her hard core attitude with some ability.
After the beginning, it felt like the pacing of the book slowed significantly. I would have preferred to be dropped into the setting and into the classes themselves so that I could really understand what it was like at GRIMM instead of being taken on a tour of the buildings and layout of the school.
This is a book with teens drinking, smoking and swearing. The romance is a slow burn which I liked, and starts out as a kind of a Pride and Prejudice feel. I’ll be interested to see how it develops in book 2.
This was a fun book! If you are looking for a book with an uncompromising protagonist, a magic academy, and a compellingly complex backstory, check out Shifters and Secrets by RL Medina!
Official Blurb:
Monsters. Magic. Family secrets.
After an attack by a shifter, Rose learns the truth of her parent’s past and her own dark destiny. She was promised to a notorious coven and now the witches are on the hunt. But they’re not the only ones laying claim to her. The only family she has left are GRIMMS—monster hunters—and they are determined to turn her into the perfect soldier.
Can Rose escape her fate or is already too late?
Shifters and Secrets is the first book of an upper YA Urban Fantasy/Paranormal series set in the Inner World universe filled with lots of snark (sometimes swearing), all the supernatural and magical beings we love, and an enemies to lovers romance.
Other Information:
You can purchase a copy of Shifters and Secrets at Amazon.
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JA Curtis 