Awakening - The Dark Rituals #1 by Catrina Burgess

What would you do if your only chance of survival is to become everything you were taught to hate and despise?

4 Stars for this violent and bloody piece of fantasy mixed with the right amount of action, romance and unpredictability.

I received a free ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

First of all: I CAN'T WAIT A WHOLE MONTH TO READ THE SECOND BOOK! *sobs*

The story takes place in a world where people get born into different clans, each clan honing and teaching abilities. Colina is a healer. Or at least she was. She can't heal anymore since witnessing the horrible thing that was done to her family. Now she has to learn the despised death arts if she wants to stay alive and take revenge on the men who killed everyone she loved.

Luke is a death dealer and unwilling to teach her. That is until his sister gets abducted by the same men that are after Colina.

The rituals one has to undergo in order to become a death dealer are horrifying and have a good many points where they can go awfully wrong. But there isn't really any going back anymore. Fuelled by fear and the possibility of death Colina's and Luke's relationship quickly verges and develops into something more.

The road to revenge and the rescue of Luke's sister is bathed in blood and dead bodies and behind all that is a plot more gruesome than either of them could have expected.

The emotions where high in this one. Though I felt like Colina could fill a whole bathtub with her tears constant crying I really can't say anything against it, 'cause if it was me going through all that shit I'd probably be crying buckets as well. 

So, very emotional main character but it didn't annoy me like many overly emotional characters do.

The story world reality with the clans is intriguing and I can't wait to get to know more about it in the second book as this one didn't offer many details, just little crumbs of information.

And OH MY GOSH THE ENDING! I seriously didn't see that one coming! It was a punch on the stomach on the last pages and left me speechless. I can't wait for October to come so I can greedily devour the next instalment of the story.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys interesting and original fantasy with an unpredictable ending that doesn't crush you under heaps of detail about the story world but still enough to not get lost.