Review: Phantasma by Efthalia

Book Blurb:

Carissa Alkippes is the daughter of a god but she doesn't know it. As a cop she's seen her fair share of bad but nothing prepared her for the horror of the world she has been plunged into.

Xen Lyson is the head of the Phi Athanatoi, a group of immortals who have been protecting man for over 2,000 years from the Kakodiamones--demons who want nothing more than to feast on humanity.

Thrown face to face with Xen during a skirmish with the demons, Carissa becomes a pawn in the deadly game of a demi-god who seeks godly powers.

My Review:

3 Out Of 5 Hearts

Genre: Another-World, Romance, Royal-Court, Supernatural, Vampires, Werewolves--

Carissa feels terrible about dragging her partner into a dark warehouse while they are off duty just to follow up on a tip from one of her informants. And of course they run into trouble, but she can’t explain what she is seeing. Carissa has dreamt about the same fictional man since she was a teenager, but never did she expect to encounter him in real life wielding a sword in a battle against some demon creatures. Next thing she knows, her partner is in the hospital fighting for his life and she has no idea what happened, only a foggy memory of a fight and her dream man. Little does she know, but her life just got so complicated, and Carissa is right in the middle of it.

I was interested to read this because it sounded like an interesting new world filled with vampires, werewolves, and Greek gods. I am always on the hunt for new urban fantasy (which FYI this is not, but whatever) and I was intrigued as to what I would find. Well, this is more along the lines of a paranormal romance, which is ok too. I did like the action the story presented me with as well as the plot that kept forward at a good pace. I enjoyed Carissa and Xen, the two main characters who share the narration of the book, and found them to be well described and full of depth. There were so many side-ish characters introduced I could see many book in this series future.

Let’s talk about my problems with the book. There was a LOT of Greek used since all the characters are of Greek heritage and I do not speak Greek even a little. Needless to say, I was confused for a while but then I made up my own translations for the words that seemed to work, so whatever. After finishing the book, I did discover a glossary of Greek terms at the end. Not super convenient on an ereader (especially since I did not even know it existed). The main character spent a lot of time eating, and great detail went into describing her foods. It got a little old for me, but thanks for the realism? Carissa also did some stupid stuff that kind of surprised me since she is a smart person (in theory) and a police officer. Plenty of times she fought against her protectors because she felt she needed space or knew best, and each time she was kidnapped. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Well, she was fooled at least 3 times here and an army had to go risk their own lives and rescue her each time. For a police officer, she was quite a damsel in distress.

I liked the book (despite how negative my review seems) and would have probably given it a higher rating if it hadn’t been so full of sex. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with sex in a book, and this was not too explicit, but remember that I went into this expecting an urban fantasy, not a romance with some paranormal thrown in. At one point, after the first real introduction the two main characters have, the characters have sex repeatedly, even though Carissa is a virgin and had just told him she was not ready for that kind of intimacy. And then BAM, sex happens. It happens a lot actually, at pages and pages at a time. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next, and found myself skipping over the encounters to progress the plot. I am sure that I am being crazy, and romance readers will probably complain that they wanted more, but I just wasn’t feeling it here.

I thought the ending was kind of depressing, with something miraculous being destroyed. Hopefully everyone is wrong and it was not, but maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part. There were so many loose ends left open that I have tons of questions as to what will happen. I can see the series becoming even more developed and interesting and I would like to read more.

I received this in return for my honest review.