Awkward by D . C . Gambel Review by Amber
Awakened truly surprised me with its fresh story surrounding the Four Horsemen ( actually 3 Horsemen and one Horsewoman ) of the Apocalypse . Evie is the fourth and final member of the legendary Four Horseman , only she doesn ' t know that until the day she turns 21 . Evie knew she was different and harbors some horrible , heart-wrenching secrets pertaining to a " gift " she does not understand . When she is confronted by some less than upstanding men behind a bar , her only hope is that someone saves the men before she kills them . She wasn ' t expecting Derek to prevent Evie from hurting them but to be unaffected by her " gift ." Evie ' s destiny and true purpose is finally revealed and her reasons behind being unable to touch humans is explained - much to her surprise .
As this new world is explained to Evie , she finds a building attraction to one of the Horsemen . The attraction isn ' t toward a gentle and kind Horseman , it ' s to one that truly defines bad boy . When they share a very intimate moment , dynamics change , Evie ' s feelings change , but the Horseman distances himself . Yet , as the story progresses you see that they are made for one another - it just takes them a while to get there . There are parts of their moments together that touched my heart and made me cry . The author did a wonderful job putting emotion into her characters that can be felt by the reader .
Awakened is so much more than a paranormal romance though . The story contains the breaking of seals , good versus evil , and trying to train Evie to be able to protect herself and the other Horsemen while also getting her gift under control . Add her human friend into this new world and Evie finds that she finally has a family , one that she can share things with without lying or keeping secrets . She also has the warmth of other people that her body has craved ( and not necessarily sexual ).
I enjoyed the character development and there was a lot of it in Awakened . All of the characters were written well . Evie and her Horseman were meant to be and I was rooting for them from the second he flashed onto the the page . The chemistry was evident right from the very start . The roadblocks that they encountered were hard , full of anger and sadness , maybe some despair , but they conquered them and rose above to learn to work together . The world building was awesome and the descriptions were vivid and I felt like I was there in the story . I can ' t wait for the next book !
I was provided a copy of this book .