Published June 11th 2013
by Smashwords
ISBN 139781301574742
Series: The Beautiful Fate #1
Source: Copy provided by author for my honest review
“Obsessive and driven by nightmares, Ava Baio is uprooted from her Chicago home after the untimely and tragic death of her loving mother. Taken across country by her antagonistic grandmother and placed as a boarding student at a school in Dana Point, California, Ava struggles with isolation and the loss of her mother and her grandfather. Faced with having left her beloved brownstone behind and attending a new school, surrounded by new faces and unfamiliar scenery, she finds herself sorting through unfamiliar and uncharted feelings with a strange and beautiful boy, Ari – a modern day Adonis. After an unconventional start to their relationship, Ava becomes intensely absorbed by her love for Ari, and with his help and the help of his family, she discovers who she really is – a Fate descended from Atropos. She learns that the Greek mythology she grew up reading is not comprised of myth after all.
Ava faces constant challenges both in her relationship with Ari and with the fact that she is being hunted by six threatening and ruthless men who want nothing more than for her to die so that they can live forever. She has no choice but to stand up for those she has come to love. In doing so, she becomes something she hates, a killer.
A true page-turner, A Beautiful Fate is Part One of The Beautiful Fate Series. The novel is full of suspense, romance and the allure of ancient Greece. Ava and Ari will leave the reader hoping the story will never end.”
A Beautiful Fate was a very addicting story. I was intrigued by the simple, yet dark looking cover. I was really drawn in from the first paragraph.
“They were screaming for me again. My knuckles were bone white as I gripped a pair of cold steel scissors in my hand. People, all strangers, screamed at me from beyond their closed doors, demanding death; begging for the coup de graće.”
Isn’t that crazy scary/good?! Ava is trying to survive after her mother’s and grandfather’s death. With no father in the picture to turn to, she’s forced to live with her maternal grandmother, Margaux, who for some reason seems to hate her guts. Margaux is a straight up B in this story. Ava suffers from terrible nightmares about the deaths of her loved ones, and strangers, as mentioned in the excerpt above, but can’t figure out why. The nightmares themselves were imaginative and at times were pretty scary. Once Ava separates from Margarux and settles into her new boarding school, she meets her next door coed neighbor, Ari, and the story really gets moving. Through a long series of events, Ava discovers that she is a Fate, and she alone controls life and death. This explains the nightmares she’s been having.
I really enjoyed this story, but I did have some issues. Firstly, it needed more editing. Lots of errors and repetitiveness in both words and actions. One of my biggest pet peeves is the overuse of names in conversation, and there was a lot of that. Secondly, there were a few things that were said that didn’t quite gel. For instance, Margaux is so mean and cold to Ava. We’re told that she hates Ava, Ari, and his family. So it confused me when she suddenly offers someone a job with her company, and is later ‘thrilled’ with a pretty major event. I know that’s vague, but I don’t want to give anything away. Maybe I missed something that was explained, but I never really quite understood why Margaux hated Ava. Throughout the story, Ava would fall asleep for hours and hours, and people would make comments like “I thought you’d never wake up!” quite a few times. I thought it was because of the work she was doing in her dreams, which brings me to my next though.
My third issue was that the whole Fate thing seemed to take a back seat to Ava’s life away from Ari, and even after she returned. From about the middle of the book almost to the end, there’s not really any mention of her work in her dreams. Ava had been having these dreams about cutting peoples life threads, which was done very well. She was also seeing men chase after her to try and kill her, but she was either told not to worry about or that she needed to take care of it. There was no explanation of how to do it, though. I assumed it would be in the dream world that Ava would do this, but Mann took a different approach, and that was totally fine and had tons of action. I felt like the middle of the book was a bit draggy, but it may just be because I was expecting more of the Fate plot. Maybe some of my questions will be answered in the second book, A Broken Fate, which I will be reading very soon!
Ava makes a decision to keep the ones she loves safe, and has to go through building a new life for herself all over again. I felt pretty bad for the girl. She goes through a numbing depression, and with the help of a few new friends, she’s able to pull herself out of the pit and live again. Some of the things she went through during this time were seriously crazy. I loved the imagery Mann’s words gave me as Ava was forced to deal with the very people that were trying to kill her. I could picture every detail as Ava fought not only for her own life, but to protect the people she loved.
I know it may seem like I didn’t enjoy this book, but I really did. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have read all of it and be anxious for the next book. I am an honest reviewer, and felt that I needed to note my issues. I think that Cat Mann wrote a solid story in that she could completely take out the Fate aspect and STILL have a kickin’ story that I would have read and liked just as much. Mann is very detailed and knows how to really build the world she has created. The ending really picks up and there is a MAJOR cliffhanger and I’m totally invested into the story of Ari and Ava. I am pleased to have gotten to read A Beautiful Fate, and I look forward to seeing what else Cat Mann has up her sleeve!