Illuminate by Aimee Agresti

Goodreads Blurb

Haven Terra is a brainy, shy high school outcast. But everything begins to change when she turns sixteen. Along with her best friend Dante and their quiet and brilliant classmate Lance, she is awarded a prestigious internship in the big city— Chicago—and is sent to live and work at a swanky and stylish hotel under the watchful eyes of a group of gorgeous and shockingly young-looking strangers: powerful and alluring hotel owner Aurelia Brown; her second-in-command, the dashing Lucian Grove; and their stunning but aloof staff of glamazons called The Outfit.

As Haven begins falling for Lucian, she discovers that these beautiful people are not quite what they seem. With the help of a mysterious book, she uncovers a network of secret passageways from the hotel’s jazz-age past that leads her to the heart of the evil agenda of Aurelia and company: they’re in the business of buying souls. Will they succeed in wooing Haven to join them in their recruitment efforts, or will she be able to thwart this devilish set’s plans to take the souls of her classmates on prom night at the hotel?

Illuminate is an exciting saga of a teen’s first taste of independence, her experience in the lap of luxury, and her discovery she may possess strength greater than she ever knew

Jen Ryand from www.jenryland.com sent me an ARC copy for free, so thanks! Anyways, I saw many great reviews, so I decided to give it a try. I wasn’t disappointed, but it didn’t meet up to my expectations either.

Haven Terra is offered an opportunity to work for the glamorous Aurelia Brown at the Lexington Hotel. What else could one girl want? And when Aurelia’s right hand man, Lucian, turns out to be an alluring gorgeous man no older than Haven, she think she’s in heaven. The key word being thinks. She discovers a journal with her name inscribed on it and receives letters from an unknown hand telling her things to do and calling her the “winged one”. What does that mean? And then Haven’s best friend, Dante, is pulling away from her, leaving Haven with the third person who came with them, Lance. To make things even more complicated, Haven finds out the Outfit, the prestigious group of beautiful people that work at the Lexington Hotel, have sold their souls for beauty. That includes Aurelia and Lucian who are planning on stealing the souls of Haven’s former classmates on prom night. Can Haven ever get a break?

I was hyped up for Illuminate which may be why it seemed so boring for me. Anyways, let’s look at the cover for a moment. I love the shadows of wings that seem to be sprouting from the girl’s back. It just tells you that there’s something supernatural about our main character, something that’s fairly easy to hide, but when someone finds out, they won’t forget it. It’s just an amazing cover. The model was perfect for what I imagines Have to be.

Onto the content: It took about 300 pages for me to finally get into the book. I’m sorry, but it was kind of boring. I mean, all she did was work and follow the orders she was given. There was a bit of romance between Lucian and Haven, but that was pretty much the only interesting thing besides the messages. But after the 300 page mark, everything finally started becoming entrancing. The action, the danger, and the hidden threat all made me enraptured and I quickly finished the book after that. A—ma—zing! The action finally started and the danger finally showed itself.  The rest of the book was the ideal plot of a paranormal fiction. And that was about 200 pages worth, so I would recommend at least reading it.

I loved the characters though. Even the Outfit. They had different, yet realistic, personalities (excluding the Outfit). The Outfit on the other hand, were the perfect characters to play the soulless slaves. Dante, as much as I loved his character, was a bit on the stereotypical side, being all girly-like. Just because he like guys doesn’t technically make you girly. But overall, the characters get a nine out of ten.

To be honest, I didn’t like Lance because of what happened between Haven and Lance, preferring Lucian more. I mean, no no spoiler, he just seems way nicer than Lance…It helps that he actually stands up to people…

Pages: 534
Series: Gilded Wings #1
Genre: Fantasy/Romance

Rating: 3 stars

“Everything sinful is glamorous these days, isn’t it?”