Midnight Angel (The Thorn Chronicles Book 1) Kindle Edition

Engrossing, kept me hooked and up to the wee hours of morning. Excellent, creative storyline and complex characters. Innovative, unique and different from other books within this genre. Everyone should check this series out. Up is down and left is right. Awesome.

Though I really enjoyed the story, I had a few problems with it.Books have to be balanced. If you're writing a fantasy, then it should be fantastical. But if you have subplots of romance and mystery and action, you should have a good dose of all of them. Not too much to overpower the actual story-line, though. Or too little. It has to be balanced pretty much perfectly. Kissed didn't get the memo.The book starts out in Arkansas, I think (there was, at one point, an Alabama thrown in there). It's told in the POV of Naomi Aren, a good girl who doesn't rock the boat for fear her father and the Master will punish her. The church she goes to is a misogynistic, White supremacist cult. Her father is abusive, she's treated like nothing more than an inferior woman who has to do what she's told or suffer the consequences. It's a hard life for her, and Naomi wants out. But she's never before let herself dream of a life away from her parents, a life that she wants. Not until she's visited in the night by a stranger who gives her kisses and promises to free her.Naomi is a very interesting character. She's quiet and contemplative, has courage that falters when it comes to her parents and how hard it is for her to just let go of her old life. I thought her character development was believable, but I also felt that the love triangle made her overreact to some situations and distracted her from the real problems.And that brings me to the annoying, overplayed drama of the love triangle. And there is one, because both guys fell in love, and she with them, so she had a choice to make. However, the development of the two relationships Naomi had with them (if you can call the one with Kai a "relationship") were weak and didn't move the story further along but halted it. To me, the love triangle wasn't needed. But since it was there, I should have felt more with it. I should have felt the emotions between the characters, but I didn't. Because the thing is, the supernatural powers that the boys have makes it quite clear that the feelings could be fake. And it all just moved so very fast that I didn't believe that any of them had fallen in love with each other.I liked the secondary characters a lot! Ginny, Alejandro, Puck, and even Rikki. They all brought something different to the story, and the way they interacted gave me a warm feeling. They made up for the fact that Naomi's parents were cold, indifferent, and cruel to their only daughter.Oh, but the plot and I had some issues with each other. Because the love triangle overbalanced pretty much everything, I felt that the supernatural aspect was extremely underplayed. And I wasn't totally wowed with the mystery behind Kai and the people like him. Guardians are trying to keep balance in the world while Destroyers start rebelling and saying F You to the age-old truce that's been keeping them at an uneasy peace with each other? Right. So, what exactly do they do? I'm not entirely sure. There wasn't much action in this story, which would have made the whole good vs. evil thing much more intense.I'm still not totally sold on the supernatural aspect of the story, but I'm excited to find out more about these characters. I had more than my share of problems with Kissed, but I really enjoyed the story.

I won't be reading more of the series. There were too many contradictions in characterization, time was difficult to follow at points, and I didn't really find the love interest to be that interesting - mainly because I was just told about feelings, not shown them. Insta-love isn't really my cup of tea, so with that and everything else I was having to look past in the story - there are better books for me to spend my time on.

I'll preface by saying that Kissed is an intriguing, unique and well written foray in YA paranormal thriller romance. For mashing up so many genres, Loth handles it well and overall I'd recommend the book confidently.Where to begin. The problems with this book confuse me. When reading a cliche or otherwise bad book, the problems are predictable and familiar. But in Kissed, odd writing ticks come out of nowhere. It can make reading it bizarre, but Kissed has many strengths that keep the overall feeling enjoyable and satisfying.In the first third or so of the book, before any supernatural elements make themselves known, the tension of the cult and Naomi's impending forced marriage is taught and well drawn. It's also drawn out in a completely agonizing way, you feel horrible things oozing forward and you want to yell at Naomi to get the heck out. This is the sign of a properly suspenseful and well written thriller. I suppose tiny supernatural elements are thrown in, like the mysterious Kai who shows up and kisses Naomi at night, but it works relatively well considering how poorly that might have been handled in some other book.However, soon after Naomi finds herself in Vegas, some authorial - laziness? lack of skill? lack of depth? - starts to show. Lots of new characters are introduced, and while they're sketched in such a way as we don't get confused about who they are again (Divergent), they weirdly all seem to know each other. Naomi finds herself in a huge city where everyone in her tiny circle including her aunt, her Arkansas kissing guy, and some dudes she met on the street, and another major character, know each other. Later on I suppose this makes some sense, as Naomi's family is involved in all this and only she and Ginny didn't know so I guess they were naturally already situated in this scene, but it feels weird when you're reading the book. You never have a sense of what characters know or how much. Everyone seems completely caught up at all times, and this removes reality and character from them. Reactions are interesting character moments and they don't exist in Kissed.People also react to new information oddly. Every time something is revealed - Naomi's parents did what?? They found a loophole in the legal system?? Puck and Kai are what?? The Master Destroyer is actually who?? - they will first completely under react with an "oh, that makes sense." and then brush it off and try to talk about something else. Which is infuriating when Social Services or the FBI are involved, Naomi doesn't ask any questions and they don't give any answers. They just say "do this" and she does. It feels shady and I was expecting for them to turn out to be fake cops, but they aren't. It just doesn't feel realistic and like a shortcut was taken in the writing.It also underplays the significance of these twists. Early on, certain moments have real weight because Loth shows us what's happening rather than tells us, as she does later in the book when exposition takes place of good writing. Early on, the cult is both interesting and horrifying, and you want Naomi to run away. And eventually does. The thing is, you also want her to come back and completely take it down. And when (spoiler alert) she does, nothing really happens because it does't feel the same as before. The tension is gone.The supernatural element is both interesting and oddly hasty. The concept of the Guardians and Destroyers, vaguely biblical entities of either good or bad, and Shades, the same though I guess they get to choose which side they're on?, are compelling in a YA Novel kind of way but aren't embroidered upon much beyond that. I needed more demonstrations of their works. It seems you can kind of zap people with a certain emotion to get them to do what you want, but how that serves humanity when there only seem to be a handful of either side going around escapes me. I needed a peek into the larger world, into other bands of Guardians and Destroyers and how they differ and what they're up to. World building is super important to me and in this case I think it would have served the book well to use it's time this way.A good chunk of the book is devoted to the love triangle. Thankfully, there isn't a ton of angsting on the part of our heroine over whom she will choose, and honestly calling it a love triangle at all feels kind of weird. Nothing is done to establish Naomi and Kai's love, except the fact that she is enamored of him because of his magic kisses. Which makes sense in it's own way, but it leaves you feeling like she then can't call that love when she learns what he is and needs to re-fall in love with him, the real him. Her and Puck's connection is a little better drawn, although it doesn't feel like ~love~ per se, but a strong bond of friendship and maybe the promise of more. Throughout the book there's also a good amount of possesive language about Naomi from Kai, "who have you been kissing? Have you been kissing MY girl? she belongs to me, etc" and this is another reason he's not super attractive as a romantic lead. He seems to just care for her because her magic kisses give him more juice and he needs that. The development of the beginning of the book is well done, and it made me wish that the love storyline received the same attention.Some more thoughts while reading the book:-Ricki is a strange character. Is she Ginny's assistant or some random petulant teenager she hangs around with for some reason? Naomi is 16 but Ricki is written like she's supposed to be the same age, which she couldn't be and also working for a stylist.-Naomi's adjustment to Vegas is not particularly well paced, she flip alternatively from being the original, repressed and scared version of herself to a more typical, sassy YA heroine. I just wish there was an event or impetus for this change.-I liked that when Naomi got to Vegas she and Ginny didn't just instantly click. That felt real. However, I would have liked to see more attention paid to that relationship.The book's ending hinges on a strange decision Naomi is for some reason forced to make. Kai whines that he needs her because of her magic kisses, which doesn't seem like a real, personal connection to me and Puck says "why do you want to do that" which makes sense and Ginny offer the only sane advice, which is that she needs time and back off. Kai stomps off, like a kid, yet Naomi is heartbroken for some reason. Kai has not demonstrated a lot of character and Naomi's love for him feels forced. Her relationship to Puck makes more sense because we've seen it happen. Some other reviewers have remarked that the ending implies she picks Kai, but I thought what it was indicating was that the three of them would go together. It's Puck who says, "Let's Go."Kissed is a book that draws you in. The beginning is tension and suspense, the rest is supernatural magic and conflict. For all my issues, I'm just representing my thoughts while reading the book, and it isn't a bad book or one you should avoid. I would advise people to read it and decide for themselves, because I can imagine people being split.

This is such an original story! I loved learning about roses, it was so interesting.Naomi is brilliant, being so versatile, after being brought up by extremely nutty parents when she finally ran away to her aunt in Vegas she settled in to a normal lifestyle.I liked her character and I really liked puck he's so adorable and seems like he's actually open and honest.I'm not sure about Kai though, he seems a bit sly.The storyline was addictive and I didn't realise I was coming to the end of the book. It literally had me glued from the first page.A thoroughly enjoyable and addictive book, I look forward to reading the next one in the series

I would give this 4.5 if I could. It's a very,very good read. A couple of minor issues being that there was a level of predictability and I feel that a character who impacted heavily on Naomi's life was not explored nearly enough.I won't explain the story as the synopsis does that, although it implies that the story is mostly about Naomi in the cult and this is only for a small part of the story.What did bring it down for me was the end. It annoyed me. But that is personal opinion and others will like it. I do highly recommend you read this great story.

It can be confusing when a book isn't marked "paranormal" or you missed it, I wrestled for several chapters with whether the weird stuff was really happening or she was being driven nuts by her life. Nice magic system, though I felt it was inconsistently applied and changed to suit the plot. But my biggest niggle was that in the first few chapters their lives revolve around an unnamed and undescribed "Master" of the cult, who Loth then apparently forgets, and never mentions in the final resolution. Which wouldn't be such an irritation except that the resolution is all about identifying a "Master," who isn't this Master, but sounds as if he should be.

I found this quite a boring read, the writing was stilted and I never connected with any of the characters.The book just lacked imagination and essence I can't really explain other than this story was very flat. If you've read holly black, Cassandra Clare, jk Rowling they all know how to build a story and flesh out their characters so you care about them.This unfortunately doesn't have the magnitude and Its not because this was a free book I've read a lot of them on here and some have been amazing.

Again good read