Deep in the humid Mississippi bayou, a half-wild child is dragged from the murky waters. She has no memories, no family and is covered in mysterious markings. Adopted by the policeman who rescued her, Luce Boudreau follows him onto the force, determined to prove herself in the eyes of those who are still suspicious.
However, there’s more of a battle ahead than Luce could possibly imagine. She may be an orphan without a past, but no one – including Luce herself – could ever be prepared for the truth of her dark, powerful destiny.
Title: Bayou born ( The foundling series #1)
Author: Hailey Edwards
Published: October 17th 2017 by Piatkus
Genres: urban fantasy
I received an ARC copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.
This was my first book from the author so I didn’t really know what to expect. But Bayou born simply blown me away, it was so good. I’m lucky I got the chance to read it before the release date.
The plot starts out a bit sluggish and it took me a bit longer to get into it than usual, maybe because of the writing style or the slightly darker disposition of the story, but in the end it all changed and thing amped up. I really loved it, the action, and the intensity it presented.
What made it even more engaging, was the suspense surrounding the world building. At the beginning the world seems simple and common but you just know; feel from the first moment that something preternatural is going on. But the way it’s structured it takes quite a while until you gain some clue what’s going on, I personally couldn’t figure out the fantasy part until it was spelled out for me and I loved this part. The whole thing how behind everything there is a complex world hiding, shrouded in mystery. It creates a really great atmosphere for the events. Also the this paranormal element is quite unique if I can say so because the creatures the author uses not ones that you meet every day or at all and its rare nowadays, not to mention in this book we only see a small tip of the ice berg.
The plot is interesting and really well structured. I enjoyed every moment of it and it keeps the suspense on thorough the whole story and almost everything is just spot on. The action is incredible and the book is not at all predictable, but a bit darker than I thought it’s going to be. However at some occasions I found it a bit confusing and hectic and this is why I reduced half a star, but other than this I loved the book and that ending guarantees a definite craving for the next story.
The main character Luce is a peculiar one. She appeared out of nowhere when she was 10 and can’t remember anything before that. The unusual circumstances of her appearance gave her notoriety and people still doesn’t let her forget it. Not to mention the fact that she doesn’t feel as if she belongs or when she looks at her reflection she feels as if she and it are not the same. However, thanks to her adoptive father she had a good upbringing and she became a caring, hard working and honest person. She has a dry humor and a small inner circle but when it comes to what is right she strongly enforce it. All her life she was looking for answers of her heritage, but when she starts to get to the bottom of it they are not exactly the ones she expected. I really liked her, especially since even in the middle of her inner struggles she put others first.
Some of the people she gets the answers from are a group of odd characters. At first she is reluctant to trust them but as the story progresses she sees more and more behind the façade and reluctantly she starts to care about them. The members of this group are really interesting individuals and they all have intriguing stories, I can’t wait to get to know them even better.
As around half of the book, things start to escalate I enjoyed the book more and more until I ran out of pages. The story doesn’t exactly end on a happy ending and leaves a lot of opened questions but I was still satisfied how the conclusion worked out. After reading the epilogue my need for the second book got even stronger, because that little snippet hinting about the mysterious Ezra identity just got me even more fired up. This was a phenomenal book and if the author other books are similarly good then I got a new slew of books to binge on.
Here is a couple of quotes, there were more that I loved but it would be spoilerish so I didn’t put them here,
Wings.
It has wings.
Stick a fork in me, I was done. I was no princess, and this tree was no castle. The dragon wasn’t guarding me. He was about to hand the super gator its ass and the flitter up here to gobble me up like a children’s book gone horribly wrong.
“I’m right here”
“Kind of hard to miss you.” I glanced over at him. “You’re like a baby mountain that got tired of where it was planted and invested in a nice pair of boots to go adventuring.”
