Review: Defining Destiny
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 25, 2014
This book was really good! I went in to it just thinking it was a normal New Adult book, but I got a nice surprise! I should have known that anything by Deanna Chase would have some sort of Fantasy/Paranormal element to it, but I was thinking this was straight romance. However, Chase adds just enough of a magical twist to the storyline to make it stand apart, and enhance the story in a cool way.In Defining Destiny every person in the world has their one true soul mate. They are drawn to that person, even though they can fall in love with other people. However, once two soul mates are together, they have some sort of talent that is enhanced by the other. For our two main characters these talents are really cool. Lucy is a famous singer - half of a singing duo with her soul mate Cadan. Whenever they sing together the effect on the audience is amazing. They can make them feel sadness, happiness, hope, love, despair, all with just how their voices blend together. Apart, Lucy and Cadan are still great singers, but they don't have that same effect on an audience. The other main character, Seth, has recently lost his soul mate, Elsa, in a tragic car accident. Their talent when they were together was painting. Every painting that they painted together was meant for someone out in the world to find, and then that painting would mean something incredibly special to them. Now that Elsa is gone, Seth is no longer painting, and has pretty much given up on being happy.But one day, Lucy walks into his life. Cadan betrays her in the worst way imaginable to her, so she runs back to her hometown to regroup. While it's not unheard of to walk away from one's soul mate, it is extremely rare, so I really admired Lucy for taking that step. Then something amazing happens. Seth and Lucy are immediately attracted to each other, but after spending a short amount of time together, they realize that they could fall in love. Also, this is not unheard of, just rare. But, most of the people around them keep warning them not to get too serious because the odds are that Lucy will eventually return to Cadan - that she won't be able to resist the soul mate pull. Plus, Cadan is relentless in pursuing her to get her back, so it's kind of a double edged sword. But Lucy is conflicted because even though Seth is not her soul mate, he treats her with more kindness, respect and love than Cadan ever did. And Lucy has brought Seth back to life. He is able to paint again, and has begun to deal with his grief and guilt surrounding Elsa's death. The question is, when Lucy is forced to go back to her old life with Cadan, will her and Seth's new found love be able to overpower her bone deep soul mate connection with Cadan.I enjoyed this book from page one to the end. I read it in one day, and didn't want to put it down for a minute. I loved the whole thing, and I thought the soul mate angle was original and really added something cool to the story. Plus, Deanna Chase is a great writer and really knows how to make dialogue flow and seem natural, and really brings her characters to life. I loved it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes this genre.