Review: A Paranormal Winner...4.5 stars
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 19, 2013
I received and ARC in exchange for an honest review.  First, I will say that I am not a huge paranormal romance reader.  I have read some and enjoyed them but it's not my go to genre.  I have enjoyed Cassia Leo's books in the past and wanted to give this a try and I am so glad I did.I will start with the only criticism I have which is that I thought the story was a little hard to follow for the first few chapters.  The concept of a carrier spirit did not make sense to me until a little further along in the book.  Even not fully understanding, I was able to get involved with the characters and start loving the story. Cassia's strength is character development and this story is another perfect example.I want to call this a love triangle but that's really not the correct word... because it involves five different characters (some spirits, some human or a combination of both).  I won't get into the details of how a carrier spirit works except that they inhabit a human body (possibly from birth or on a temporary basis).  They are restless spirits who must right some previous wrong in order to regain their bodies (which is where the spirit gets a body at birth) and then die again so their spirit is at rest.  The book explains it much better than I could!But the main character is Belinda who is a bit shy and awkward.  She is best friends with Frankie and their relationship has deteriorated somewhat over the past few months after they attempted dating. A new guy, Conor enters the picture and Belinda finds herself instantly drawn to him. Yet she cannot get over lingering feelings for Frankie.There are two main spirits involved, Mara and Darius who have a very rocky past.  Mara is trying to help Belinda and Conor fall in love (which is what she thinks she needs to do get her body back). Darius wants to stop Mara and is willing to go to great lengths to ensure he gets his way.Frankie and Conor have their own secrets which really move the storyline along.  I won't give away the ending but it will leave you ready for the second book even though I wouldn't consider it a cliffhanger.This is one book where I have no favorite in the `love' department.  I like Frankie and Conor equally and am curious to see where book two will take us. I recommend trying this even if you aren't normally a paranormal reader. The romance factor is high and the paranormal aspects are pretty easy to follow (once you get a few chapters in). A lot of paranormals just don't make sense to me... the plots are too outlandish and the story doesn't flow. However, I didn't have that problem with this book. Cassia has given us the best of both worlds. The paranormal aspect makes it a nice break from a normal NA/YA read.This is more of an older YA read so don't expect the detailed steamy sex scenes like her other books.  There is some of that here but it's tamed down quite a bit since these are high school age characters.