Mundie Moms

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios, Book Review & Enter To Win



By: Heather Demetrios
Published by: Harper Teen (Balzer+Bray
Released on: October 7th, 2014
Series: Dark Caravan Cycle #1
Source: received an arc to review exchange for my honest review
Purchase it from: Amazon | B&N
Add it to Goodreads

Forced to obey her master.
Compelled to help her enemy.
Determined to free herself. 

Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Stuffed into a bottle and sold by a slave trader, she’s now in hiding on the dark caravan, the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command. She’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle.

Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to free Nalia from her master so that she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother—all for an unbearably high price. Nalia’s not sure she can trust him, but Raif’s her only hope of escape. With her enemies on the hunt, Earth has become more perilous than ever for Nalia. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle…and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him. Battling a dark past and harboring a terrible secret, Nalia soon realizes her freedom may come at a price too terrible to pay: but how far is she willing to go for it?

Inspired by Arabian Nights, EXQUISITE CAPTIVE brings to life a deliciously seductive world where a wish can be a curse and shadows are sometimes safer than the light.

A captivating read, Exquisite Captive is unlike any jinni story I've read before. Or fantasy book for that matter. Demetrius's book is seductive. This wasn't one of those books that I dove right in and finished it in no time, because it was a fast read. Demetrius took her time introducing me to her world, her rich Jinni history, and her well created characters. She hooked me. I wanted more. The more I got from her story, the more I wanted to read. 

Exquisite Captive has an alluring world with magic, excitement and plenty of danger. The characters are intriguing, and cunning. I liked that there is not one character in this story whom I wasn't interested in getting to know more. Whether good or bad, each character introduced in the story has a reason for being in the story. Their reasonings and uncovered secrets left me wishing I already had book two in my hands. Each character was driven by a desire. Whether it's a desire to be free, a desire to over throw those who rule their world, or something much more sinister. 

Though she is bond to her master, there is this untamed fire within Nalia that I admired. A powerful jinni in her own right, her bonds to her master limit her, and her power, though that hasn't stopped her from trying to break free of those bonds to get back to her homeland. Unfortunately there's a lot about Nalia's master, Malek that she doesn't know, and what she discovers in this book is that Malek is a much more powerful master and person than she realizes. Breaking her bond with him may seem impossible. It's not just Malek that she's bond to, but the bottle he wears around his neck that she was put inside and sold to Malek in. Luckily she isn't someone who will give up easily, and changes her tactics to try and get back her freedom. 

The characters and their relationships are interesting. I liked that while I got to know the characters, there's still an air of mystery around each of them that makes me second guess some of their motives. I liked not knowing everything about them. Malek is not a good guy. He's a powerful character who's full of secrets and the little bit that was revealed of those secrets, and his past make me think that I'm missing something about him.... as in there's something that Demetrios has deliberately left out of the story about him. I have a feeling that once she reveals what that is later in the series, everything about him, and what he does will make sense to me. 

Then there's Raif. The person Nalia has to learn to trust, but to an extent. I liked Raif, despite this long history that makes he and Nalia not like nor trust each other. The more they get to know each other, the more they learn to trust to each other. There's more to Raif than what I'm going to mention here, for the sake of spoilers. Given all that happens in the second half of the book, and especially the end, I'm anxious to find out what will be in store for them in the next book. That ending was a killer, and I should have seen it coming. 

I enjoyed Exquisite Captive, and I'm looking forward to reading the next installment in the series. Check out my original blog tour post & enter to win a copy of Heather's debut book HERE! *There is some mild language in this book. 

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