Reviews

Shattered Into Beautiful by Mel Ballew

melodicfate's review

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3.0

I'd like to thank the author for giving me an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest review.

When I first read the synopsis of this book, I was immediately intrigued. This is because the main character died. I had to see what happened to her, since it was made clear that that happened at the beginning of the story. It was an interesting book, with likable characters, and a huge cliffhanger ending.

The main character of this book was Sylver. As a witch, she was a strong female lead, who was also pretty smart, and this was shown well when she used sense in dire situations. I liked that about her. I liked seeing things through her eyes, and never really got annoyed with her, except sometimes when she was around her love interest.

Speaking of which, Zander was an interesting character. As a vampire, their relationship was forbidden, so that added something to the story. I was able to guess the big mystery surrounding who he was before he was turned, but that didn't stop me from liking him a little bit. He was always there for Sylver, and that's something I always like to see in male leads.

There were some great side characters in this book. I liked Jay, even though he was a bit of a stereotype. However, he did have some pretty cool depths and talents, and I loved whenever those came out. I loved Gran, too. She was such a wonderful parental figure and mentor to Sylver, and I thought she was awesome, even though she wasn't physically in this book a whole lot. The villain in this book was definitely interesting, but to tell who that is would be a huge spoiler. Just know that it was an interesting twist, and it was someone you really love to hate.

The plot of this novel had a lot of romance in it, of the fated mates variety. As this is known in the very beginning of the story, this is hardly a spoiler. Either way, other than the fact that they were soulmates and physically attracted to one another, I didn't really see the spark between the two of them. That's where my enjoyment of this book wavered a little bit, since it was actually quite steamy. However, it does eventually pick up action-wise, and the story definitely gets more interesting from there on out, although I did guess the big mystery about why Sylver and Zander were soulmates, so that twist wasn't very shocking for me.

Overall, I liked this book. I liked the magic use in it, and loved watching Sylver get stronger internally throughout the novel. I loved the support team provided to Sylver by the secondary characters, as well. Figuring out who the villain was was also fairly interesting. Where this book fell short for me was in the chemistry between Sylver and Zander, as well as some of the twists being easy for me to guess. However, I definitely recommend this book if you love paranormal romance, and if you like reading about witches and vampires.
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