Title: Sweet Evil
Author: Wendy Higgins
In
Sweet Evil, Anna is a high school student who seems to have a normal, average teenage girl life, but her life is anything but normal and it is about to get even stranger. Anna has always had unusual abilities, like being able to see a person's mood or feelings in the form of colors, but she didn't know why or where they came from until she met bad boy Kaidan.
Summary from Goodreads:
What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?
This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.
Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She's aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but Anna, the ultimate good girl, has always had the advantage of her angel side to balance the darkness within. It isn't until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He's the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.
Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?
I loved this book. The writing flowed well, the characters were fun, and the story was original. I am so glad that I liked this book as much as I did because I was a little hesitant to pick it up. Being a story about demons and angels,
Sweet Evil could have easily become a cliche and predictable story. Instead, I found myself not know what was going to happen next and wanting to know what was going to happen.
The story flowed very nicely throughout the book. The trip to California with Kaidan and Anna might have been the only time when there was not a whole lot of action - it was mostly Kaidan and Anna having hot make-out sessions, Anna figuring out her feelings for Kaidan, and a way to tell the reader more about the fallen angels and how Anna fits in with everything - but I still enjoyed reading that part of the book. Kaidan and Anna are both children of Dukes - the fallen angels who work for Lucifer and are in charge of sins. Kaidan's father, the Duke of Lust, has the job of tempting humans into giving into their lust. Kaidan, like all children of Dukes, has to work for his father by seducing women himself.
Anna is such a sweet girl, but she is also pretty naive. It makes sense that she is a bit naive though. She was raised by Patti instead of her father so she never knew what it meant to be the daughter of a Duke. I think her character has a lot of room for potential growth though.
Kaidan or Kopano? I don't know who to love! Usually, in a love triangle, I have a favorite, but with Kaidan and Kopano, I love them both for different reasons. They are both different characters with their own charms. I really hope Kopano is not just there to create a love triangle and be a love interest to Anna. I did not get that vibe from this book though, so hopefully that doesn't change in the next book of the series. Kopano feels like too well written of a character to just be there for the romantic plot. Kopano, like the other children of fallen angels, has a duty to lure humans into dark things however he refused to continue to do his duty. Normally he would be killed but his father let him live. I want to know more about him just from the little bit that was revealed in this book.
I think Anna's father, the Duke of drinking and drug abuse, is one of my favorite characters in
Sweet Evil. He went against Lucifer by waiting for his love and only having a child with her, and by not being as aggressive with his duties of tempting humans compared to the other Dukes. In fact, he says that he has given Lucifer false reports on occasions.
Overall,
Sweet Evil takes an old idea and gives it a new and original twist. Higgins creates an intriguing world of demons, angels, and their children.
I'll be picking up the second book when it comes out next year.
Rating: 5/5 Chocolate Bars
Title: The Glass Case: A Short Story
