Awaken (Empyreal #1) by Christal M. Mosley


Secrets. Lies. Hidden Truths. 


What if there was a vast hole where your memories should be? When you closed your eyes, all you saw was darkness? Then, what if one day, light began to shine through, illuminating intricate keys to your past? Would you try to unveil the truth? Even if, in the end, it’s not what you wanted?

When enigmatic dreams and arcane encounters begin to unravel the world around her, Coralie Collier begins to question the elements that surround her. As images of her past begin to rise to the surface, missing pieces to her future begin to fall into place. Will Coralie be able to uncover the hidden secrets that lie within the darkness? Those who surround her, good and evil, are waiting to find out...






As this is the first book in the series it's common to find a lot of world-building and "info dumps" this was full of them. 
The reader does get moments of action in between the large sections of dialogue and explanations of the characters, plot and world-building.  Perhaps what held me back a bit from completely loving this story was the repetition of words and names to each page. Easily could have been broken up with the usage of them, him, they, her, etc. (which are used often, but perhaps not often enough as the repetition was distracting) The only other thing that stood out was how close in similarity and sounding of the names of the characters in the story. 

I really did enjoy the novel and wanted more focus on the action of the story. A little bit more "show" and less "tell".  My favorite parts of the story were Coralie's adventures into the beyond, mostly happening in her sleep in dream-like scenes. Her adventures outside of the real world were the most entertaining and eventful and really gave some in depth look at Coralie's character. 

As Coralie begins to get hints of memories, things she just cannot quite remember fully, also coincides with the appearance of a new guy to her life.  There are a lot of discussions with her parents where you think they are about to help her out, but instead turn out to be just misses on releasing the information we are all waiting to hear. Why can she not remember her past?

I am looking forward to picking up the next book in the series. The hope for more action and anticipating what will become of Coralie and the demons she must face. 

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