Everneath By Brodi Ashton

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's.

It's the first story I have read that involves a city and places that I actually know and have been to! Park City is only miles away from my house and I have frequented it enough to know what she is referencing and could actually picture the scenes more clearly. That was kind of awesome.
Like Abandon by Meg Cabot, this story is also told with alternating chapters between the present time and 6 months ago before Nikki (or Becks) traveled to the Everneath. What I did have a harder time grasping was that Cole (or Neal) kept saying they had been together in the Everneath for a Century. But here on Earth only 6 months had passed. It is explained in the book of course, but I had a very hard time wrapping my brain around the concept of 1 Century (100 yrs) vs 6 months.
It took me about 80% of the book before I started to really root for the main characters Nikki and Jack. I was frustrated with Nikki through most of the story because she only had a short time back on Earth to say goodbye to her loved ones before she had to go back. I felt that the majority of her time back on Earth was completely wasted with School, homework and Cole (who would not leave her alone, ever) and not doing the things she came back to do , I wanted to just pull her hair and tell her to move on with it!
But sometimes characters will do that to you, make you so frustrated, but in the end the story always wraps up, or it leaves you with a huge WTF moment. Guess what, we also get a WTF moment at the end of this one. A complete twist to the story you never saw coming and now your wondering what is going to happen next. A very tricky things that authors do that make the reader want to pester them and poke them in the arm until the next book is released and we can finally see what happened.
Now lucky for me Brodi Ashton is a local author so now everytime I see her in public I just may poke her until she tells me what happens next, because how can you just leave it like that? HUH? No Fair! You get me all emotionally wrapped up in this story and then just leave it? No final answer?
The interesting twist with this one is the story of Persephone's Daughters. We get to dig a little deeper into the myth of Hades and Persephone than for example Abandon Or The Goddess Test did.
And I have to admit that Jack kinda grew on me, even though I hated him most of the book for being the cheater boyfriend. He's my favorite character. I understand that Cole was meant to always be in her way and an added challenge that she must overcome, but I really did want to punch him in the face every time he showed up.
I find that some of the best writers keep you emotionally engaged in their stories. I personally could not connect with Nikki and her decisions, but I eventually connected with Jack, and he won me over in the end.