ENRAPTURED by Elisabeth Naughton

ENRAPTURED by Elisabeth Naughton

ENRAPTURED is the 4th instalment and April 2012 NEW release in Elisabeth Naughton’s Eternal Guardians series. The Eternal Guardians series follows the lives and loves of 7 warriors descended from the god’s of Olympus, whom fate has decreed as the Eternal Guardians on earth. But this time a warrior is haunted by guilt over the destruction of his brother’s soul and memories of a past, he has somehow forgotten.

Orpheus, son of Perseus, is part daemon, part witch and part Argolean. Searching for the Orb of Kronos-the source of ultimate power-so that he may be able to bargain with the Lord of the Underworld Hades for his brother Gryphon’s soul, Orpheus finally believes he has tracked down the key to the missing Orb. But ‘goth girl’ Maelea has continued to evade capture for close to 3000 years, and refuses to be pulled into the game between Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. With the ability to detect power shifts, Maelea-the bastard child of Zeus and Persephone-knows where Orpheus can find the Orb that will aid in the release of his brother’s trapped soul.

Skyla is Athena’s number one Siren, and has been commissioned to track down the deamon known as Orpheus. But something about the daemon is very familiar and calls to her heart and soul. And it is only when she reaches into her past does she realize that she has been deceived by those who claim to be family and friends. Tailing Orpheus on his hunt for the Orb of Kronos, is becoming more complicated, when she finds herself falling for the man, the warrior and the daemon, who was once part of her past, but is now becoming part of her present and beyond.

Hoping Maelea will lead him to the Orb, or at the very least another element, Orpheus recognizes there is more to the waif-like creature than her ability to sense power shifts. There is an unsettling calm that masks a power that has yet to be unleashed. But when an avalanche engulfs the train taking the trio back through Greece, and nearly takes the life of both the waif and Skyla, Orpheus is stunned when his mind cannot comprehend, that his heart has become one with the Siren sent to take him back to hell. And the flashes of memories, from a lifetime ago, push closer to the surface, out of the abyss, where they were meant to stay.

A new breed of daemon hybrid has surfaced-one which no longer bears the hideous façade, but continues to present the face of a human. Atalanta is awaiting judgment in Tartarus (purgatory), when the news about Gryphon excites her senses. Hoping to harness the strength and knowledge of the warrior, Atalanta makes him a deal he should have refused. Humiliation and shame will engulf the once proud man, and his brother Orpheus, may not be able to bring him back from the abyss.

The Orb of Kronos is in the possession of the warlock Apophis, but without the four elements that will garner the Orb with the ultimate power, Apophis amasses a coven of witches, hoping to draw those who will lead him to the individual who knows where to find the elements. But inhabiting the physical body of a fallen warrior Apophis soon loses his battle in the war for control and the Orb of Kronos.

Betrayal and heartbreak resurface for Orpheus, when the past comes crashing down around. Not only does he suffer the guilt for his brother’s lost and tortured soul, but knowing the only person he loved more than his brother, is the one person who will destroy the heart and soul of a man whose demonic nature, was tamed by love.

As Orpheus attempts the rescue of his brother Gryphon, he is too late to save the life of another close to his heart. And it is only when Skyla listens to her heart and hears the message of the Fates, does she realize, that the man she once knew, in a life long ago, is not the same man, she has grown to love in the life she wanted in return.

Enraptured is a complicated storyline. The history of hatred between 3 brothers-Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, and the mythology behind the many stories of vengeance and the struggle for power, floods the mind with tales only the gods could have dreamed. But Elisabeth Naughton has fused the myth of the gods within a novel that will keep you reading and wanting more. Enraptured tells the story of a warrior so filled with guilt, that his only goal, is to set right, the wrong, he fears may have destroyed his brother’s soul.

And it is within the pages that a small waif-life creature seems to draw the essences of a lost soul slowly back into the light and perhaps onto the pages of another Eternal Warrior. Book 5-ENSLAVED will be released in November of 2012.

READING ORDER:

1. MARKED
2. ENTWINED
3. TEMPTED
4. ENRAPTURED
5. ENSLAVED (Nov 2012)

reviewed by Sandy