SCREAMING SNOWFLAKES (Screaming Snowflakes #1) by Amber Tesia-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Swirling alcohol around the glass, Lucifer remained silent for a few moments. He continued with a slick smile, ‘Raphael. You have to tell her about yourself. Once she knows, she won’t want to be near you.’

Fresh from a break-up, the thoughtful and witty Eleanor moves half-way across the country to study at King’s College University in London. Staying in her recently deceased great great grandmother’s house, Eleanor knows there is more to the crumbling property when she discovers a mysterious locked room. A century old tragic secret risks being unearthed by Eleanor, who reluctantly settles into her new surroundings.

Eleanor is the antithesis of the rebellious Raphael, whose damned and tainted soul threatens her very existence. Unseen supernatural forces conspire to keep the lovers apart, yet nothing can harm Eleanor as she remains under Raphael’s protection. As the boundaries of good and evil become blurred and transgression becomes inevitable, this gripping, thought provoking tale will engage all who have ever questioned love and humanity.

With an unprecedented alliance between a human and the epitome of darkness can a pure, forbidden love conquer all?

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REVIEW: SCREAMING SNOWFLAKES is the first storyline in Amber Tesia’s paranormal YA (Young Adult) series of the same name. As the blurb alludes to, Raphael is our hero-the son of Lucifer, exiled to Earth for five hundred years, only to be called back to Hell just as he discovers the one person who can change his view of humanity-Eleanor.

Sentenced to spend five centuries among the human vermin, by his father as punishment for what Lucifer deems a betrayal, Raphael has watched from the sidelines as humanity worked to destroy itself. But the day he discovers Eleanor’s aura, Raphael is pulled towards her free spirit and carefree attitude. Vowing to protect Eleanor from the darkness threatening to claim her, Raphael slowly learns what it means to love and be loved.

But the blurb speaks of more than what is revealed in the first storyline. Part of the focus of the blurb is on the mysterious locked door and the heroine’s great, great grandmother but very little, if any, of that particular premise is brought into the storyline until the very end.

The novel reads like a YA story but a story where the reader sits on the periphery to watch and wait. And we wait a very long time before a small bit of information is revealed. I wanted to be invited in but I felt relegated to the sidelines waiting for something – anything – to happen. The storyline is very slow to build. It is only when Raphael reveals to Eleanor the truth about his father and, the philosophical and theological nature of his own existence does the storyline begin to take shape.

The mysterious locked room and its’ contents are uncovered in the final pages of the novel, and therein used as a cliffhanger towards the second storyline. The locked room was first introduced early in the storyline but was forgotten and dropped by the wayside for all intents and purpose throughout the remainder of the novel until the very end, where it was abruptly brought back into the storyline focus. Eleanor finds a major piece to the puzzle surrounding the room and the former tenant, but there is very little revealed to the reader at this point. But there is obviously a connection to Raphael, Lucifer, Eleanor and her great, great grandmother.

Overall, SCREAMING SNOWFLAKES is an interesting introductory novel with all the earmarks of a YA storyline: the very slow build up of a relationship, the angst of mistaken beliefs and the heartbreak of perceived betrayal and, of newly discovered feelings. There is no sex; no foul language; no violence and only the beginning of a romantic relationship. There is plenty of religious and philosophical speculation between good and evil, heaven and hell, as well as humans and immortals. There is the potential for a love triangle-from two different angles-but let’s hope it never comes to pass.

Copy supplied by the author

Reviewed by Sandy.