Tethered by Brandi Leigh Hall

Tethered (A Birth Right Novel #1) by Brandi Leigh Hall

New Adult Fantasy/Paranormal

Rating:  4 Stars

No matter how you try to fight it—destiny has a mind of its own!

Since foreseeing the imminent death of her parents six years earlier, Chloe has lived a simple, not-so-charmed-life away from her remaining Wiccan family.

Zero magic.

No close friendships.

While struggling to bench-press more guilt than any nineteen-year-old ever should.

But fate intervenes and forces Chloe to return home. As if being an in-the-closet-Seer wasn’t bad enough, now she has to spend summer break with the snarky sister who hates her—and the magical birthright she was hell-bent on denying for all eternity.

Luckily, meeting Mr. Perfect takes the edge off her endless family drama. Hunter’s twenty-five, sometimes old-fashioned in a Jane Austen hero sort of way, and more delicious than molten-lava cake. But the more she tries to hide her family’s magical secrets from this ever-present stranger, the more quickly she realizes he’s hiding a few doozies of his own.

Will the lies and betrayal destroy their relationship before it really begins? Or will learning of their tethered future create an unbreakable bond neither can deny? Either way, their hearts will be forever entwined by destiny.

My Thoughts: This is one of the many novels that get to me. The story itself is great. It’s fantastic even. I have never heard of an idea like this one and I really enjoyed that. Not to mention I am loyal to my witch stories. I had great hopes for it and even though I loved the book I was slightly disappointed.

            While the plot is good the problem I had with this one was the writing. At times I was able to throw myself into the story but then there were times I just frustrated. Ever hear of “show, don’t tell” before? Well this story does not follow that at all. Most of the story is the characters telling us the same information over and over again. Like, something happens in the story and then the person explains it to other people. Only, each and every time the character is actually speaking it instead of just saying they are explaining it. It’s fine to explain things when you need to but when you are constantly retelling the stories over and over again it begins to feel like fillers. You know, things you add in just to up your word count. There were also a lot of unnecessary lines and a lot of cheesy lines. If it sounds cheesy as you write it then it will probably be perceived as cheesy to your readers.

            If you can over look the constant over-talking the story is actually pretty good. Not to mention the characters. Chloe is a very relatable character. She is pretty much like every other young woman. Smart but at times very stupid and immature.  Whoever disagrees with that comment is lying. At that age you are in between your teenage life and your adult life. There are moments when you feel so grown up but then the next you are acting like a blubbering sixteen year old. It got worse when the hottie stepped onto the scene. I think that Brandi captured how people that age act and feel.

            Overall, there were some things that I didn’t like about the writing but the storyline and the characters made it worth reading. It seemed a little too cheerful to me. Especially when Pap was dying and no one seemed to actually realize it. They said they knew it was going to be bad but then acted completely different. Being cheerful doesn’t give you the drama you need to keep the readers going. I have the second one to read as well so I am hoping that I don’t have the same problems with that one as well.

             

Cover: 5/5

Writing: 3/5

Characters: 4/5

Overall Score: