Review + #Giveaway: Griffen by A.J. Blakemont @blakemont_books @GoddessFish

Griffen

by A.J. Blakemont

GENRE: Dark Urban Fantasy

BLURB:

"They are immortal, deadly, ruthless. I don’t belong to their dark underworld.

I won’t be a victim. Never again."

She has nothing—not even a roof above her head. She has unimaginable powers, but these powers come at a price: she has to feed on the mental energy of human beings, killing them in the process.

Her name is Griffen and she is a newborn. She is a copy, a paranormal twin of a young woman, Letitia. Griffen is not the only one of her kind—there are others like her, living among humans or hiding underground. Romantics called them doppelgangers, ghostly twins, the harbingers of death. Scientists who know that they exist call them simulacra. They call themselves mirror souls. Who are they and what are their goals?

Lonely and desperate, hunted by her fellow mirror souls, Griffen hides in the London underground and preys on criminals. In this dark underworld, is there a place for compassion, for love?

In this action-packed paranormal thriller, dark fantasy author A. J. Blakemont will guide you on an epic journey through parallel realities toward a dramatic revelation.

Excerpt:

My father was an engineer, my mother a botanist. They must have loved each other very much because, honestly, they had little in common. She was a Wiccan; he was a Protestant atheist (I couldn’t explain how that was even possible!).

Father’s office was designed like the cockpit of a spaceship. Each time I borrowed a book or even a pen, I had to return it exactly to the same place. I feared that if I put it elsewhere, an alarm would go off: “Alert, alert, pen number five has been misplaced!” Of course, there was no alarm, which made the room even more frightening. I had the feeling that some artificial intelligence watched my every move.

Mother’s room was the opposite: it resembled more a greenhouse than an office. Plants couldn’t just content themselves with growing from pots; they had to invade every available square inch. If we had stayed in one place for several years, the walls, the furniture, the frames of the windows would have been overgrown with vegetation.

Parents like these could only give birth to a science fiction fan. I still wonder why I didn’t grow up in a Star Trek uniform. However, genetics works in mysterious ways. From my mother, I inherited a taste for chaos, and from my father, a deep distrust of authority (spiritual or otherwise). In other words, I was an unrepentant anarchist.

One day—I was sixteen then—I had a surprise for them. In fact, I was the surprise. My black leather jacket was supposed to symbolize my intellectual independence and, at least in my imagination, was demonstrating my status of freethinker. My hairstyle, on the other hand, should have pleased my mother, as it evoked one of those exotic white flowers she was so fond of. Nevertheless, my getup didn’t send my parents into ecstasies. It did send them into an emotional state, but it wasn’t the emotion I was hoping for.

My Review:

Griffen is a young woman who is a copy of a human girl, Letitia. Griffen is a newborn and doesn’t know much about whom she is or where she came from. She does know that she is Letitia’s twin her doppelganger as some people call them but to Griffen and her kind they call themselves mirror souls.

Griffen soon learns that she is not the only one of her kind and soon meets others of her kind but would like to stay all to herself but unfortunately that may not be the case. She learns that there are numerous groups of mirror souls out there some that are worse than others. Some of which you don’t want no part of ever.

Griffen is taken by one the factions who want her to be a part of their group but they want her to do things and be a part of things that she doesn’t want to do. But they do teach her a lot about herself like how she is supposed to feed and how to use her abilities. But as soon as she gets the chance she is out of there. She is not into hurting or killing people.

I loved the concept of Griffen: Shadows of the Mirror Realm, how Griffen is the mirror image of Letitia and how Griffen is another way of explaining how Letitia feels and all the things she has been through and her family as well. When Griffen feeds it is as if Letitia is sucking the life out of her family and herself because of all the things that she did or has been through.

I have really loved reading Griffen and can’t wait to read more of Griffen’s story or maybe even more about other mirror souls like Griffen. I love the world that the author has created for Shadows of the Mirror Realm series it is definitely unlike anything I have read before but is kind of an eye opener and explains a lot of how people may feel about a lot of different things that is going on in their lives no matter how big or small it may be. As I have always said “what may be a big deal to one person may not be a big deal to someone else or vise verse but you treat it as if it is the same size”.

I would like to recommend Griffen: Shadows of the Mirror Realm to anyone who loves to read fantasy, paranormal or just a very good story. 

AUTHOR BIO:

I am a novelist and essayist interested in all things dark and mysterious. My favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy. I am also passionate about music, mythology, and history and its mysteries. I have a degree in literature and a PhD in molecular biology, and I earn a living as a professional writer. I live near London in the UK and I am a member of the Society of Authors.

Links to my books are provided on my website: http://blakemont.com/mirror-souls/

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Buy Links:

Amazon US ~ Amazon CA ~ Amazon UK

Giveaway:

$20 Amazon or B/N GC

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