Blog Tour and Review: Spectral by Shannon Duffy

Today I've been given another great opportunity to participate in another blog tour hosted by Tribute Books.

  Title: Spectral
  Author: Shannon Duffy
  Publisher: Tribute Books
  Publication date: April 10th 2012
  

Convinced she’s a part of the witness protection program, sixteen-year-old Jewel Rose is shuffled around the globe with her family like a pack of traveling gypsies. After arriving at lucky home twenty-seven, she stumbles upon a mysterious boy with magical powers claiming to be her guardian . . . and warning of imminent danger. Despite the obvious sparks between them, Jewel discovers a relationship is forbidden, and the more she learns about dark, brooding Roman, she begins to question who she can even believe — the family who raised her, or the supposed sworn protector who claims they’ve been lying to her all along.

As she struggles to uncover who her family has really been running from, she is forced to hide her birthmark that reveals who she is. With new realities surfacing, unexplained powers appearing, and two tempting boys vying for her heart, Jewel battles to learn who she can trust in an ever growing sea of lies, hoping she’ll make it through her seventeenth birthday alive.

Kindle | Nook | Smashwords | PDF

Lately I’ve taken a bit of a nose dive with paranormal reads, whereas before I couldn’t get enough and use to devour them in one sitting, I feel as though many continue to follow the same clichéd paths and thus are unable to keep my attention. However with Spectral I was first drawn to it because of the cover; it had a mesmerising allure to it and my interest was piqued by reading the blurb, what was up with Jewel? And what does fate have in store for her?

Jewel and her family have been on the run for as long as she can remember. They’ve never had the chance to settle down in one place long enough for Jewel to make friends, as her family are in witness protection. Whenever the so called “mob” turns up after her family they have to quickly move to another place. However this time around after settling into their new place strange things start happening, her family seem tenser than before and then her Aunt Eva, Uncle Bernie and gran turn up, they plan to stay with Jewel’s family until her 17^th birthday which is weird as they have never stayed with them before. On top of that aunt Eva starts calling the shots around the house, taking over Jewel’s mothers responsibilities, insisting Jewel take her phone with her everywhere and deciding who she can  and cannot hang around with. What exactly are they hiding from her? She hears their whispered conversations about protecting her until her 17^th birthday but why?

The reason I enjoyed reading Spectral was because for once there were no signs of vampires, werewolves or shape shifters, it was good to get a break from them and focus on something else for a change. Also because we found ourselves in the same position as Jewel; we had no clue as to what was going on, the only bits and bobs of information we got were from over hearing conversations and what others were telling us. So like Jewel we really had no idea about who to believe.

What also made Spectral an interesting read were the two hot guys; Roman and Chase, gosh they were swoon worthy. I honestly didn’t know who I liked more; on the one hand you had Chase, who had a ripped body, had Jewel’s back covered and wore his heart on his sleeve and then there was Roman, who was enigmatic, had luscious lips and a sexy accent, both of these guys had my heart pumping frantically.

“Kissing Roman was like opening presents on

Christmas morning; you could never tell what

would be wrapped up in each one, but it always

held a promise of something magical”.

Overall Spectral was an enjoyable debut about betrayal and testing where your loyalties lie, but also a story tinged with swoony scenes and a sweet romance.

Thank you to Tribute Books for the opportunity to read this book.