Descendants is the first book in the Young Adult, Urban Fantasy trilogy: The Arete Series.

I really enjoyed this fantasy story! El's character was so intriguing and the world-building was done really well. My only concern was the slower pacing along the middle, otherwise, a really interesting read!

I loved this book so much! I loved the characters and the world! I would and have recommended this book to all my friends.

When I read the description of this book I immediately thought of the Godspawn from Strange the Dreamer but these don't even come close to the fleshed out and divine feeling characters in Taylor's work. I know the concepts are slightly different but the feeling of the characters felt quite flat to me.

This was a fast paced YA novel that has elements of Greek mythology in it. A teenage girl has mysterious powers that she is forced to hide until an accident forces her to come to terms and understand who and what she is.
I have to admit I had trouble reading this one at times and had to force myself to finish. More for the resolution than anything else. The writing seemed a bit choppy to me but then again it could just be that it was just not the novel for me. I think it will appeal to teens who enjoy fantasy fiction.

Descendants by Rae Else.
El, a seventeen-year-old has inherited an ancient and deadly power. She loses control of it, causing a horrific accident, and becomes the prey of a secret organisation, knows as the Order.

Forced from her family and home, she hides in plain sight amidst the crowds of London, and is thrust into a world she never knew existed; one full of arete: beings with extraordinary powers like hers.

Arete are beings that can trace their lineage and powers from ancient Greece. They do not claim their inheritance comes from the gods, rather legend says they are descended from cursed beings, such as Medusa.

At the heart of their world is the kerykeion, the symbol that protects them from the humans and the humans from them. El is trapped between two factions, one that has built an empire around the kerykeion and another that is determined to bring it down.

As she is drawn deeper into the conflict, the only way to find the truth is to take matters into her own hands, and the line between friend and foe becomes dangerously blurred.
This was a really good read with good characters. I liked El. I like anything to do with magic. 4*. Netgalley and weaponry co-op.

This book was ok, but the worldbuilding and character development were lacking. Interesting premise, fast-paced, but really leaves you wanting more.

Hey guys,

I was away for the bank holiday and now back to posting! What have I missed? I can honestly say you guys have missed nothing *lol*. Back at work which means that no extra reading time for me but managed to get it finished.

I have been reading Descendants by Rae Else. This story follows a subject that hasn’t been used very much. The gorgons and Medusa. I can only confirm one other series like it that I know of. Its a good thing and means I have something to compare it to but I wont forget that they are very different.

Summery of Descendants:

El, a seventeen-year-old has inherited an ancient and deadly power. She loses control of it, causing a horrific accident, and becomes the prey of a secret organisation, known as the Order.

Forced from her family and home, she hides in plain sight amidst the crowds of London, and is thrust into a world she never knew existed; one full of arete: beings with extraordinary powers like hers.

Arete are beings that can trace their lineage and powers from ancient Greece. They do not claim their inheritance comes from the gods, rather legend says they are descended from cursed beings, such as Medusa.

At the heart of their world is the kerykeion, the symbol that protects them from the humans and the humans from them. El is trapped between two factions, one that has built an empire around the kerykeion and another that is determined to bring it down.

As she is drawn deeper into the conflict, the only way to find the truth is to take matters into her own hands, and the line between friend and foe becomes dangerously blurred.

I liked the book and can’t wait for the next one. The only problem that I have with the book is that there were several areas when I did not know where I was. I would get into the flow of reading and it would just stop. I could handle one or two of those moments but not when they keep happening.

One of the moments is towards the end when the car flips and ends at the bottom of a hill. Now I had no idea that there was a hill until it was mentioned later and everyone had run back up it. This lead me to rereading the whole part again to be just as confused as before.

When I was originally taught about “story writing” they would always tell you of “Show not Tell”. I love this. When an author has such a grasp on the story that they can show you everything you need to see without actually writing one descriptive word.

Don’t get me wrong, they story was great and with a little more coxing the plot will really shine thorough. I just feel it needed a little bit more work to smooth out the bumps. Something else that bothered me a little bit was how detached El was from her family. I can understand that she had been lied to and hurt but you wouldn’t just stop caring if they were killed. I felt that I wasn’t attached to the characters that much either.

For all the effort and plot I felt the book could be a very catching story however with the detachment and missing moments I feel that the book need 3 stars.

The plot of the story was engaging and really held my interest. The thought of people being decedents from other worldly beings is different than reading about characters acquiring power later on or born with them. The details given were remarkable and I could visually see what was going on.

Thank you to netgalley for this review copy, but this book was honestly not for me and I did not enjoy it at all.. The writing was bland and the characters were boring. I, unfortunately, ended up marking this as did not finish.

Descendants (The Arete Series 1)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book Title: Descendants

Author: Rae Else

Rating: 5/5

Time it took me to read: 11 Days

Review: I found the beginning of this book a little quick, like i was thrown into alot happening all at once but as the story carried on it just got better and better and i found i couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed it and cant wait to read future books in this series.

I thought was going to be a bit like Percy Jackson to be honest but it was far from that. El has powers that she's been forced to hide but she gets exposed after an accident which takes place so early into the story there's no time to even wonder about her. There's a lot of fire and thriller-y stuff with things happening just because and so many plot twists in such a small book that everything were happening so fast.

I jumped on this book because of the greek mythology, but I ended up finding myself bored with the story. Descendants of Perseus who find themselves fighting against an order that wants to use their power. The action and intrigue should have kept me in its clutches. Instead, I found myself hoping things would get better. That El wouldn't grate on my nerves. That the broody Dan wasn't the ass that he was going off as. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

I have read many books this week but this particular book struck me and left me attached to the story. I would describe this book as a combination of Percy Jackson and Mortal Instruments. If those two stories would have a child it would be Descendants: Book One of the Arete Series written by Rae Else.
The story revolves around El. She grew up under her grandparents' care and was very sheltered. Knowing her capabilities at a very young age she longed for freedom and a normal life though she is frightened to what might happen to people around her when her powers gets the best of her. With that being said she never questioned her grandma for her upbringing rather she just abide to the rules given to her until the day her grandma gave her the some freedom to finally interact with the outside world.

El was working at the Cobbold House when a tragic incident happened. To others this incident is just another suicide attempt or an accident but to El it did more damage to her life than to the one who is laying on the hospital bed. This was the night she will never forget. This is where the story opened up a can of worms and this is where I should stop telling a brief description of the story or else it would be a HUGE spoiler.

It took me a while to read this book because I didn't want the book to end. It was that good. The story is so vivid that it almost feels like you've seen the world they're in. This book has a lot of twists and turns; at one point you thought you knew what was going to happen but then the story will take this turn then you're back to having trust issues with the character and the story. The author plays with your mind and emotions! But, she does it in a way that makes it impossible to put down the book. Its crazy! If you were to ask me if I would recommend this book to others, I would say heck yeah! this is such a great story to pass up. Just be prepared of spellbinding twists and turns of this storyline because you won't be able to put down this book even when you want to.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Visit my blog at http://www.ipanabook.wordpress.com

I've put off reviewing this one for a bit but it was a dnf for me, I saw potential in it there were some cool ideas but they weren't going in a way I found interested in any longer. I didn't like any of the characters I found I kept asking questions and I reallllly hate being kept in the dark with the main character, its just always bothered me and this felt like that would go on for some time.

"There are lots of stories about the children of gods. But what about those cursed by the gods, and their descendants..."

This line is catnip. This is story I definitely want to read. This is not quite the story Descendants tells.

The set-up: El has lived a safe, if sheltered life, raised with her grandparents in a country cottage. Her grandparents keep her away from others because El has a gift: she has powers of persuasion which cannot control. She has a part-time job as a docent at a local museum/cultural attraction which allows her to get out into the world. Unfortunately, things go wrong during a tour and El almost kills a visitor with her power, exposing her to a shady organization, the Triad, which would do her harm.

The good: as far as Greek mythology-influenced young adult fiction goes, this is a creative take. Else lays out a complex society of elementals. With two more books coming in the series, there is something for a reader to sink teeth into.

Ultimately, the book wasn't for me for a number of reasons.

The world is complex, but it's poorly sketched in a perfunctory exposition dump. There's a list of different types presented over a page or two, and then the story moves along. When the types come up later, I struggled to recall what was said previously--wait, why does that power work on arete but that other one doesn't?--and almost wished the information had been better integrated in the text.

I fell for the cover blurb and wanted to know more about El and her kind as descendants of those cursed by the Greek gods. Oops: arete pre-date ancient Greece. So they're ... something. Humans with a little extra. This might be fleshed out better as the series progresses, so put a pin in that criticism.

The story just doesn't do the work. El harms the visitor in the opening scene, and rushes home to find that she's being hunted. It's been maybe 20 minutes to an hour since she left work, but her London-based mother is already in the living room. How? How does her mother know that El is on the Triad's radar this early? What does it mean that they're looking for her given that the incident just happened? Did a call go out? Are local teams deployed and about to bust through the windows? Logistics of the hunt aside, the threat of the Triad doesn't feel real until half-way through the book, robbing the book of tension it sorely needs.

El moves from place to place but it never feels internally driven. Oh, El is in the hideout. Now she's seeing a doctor. Now she's in a park. Her primary means of transition from one location is leaving the first spot crying. El cries a lot, which brings me to my next criticism.

El is a teenage girl, which can cover a host of sins in YA writing. She spends a lot of time crying about being betrayed, even as she proves herself unable to make good choices. On one page, she regrets the consequences of not doing what she's been asked to do. On the next, she's not doing something else she's been asked to do. Oh, honey. Learn a lesson.

I am officially too old for the requisite YA love triangle. I choose to believe it's a subtle joke that El has been so sheltered, any attention from an attractive young man flusters her. I choose to believe it, but I'm not positive Else does.

Look, Descendants has the same magic as the Trylle trilogy, as well as a lot of the same flaws. Those books were absolutely not my speed, but they were enormously popular when they came out. I think Descendants could absolutely work for a similar audience. I don't think I'll be moving forward with this series.

I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for feedback. This review is also posted at Cannonball Read.

"I used to wonder if we were carrying Eve's sin: to always bear the temptation of the serpent"

* *
2 / 5

Descendants sounded and started off like it was going to be in the vein of Percy Jackson, before diverging in a wildly different direction at breakneck speed. Everything happens so fast in this short novel (210 pages) that I felt like I was getting whiplash. There's betrayals, characters appearing and disappearing and dying, plot twists occurring so quickly that I found it difficult to care all that much about what was happening. I think Descendants would have done better as a longer book.

"the power was her curse to bear as it was her mother's and had been her grandma's and all of Perseus' descendants before them"

El is a descendant of Medusa and/or Perseus. This is the idea that piqued my interest but unfortunately it doesn't get much exploration beyond "this is your ancestor so you get special magical powers". El is a drakon - she has fire elemental powers and can sometimes manipulate people into doing as she wishes. When a magical incident occurs El is whisked away from her guardian, her blind grandmother, into the heart of London and the arete community. From there she is bound up in all kinds of conspiracies.

First off, some positives. Fight scenes take up roughly the last third of the book and they are reasonably cool and well written. There's elemental powers and things exploding everywhere. I also quite liked El's grandmother, Helena, who was a badass older woman who had at one point been a badass younger woman. I love it when books include older female figures and Helena was a fine character. I also liked the mythology that Else drew into her book - the role of the kerykeion is pretty big, there's lots of ancestors of different types of Ancient Greek monsters, and there's descriptions of famous paintings woven in.

"for she who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, may she know both her strength and the joys she holds"

Our protagonist, El, I was rather ambivalent about. At the beginning she got my sympathy, being thrust into a world that she knew nothing about. She made understandable choices given her circumstances. But she was also just so bland. El masters fire magic after literally learning that she can do it after a week, El has a crush on a fit equally bland boy who we (and she) knows virtually nothing about, and El decides to commit her life to a cause she betrayed about 5 days ago. She rather trope-y and there isn't much to set her apart. Likewise, the rest of the cast is so-so.

The writing is a bit rough, but that wasn't too much of an issue once I got into the book. What was an issue was the actual narrative. It simply went too quickly for me. It alternated between telling you nothing and info-dumping via El reading some books someone gave her. There were too many specialist terms being thrown around. Then there's the quick way that plot elements are being tossed around without being tied up or given the correct emotional response - El's friend, El's mother and grandmother, the Triad.

The worldbuilding had a fair chunk in common with Percy Jackson and other YA fantasy novels to truly stand out. There's magic that clouds the arete from the human gaze, El, like Percy, is raised not knowing anything about her ancient heritage and the people like her, for example. The enemy, the Order, is fairly nondescript - they're a group of arete who occasionally do bad things. The novel clearly had some great original ideas but these really weren't developed enough.

Descendants would have benefited a lot from being longer with more time to explain what was going on and develop the characters properly. There were some solid scenes and fun ideas, but Descendants was ultimately too confusing and fast-paced for me to properly enjoy.

Who doesn't love a good book about people who can manipulate the elements, a book where it is good versus evil? Descendants is a book about exactly that. With its captivating storyline and heart-wrenching plot points, I can guarantee that this will be a book that you won't be able to put down.

There are lots of stories about the children of gods. But what about those cursed by the gods, and their descendants...

El, a seventeen-year-old has inherited an ancient and deadly power. She loses control of it, causing a horrific accident, and becomes the prey of a secret organisation, known as the Order. Forced from her family and home, she hides in plain sight amidst the crowds of London, and is thrust into a world she never knew existed; one full of arete: beings with extraordinary powers like hers.

At the heart of their world is the kerykeion, the symbol that protects them from the humans and the humans from them. El is trapped between two factions, one that has built an empire around the kerykeion and another that is determined to bring it down.
As she is drawn deeper into the conflict, the only way to find the truth is to take matters into her own hands, and the line between friend and foe becomes dangerously blurred.

You know what's so awesome about this book? The fact that El and her family are descendants of Medusa... How cool is that? MEDUSA! Now, I know she was evil and all (or misunderstood if you read the poem by Carol Ann Duffy), but to read about the family who inherited parts of Medusa's power is brilliant.

I found the pace of this book to be good as well. We were thrown straight into the storyline and Else reveals information about the characters and the different organisations as the book develops. There is this whole concept of good versus evil, the Order versus the Opposition and El is trying to figure out which side is the 'good' side. Which is the side that she can trust? Which side does her heart want?





"Music had a mysterious power all of its own."

- Rae Else, Descendants





The only part of this book that annoyed me was the whole romance aspect. One minute El is feeling a connection to one character, and then the next, she's kissing a different one. Then she starts to feel betrayed by one character, so she goes to the other guy. But when the other guy betrays her, she doesn't like him anymore and thinks she likes the first guy! Sound confusing? It isn't when you're reading it, but it does get annoying because she seems so flippant about 'who should I like at the moment'? I know that she's having trust issues and she's finding it hard who to believe, but she shouldn't be so blase about her feelings. It shouldn't be: 'oh well this guy lied to me for my own protection, but that's ok. I don't like him anymore, so I'm just going to like this other guy instead'.

However, I did find the 'magic' element of this book really cool. El is a drakon - meaning that she can manipulate fire with her eyes. At first, she doesn't know how to control her power but after quite a few shocking events, she is forced to face her power and learn how to use it and fight with it. Witnessing El fight against other arete was amazing. I loved reading about her throwing fireballs and dodging her opponents attacks!

Overall, this book was really good apart from the small romance part of it, but hopefully, all of that will be smoothed out in the second book - which I absolutely cannot wait to read! I can't wait to find out what happens to the Order and the Opposition and I also cannot wait to read how El continues to grow as a character and develops and learns about her power even more!

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Released 12th April

With ‘Descendants’ author Rae Else has created a mythology of sorts with the actual descendants of Medusa and similar mythological creatures. Intriguing story-line; carefully planned out and well-written.

I felt compelled to check this out because my kids are huge fans of Rick Riordan’s books and I was curious to see what a more ‘grown up’ version of the Greek mythology would read like.

Similar to Riordan, Else has set her mythos in a modern world that is incredibly detailed and her vivid writing will engage your senses in her version of what can happen if the Greek gods came to life. An excellent story line provides a thoroughly immersive experience through exposition to teach the reader more about this world and its characters but not so heavy you get dragged down in the details. The author throws in enough suspenseful action scenes to keep your attention which adds the much needed counter balance so you’ll enjoy the first book enough to continue deeper into the series.

This fast paced and thrilling tale is easy to recommend as the idea of inheriting powers from people who were cursed is intriguing. We have a strong and powerful female character who will sweep you into her story as she fights for control over her unique gifts. She has dealt with a lifetime of knowing she’s not like everyone else and now after being kept isolated in some ways from the world at large she’s dropped into the deep end to learn how to survive. Through El we are able to see how the author is able to flex her talent in character deconstruction by providing complex psychosocial development embedded against the backdrop of this interesting page turner that you will want to read all the way through to the end.

You can’t help but feel empathy with El’s struggles from being hit face first with incredibly shocking new information, having to process it on the fly and adapt to a world so different from the one she thought she knew. The other characters surrounding her added to the story with their own plot twists so you should quickly learn to take nothing at face value particularly as Else continued her thought-provoking view of human psychology by allowing the varied abilities to shape each characters personality.

I only found a few negatives. I felt that even with what the author wrote there was still some room to expound upon the characters motivations and provide a deeper connection to them. I wanted the book to be at least as twice as long so it could have easily accommodated the extra details. I felt it needed a bit more tightening on the editing as there were times it seemed to duplicate itself by giving the reader information such as what the character may be thinking then having the character immediately say it. Getting rid of either the dialogue or the narrative would have made it more palpable. There were a few plot inconsistencies as well with character actions.

I still felt the positives outweighed the negatives and because it’s so short you could easily read it during commercials and get it finished during a couple of prime time episodes. I’m very curious to see where the series is going to go from here especially if the author expands her future books into something bigger and more thorough.