Runes by Ednah Walters

Title: Runes
Series: The Runes series #1
Author: Ednah Walters
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Pages: 245
Source: Kindle Edition
Rating: ★★★★ (4 stars)

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Book Blurb (via Goodreads):
Seventeen-year-old Raine Cooper has enough on her plate dealing with her father’s disappearance, her mother’s erratic behaviour and the possibility of her boyfriend relocating. The last thing she needs is Torin St. James—a mysterious new neighbour with a wicked smile and uncanny way of reading her.

Raine is drawn to Torin’s dark sexiness against her better judgment, until he saves her life with weird marks and she realizes he is different. But by healing her, Torin changes something inside Raine. Now she can’t stop thinking about him. Half the time, she’s not sure whether to fall into his arms or run.

Scared, she sets out to find out what Torin is. But the closer she gets to the truth the more she uncovers something sinister about Torin. What Torin is goes back to an ancient mythology and Raine is somehow part of it. Not only are she and her friends in danger, she must choose a side, but the wrong choice will cost Raine her life

Review:

So I bought this book on Amazon mostly because of the cover. It was beautiful and interesting, and the blurb sounded pretty good so I thought, 'why not?'. Well, lets just say I am glad I got it!

At the beginning of the book I got a little worried that the plot would follow something like the Mortal Instruments series. The first hints we see of a Paranormal world are in the forms of Runes and the wand like things that are used to draw the runes. I am happy to report that while there are some similarities in the rune aspect, the rest of the book is not like the Mortal Instruments at all. In fact, about a quarter of the way through the book, we find that the Paranormal aspect belongs somewhere in the realm of Norse Mythology. DING DING DING, I was hooked. While the mythological aspect was completely unexpected, it was completely welcomed with open arms in my eyes. I'm a huge mythology enthusiast. 

There is a love aspect in the story, and even a bit of a love triangle. Raine is dating her long time crush and best friend, Eirik, and yet has this unexplainable attraction to Torin that she tries her hardest to ignore without much success. The only thing I didn't like about the romantic side is how unfairly Eirik was treated, I felt so bad for him, yet I was rooting for Torin the entire time. Saying that, Ednah Walters did a great job of making the love triangle very realistic for a high school girl, and even gave her some morals. Raine may have 'had stars in her eyes' (as her mother would say) for Torin, but she felt guilty has Hel for it (you will totally get that pun if you read the book :p).

The only part of the story I had a problem with was the progression of the paranormal side of the plot line. While the romantic angle was consistent and progressed normally, the mythological/ fantasy side of the story took forever to unveil. I spent the entire first half of the novel very confused and the hints given to the reader weren't entirely helpful. However, saying that, while the fantasy side of the story took a while to get to and form properly, it was very well thought out. Not the most original, in fact I can probably name 5 books of the top of my head that deal with the same.. beings (I don't want to give anything away by saying what Torin and the 'bad guys' are), but the way Ednah Walters incorporated it into the story and the other aspects she threw in were more unique. She did a great job of shaping an old topic into her own little web of mystery.