Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles #1) by Kresley Cole

Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles #1) 

Kresley Cole

369 pages

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Release Date: October 2nd, 2012

Rate: Love it

She could save the world -or destroy it.

Evangeline Green, Evie, has been dreaming about awful dreams, hallucinations and post-apocalyptic visions. When she was eight, her grandmother kidnap her in order to teach her part of the craziness she's experimenting now and with only sixteen years, she's been in a center for crazy people. Now the summer is over and her live is back to normal. Must be.

And that's when Evie meets Cajun, bad boy, Jackson Deveaux. The attraction is inevitable between them, but Evie's playing with fire.

Her life was beyond complicated, full of things that couldn't be possible, hearing strange voices rambling incoherent things. However, when her apocalyptic drawings become way too real, she starts to wonder If everything's also real. Who are the voices?

The Flash killed almost everyone, reducing people to dust. And then there are the Bagmen. Either way, Earth is doomed and the only person Evie doesn't want to see appears to her doorframe, saying things about a militia going out of control and that they were coming in Evie's way.

Jackson Deveaux is still the same: wicked grin and all his bad, Cajun attitude. When something makes Evie leave Haven, she finds herself on a road trip with this boy, who seems to hate her, and she cannot resist. 

They need to find the source of Evie's vision and Evie's grandmother in order to understand what's going on with Evie, since the institutions where her mother sent her did a great job; making her forget what her grandmother tried to taught her.

Despite this, the Game has started and Evie needs to find her grandmother before it's too late, find allies and kill the bad cards. How do you do that when Death is claiming personal, sweet revenge?

"Come touch,...but you'll a price" 

"Remember my titles? I don't get poisoned, I do the poisoning. I'm the Princess of it" 

The Arcana Chronicles are definitely my favorite paranormal/post apocalyptic book. Ever. This story not only captivates you for its incredible and easy to love characters, but its descriptive and raw brutality of the apocalyptic world the main character predicts and, then, lives. And you are unable to put the book down until you finish it. Full of mystery, romance, fantasy and a perfect, dramatic, apocalyptic and brutal Game, that would captivate you from the first page.

With a slight remembrance of other post apocalyptic books such as The Hunger Games, the Poison Princess is the story of Evie. But her life is not the life of a normal teenage girl. She's the Empress in The Tarot Cards and this game has been going on since forever. Every now and then, a catastrophe strikes Earth announcing the beginning of the Game and that's where the voices start to appear. Each voice a call from a tarot card. Only one can survive, not because there are rules, because there are, but because the pull, the need, of killing each other is unavoidable. And being the winner, means being immortal until the next game. And it's a long, long time. 

"The Empress doesn't get collared, or caged, or tortured. How artfully she beckons, how perfectly she punishes...."

It's true that this scene might sound familiar, but it's not. It's totally different from other books and Kresley Cole is fully faithful to the fantasy and paranormal side of the story, that we have started to recognize as her own personal signature in her stories. But what we really appreciated about this, is that Kresley did a great job with the Tarot story and you can see her hard work, and her research to write this story just by reading it.

I'm officially in love with this series, but what I truly like about them is that you don't really know what's going on at first. Why's that?

Well, the story starts with another character: Arthur, a boy who survived the Flash and does some horrible experiments on girls who have locked in his now basement. 'Cause, as you can imagine, he's not a nice person and killed the owner of that house. Now, he lures people into that house, mostly girls, to use them, but showing himself as a boy who wants to know about people's stories before and after the Flash.

And Evie is one of those girls who happened to see his sign and knocked on his door. In exchange for food and a warm place, she tells him her story, warning him, that all events might not be all believable. And this is the way we get to meet bad boy Jackson, cute and sweet Brandon, Selena, Finn and Matthew. And scary Death. And the creepy Devil.

As I said before, the characters are amazing. The main character, Evie, evolves a lot throughout the story. She starts as an innocent rich girl who might not survive the apocalypse alone and turns out to be a powerful  and badass woman that can take care of herself. At first you connect with her, because she's sweet and innocent, but it's also annoying how her craziness affects Jackson and she doesn't deny anything. I mean, girl, tell the poor guy you're not laughing at him! That you're simply seeing weird things! Okay, maybe that would be difficult, but the guy is obviously attracted to you, so don't act like that. And then, you meet road-Evie. Always reminding herself she's useless and that she needs Jack to survive. 

"My looks had gone from well-kempt cheerleader to apocalyptic disasterpiece." 

And then you meet, finally, jealous-I'm-in-love-with-Jack Evie that leads us to powerful and badass Evie, and reading that is simply epic. 

"He was staring at my lips, and before I could think better of it, I’d wetted them.

“That’s it, bébé,” he said in a coaxing rasp. “Ma bonne fille.” My good girl. He wrapped one of his arms behind my back, cupping my chin with his free hand. “Evangeline, I’m goan to kiss you until your toes curl, until we’re breathing for each other.”

That was the promise. . . ."

While Jack is a pain in the ass. Yep, I said it. He's bad guy, but a jerk, and I felt always that he had a double meaning for all his interactions with Evie. Boy, an advice: If you like a girl, you don't act like a jackass. She'll hate you, not love you. And you'll hurt our her feelings, too. Despite this, imagining Jack as Cajun bad boy, was something I couldn't stop doing. He is the antithesis of Evie in every single aspect and I think that's what makes their relationship an explosive and unique one. And yes, we are talking about sexual tension, because, ladies, Jackson, or Jack for his friends, oozes sex appeal and makes all the girls go wild. 

“If you touch me like that again, Evangeline,” he began in a husky tone, dropping to his seat once more, “in the space of a heartbeat, I will have you off this bike and onto the closest horizontal surface. And I woan be picky, no.”

Love these two, and in this book I'm definitely team Jack.

"I was with the boy that monsters should fear." 

We also need to do a quick review about the other characters in the story, because they play an important role in Evie's life. Like Selena. Although she looks like a proper and good ally, she's hitting on Jack. Oh, no you didn't. Yep, so you can imagine where jealous-Evie appears. Sorry, Selena, we don't like you for not liking Evie and hitting on Jack. Although we respect you for being in the good side.

Matt is simply the nerdy and shy boy we all imagine. He's beyond weird and he reminds us to a little boy who Evie needs to take care of. And he looks after Evie. So we definitely adore him. It's useless not to, he's beyond sweet, cute and good.

"Matthew, exactly how psychic are you?

So psychic that other psychics should be called Mattics."

And Finn is the character who brings the laugh, despite the Jack and Evie fights. Every time this character interacts in the story, I cannot stop myself from smiling. So, yes, we love him, too.

Overall this is an epic read. With an amazing story and an incredible plot full of fantasy, paranormal, romance, adventures, magic and supernatural creatures and events in a dystopian scenery, Kresley Cole created a perfect story that you will get addicted to, because it brings the best of every post-apocalyptic story and a slightly touch of Supernatural, the TV show, when they are trying to stop the apocalypse, the two of them playing a role in a God's Game.

Prepare your emotions for this explosive, mind-blowing and wonderful story, because this story is one of those you'll need to re-read because you're so in love with it that you cannot stop thinking about it. And that's why we are giving the Poison Princess a five gorjuss dolls and highly recommending it.

"When you say we...?"

He pulled back, gazing down at me, his eyes blazing. "I'm goan to lay it all out there for you. Laugh in my face--I don't care. But I'm goan to get this off my chest."

"I won't laugh. I'm listening."

"Evie, I've wanted you from the first time I saw you. Even when I hated you, I wanted you." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I got it bad, me." 

My heart felt like it'd stopped--so that I could hear him better.

"For as long as you've been looking down your nose at me, I've been craving you, an envie like I've never known."

"I don't look down at you! I'm too busy looking up to you."

Claudia Lee as Evie

Liam Hemsworth as Jack

Ana Mulvoy as Selena

Dylan O'Brien as Matt

Robert Sheehan as Finn

What do you think, Book Addicts?

Our Poison Princess Playlist:

Damned If She Do by The Kills -> Welcome to my trap house. I'm Arthur.

Good Life by OneRepublic -> Evie's life at Haven

Teenagers by My Chemical Romance-> Welcome the Cajuns

Madness by Muse -> CLC & Visions

Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine -> Evie & Jack at her party

Oh Death by Jen Titus -> When DEATH comes for Evie in Haven (Vision)

Radioactive by Imagine Sisters -> The Flash
Tomorrow will be kinder by The Secret Sisters -> Mel

When You're Gone by Avril Lavigne -> After the Flash

Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars -> Events that lead Evie to leave Haven

My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark by Fall Out Boy -> Haven in flames

Sail by AWOLNATION -> Evie & Jack on the road

It's Time by Imagine Dragons -> Evie & Jack in the pool

Kill Of The Night by Gin Wigmore -> Selena

The Lightning Strike by Snow Patrol -> Goodbye, Jack
Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas -> Saving Matthew

King And Lionheart by Of Monsters And Men-> Matthew is safe

Future Starts Slow by The Kills -> Hello, I'm Finn

Uprising by Muse -> Fighting the militia

Secrets by OneRepublic -> Jack wants to know about Evie's secret

I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift -> Kissing another girl

Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus -> Evie leaves Jack

Sacrilege by Yeah Yeah Yeah -> Evie fights the Alchemist

Click here to read the description of each card:

Kresley Cole is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the electrifying Immortals After Dark paranormal series and the young adult Arcana Chronicles. She has also written five award-winning historical romances. 

Since her first novel was released in 2003, Kresley has published nineteen books with Simon & Schuster and has seen her releases translated into more than eighteen foreign languages. She has traveled over much of the world and draws from those experiences to create her memorable characters and settings. Two of her favorite places to visit include the rain forests of Central America and the Queensland area of Australia. 

Cole’s trademark action, sensuality, and humor are exemplified in her popular Immortals After Dark Series, which revolves around the Lore, a secret stratum of hundreds of immortal creatures--ranging from Vampires to Lykae, Furies to Shifters, and Fey to Valkyrie--that each have their strengths, weaknesses, and age old prejudices against the others. Though they secretly live among humans, they constantly war among themselves, which gives her a lot of material. 

In 2007, Kresley won the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for best paranormal for her novel A Hunger Like No Other, and in January 2009, she became a #1 New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller with her sixth IAD installment, Kiss of a Demon King. In 2010, Kiss of a Demon King earned Kresley her second RITA award. 2011 brought Cole her second #1 NYT bestseller with Dreams of a Dark Warrior.

She lives in Florida with her husband and far too many animals. She spends any free time traveling and enjoys all things related to boats and water. You can learn more about Kresley at www.kresleycole.com.

Which Tarot Card would you be in the Arcana Chronicles? Why?

Win (1) signed paperback of Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles #1) by Kresley Cole and some swag (INT)

a Rafflecopter giveaway