bookishbrunette

Chase is a demon hunter- without an elemental power. For this disgrace to his father's legacy, he was cast out of the 'protection' of the Circle with his mother to live among the humans.However, the demons that roam our world seek Chase out without fail... OVER and OVER again... night after night... Let me explain quickly, a demon can be any creature of the Underworld: vamp, shifter, witch... etc. And there are only a few ways to kill said demons, "Cut off his head or pierce his black heart- those were my options. I could light him on fire, but I was fresh out of matches." *grin* I loooove my Chase...Chase is thoroughly (rather slowly... as he is slightly LOSING) figuring out HOW he wants to rid the world of this particular demon when out of nowhere, RAYNA comes up from behind and takes the kill shot before Chase has the chance!Rayna... OMG! I TOTALLY freaking LOVE her! Seriously- from her green, shifter eyes to her wickedly hot witchy ways... She was EPIC! Ahem! Moving on...After Rayna takes out the demon, she starts to lay the smack down on Chase! (Okay, my guy TOTALLY held his own... but Rayna let him HAVE IT!) It becomes clear to Chase as they're fighting, that she- HERSELF- is a demon.Then someone calls Rayna off! Not just anyone either... A HUNTER! A powerful, air-elemental with the ability to manipulate the shadows. Beyond that, Marcus was also Chase's DAD'S old partner... who has been thought dead by the Hunters for years, when in reality he has been training demons!This is unfathomable to Chase! Demons and Hunters can't be FRIENDS, and they certainly don't work together! But there is a lot that Chase doesn't know, not all Underworlder's are evil- and not all members of the Circle are good.RIGHT? I know... and that's just the freaking BEGINNING! I totally looooved Chase and his thought process... and I had a WICKED crush on him! *giggles* "There were a lot of problems with living in the slums. I could deal with the noisy neighbors. I could handle the random gunshots during the night, but the lack of water pressure was at the top of my list of complaints. This was clearly a sign my life wasn't normal."Then Chase finds himself doing something that he thought he'd NEVER do... SAVING the life of a demon- from the very Hunter's he used to train with. He takes quite a beating from his former 'brothers', and Willy (the demon) takes him home and has his Gram (freaking AWESOMESAUCE old lady) heal him.Upon returning home, his mother is FREAKING out because he's been gone for DAYS- healing... at the DEMON'S house. Marcus is there, and Chase finally agrees to help him and Rayna fight against the Hunter's, so they won't be able to procure this half-breed blood they're looking for. "My can it be true? One day you're putting knives to my throat and calling me a filthy demon, and the next you're having sleepovers with an Underworlder?" ~Rayna "What can I say, he was prettier than you." ~ChaseI absolutely REFUSE to give ANYTHING more away about the story... but i can assure you it just gets BIGGER & BETTER from there on... I know, it's hard to imagine right?Now I must mention how much I completely adored the secondary characters in Exiled. They were just as detailed and descriptively written as any of the main characters!Willy was freaking FABULOUS, Tiki completely ROCKED my face off and even the villainous characters were beautifully fantastic! The vividness in which I experienced the worlds that M.R. Merrick created within Exiled is too hard to put into words. Everything was perfectly executed, so that when I picked up this book- I was instantly transported from my couch, into Chase William's world so completely that I could have been standing next to him.THIS is why I love indie books... Exiled is the PERFECT example of the EPICNESS that can exist in independent work and therefore so easily go unnoticed!Part fantasy, part action/adventure, part YA and part romantic comedy without all the dramatics of a love triangle... there's not even kissing! (I'm hoping for some in SHIFT though) I'm kicking myself for having waited so long to read this book. Exiled was completely KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF AWESOME!I LOVED Exiled. It was in all it's glory- A grand adventure, filled with guts, glory, mythical creatures, AMAZING story-telling and we mustn't forget... a golden torrent. And for all this and more, it is joining the ranks with only FOUR other books to ever have received a CROWNED REVIEW.SERIOUSLY- READ this book, NOW!