Sweet Venom
Author: Tera Lynn Childs
Catgory: Teen
Release Date: September 2011
Rating: 

From Books-A-Million.com Publisher's Weekly Review:

                   "Smart but timid Grace Whitfield doesn't want to move to San Francisco for her junior year, but a full scholarship to an elite private school is too good to pass up; she hopes it will give her a chance to reinvent herself. Meanwhile, Gretchen Sharp would love to go to school in peace, but her nights are spent fighting mythological beasts that prowl the city, cloaked in glamour and seeking human prey. When Gretchen sees Grace at an all-ages nightclub, she wants to know why there's another girl who looks just like her who can see the monsters, too. Their mysterious connection leads them to a third girl who also shares a strong physical resemblance."

My Thoughts

                      You know that myth about Medusa? The one where she was transformed into a beast with snakes for hair and a stare that will turn men to stone (literally). Apparently, that's all lies perpetrated by Athena though we aren't quite sure why. Medusa was a gatekeeper. She and her two sisters were meant to keep mythological beasts from feeding on and controlling humans. Somewhere along the way, she was killed and her offspring took up her calling.

                             The story centered around three girls. First, we meet Grace who is shy and soft-spoken. She wants to introduce her new school to a whole new version of herself, but doesn't quite know how. Then there is Gretchen, her childhood was rough until she ran away at age 12. A kind stranger took her in, trained her to fight, and she has been hunting monsters and sending them back to the depths of...where ever they come from...ever sense. Finally, there is Greer who's life was perfectly ordered until two girls who look strangely like her show up at her doorstep claiming she was adopted and they are triplets. The story allows you to see each girl begin to change. Grace gains a strength and confidence she didn't know she could. Gretchen becomes a little softer and allows her new sisters into her heart and world. Greer's icy heart melts a bit and she begins to actually feel instead of calculate. I love how the story focuses on these girls and their relationship to each other. There are a few other elements, but they will most likely be developed later. This book is meant to develop the girls, as they grow to know and love each other, the reader begins to know and understand them. Is it nature of nurture that makes a person? These sisters may be physically identical, but emotionally they are as different as night and day.

                       As for what the future may bring, several questions were raised: How do Thane and Nick play into this? Both boys seem to know more than they are letting on, but the reader can't quite tell what yet. Who is trying to kill the girls, and who wants them alive? Are the Gods rooting for them, and some super bad beastie out to get them? Who, aside from Athena, would have it in for these three protectors of humanity? Is it even possible to be both a huntress and a normal teenage girl? Who and where are their birth parents?  What is it about THEIR destiny that is so special even among the other descentdants? Stay tuned, book lovers, Sweet Shadows is set for a Fall 2012 release date, and hopefully some of these mysteries will be solved.