Veronique Launier

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: A gothic love story with the potential to become an interesting series.

Opening Sentence: Humanity wandered by, the way it always had.

The Review:

Redemption is a gargoyle love story with some potential. As a teenager I would have probably fell in love with this book but as an adult not quite so much. Aude, pronounced “Ode” but everyone calls her “Odd” is a musically talented young woman who is looking forward to a future in music show more with her band. She is basically a loner, her only two friends are her bandmates who have just recently begun dating. Her dating bandmates have her believeing her band will fall apart and with the new tension she doesn’t believe she can confide in her friends about the strange things happening to her.

An attack on Aude ultimately releases Guillaume and his gargoyle brothers from stone. The gargoyles can turn from stone to human flesh but to do that they have to rely on essence fed to them by an essentialist (basically a witch). It has been over 70 years since Guillaume has been in human form, the last essentialist he knew died, and he can’t help but follow Aude to find out what power she holds. It doesn’t take him long to confront her but he knows he is going to slowly have to gain her trust if he wants to find out why she was able to bring him back to flesh.

Aude is being followed by Guillaume almost wherever she goes, she isn’t a huge fan of it but then she begins to be attacked by a stone man. A few times she relies on Guillaume to save her but she does save herself a couple times too when he isn’t around. Aude and Guillaume begin to unravel a prophecy about the destruction of Montreal and they have to figure out how to keep it from happening.

I liked Aude most of the time and I really enjoyed her enthusiasm for music but I felt she was way too stubborn at times. She didn’t want to listen to people and when her friend finally gave her a wakeup call about who was really destroying the band, she begin to trust in other people. Now Guillaume is a different story, I really liked him at first but when as his backstory was revealed there was just something about his character that I couldn’t quite feel for. And for having no emotions he was certainly quite selfish. As for Aude and Guillaume’s relationship, I was rooting for it off and on. (I would add more but I feel like I’d be spoilery about it.)

The setting for Redemption is the Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Veronique Launier pays close attention to detail about the buildings of that city, past and present, and how they affect the story. The atmosphere to the story has a bit of a gothic feel with little twists of humor.

Redemption jumps back and forth between Aude and Guillaume’s point of views. It is easy to know who is speaking since it is labeled at the beginning of every chapter. I had a few issues with the plot, mainly at the end of the book. I did have to read the end fight scene twice because after I read it the first time, I couldn’t remember what just had happened and why the following scene was like it was.

Overall, I think Redemption has some potential to be a good series. I like the originality to the gargoyles and their backstory. There is also a interesting set up to a Persian gargoyle that I would love to read more about and learn his story. He definitely added some extra conflict to Aude’s feelings and I’d like to see where it goes. As of right now, I can’t find any information on a sequel except for Goodreads listing Redemption as part of a series.

Notable Scene:

Finally, I felt the bitter wind against my bare skin and I knelt beside her. Her eyes were closed again. I made a small gagging sound as I tried to swallow past a lump in my throat. Her eyes opened a slit and she watched me, her breath rasping. In my imagination, I saw the corners of her lips raise slightly at the sight of me. I knew this wasn’t real but it was enough to pierce through the walls I’d kept up for centuries.

Here she was, this girl I’d come to love, dying in an alley, and it was my fault. I stroked her hair as I choked back a scream. I wasn’t meant to feel. This is what happened when I went against my nature. First Marguerite and now Aude. I was responsible for both. Instead of protecting them, I had to watch them both die.

“Guil … ” Her words sounded like a dry cough.

“Shhhh, don’t speak.” I put my finger on her lips in a gesture for silence.
“Don’t … ” She let out a couple of broken breaths before continuing. “ … cry.”

It took me a while to understand what she meant. Tears streamed down my cheeks, I wiped at them ith the back of my hand.

Whatever light was still in her eyes dimmed slightly.

“No! You can’t die on me! You can’t abandon me like she did.” Like she abandoned all of us. My heart was so heavy I thought it would fall out of my chest. It hurt.

“Hang on. I need to get help.”

“Please … ” She made a small sound and her eyes rolled a little. She closed them and I saw the tears streaking down her cheeks to mix with the blood and dirt that covered her face. “Please stay.”

FTC Advisory: Flux provided me with a copy of Redemption. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. show less

First, thank you to Flux and NetGalley for permission to read this ARC.

This book held such promise. Gargoyles, French roots, Mohwawk prophecy. It is so original. Sadly, I only made it page 142. I feel terrible and have never given such a low review. But I just couldn't not get past the rather generic characters, the flawed dialogue and the inconsistent pacing.

At first, Aude seemed like she would be a fun and "Odd" character. But her pettiness, her doubt, and her ridiculous obsession with show more her band got incredibly old. Really fast. One thing I do love about her is her French and Mohawk roots. I was really hoping to get this part explained, but sadly, I had to stop about halfway through.

Guillaume reminds me very much of the Edward from Twilight. And I don't mean this to be good. He stalks Aude because he knows something about her is tied to his an brother's and his release from being a gargoyle. He also has this annoying habit of telling the reader that he doesn't have feelings because he has a stone heart. Sadly, this was poorly executed. He did have emotions. Anger, confusion, doubt, etc. One thing I do love about him, is that he is a original supernatural character.

As for Lucy and Trick, Aude's friends, I disliked them, a lot. They were shitty friends and I wanted to punch them in the faces. For goodness sake, they stood up Aude so that they could have their own date and Aude gets attacked! Not okay. In fact, this is the only emotional response I had to the entire 140 pages that I read.

The dialogue was the biggest pitfall of this book. I understand that the guys are all really old, centuries old, so yes they have different ways of speaking. But I find it hard to believe that as gargoyles who can hear everyone below them, that they managed to not pick up on modern patterns and colloquialisms.

Also, I don't normally harp on this because I don't usually have an issue with this, but it seemed that Veronique was not trying enough for the guys inner dialogue to come across as...well, a guy. And on the flip side, I think she was trying way too hard with Aude as a petty teenager that it just wasn't believable.

As for the pacing, this entire first half was too slow and too fast at the same time. That probably makes no sense, so let me try to explain. The flashbacks went too fast and the modern times was going too slow for my liking. It would have been different if there were some world building or character building, but it was lacking in both.

I do want to say that I absolutely applaud Veronique for trying to tackle such a unique supernatural element. It's not everyday that I read about gargoyles.

Overall, I was hoping and hoping that this book would be wonderful. I mean hello, gargoyles! I have never read a gargoyle book in my life. I had such high hopes for this one but was sadly let down. show less

For some reason I thought this was a book about a girl who was a gargoyle – serves me right for requesting a review copy of a book after only glancing at the blurb. So it took me a while to figure out that the gargoyle in question was a guy – and that a girl had woken him from a seventy year old sleep. Intriguing premise, but I think there was a lot of potential in this book that went unexplored, and not only did it end up being like all the other YA romances out there, it was kind of show more boring.

The lady in question, Aube, likes to go by the nickname Odd and proudly lives up to it. Except that the traits that are meant to make her seem eccentric but likeable – like Luna Lovegood – end up alienating the reader and making her extremely inacessible. She has an interesting home life – her mother skips from one relationship to another and Aube even comments, very early on, that she may as well accept money for what she does. Not the kind of thing a normal person says about their mother, but at least Aube is honest, right? Aube is obsessed with the band she is in with her two best friends, who have recently progressed their friendship into a relationship. Except Aube, being the self-centred little so-and-so she is, is convinced that the relationship will go nowhere and ruin the band.

Guillaume is a completely different story – he stalks Aube, buys her things she covets, puts her in danger – the usual YA hero type! I really can’t see what Aube sees in him. She continually points out she is not interested in him, but then waxes lyrical about how gorgeous he and his ‘brothers’ are. One of the things I like about Guillaume (man that’s a mouthful yeah?) is that he has an awesome family. His ‘brothers’ and ‘father’ are there for him whenever he needs them, and even though he and his best friend have some bad blood between them because of a lady, it’s still very sweet.

It was the story that failed to grab me though – the gargoyle angle could have been so much more interesting, complex and well executed. Instead it fell flat. The mythology wasn’t clearly explained, things just seemed to conveniently happen, and even the obstacles the group faced throughout the story seemed contrived. I read through it all, but I lost interest fairly early on and kept reading because I wanted to know more about the gargoyles and Aube’s connection to Marguerite.

I didn’t enjoy Redemption as much as I had hoped, and probably won’t be reading the sequels. I just have no emotional investment in the story or the characters. If you want to try a YA paranormal novel with a difference, then I’d suggest that you try this book – and I hope you enjoy it more than me.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review.
You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic. show less

3.5 Stars

GoodReads Synopsis: Guillaume - For five hundred years I've existed as a gargoyle. Perched atop an old Montreal church, I've watched idly as humanity wanders by. With the witch Marguerite gone, there is no one left to protect, nothing to care about. I never planned to feel again. But then a girl released me from my stone restraints, allowing me to return as a seventeen-year-old human boy. I must find out all I can about this girl's power . . .

Aude - Getting attacked twice in as show more many days is strange in itself, but even stranger is the intriguing guy I keep running into. There's something so familiar about him, like a primal drum rhythm from my dreams. But spending time together only raises more question-about my heritage, a native Mohawk prophecy . . . and an unearthly magic threatening our city.

My Thoughts: Paranormal is incredibly popular of late. Never would I have thought to build a story around Gargoyles, but, I’m so glad that Veronique Launier did! Now I’ve never read about gargoyles before so I had no preconceived notions and absolutely loved the mythology Launier came up with. Especially the Iroquois angle.

My one complaint would be that I found the characters to be extremely self-centered and not very likeable…at least at the beginning. All Aude cared about was her music to the point of alienating her two best friends and bandmates. Guillaume was equally self-centered in his previous life with Marguerite as well as with his single mindedness where Aude was concerned. The character I fell for the hardest was Garnier.

I will check out the next book in the series, because I want to see where the prophecy goes next and I did like Aude and Guil by the end of the book. show less