Review: Masquerade by Cambria Hebert

Masquerade by Cambria Hebert
Expected Publication Date: December 16th
Publisher: Otherworld Publications
Format: E-ARC
Source: From the author for blog tour
Add to TBR: Goodreads
Rating: 

*I received an e-arc of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are purely my own.*

Before. Everything was so much better Before. I wasn’t haunted by nightmares, my place at school was secure and my face was flawless. Now, I’m a freak and everything has changed. The worst part is that I can’t remember the night I was sentenced to the shadows. The memory has been stolen from me and I just can’t shake the feeling that someone, something is out there -watching.
Just when I think I have my life handled, Sam, with his intimidating golden stare and shiver inducing voice, makes me realize that I don’t know anything. He makes me see that my scars don’t matter. That they never mattered. I can’t help but fall for him, completely unknowing that he knows exactly how I got this way. Not knowing he was involved.
***
Heven has no idea how closely death stalks her. She has no idea what I have done to keep her alive. I fear the day she learns my secrets, finds out what I really am. But even then I cannot stop, I vow to make things right. Finally her hunter will be hunted, Heaven and Hell, faith and sin will battle, and we will be victorious. But first, Heven must learn to be what she never imagined. I know her strength is there – I feel it. If we are to overcome all odds, she must push past her flaws - her frailties - to become much more.

I heard Cambria Hebert was hosting a blog tour for her book Masquerade and immediately sent her an email asking to join. This book sounded awesome when I first heard about it, and it was on my Goodreads TBR list for a few weeks, so I was stoked when she sent me an e-copy for review. I was not disappointed! This book had action, adventure, romance, and paranormal elements galore! The first half of the book kept me in total suspense, asking questions like, "Where did Heven get those scars?" "What is Sam?" "Why is Heven's mom so crazy?!" (she's a nutcase, but I won't dwell on it). I have to admit, some things had me a little annoyed. The insta-love between Sam and Heven was the worst of it. You all know how I feel about the insta-love. I was immediately transported back a few years to my time reading Twilight, so obviously lovers of that series will enjoy this one! Overall, it was a great book and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one!
The characters were pretty hard to relate too, but they did grow a lot during the story. At first Heven is pretty whiney and reminds me of a certain shiny vamp-lover. I actually wanted to reach into the book and punch her because she was so annoying sometimes. She does mature a lot, however, and by the end I actually enjoyed her a lot more. Sam isn't as swoon-worthy as I like them, but he's definitely an alpha. He tends to baby Heven a lot though, constantly saying, "That's my girl" when she does something even remotely positive. Like she's a dog and he's training her for a show or something. Their relationship drove me a little nuts, they were way too engrossed in each other and spent too much time fawning over each other's looks and ignoring other people. By the end of the story though, I felt like I liked them a lot more, and actually wanted to keep reading to find out where their relationship was headed. Kimber, Heven's best friend is literally the epitome of a frenemy. She's pretty much the worst kind of person. She's constantly belittling Heven, and is even jealous of her! She's jealous of a girl who has scars covering half her face!! If that's not the definition of selfish witch then I don't know what is. Yeah, I really hated her. But now I'm ranting...
The story itself was awesome, and I felt like a lot happened in only 300 pages. Basically Sam is some crazy paranormal creature, I won't ruin the surprise for you, but it's defintely not something you're going to be used to. I loved how long it took to find out what he is too, I kept turning pages thinking, "When am I going to find out what Sam is?!" And when I finally did it was like a, "SAY WHAT?!" moment. As for the romance, that's pretty annoying and I wish there was more sexy time *sigh* but Sam and Heven eventually grew on me, and I found them somewhat cute by the end. There are a lot of action and fighting scenes which were so fun to read, I actually found myself tuning everything out in order to hear about torn body parts and bloody limbs. YES! Finally a paranormal YA with bloody limbs!!! This was by far my favorite part of the whole book.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this one, but I had too many qualms with it to fully imerse myself in the story at one time. It took awhile to get through it, because I found myself either getting bored, annoyed, or frustrated from time to time. About half way through, I felt like things really started to pick up, and I was able to enjoy a lot more of what was happening, and I'm so glad I got to read this one. I'm definitely looking forward to what happens next, it's going to be AWESOME, I can already tell! If you're a fan of paranormal, romance, action, and bloody limbs you're going to love Masquerade!