Inescapable: The Premonition Series Paperback – August 8, 2011

I went ahead and bought all the books in this series on the strength of  The Kricket Series (3 Book Series) , but I really could have done without. It is very  Twilight . Mild spoiler alert - Instead of a vampire, the "Edward" character here (Reed) is an angel. As an atheist, I'm not a big fan of angels as characters generally, but I kept reading. Of course Reed appears to hate main character Evie at once for no apparent reason, which she obsesses about. Then it turns out to be for a supernatural reason. There is a lot of unnecessary angst and failure to read the other person's intentions, which are obvious to the reader. The "Jacob" of the story is named Russell and is a stereotypical Southern boy complete with chivalry etc. It's obvious from the first second with each character who will "win" this love triangle. Evie is immediately crazy hot for Reed, but seems to think she isn't good enough for him/is more trouble than she is worth, and can't be sure how he feels about her. Russell is nice instead of dark and brooding, but that just doesn't do it for Evie. I guess it wasn't completely horrible (I did actually read it), but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Read  The Kricket Series (3 Book Series)  instead if you want to read something by this author. It was somewhat predictable, but still good. You could probably find better Twilight fan fiction on the Internet, if that's the sort of thing you are interested in. The better advice is never read Twilight fan fiction (or Twilight). Read  Throne Of Glass Series (5 Book Series) , A Court of Thorns and Roses (2 Book Series) , The Starbound Trilogy (3 Book Series) , Defy Series (3 Book Series) , The Lunar Chronicles (3 books) , the series beginning with  Graceling (Graceling Realm Book 1) , or the series beginning with  Poison Study (Soulfinders Book 1) . All have strong female protagonists, adventure, fantasy &/or sci-fi, and romance, but are MUCH better done than this.

I actually took a chance and bought the whole series based on the strength of the comments appended to a Facebook ad I received. I never do that. However, the comments were full of readers who said they had re-read the series multiple times and that it had become a favorite for them.Here are my thoughts on book 1:The first 13-15% of the book is not great. I had a hard time getting immersed in the story because the only really relatable characters were Alfred and Russell. Evil was relatable at times but often said or did things that didn't make sense to me. Reed was entirely non-sensical-- he did what he did and said what he said but it was impossible to understand the character because it was not clear why he acted as he did. And, regrettably, the "Twilight" parallels were all too obvious. I'm not gonna list them because the similarities are extensive; so, I'll just sum it up with saying that if you read Twilight you will notice and likely be as irritated by the similarities as I was.That being said, somewhere around 19% the author finds her own voice and hits her stride. From this point onward I stopped noticing and bemoaning my slow progression through the book. It became more difficult to put the book down as I wondered what would happen next and tried to guess what the mysteries of the book entailed. The characters also hit their stride and moved away from bland Twilight-esque archetypes toward something all their own.The book is a stand-alone book with a well-written conclusion that allows readers to stop there, or opt to pursue their curiosity as to what may happen next. I.e., there is no cliffhanger but there are several incomplete plot lines likely to peak one's curiosity.In just 1 sentence: it's a slow-starter but stick with it and you'll be glad you did.4 stars.

5 stars!! (I reviewed this as a series but have cut and pasted the relevant excerpts to each book)Another author recommended this series to me, at the time, I did not know it was a paranormal. Because I trust this author implicitly, I downloaded all 4 books, agreeing that we would buddy read the 4th book. Anyone who knows me, knows I do not read paranormal. I have never quite been able to get into this genre. A few series have caught my attention and I have read them but not to the degree that Amy Bartol did.To say I loved this series is a serious understatement because I absolutely adore this series. I was captivated from the start and read all 4 books in 3 days, I seriously could not put them down and as soon as one was finished I opened up the next and just carried on.Inescapable ~ This book is really the foundation to the whole series. It really sets the scene well and you cannot help but connect to all the characters. Evie, I loved this girl, she never really had a sense of belonging, never knew her father and her mother died when she was born so her care was entrusted to her uncle, who was young at the time. As she got older, she more or less became the parent, looking after him and mothering him, but their relationship was close and extremely special. It broke her heart to leave him to come to college. When she arrives at college she knows no-one except a guy that she met once when she visited campus, he sort of takes her under his wing. But is this a good wing or a bad wing?It is not long before she meets Reed and Russell, yes this is a love triangle of sorts but not your usual, Evie is extremely attracted to Reed, she can sense when he is near, he gives her butterflies but he seems to hate her. It turns out Reed is just extremely conflicted but we do find out why and goes someway to explain his rather erratic behaviour. Russell is extremely attracted to Evie, but she only ever sees him as a friend, but their friendship is intense."I wanted to destroy you," he says, and a shiver goes through me, "and I wanted to take you in my arms and love you, and I wanted to tear you apart, and I wanted to crush you anything that would harm you, all at the same time." - see very conflicted!!Amy Bartol, sucks you in to this story hook, line and sinker. It soon becomes apparent that Evie is not all that she seems. The trouble is that Evie has no idea what is happening to her, luckily for her Reed is there for her and they soon work through their differences and once things are explained and are out in the open, they both give in to their mutual attraction and they become a couple."I want those thousand years with you, Evie, you have no idea how much I want them. I want a thousand years, and then I want a hundred thousand more."All the characters in this book are written so well that they come to life, I totally adore Zee, Buns and Brownie too. I just hope that the good conquer the evil!I absolutely loved Reed, in the beginning it was hard to understand where he was coming from, but once I was aware I was TEAM REED. If anyone comes between these two, I will kill them, seriously!! I was glad that Evie never really entered into the whole Love Triangle thing with Russell. The lines were set between them early on. I must admit the soul mate bit was a bit hard to take and left me with ill feeling as I was so Team Reed and was worried that at some point this may come between my cute and happy couple. We will see where this goes going forward. I am diving in right now!!"Evie, you are the only thing that makes me want to live. If you leave here, if you ascend to Paradise, or even if you are cast into the abyss, or taken there by the Fallen...I will have to follow you, no matter where you go. Even if I have to pursue you into the dark...if you cease to be, then so will I. You are my sin and my redemption."On that note, I will leave you with a brief summation. In short, this series is brilliant, amazing, fabulous, addictive and totally captivating. A story line that will keep you guessing, you can never assume anything as Amy Bartol will totally sneak up and bit you the bum. The twists and turns and plot curve balls will have you on the edge of seat, gripping the sides wondering where you are going next.I want to see this series on the big screen, seriously, this series was made for the big screen. I often found myself at times picturing how a scene would play out on film in bright technicolour. The way Amy Bartol describes scenes in this book has your senses on hyper drive and your imagination running wild. In all seriousness, this would seriously kick some ass in the movies. It needs to be done and more importantly deserves to be done.Amy Bartol, all I can say is you seriously ROCK! I have loved every second reading this series, never thought I would see the day where I love a Paranormal read, but this series did and has a firm place in my heart. I will be re-reading this series for sure.I cannot highly recommend this series enough, for both paranormal lovers and those who have not tried or think they don't like this genre. Be next in line to be converted, you will hopefully fall in love with this series as much as I have. Totally and utterly adored it!

I was eager to read this after enjoying the Secondborn series but I won't continue with this series. Evie is very young, pretty naive and spends all her time trying to save people who can clearly save themselves. This doesn't make her angelic, it makes her irritating. However, my main concern is the total lack of free will that Evie has - she is initially obsessed by Russell who is her soul mate and even more obsessed by Reed, a several thousands of years old angel who only has to speak Angel to Evie to have her crawling all over him. At no point is she making real choices about the men in her lives - other than Freddie perhaps - it is all preordained for her. I had a brief look at the other books in the series and it seems that this will also happen with the character Brennus (plus faux Irish accent?) in which case it's better that I part ways with the series now. For 99p it was OK.

It has been a long time since I've loved a book this much that I've barely put it aside! I love the characters, especially Evie who is just so lovely, a truly good person as well as being refreshingly intelligent , funny and interesting. It is easy to imagine why everyone is so drawn to her. I feel that Reed is a bit too rude with his demands at times but I still like him. It is a beautifully written tale, warm and easy to see the scene in your mind as it is described so well. I'd love to see a film version of this but only with the author's complete approval (as often film producers ruin the 'soul' of the book that only the writer can provide).

Well I'll start by saying that I liked the concept and the narrative was very well written; great descriptions and the action scenes were pretty gripping and it was a fairly interesting premise about good and evil even though it was a little black and white all things considered.What I really didn't like were the characters who all seem very superficial, there's no real depth to any of them and I just didn't understand why the main character was interested in either of her love interests. That's just how I feel anyway, it could just be me being cynical.I was fairly bored throughout the book with the exception of a few interesting moments but I found myself rolling my eyes a lot when it became apparent that every character even those trying to kill the main character find time to stop and admire her. Everyone finds some bizarre excuse to tell her she's smart, beautiful and completely fascinating at least that was my impression anyway.I don't mean to be harsh; I will definitely find another of this author's books to read since there was definitely some golden bits of writing but I won't go on with this series. Sorry.

Read this within a couple of days, couldn't put it down and I'm now looking forward to reading the entire series!I love these kinds of books but I find most of them to be very easy reading as they're clearly aimed for teens. However as the writing in this one is more sophisticated I had to put a bit of thought into it - the only drawbacks being that I found the conversations to be a bit too formal for the age of the characters and the character relationships slightly full on to start with (though it does make sense after reading for a while).On to the next book in the series!