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Diamond
Seraphina Luxgrove is a Gem. If anyone discovered that truth she would be killed instantly.
She’s played the game of lies and loose truths all her life, living amongst the zealous Lionhearts as one of their own. She trained with their children and now she’s fighting the monsters and keeping humanity safe. It sounds almost too good to be true – because it is. Six months ago something happened to Seraphina, but she can’t remember it. Her partner in crime, Gem, and only friend, Kai turned his back on her and now she is left all alone harbouring their secret.
Alone and bored Seraphina decides to play her greatest and most dangerous game yet. She dates Ignatius Cross, the Second of one of the biggest guilds of Lionhearts in the world. If he cannot discover what she truly is then no one can.
But the scales are not tipped in her favour as memories from those forgotten months come back to haunt her. Then there’s bumbling Dorian Scott with a big secret of his own that could kill as easily as it could save.
Will Ignatius Cross unravel her lies, or will her past catch up with her first?
She’s played the game of lies and loose truths all her life, living amongst the zealous Lionhearts as one of their own. She trained with their children and now she’s fighting the monsters and keeping humanity safe. It sounds almost too good to be true – because it is. Six months ago something happened to Seraphina, but she can’t remember it. Her partner in crime, Gem, and only friend, Kai turned his back on her and now she is left all alone harbouring their secret.
Alone and bored Seraphina decides to play her greatest and most dangerous game yet. She dates Ignatius Cross, the Second of one of the biggest guilds of Lionhearts in the world. If he cannot discover what she truly is then no one can.
But the scales are not tipped in her favour as memories from those forgotten months come back to haunt her. Then there’s bumbling Dorian Scott with a big secret of his own that could kill as easily as it could save.
Will Ignatius Cross unravel her lies, or will her past catch up with her first?
319 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 27, 2018
2 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
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August 20, 2019
Target audience: The target of this book are people who like fantasies, especially young adults.
About the author: According to her own funny account at the end of the book, Emma Nicole is a young author who spends most of her days reading or writing stories. She lives in England, she adores tea and one of her passions is playing online computer games. She prefers games mostly filled with myths, folklore and strategy but she can also be spotted playing League of Legends on occasion. She has recently taken up a new hobby that doesn’t just involve reading books but also taking pictures of them. She can be found on social media and especially on her blog: https://ensworldofwords.com/.
Structure of the book: The book has 423 pages (in PDF format) and it is divided into 50 parts/chapters.
Overview: To be honest, I’m not sure if the story has four main characters, but I’m sure it has at least two. Undoubtedly, one of themain characters of the story is Seraphina, who is a hunter in a secret society meant to protect humanity form all sorts of supernatural entities and manifestations. While the world is invisibly populated by werewolves, vampires, demons and other creatures well-known from fairy-tales, Seraphina is in fact a “gem”, an entity created in another dimension by mysterious scientists. And “gems” are monsters who could not have been classified as type of monsters, so they were named generically “gems” and classified in diamonds, adamantines, coals and so on, depending on their abilities and looks. Seraphina has the ability to use and manipulate magic, but she also has an almost entirely human form. She is closely followed by Dorian, a young and naïve guy who wants to be a better hunter, and Ignatius, a leader of the secret society she is part of. Towards the middle of the story there is also Kai, an old friend that comes into the scene. In addition, Seraphina also has a troubled past, but she cannot remember it; as the story unfolds, she rediscovers her true nature and identity.
The action takes place in current time, mainly in England. According to the book, there is an invisible war going on which involves magic, supernatural creatures, mysterious abilitis and features, parallel dimensions, and so forth. When I read new books, my mind always tries to connect the new information with the old one. So, I’d say that the plot reminded me of the TV series Blade, Harry Potter and Men in Black. And this is all that I can spoil of the story.
The story is light, it can be easily read and quite entertaining. Sometimes its pace is slow, other times it goes faster. Sometimes you think that you are in a manga movie, other times it goes horror. And although I’m not a fan of Horror movies –in fact I despise them – I must admit I enjoy the horror scenes from this book. I also like the idea that the author linked in the story major real catastrophes, such as the Fire of London from 1666, with the plot by offering alternative supernatural explanation to them. Inside all these elements the author also managed to blend a beautiful love story that is quite unexpected and it unfolds as the story progresses. And last but not least, I thoroughly enjoyed how the hero turns into outcast.
Quote: There was no anger in his eyes, perhaps a warmth that a person would show a friend. Seraphina hated stripping someone of their emotions through mesmerism, their brain then made their reactions overly friendly as if the person’s brain was trying to find an excuse as to why they should do everything the mesmeriser asked.
Strong points: If you like fantasies, then this is a book to read. While some readers like to be permanently kept in tension, I appreciated that the author alternated tensioned moments with more relaxing ones, allowing me to “breath”. I also liked that there are many (supernatural) concepts and elements that have not been explained and the author let the reader to speculate and fill the gaps with their own imagination. For example, the author does not define what “magic” is (or I do not remember at the moment), so I imagined it as a sort of energy that looks like glowing powder and behaves like electricity.
Weak points: As a man in my 30s, I have a hard time creating a relation with teenage characters. Moreover, I see things in a more pragmatic way than the younger audience; I found a bit unlikely for teenagers to carry battles and be hunters in a war between dimensions and monstrous creatures. But this is of course, my current opinion, and this would have probably been different if I read the novel in my teenage years.
About the author: According to her own funny account at the end of the book, Emma Nicole is a young author who spends most of her days reading or writing stories. She lives in England, she adores tea and one of her passions is playing online computer games. She prefers games mostly filled with myths, folklore and strategy but she can also be spotted playing League of Legends on occasion. She has recently taken up a new hobby that doesn’t just involve reading books but also taking pictures of them. She can be found on social media and especially on her blog: https://ensworldofwords.com/.
Structure of the book: The book has 423 pages (in PDF format) and it is divided into 50 parts/chapters.
Overview: To be honest, I’m not sure if the story has four main characters, but I’m sure it has at least two. Undoubtedly, one of themain characters of the story is Seraphina, who is a hunter in a secret society meant to protect humanity form all sorts of supernatural entities and manifestations. While the world is invisibly populated by werewolves, vampires, demons and other creatures well-known from fairy-tales, Seraphina is in fact a “gem”, an entity created in another dimension by mysterious scientists. And “gems” are monsters who could not have been classified as type of monsters, so they were named generically “gems” and classified in diamonds, adamantines, coals and so on, depending on their abilities and looks. Seraphina has the ability to use and manipulate magic, but she also has an almost entirely human form. She is closely followed by Dorian, a young and naïve guy who wants to be a better hunter, and Ignatius, a leader of the secret society she is part of. Towards the middle of the story there is also Kai, an old friend that comes into the scene. In addition, Seraphina also has a troubled past, but she cannot remember it; as the story unfolds, she rediscovers her true nature and identity.
The action takes place in current time, mainly in England. According to the book, there is an invisible war going on which involves magic, supernatural creatures, mysterious abilitis and features, parallel dimensions, and so forth. When I read new books, my mind always tries to connect the new information with the old one. So, I’d say that the plot reminded me of the TV series Blade, Harry Potter and Men in Black. And this is all that I can spoil of the story.
The story is light, it can be easily read and quite entertaining. Sometimes its pace is slow, other times it goes faster. Sometimes you think that you are in a manga movie, other times it goes horror. And although I’m not a fan of Horror movies –in fact I despise them – I must admit I enjoy the horror scenes from this book. I also like the idea that the author linked in the story major real catastrophes, such as the Fire of London from 1666, with the plot by offering alternative supernatural explanation to them. Inside all these elements the author also managed to blend a beautiful love story that is quite unexpected and it unfolds as the story progresses. And last but not least, I thoroughly enjoyed how the hero turns into outcast.
Quote: There was no anger in his eyes, perhaps a warmth that a person would show a friend. Seraphina hated stripping someone of their emotions through mesmerism, their brain then made their reactions overly friendly as if the person’s brain was trying to find an excuse as to why they should do everything the mesmeriser asked.
Strong points: If you like fantasies, then this is a book to read. While some readers like to be permanently kept in tension, I appreciated that the author alternated tensioned moments with more relaxing ones, allowing me to “breath”. I also liked that there are many (supernatural) concepts and elements that have not been explained and the author let the reader to speculate and fill the gaps with their own imagination. For example, the author does not define what “magic” is (or I do not remember at the moment), so I imagined it as a sort of energy that looks like glowing powder and behaves like electricity.
Weak points: As a man in my 30s, I have a hard time creating a relation with teenage characters. Moreover, I see things in a more pragmatic way than the younger audience; I found a bit unlikely for teenagers to carry battles and be hunters in a war between dimensions and monstrous creatures. But this is of course, my current opinion, and this would have probably been different if I read the novel in my teenage years.
December 17, 2018
At the outset, The Gem Experiment seems like a story about a specialized group of gifted people called Lionhearts who hunt a cadre of monsters in a fantasied version of London. Some of the monsters are common: vampires and werewolves who are out of control, while others are demons with powers great and small who can pass through portals and different dimensions.
The main character is Seraphina Luxgrove and much of the story is told through her eyes, except the author warns us that Seraphina doesn’t know her own history, has gaps in her memory and her information can’t be trusted.
Seraphina masquerades as a Lionheart even though she is a Gem. The exact nature of the Gems is doled out in subtle half-truths which I’ll explain more later on.
Due to this dual nature, Seraphina not only fights monsters but also considers herself one. This is part of her morale dilemma. This device, Seraphina’s faulty memory and the paranoia that accompanies it, makes the reader suspicious of the story details delivered by Seraphina and rightly so. Although other characters take up the narration in various chapters offering multiple points of view, insights and speculation about her true nature which sometimes get a tad confusing.
Whether done intentionally to keep the reader more off balance or accidentally -- the author makes great illogical leaps in the plot, choosing odd moments to bring up the fact that Seraphina was part of a collection of science experiments involving humans or semi- humans who possess natural magic. The reason for this subplot is never clearly described. It is alluded to in nuances.
Seraphina and her group of misfit friends want to know more about them -- even to the point of tracking down other so called “Gems,” people with magical abilities who were guinea pigs too. Frankly, some of the Gems sound like vivisections of humans and animals and serves as an unsatisfying distraction at times.
As a reader this had me back-tracking more than once which made it difficult to pick a character to root for. There are several other subplots that while providing ample material to fill-out the story, tended to take the book in a direction that was less reader friendly.
The novel is written in a lively prose and rich in details about the fantasy world created by Emma Nicole. She paints every scene -- be it a conflict with a monster or demon, or confrontation with a friend or foe -- in vivid colors and a clever, sassy active voice -- right down to the most mundane detail.
The main character is Seraphina Luxgrove and much of the story is told through her eyes, except the author warns us that Seraphina doesn’t know her own history, has gaps in her memory and her information can’t be trusted.
Seraphina masquerades as a Lionheart even though she is a Gem. The exact nature of the Gems is doled out in subtle half-truths which I’ll explain more later on.
Due to this dual nature, Seraphina not only fights monsters but also considers herself one. This is part of her morale dilemma. This device, Seraphina’s faulty memory and the paranoia that accompanies it, makes the reader suspicious of the story details delivered by Seraphina and rightly so. Although other characters take up the narration in various chapters offering multiple points of view, insights and speculation about her true nature which sometimes get a tad confusing.
Whether done intentionally to keep the reader more off balance or accidentally -- the author makes great illogical leaps in the plot, choosing odd moments to bring up the fact that Seraphina was part of a collection of science experiments involving humans or semi- humans who possess natural magic. The reason for this subplot is never clearly described. It is alluded to in nuances.
Seraphina and her group of misfit friends want to know more about them -- even to the point of tracking down other so called “Gems,” people with magical abilities who were guinea pigs too. Frankly, some of the Gems sound like vivisections of humans and animals and serves as an unsatisfying distraction at times.
As a reader this had me back-tracking more than once which made it difficult to pick a character to root for. There are several other subplots that while providing ample material to fill-out the story, tended to take the book in a direction that was less reader friendly.
The novel is written in a lively prose and rich in details about the fantasy world created by Emma Nicole. She paints every scene -- be it a conflict with a monster or demon, or confrontation with a friend or foe -- in vivid colors and a clever, sassy active voice -- right down to the most mundane detail.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews