arc review - the Mephisto Covenant

Title by Author: The Mephisto Covenant by Trinity Faegen

Publisher: Egmont USA

Publication Date: Sept 27, 2011

Page Count:  439

Source: NetGalley

Sasha is desperate to find out who murdered her father. When getting the answer means pledging her soul to Eryx, she unlocks a secret that puts her in grave danger—Sasha is Anabo, a daughter of Eve, and Eryx’s biggest threat.

A son of Hell, immortal, and bound to Earth forever, Jax looks for redemption in the Mephisto Covenant—God’s promise he will find peace in the love of an Anabo. After a thousand years, he’s finally found the girl he’s been searching for: Sasha.

With the threat of Eryx looming, Jax has to keep Sasha safe and win her over. But can he? Will Sasha love him and give up her mortal life?

Review:

I wanted to like this book.  Not only is the cover stunning, but the premise of the story was intriguing.  However, The story line of The Mephisto Covenant started with an interesting premise, but ended up not being well executed.  I felt that the language was many times repetitive and somewhat stilted, and was also many times confusing with the varied characters that were constantly mentioned – but only briefly.  I also felt that it was a bit ‘preachy’ with religion, while at the same time being redundant. 

The characters also were not deeply drawn, and I had no real attachment to the main character, Sasha.  Sure, I felt sorry for her that she lost her father to murder, and her mother deported to Russia, as well as being ‘hunted,’ but couldn’t really care about her or any other character in the story.  Sasha was a being of ‘light and goodness,’ and as such, she wasn’t supposed to feel many of the regular human emotions, like jealousy or anger.  She always seemed to have a ‘whatever’ kind of attitude towards what was going on around her, and to her…until she met Jax, a Son of Hell.  Sasha was repulsed by the idea of lusting after a Son of Hell, whose sole purpose was the taking of souls.  But there seemed to be a bit of a plot hole here…was he supposed to take ALL souls bound for Hell, or was the work of his brothers and him only geared towards taking souls away from Eryx – taking ‘lost souls’ (the souls of those who pledged to Eryx in turn for something positive to happen) and putting them in Hell on Earth?!?

Ajax, or Jax, was a thousand year soul, but seemed to have been stick not only in the body of a 17 year old boy, but also the mindset of said age.  He didn’t control his mouth or emotions very well, and didn’t seem to control his response to Sasha very well.  The author tried to have this push-pull relationship between Sasha and Jax, but it almost seemed to have been written by a young teenager as well.  And if she used the word ‘ginormous’ one more time, I was about ready to scream.  ‘Ginormous’ – seriously?!?!

There were a few twists that kept the story moving.  This book truly did not hold this reader’s interest; but only to see what eventually did happen.  That being said, the ending was a complete let-down.  The story could have been so much more, with better descriptions, a more in-depth development of the main characters and a better battle at the end.  Instead, you had rainbows and sex that both seemed unnecessary.  I truly hope that this author hasn’t planned a 6 part series…with each of the brothers trying to find their Anobo (Mephisto mate who is made of pure light and goodness).  It would be a sad waste of trees, and I really think that Eryx can be taken down sooner than that!

CAUTION: With the sex in this book, as well as language, this is NOT a YOUNG adult book – it is a book that is geared towards late teenagers, early 20’s….they might forgive the poorly written plot and characters, as well as enjoy the silly relationship between Sasha and Jax, and the idiotic character development.

Favorite Quote: there wasn’t one…

Rating: 2 stars

Tag: paranormal, romance, good versus evil, young adult

This book was provided by the Publisher through Netgalley.com for an honest review