Book: Bound by Kira Saito

Published by Smashwords

Purchased for my Nook

Genre: YA: Paranormal- Romance

Find out more: Goodreads~Kira Saito

Goodreads Summary: Sixteen year old Arelia LaRue lives in New Orleans where the music is loud, voodoo queens inhabit every street corner, and the ghosts are alive and well. Despite her surroundings, all she wants is to help her Grand-mere Bea pay the rent and save up for college. 

When her best friend Sabrina convinces her to take a well-paying summer job at the infamous Darkwood plantation, owned by the wealthy LaPlante family, Arelia agrees. 

However, at Darkwood strange things start to happen, and gorgeous Lucus LaPlante insists that he needs her help. Soon, the powers that Arelia has been denying all her life, come out to play and she discovers mysteries about herself that she could have never imagined.

I really liked Bound.  One, it takes place on a plantation in New Orleans, and two, Arelia finds out she’s a voodoo queen.  I thought that was a really interesting twist on the paranormal, because how often do you see voodoo in a novel?

I loved the setting, and while you didn’t see New Orleans, I loved how Saito described the plantation.  It has the right combination of beauty, history and creepiness.  I don’t think we’ll be seeing too much of New Orleans in the rest of the series but you could definitely tell they were in New Orleans (and not just because of the focus on voodoo).

Arelia was pretty gullible, but it wasn’t too annoying.  I just don’t get why she was friends with Sabrina.  Arelia’s just a good person, and wants to help…and Sabrina is pretty opposite of that.  Opposites attract, I suppose.  I am a little distrustful of Lucas, especially because of how he acted at the end of the book.  Ivan, on the other hand, is really mysterious and cryptic, and I wonder what role he’ll play in the rest of the series.

I’m not a big fan of the ending- it was definitely a cliffhanger, but it ended pretty abruptly.  Like Saito forgot to write the ending of a novel, and not just the ending to a chapter.  But now I really want to read the next book, so it’s not all that bad.

Plus, the cover is so pretty!  It fits so well with the book, and sometimes they don’t.

I thought the whole concept of being the one to help Lucas not be trapped at Darkwood was really interesting.

It gets a 4 out of 5 for being entertaining and interesting.

Update: Sorry about accidentally publishing it before it was ready!