Indie Flutters: Awakened by Josie Litton

Awakened (Anew #1)

• By Josie Litton
• Editions: ebook, paperback
• Published: January 12th 2015 by Josie Litton Books
• Genre: Adult Dystopia Romance
• Source: NetGalley
• In a Flutter: A completely different take on the Sleeping Beauty tale you were told as a child.

A beautiful young woman awakens in the garden of a secluded palazzo with no knowledge of who she is or how she came to be there. For the man who walks out of the darkness to claim her, she is at once the ultimate challenge and the greatest temptation.
Haunted by terrifying memories of another existence, Amelia is caught between passionate desire for Ian and longing to discover her true self. Even as he is determined to possess her body and soul, Ian’s need to protect Amelia plunges him into a confrontation with his tormented past.
Beyond the sanctuary of the palazzo lies the glittering world city where together they face the challenges of a society on the edge of cataclysmic change. Surrounded by sensual excess that conceals seething rebellion, Amelia and Ian will discover that love has become the ultimate threat to survival.
~ Goodreads

Review

That book was something else! I was pretty surprised that it really captured my attention in the second half of the story. It was different than I expected it to be but not a bad different. This was a futuristic/dystopian kind of novel. I don’t usually, if ever, read those types of books. It wasn’t a completely horrible, war torn, no society, no order, type of dystopian future but it did have some elements that made me wrinkle up my nose a little bit. I was expecting the book to be nothing but a romance story but it was filled with so much more.
Set in and around Manhattan, everything is polished and beautiful. A little too beautiful. It is 2059 and the city is for the elite. It is for the rich and those who work for the rich. Since the elite believe their comfort and their narcissistic natures are deemed too significant to rub elbows with the less fortunate, the riff raff are kept out of the city by almost any means necessary.
Amelia awakens to only find she has no idea where she is nor who she is. The take on the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, in this novel, is extremely unique. I did find the idea fascinating but as I continued reading that fascination took a back seat to apprehension. When the rest of the world, in the novel, knows about the idea and treats it negatively, it kind of made me uneasy. I wish I could explain this scenario better, but I’d hate to give things away!! All things considered, Amelia is a very strong character. Being practically thrown into a world that she has never experienced and is finally experiencing at a fast rate would most likely give a lesser woman a mental break down. But Amelia is determined to live and not take this life for granted.
Ian Slade is a formidable man. A pioneer in defense technology and a maker of his own fate. But this man who has control over all aspects of his life has just been thrown for a loop. Forces beyond his control have saddled him with Amelia and he isn’t 100 percent sure where her best interests at heart lie. The control he has carefully cultivated in his life seems to be slipping away piece by very piece, each and every time he comes in contact with Amelia. But he is powerless to stay away.
Ian and Amelia’s relationship was very hot and cold, due in large part to Ian’s inability to make up his mind. Half of the story revolves in and around the relationship that may or may not be and the other half has to do with the shady outside forces that are a danger to Amelia and the rest of the world. I wished the characters would’ve just taken a definitive stance and stuck with it. The other thing I wished the novel did was to take a strong stance on the speech. The novel switches back and forth between Amelia’s proper sort of speech and Ian’s more laxed sort of speech, which I found a bit jarring at times.
In the end the story did leave me with a thirst of wanting to know what is going to happen next. It did invoke my sympathy for Amelia and what she went through. It did get my heart pounding for everyone’s safety. And it did make me root for a happily ever after. All in all I have to say for my first seemingly dystopian read it was a pretty good one! I am intrigued to know what happens next for Ian and Amelia and their world at large.