Book Review: Torn

Title: Torn by Erica O’Rourke
Release Date: June 26, 2011
Publisher: Kensington
Pages: 336 pages
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: 4 stars
Source: Borrowed from the fantastic Neri (In the Name of Books)!

Goodreads Summary: Everyone has secrets. Even best friends.

Swirling black descends like ravens, large enough to block the glow of the streetlights. A dull roar starts like a train on the 'L', a far-away rumbling that grows louder as it pulls closer, until it's directly overhead and you feel it in your chest, except this doesn't pass you by. Verity, white-faced and eyes blazing, shouts through the din, "Run, Mo!"

Mo Fitzgerald knows about secrets. But when she witnesses her best friend's murder, she discovers Verity was hiding things she never could have guessed. To find the answers she needs and the vengeance she craves, Mo—quiet, ordinary, unmagical Mo—will have to enter a world of raw magic and shifting alliances. And she'll have to choose between two very different, equally dangerous guys—protective, duty-bound Colin and brash, mysterious Luc. One wants to save her, one wants to claim her. Which would you choose?

Maura “Mo” Fitzgerald and her best friend Verity get attacked while out one night. With Mo’s family connections to the mob, everyone assumes that she was the target of a hit that went wrong and killed Verity instead. Everyone except Mo that is because she saw the creatures that attacked and they may not have been human.

Mo is a likable, smart girl who is a bit shy but was never jealous of Verity who constantly got the spotlight and the attention. We get to know Verity through Mo’s memories and in flashbacks and the two girls have a good, solid friendship. After the attack, Mo struggles to come to terms with Verity’s death and the fact that her best friend was keeping secrets from her. One of those secrets is the dangerously handsome and charismatic Luc who may have been Verity’s boyfriend and who also holds the answers to Mo’s questions. Mo’s life is further complicated by the equally handsome Colin who has been hired to protect her but it’s hard for a girl to solve a murder mystery when her every move is being watched.

Torn is a great combination of magic and the mob. The story is fast paced and exciting. Mo finds herself caught up in the dark and deadly world of powerful magic that she never knew existed and the mob world that she always knew but tried to distance herself from.

Once you start reading Torn, it’s hard to put down. I want to know more about the world of magic that Luc grew up in and more about Colin’s back story. I loved Torn and can’t wait to read the sequel, Tangled, which comes out in February of next year. The covers of these books are so gorgeous and striking…..

Content: Profanity, kissing and violence. More appropriate for older teens.