{Book Review} Unbound by Georgia Bell

Unbound
by Georgia Bell
Published November 2013
Length: 287 pages
Editions: Kindle
Source: Review copy provided through Xpresso Reads in exchange for an honest review

After her father dies, Rachel realizes she is scared and stuck. Scared of heights, of cars, of disasters harming the people she loves. Stuck in a life that is getting smaller by the minute. Stuck with a secret she has kept all her life: Someone has been watching over her since birth. Someone who tends to show up when she needs him the most. Someone she believes is her guardian angel.

Eaden is a 1,500-year-old immortal who wants to die. Drained by a life stretched too thin, he has requested his final reward – a mortal sacrifice bred specifically to bring him death. But something went wrong. Rachel’s ability to grant death has mutated in ways that threaten to upset the uneasy alliance between mortals and immortals. And utterly beguiled, Eaden discovers that although Rachel is the key to his death, because of her, he no longer wants to die. And he will do anything to protect her.

Swept into a world of legends, caught between the warring political factions of immortals, and carrying the future of mortal kind in her flesh and bone, Rachel must risk everything to save her world and the man she loves.

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 Eternity is what Eaden has to live; that's forever to us. Wouldn't any of us want that? To go on living, to know the future and all that you've ever wondered about even though nothing as you know it is around; your loved ones, everything you know, gone. It is what Eaden contends with. It is this that our 18 year old protagonist, Rachel, discovers about the love of her life. Not only that, she can be, and is, his salvation.

Salvation from further continuing to live. She is what she learns is his "key" - a genetically matched, one in a billion and more odds match to Eaden, the only one who can end it for him.

Of course, as it is a love story, upon meeting Rachel after watching her for her entire life, this isn't what Eaden now wishes. In fact, he renounces his option. He wants to be with Rachel for whatever short time he can be; short in the scheme of eternity. Eaden cannot bear the thought of living without her, nor does he wish her life to end along with his, not after he's finally found a reason to live after more than a thousand years. By some freak of nature, Rachel is not only the key for Eaden but for the whole of immortals. Thus, the trouble ensues to their happiness as the other immortals have no discovered the truth...she is their key, too. Her essence calls to them, they are all drawn to her. "All" who wish to end their existence which has become a curse ot them, not a gift as it first seemed. Many of the immortals desire the end before they become afflicted with the insanity that is inevitable to them. Many are tired of the existence and fervently seek to end it. It would be all right if it was that they are the only one to die when coming in contact with "the key" but in their end also lies the key's own death.

So Eaden takes his love, Rachel, and is on the run. Along their run, Rachel comes in contact with a number of extremely interesting people whom she's only been aware of in the fantasy books and stories, Who could have ever thought it possible that they are REAL and exist?!

Unbound is an interesting tale, one that takes what all of us at one time or another have wondered the great "what if." What you come away from this book is the caution, the old idiom, be careful what you wish for! It's a wonderfully woven tale that at times made me envious and other times made me glad that it was not happening to me, but mostly this was a great adventure and love story. You root for them, Eaden and Rachel, to succeed. Who wouldn't? It is a love story! No one wishes for the end of a love story.

The only thing that is amiss and bothered me is the maturity level of Rachel. She's only 18 years old and even being a well-read, contemplative, introspective person, her cognitive analysis of a lot would be a bit unbelievable. Her thought process, her philosophical beliefs, and her view of the world are more for a woman of many years older than she is. She just doesn't fit with the 18 year old mindset. To go from the average high schooler's activities and associations to the deeply thinking cognitive, mature adult woman seems ... off or unfitting. At many passages, it was just a bit too awkward and off balance that didn't ring true.

Overall, however, Unbound is a fantastic book. Filled with fantasy, romance, love, detriment, adventure, and more. I would recommend it easily for those looking for a few hours of a lovely, fantasy story.