{Book Review} THE CASQUETTE GIRLS by Alys Arden

Book Title: The Casquette Girls
Author: Alys Arden
Publisher: fortheARTofit publishing
Publishing Date: October 31, 2013
Length: 512 Pages
Source: Read 4 Review via Xpresso Book Tours

Book Blurb:

After the Storm of the Century rips apart New Orleans, Adele Le Moyne and her father are among the first to return to the city following the mandatory evacuation. Adele wants nothing more than for life to return to normal, but with the silent city resembling a mold-infested war zone, a parish-wide curfew, and mysterious new faces lurking in the abandoned French Quarter, normal will have to be redefined.

Events too unnatural – even for New Orleans – lead Adele to an attic that has been sealed for three hundred years, and the chaos she unleashes threatens not only her life but everyone she knows. Mother Nature couldn’t drain the joie de vivre from the Big Easy, but someone or something is draining life from its residents.

Caught suddenly in a hurricane of eighteenth-century myths and monsters, Adele must quickly untangle a web of magic that links the climbing murder rate back to her own ancestors. But who can you trust in a city where everyone has a secret, and where keeping them can be a matter of life and death – unless, that is, you’re immortal.
Goodreads | Amazon

 This book snuck up on me. That's the first sentence that comes to mind when I'm trying to describe how I felt as I read. I requested this book through a review program with Xpresso Book Tours and was granted a copy in exchange for an honest review. This book exceeded my expectations!

I requested it because I was intrigued by the title and the setting of New Orleans. I know the story of The Casquette Girls very, very vaguely and was interested in a story based on them. What I got was a story that highlights the devastation of Katrina, the emotions of a young girl, magic, rich history told via a walking tour, and a glimpse of both past New Orleans and current New Orleans.

This book falls under the YA Paranormal Romance labels, but if you're not a normal reader of YA, I urge you to pick this up anyway. It is delightfully intricate, weaving a story around the past, the current, and a main character, Adele, who is very much a sixteen year old girl. With confusion about the sudden attention from boys, you would expect her to be annoying, but instead I found her quite charming.

It was hard to put this book down to tend to everyday life. Intriguing with layers of mystery, history, legend, and romance, there wasn't a single moment where I became bored. The characters are rich and charming; even the villainous characters are likable and have depth! I must say...this book made me want to run to New Orleans and find a little mystique and romance of my own. I was utterly enchanted.