Bittersweet by Marcia Colette

"Phaedra Thorne's goals in life are simple. Make it to eighteen so she can legally adopt her sister and hope she never becomes like her deranged mother who secretly lives in the attic. They're not the normal hopes and dreams of a kid her age, but then again, Phaedra is anything but typical. Schizophrenia and psychokinesis go hand in hand in her genes. With things always upending or blowing up around her, she’s already halfway there and horrified one of these days she'll be the next to go insane. 

Five years have passed since Phaedra has seen her older, estranged brother. She’s hesitant about his return and even more so when he comes bearing a cure for their mother. However, this so-called antidote, having sex with an incubus, comes with a catch that's larger than the statutory rape implications. The incubus who's willing to help the Thornes has unwittingly been followed by beings who call themselves hags. They want to drain the demon dry of his power and don’t care if they threaten Phaedra's desire to have a normal family. She'll do whatever it takes to protect her loved ones, even if that means trusting her uncontrollable powers won't kill everyone in the process."-GoodReads.

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Published March 2nd 2011 by Dusk Till Dawn Books

The description of this book was intriguing and creepy to me so I was a bit disappointed when about a quarter of the way through the story started to lag and lose me.

At first Bittersweet seemed like a really original story. This family has telekinetic powers which are slowly making them go crazy. The mother has already been crazy for years. So crazy in fact that her daughter has had to lock her in the attic only to let her out when they give her some bittersweet, a special plant grown by a voodoo lady that makes the mother sane for a few hours.

It was about the time that the girl’s brother came home after being gone for years trying to find a cure for their mother (and because he has been gone so long the girl hates him, which I just did not get), that the story started to lose me. Because at that point so many things started happening it was hard to keep up. And I could just not connect with any of the main characters at all.

There were just so many elements thrown into this story and it was very wordy. There were many paragraphs that were just not needed or did not make sense.

Being self published I expected some grammatical errors and I can usually get past them, but it was hard not to notice them. It got especially bad at the end of the book when one of the character’s name kept changing from Logan to Lucas. That got a bit confusing until I figured out it was the same person.

I did enjoy the part about the hags though. They were definitely creepy and helped pick up the action towards the end of the book.
Even though this particular story didn’t fit me, if you like paranormal books and are looking for something a little different than the norm and like a lot of elements, I would suggest giving this one a try.




I received this book free of charge from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, altered my opinion of the story or my review.