Heartsick by Caitlin Sinead Pages: 248
Published by Carina Press on February 16, 2015
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Suspense/Thriller
Source: eARC from Publisher
Quinn is looking forward to her senior year at Poe University. She has big plans to hang out with her best friend, flirt with a certain boy genius, party at her favorite dive bar and figure out what she's going to do after graduation with her not-so-useful art major. But that's before she meets Luke, a hot townie who's moved back home to help take care of his dying sister. And it's before a weird epidemic sweeps across campus, mysteriously turning people's eyes purple.
Is it an odd side effect from a new party drug?
Is it a rogue virus developed in a campus lab?
Is it the mark of the devil?
Soon the town starts blaming the university and the student religious group becomes frighteningly aggressive in their on-campus accusations. Quinn and Luke are caught in the middle—until a tragic accident forces Luke to reveal the one part of himself he's kept carefully hidden. That he's so much more than the happy-go-lucky boy next door Quinn had believed him to be isn't a surprise…but this truth might be too dangerous for her to handle.
Heartsick is a new adult suspense, with paranormal twists. Heartsick was different than I thought it would be, but not in a bad way. I thought it was some kind of disease that acted as a love potion of sorts. I know that sounds silly, and I have no idea why I even thought that (other than the title of the book) but I could have sworn that I read that somewhere in the summary when I first got the book. So when I started reading, I was a little surprised at the direction the story was going in. I even stopped and re-read the summary. Then I realized that I totally got this book wrong, but I was still enjoying the plot line, which felt very mysterious. So I just went with it. And I am glad for my original misconception, but I ended up really liking Heartsick.
Luke is the love interest in the story and there promises to be a big secret about him. The reader finds out what that secret is pretty early on in the book, and I was happy to see that Quinn learned his secret before the half way point of the story. I have been starting to get a little fed up with plot lines that have one of the main characters holding on to their secret until 80 or 85% mark of the story and then it causing some big problem right at the end. It was a pleasant surprise that this was not the case in Heartsick.
I loved the mysterious aspect of the “disease”. There are many different theories running around town about just what is going on, and it was fun running along side Quinn while she tried to figure it out for herself. Religion does play an aspect into the story. Some of it was a hit with me and some of the religion was a miss. I know this can be a touchy subject for some readers, so I won’t go too much into it, but just be warned that there is a religious aspect to the story. But never fear, there are quiet a few other side plots to make the story feel more fleshed out. Like the whole rivalry between the townies of Allen and the Poe University students, and the minor love interest with Rashid. I never really liked Rashid. I don’t entirely know why, but every time I saw him I just wanted to swat him away from the pages. I think it was because I liked Luke so much.
I found Heartsick to be a refreshingly different read. The disease captured my attention right from the start, and there were plenty of twists and plot developments to hold the readers interest. The possibility for a second book is there. It was kind of left with an opening, and I am interested to see if anything will happen next.
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Missie
I love how different this sounds and cult-ish things always interest me! I will have to check this out!
Missie @ A Flurry of Ponderings
Olivia
This seems like such a unique read, and one that I might enjoy as well. I will bear it in mind. It’s a quite strange that it was different than you expected!
Jaime Lester
This one has caught my interest several times, and the reviews that I have read have only added to that. I will have to see about grabbing this one for my Kindle, and seeing if I enjoy it as much as you did!