Missie's Review: The Last Awakening by Rachel Firasek

The Last Awakening 
(Curse of the Phoenix #2)
by Rachel Firasek 
ebook
Published December 6th 2011 by Entangled Publishing (first published November 15th 2011)
ISBN13 9781937044404
Courtesy of Author and Bewitching Book Tours

For three hundred years, Arabella’s life has been one meaningless death after another. In a cruel twist of fate, Osiris–god of the Underworld–gifts the phoenix her mortality and returns her voodoo magic. If she fails to harness her wayward magic and save a man worthy of a second chance, she’ll forfeit her power and her soul–forever. 
Ex-soldier Greyson Meadows desperately wants to be freed from the nightmares and guilt that haunt him after the tragedy that brought him and Ari together. Confronted by the waif of a woman who forces him to face his worst fears, he resists, fighting the need to keep his personal demons hidden instead of setting them free. 
When Ari becomes the target of her own magical blunder, it’s not just her life in danger, but now the one of the man she loves.

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Missie’s Description:

This is the second book in the Curse of the Phoenix series and it is a short novella that is only 118 pages on PDF. It is an Adult Paranormal Romance. It does have Adult scenes in the bedroom, so if you are looking for a YA read, this is not it.   It only took me about 4hrs to read it from cover to cover. I had not read the first book, The Last Rising, so I quickly went and read the reviews on the first book, before starting it.
The book starts out with Arabella (Ari) in a cab, getting out in front of a small town grocery store. She is being drawn to an unknown person, that she must die for, that she has to save. Ari heads inside the store and finds an ex-soldier named Greyson Meadows (Grey) and starts up a conversation. Once she touches him, Ari knows that he is the one. She is captivated by the pain and loneliness she recognizes in his eyes. It’s a pain she knows all too well, because of what has happened in her past.
Things become chaotic fast, when an old war veteran comes inside the store with a gun. The poor old man is wrapped up in a delusion brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).   He is lost in his memory of a war long gone, and starts shooting everyone inside the store. Grey is suffering from his own personal hell of PTSD, from a different war and is devistated by his inability to save everyone, and the fact that he is the lone survivor yet again.  
Once Ari Returns to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the Underworld, She can’t forget Grey. The guilt of how bad he has to be suffering is killing her inside.  She ends up black mailing Osiris into letting her go back to help Grey cope and help him understand that nothing that has happened is his fault. The only downside is that Osiris sends her back, not with her Phoenix powers, but with her original voodoo priestess powers that she can’t control and are responsible for killing every single person in her village 300 years ago.
Can she save Grey from his self?  Will She Kill him and everyone else with her growing Powers?  Or will her own Guilt of her past be too much for her to bare to help anyone?


Missie’s Thoughts: 


When I began reading the first chapter, I felt a little bit lost. So I would advise reading the first book in the series.  I didn’t know what a Phoenix was or how Arabella (Ari) became a Phoenix, what her powers exactly were.  All that it kept saying was that she had to die for them, she had to save them. I had to reread a few paragraphs to finally get my mind around what was going on.
However, after reading the first couple of chapters, Rachel Firasek started reviling more and more of where the characters come from, what they were and what they had been through. It helped me understand and the book started making more sense and the story really started to flow.   
I loved how Ari and Grey connected with each other.  The way they could read each other through each other’s eyes.  Rachel kept the suspense going throughout the book, so you keep guessing all the way til the end.  Will he die?  Will she die?  Now What? ....lol   This book is also an Adult Romance in the fact that it is a little on the erotic side.  There’s just enough steam to get your heart pumping without going over the top.  
I really liked this book.  I believe if Rachel had given a little bit more background at the beginning of the book, for first time readers jumping into the series, I would have enjoyed it a little more.  I would definitely recommend this book.           

Missie's Rating: 4 Wine Glasses