Book Review - Vendetta

Vendetta
Author: Catherine Doyle
Series: Vendetta #1
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller | Young Adult
Release Date: 1st January 2015
Publishers: Chicken House Ltd
No. Pages: 384
Source: Review Copy - Chicken House Ltd
Rating:
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When it comes to revenge, love is a dangerous complication.With a fierce rivalry raging between two warring families, falling in love is the deadliest thing Sophie could do. An epic debut set outside modern-day Chicago.

When five brothers move into the abandoned mansion in her neighbourhood, Sophie Gracewell's life changes forever. Irresistibly drawn to bad boy Nicoli, Sophie finds herself falling into a criminal underworld governed by powerful families. As the boys' dark secrets begin to come to light, Sophie is confronted with stinging truths about her own family, too. She must choose between two warring dynasties - the one she was born into, and the one she is falling in love with. When she does, blood will spill and hearts will break.

I'll be honest, before I received this for review I wasn't aware of the book or what it was about, however after reading the summary I was intrigued at the concept and though I can't explain why, it reminded me of Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas. I was really looking forward to reading it and even though it didn't show much resemblance to Dangerous Boys as the story went on I still enjoyed it, perhaps not as much as I originally thought I would.

Because I had an up and down relationship with the story it made the book hard to review, one thing I did like though was the friendships. I enjoyed the relationship between Sophie and her best friend Millie, she was loyal and always looked out for Sophie and considering everyone ditched her after what happened with her dad, it creates a intrigued stronger bond between the pair. However I would have loved to see a little bit more of them together, at times it felt like everything was way to focused on Sophie and Nic/the other brothers and as a result of this the development of the rest of the characters suffered.

From the start I felt sorry for Sophie, but I found myself in the strange predicament of not knowing why I was supposed to be feeling sorry, nothing much was given away about her life and what really happened with her dad and normally that would make the book more interesting, but sadly it felt like I was still waiting for not only something to happen 100 pages in, but for Sophie's character to really pop. Characters I thought we developed rather well would have to be Nic and Luca (I was very much in love with Luca), I liked the other brothers too but we got to see the most of those two and I love how they were always back and forth with each other, the brotherly bond was one of the best things about the book.

Like I already stated, it took a while for me to get into this book and feel like it was actually going somewhere. Early on I had a hunch about the book, what had happened with Sophie's dad, a few ideas about how the book was going to pan out and it turns out I was right. Sometimes I can let the fact that I've discovered the most important thing about the book slide, I'm able to brush it off and enjoy the story all the same and I did, I really did, but everything was building up to that one big reveal and I feel like there was nothing else.

It would be safe to say that the book was centered around the forbidden love, right? Although I found the relationship between Sophie and Nic to be cute, I think it sadly lacked passion, in fact I actually thought she would be better suited to another. Considering there is another book (or two) I'm holding out on the fact that the reason I felt like something was missing between them two is it's not who she will end up with.

All in all, it was a fun and easy read, the chapters where short and would be a perfect book for you if you didn't have a lot of time to devote to reading. I loved the idea behind the story and I really believe it had such potential to be a good book/series if some of the things are tightened up a bit and focused on more, like character development.