Mini Review: Day of Sacrifice & Rebellion by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

Title: Day of Sacrifice & Rebellion by Stacey Wallace Benefiel
Genre: YA/Paranormal Romance

Summary:
Day of Sacrifice: With only three days left until her twenty-first birthday, her Day of Sacrifice, Flora Hamilton should be living it up. But when another Supernatural family puts a hit on her she’s forced to go into hiding with Julian, her gorgeous new Guardian Angel. Sometimes running for your life isn’t so bad.
Rebellion (DOS #2): Cara needs something to live for. Abel just needs to keep her alive. As members of the newly formed rebellion against the Gods, Cara and Abel have their parts to play: she is a skilled healer and he is the Guardian put in charge of her protection. Or is it the other way around?

Review:I found these books over at Smashwords, looking for something short and exciting to read and let me tell you, they didn't disappoint. These two short stories/novellas follow Flora Hamilton, the first-born of the Supernatural Hamilton family and for that, the one who has to be sacrificed on her 21st birthday to the gods, so that their grace continues to provide the family with fortune and luck and prosperity.
Original? I thought so too. I hadn't read anything like that before.

Flora's birthday is in three days and she is trying to live life as passionately as she can, indulging in alcohol consumption, going out and generally being a bit wild... It is after a party that she wakes up hangover and beat. So much that her "guardian angel" quits and it is at that point in time, where she stands so vulnerable that an assassin comes after her. Why? you could ask, she would be sacrificed in three days anyways...
Well, supernatural families rely solely on these sacrifices for the continuation of the prosperity and the maintenance of their extraordinary powers. The sooner they make use of the good fortune, the sooner it exhausts and since a sacrifice is made every 21 years, there is a possibility that the grace of the gods will be exhausted sooner than that. This is what happened to the Fitzerald family, rival to the Hamiltons. They have no more grace left but Mr Fitzerald is hungry for power and as Mr Hamilton doesn't wish to do business with him anymore, he seeks revenge by killing his firstborn, hence taking away his grace as well.

Lucky for Flora, even though she knew she was to be killed, she didn't just have mindless fun, but dedicated herself to practicing the fire magic she possessed, becoming quite the formidable witch. As soon as her sister, Fauna, warns her she barely escapes the assassins attempts to save her, while at the same time her best friend, Aiden, gets sacrificed because he just turned 21. His Guardian, Julian, watched both Aiden and Flora grow up so he hurries to rescue her when she is attacked again out in the street.
Hoping for help, they go to Flora's father but he doesn't want to hear of anything else than preparations for her sacrifice. Consequently, Flora and Julian flee and it is there in his own safe house that they bond and Julian is compelled to reveal to her what is really going on... Something that leads to ... Rebellion...

In the second story we follow Julian and Flora as they try to overturn the regime and make sure that supernatural families are no longer obliged to sacrifice their firstborn child. You'd think most if not all people would jumo at this opportunity and join the rebellion army to save their children right?
Well think again...Some supernaturals really DO NOT want to lose their powers, the first being Fitzerald and Aiden's dad, Mr Grant. His wife and Aiden's mother, Cara Grant, being a powerful witch and a wicked spell/potion maker joins the rebellion and what happens is magical and tragic and dramatic and everything in between.

Can you tell I loved these stories?
I can't believe I have to wait till April for the next story! :(
Even though the first story was 28 pages and the second 38, they felt almost complete. Of course, I' d love it if we could have them expanded and elaborated on, so that we could get an even better feel of Flora, Julian, Fauna, Clark, Abel, Cara, Alexander, Meagan...
The language was nice and it flowed harmoniously, the dialogues and plot were believable and young adults acted the way we expect them to act. It was packed with action with a dash of romance (a generous dash) and adventure and drama, with a little sprinkling of humor. XD

In just a few pages, the author helped us create our own image of the characters in our mind and really get inside their head, as it was described through different people. Not exactly POV, but the characters feelings and thoughts were described.
All characters apart from Grant and Fitzerald were likable and I have indeed, difficulty in choosing my favorite character. Of course, Flora and Julian started everything, but Cara and Abel were adorable and I'd love to know more about Fauna and Clark who are clearly meant to be!

Verdict: For short stories, Day of Sacrifice and Rebellion were a fascinating read that kept me at the edge of my seat never wanting to stop reading. It was a real bummer that we had a cliffhanger and we have to wait for April.. I want the new story now darnit! :P

Rating: About 4 and 4 1/2 stars! Don't miss the chance to read them!

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Get the books on Smashwords.com
Day of Sacrifice || Rebellion
At Amazon:
Day of Sacrifice || Rebellion

~ Kelly ~