3 Star Review: Winter Falls by Nicole Maggi #Review @nicolemaggi

Title: Winter Falls (Twin Williows #1)
Author: Nicole Maggi
Publisher: Medallion Press
Genre: Teen, Paranormal, Fantasy
Release Date: December 22nd 2014
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Amazon

Alessia Jacobs is a typical sixteen-year-old, dying to get out of her small town of Twin Willows, Maine. Things look up when a new family comes to town, but when she falls for the hot, mysterious son, Jonah, her life turns upside down.

Weird visions of transforming into an otherworldly falcon are just the beginning. Soon she learns she’s part of the Benandanti, an ancient cult of warriors with the unique power to separate their souls from their bodies and take on the forms of magnificent animals.

Alessia never would've suspected it, but her boring town is the site of an epic struggle between the Benandanti and the Malandanti to control powerful magic in the surrounding forest.

As Alessia is drawn into the Benandanti’s mission, her relationship with Jonah intensifies. When her two worlds collide, Alessia’s forced to weigh choices a sixteen-year-old should never have to make.

Winter Falls was not what I was expecting. And to be honest, I'm not really sure what I expected when I picked this one up. It started out really slow, and I found it hard to pick up and read and get through it. I debated on if I just wanted to stop and put it up and come back to it later. But I have done that with so many books and not returned to them. I didn't want this to be added to that pile.

If you're not familiar with this story or what it's about, let me fill you in a bit. Alessia grew up in a small boring town of Twin Willows on the family dairy farm. Nothing exciting happens there until the alluring Wolfe family moves to town and brings with them their handsome son, Jonah. Alessia is drawn to him and he is to her. She soon finds out that she is part of the ancient group called the Benandanti, who are mortal enemies of the Malandanti. They are shifters who shift into animal form and protect magical places.

In this book, Alessia is not aloud to speak of her Benandanti side. She starts to try to speculate who is Malandanti after she is targeted in a bus crash. it leaves the reader trying to figure out who is on what side as well. But if you are a quick study, you can pick up rather quickly who is on what side even before you get half-way through the book. Once I got to the half-way point, I couldn't wait to finish the book to find out what was going to happen. However, with the slow start and the guessing right off who is who, I could only give this one 3 stars, but I still can't wait to read the sequel, In the Mouth of the Wolf, due to hit shelves June 9th 2015.

Nicole was born in the suburban farm country of upstate New York, and began writing at a very early age. Of course, her early works consisted mainly of poems about rainbows and unicorns, although one of them was good enough to win honorable mention in a national poetry contest! (Perhaps one of the judges was a ten-year-old girl.) Throughout high school, her creative writing was always nurtured and encouraged.

Now living in Los Angeles, Nicole balances writing full-time with motherhood. WINTER FALLS, the first in her TWIN WILLOWS TRILOGY (Medallion Press, 2014) is her debut novel. She has a stand-alone novel, HEARTLINES, coming out in February 2015 with SourceBooks Fire, as well as the second and third novels in the TWIN WILLOWS TRILOGY in 2015 and 2016.

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