Unblemished

ISBN-13: 9780718081010 Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Sara Ella’s novel Unblemished grabbed my attention from the very beginning and did not release until the very end.
Eliyana Ember has an unusual birth mark—one that covers half of her face. She is used to being looked at as an abnormality and wants very little out of life. But everything changes the night her mother does not come home. Eliyana is left in the care of Joshua David, her friend and the only other person who ever treated her normal. Things start to get a little strange after Eliyana is stalked by a hooded stranger, thrown into the midst of a battle in Central Park, and thrust into a world she did not know existed. Eliyana learns that she is the key to this mysterious world’s restoration, but how can she be all these people need?
I really liked this story. It was new and interesting. I felt bad for Eliyana a lot of the time—especially when the person she trusted most in the world did unexplainable things. However, as I read on, the story got more intriguing. When I (sadly) reached the end of the book, I quickly did an internet search to find the sequel. Unblemished was full of twists and turns, and it kept me reading. The role Eliyana’s birthmark played all on its own was one of my favorite parts of this story.
[Kind of a Spoiler] There was one element I did not particularly like towards the end of the story. Love triangle-type situations tend to annoy me, so when I discovered one such shape at the end of this book, I was not super sure on how I felt about the story. However, I still found Unblemished to be a well-written book.
On a side note, the cover for this book is beautiful. If mysteries, fantasies, and romances are intriguing to you, I highly recommend you read Unblemished.