Review - Gemini Rising: Ethereal Fury by Jessica O'Gorek

BEWARE! THE PLANET IS WOUNDED... THE GEMINI ARE RISING AND OUR TIME ON EARTH IS LIMITED

Angry at the human race and its methodical destruction of her resources, Mother Earth recruits souls who have just left their bodies to serve Her, and turns them against humanity. Gemini, a clan of paranormal beings, picked from these possessed humans, emerges. A powerful, rising force proceeds to carry out Mother Nature’s plan to systematically destroy towns, cities, states… and eventually, the world. Amidst the chaos, a forbidden relationship between a human girl, Violette, and Onyx, a lead Gemini, begins. They will both find themselves in the middle of a revolutionary war that will either save, or destroy our world.

So Mother Earth is pretty ticked off at people in general. And can you blame her? We are destroying precious resources with no way to replenish them. So what does she do? From the looks of it, she takes the people who seem to be doing the most damage and, when they die, their souls are recruited in to her "army". An "army" that's sole purpose is to eradicate human existence and take back the planet. Only Onyx, previously an oil tycoon named Oliver Weldon, does something unthinkable to those he calls his family. He falls in love with a human.

When I first started to read Gemini Rising by Jessica O'Gorek, I was kind of disgusted at the Gemini and their purpose. Even more than I was disgusted at the fact that people like Oliver Weldon were causing seemingly more harm than good and not caring about it. I started out agreeing with the premise of the book and ended up shortly after beginning with a bad taste in my mouth because of Onyx's actions shortly after the first few pages. Because of that it took me a while to make it through the initial chapters of the book.

Once I'd done that though, it kind of did a 180 on me and I found myself sympathizing with the "demons", as the church called them, and feeling more disgusted with the people who were supposed to be trying to fight them off. I was really conflicted throughout the entire book. On the one hand, I did NOT like that the Gemini were just going to kill off everyone without any consideration for the good ones in the bunch. While the part in me that likes scary stories enjoyed the ones that were told by the church parishioners, the rational part of me was completely creeped out by the things the Gemini had the humans do when they possessed them. Totally horror movie material.

I liked Violette. And Slate. At first, Slate annoyed me. He seemed to be following Father Darius almost blindly, despite his objections to the actions an behaviors of his superiors. His character developed quite nicely though and he really grew on me. Violette was sweet and innocent. And she played the part perfectly. But she wasn't the sickly sweet kind of person that you want to slap because they're super annoying. She's incredibly kind and trusting and it makes you just want to hug her and be her friend.

Onyx... sometimes he made me angry, sometimes he made me wanna pat him on the back and say "Nice one". The more he uncovered about the goings on in the bowels of the church the more I was rooting for him, if not for the rest of the Gemini.

I enjoyed this story. Once I got past the first couple of chapters I flew through the rest of the book. I don't recommend it for younger readers as there are some mature situations that end up going on. But overall I'd recommend it for anyone who likes paranormal reads. Go check it out!