The Eve Illusion – not the popcorn flavour you were expecting

So, it’s 3am and I’m lying in bed trying (and failing) to go to sleep. I know, I think, I’ll read The Eve Illusion for a bit. That’ll be a good bedtime story – cute romance with a chance of mild threat.  

Fast-forward to 4am and I’m now lying in bed, further away from sleep than I started and wondering what the falafel I just read. It’s safe to say that the pages and pages long torture scene of one of my favourite characters didn’t make for a very good bedtime story!

Maybe it’s because the characters are quite young, or the twists are fairly obvious, but I always felt like the Eve of Man series was vaguely aimed at kids. You know when you’re expecting a salty piece of popcorn and it turns out to be toffee? Bit of a shock, but ok once you know what you’re eating.

Anyway, I put on my big girl socks and carried on, and just like the first book it was gripping and entertaining. I was pretty chuffed to be proved right in my prediction about Vivian and Bram’s dad being the same person, and could overlook Eve becoming a bit annoying since we got to hear from Michael instead a lot of the time. Over to you, Willow!

Hello, it’s Willow. If I put my feelings about this book into a line graph, my enjoyment would be a roller coaster at the beginning that finally soars upward from about the 40% mark.

I super enjoyed Michael’s perspective. Merely a quiet side-character in book one, I like that he was at the heart of the real drama in book two, compared to Eve and Bram who just…dithered around? Particularly at the beginning. I enjoyed Michael’s character development as the scales fell from his eyes about his employers and he worked to discover his own moral code. He’s a good bean and I love him.

Eve pissed me off for most of this book, sadly. She turned into the trap so many writers fall into: “a strong female character must be stubborn and force her choices even in the face of reasonable disagreement.” The level of worship people had for Eve in this volume was aggravating. I was thrilled when at least one person snapped and called her TOTALLY UNREASONABLE and selfish. It felt like forced drama between her and Bram, which was pointlessly and easily mittigated by everyone else’s worship and a squiffy sense of feminism. By that I mean, “All her choices are correct because she’s made them of her own free will. No man can tell her she’s wrong. Ever.” Ummmm?

That said, I’m very glad that Bram and Eve are still a strong couple. I really like them as a pairing and enjoy that they’ve got a lot to learn about respecting each other’s space, choices, and concerns.

The villain held back zero punches and I like that. She made threats and followed through with them. Excellent work in that department. There’s nothing worse than a villain who makes empty threats, or is always thwarted by convenient intervention. 3.5 stars from me.