The Gatekeeper's Sons by Eva Pohler

By: Anonymous on Friday, March 29, 2013

Title:  The Gatekeeper's Sons

Author:  Eva Pohler

Series: Gatekeeper's Trilogy #1

Published:  August 13th 2012 by Green Press/Eva Pohler 

(first published August 12th 2012)

Page Count:  384

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Romance

Shelf:  Review Copy

Rating:  ★★★★★

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Fifteen-year-old Therese watches her parents die. While in a coma, she meets the twin sons of Hades—Hypnos, the god of sleep, and Thanatos, the god of death. She thinks she's manipulating a dream, not kissing the god of death and totally rocking his world.

Than makes a deal with Hades and goes as a mortal to the Upperworld to try and win Therese's heart, but not all the gods are happy. Some give her gifts. Others try to kill her.

The deal requires Therese to avenge the death of her parents. With the help of Than’s fierce and exotic sisters, the Furies, she finds herself in an arena face to face with the murderer, and only one will survive.

My Review:

This novel was a phenomenal introduction into the Gatekeeper series and into the world of Greek mythology.

I have great respect for authors who do their research before writing fictional work based on fact or existing mythology. That said, I love the fact that this story is mythologically accurate. I also like the fact that Pohler includes a variety of Greek gods in her writing, rather than simply using the Olympiad as so many authors attempting to write about Greek mythology do. And Pohler doesn’t just attempt to wrote a world based on Greek mythology. She succeeds. Pohler has not only researched her facts with respect to mythology, but with her novel as a whole. Even the trail riding and equine aspects of this novel, where present, are factual. I appreciate the fact that almost everything that Pohler includes is very well researched and extremely detailed.

Pohler is very detailed in her writing. Everything is precisely worded to convey a specific thought, feeling, or image. Each and every word seems to have been carefully chosen to build a cohesive overall picture. Everything is vivid and extremely well laid out. She creates a world that you can imagine yourself walking into. I also appreciate the differentiation in writing style between Earth and Olympus. Everything on Olympus is much larger and more elaborate than Earth, as it should be. Her writing also sports an intensity rarely seen in a YA novel, while also giving you some very good laughs.

The characters in this novel are quite well developed. You may not know their entire life histories, but you do get to know everything that is pertinent to the story and to let you get to know the characters. It was very refreshing to read a story by an author who can differentiate between necessary development to create a well-developed character, and giving an entire life history that slows down the storyline because it isn’t actually relevant to the plot.

As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and can’t wait to tear into the sequel. Pohler manages to end this novel without a cliff-hanger but still needing to grab for the sequel to find out what happens next. Bravo!