Touch by Natalia Jaster Series: Selfish Myths #1
Published by CreateSpace on June 8, 2018
Genres: Fairy Tale Retelling, Fantasy & Magic, Love & Romance, Romance, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult, New Adult, Mythology, Retellings
Pages: 284
Format: Paperback
Source: I Bought It
Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Beat the Backlist 2019, Retellings 2019
Could you sacrifice the person you love to save your world?
Love is an immortal bad girl. With a mischievous smirk and a strike of her arrow, she pins human hearts together.
But Love has never loved. Not until she wreaks havoc in a frostbitten forest, hunting for the perfect mortal amusement.
Yet Andrew isn’t an easy target.
He doesn’t care that she’s a goddess. He’s a defiant loner who refuses to be toyed with.
The longer Love knows Andrew, the more she craves his touch.
It’s forbidden. Worse, it’s fatal.
Humans don’t have the power to annihilate deities. But Andrew is different. He wields a magic greater than he knows, a force strong enough to eradicate her kind.
By order of the Fates, Love has only two choices.
One, destroy Andrew before he destroys her world.
Or two, contain his power.
The price: In order to weaken him, she must seal his heart with someone else’s.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Natalia Jaster’s writing? It’s actually hard to believe Touch was her debut novel. It contains her usual lyrical prose but is also very polished and well put together. I can usually spot an author’s debut novel (even if I am unaware it was such). There is often a certain rawness to it, especially if I read it after devouring their later works, like I did with Touch (I actually started with Natalia’s Foolish Kingdom’s series which was written and released after).
However, there is none of that in evidence here. There is a lot of heart to this story but it doesn’t suffer from that first novel syndrome. Touch is a fantastic story and I almost wish I had read it before Foolish Kingdoms (I do like to try and read a new-to-me authors books in order of publication, but oh well).
But I am getting ahead of myself here. First, a bit of background. I actually held off for a bit after reading Trick, Dare, and then Lie (books 1, 2 and 3 in the Foolish Kingdoms series) before I finally picked up Touch. It’s not that I didn’t want to read it earlier (I very much did) but I didn’t want to let go of the feeling that there was still a Natalia Jaster book out in the world I hadn’t yet read. I wanted to savour the feeling because once I read it, I knew I would be desperately waiting for each new release to satisfy my cravings!
The Foolish Kingdoms series was decadent and lush and quickly became one of my all-time favourites. I had a feeling that Touch would be joining the ranks. Once I found out it was going to be a series, I knew I couldn’t put off reading it any longer. Now here we are…
my review of touch by natalia jaster
Touch is a loose retelling of Eros (or cupid, if you will) and is very much steeped in mythology, with a contemporary setting and a little flavour of urban fantasy added to the mix. In this version, Eros is actually female, appearing as a young woman called Love. Love is the first (successful) goddess of her kind. Of all the emotions, Love is the trickiest of all and it took the Fates many centuries to create a goddess who can wield this emotion.
Love’s class is unique, comprising of other young gods and goddesses. The cream of the crop, they are considered elite. Yet, for all of this Love is lonely. Love has never felt love and she keenly feels its loss though she can never quite put her finger on what is missing. She is touch-starved and bearing a mischievous temperament, she lives among the mortals who cannot see or here her, creating chaos in her wake. Wielding her bow and arrow, she brings people together but feels there is something missing her life.
Andrew is a mortal with a rare gift – he has the ability to see what other mortals cannot. A chance meeting with Love in a winter forest spins the axis on both of their worlds. For Andrew is the first mortal who can truly see deities. And this makes him dangerous.
Love knows that she shouldn’t risk herself or Andrew but she cannot stay away from this young loner, who manages to be jaded and innocent in equal measures. Andrew, for his part, is also fascinated by Love. The more time they spend together, the more Love yearns for Andrew to be able to touch her.
However, the Fates cannot allow this to continue. Love is given an ultimatum – she must bind Andrew’s heart with another mortal girl. If not, Andrew will have the power to destroy her and all her fellow deities. Love is torn – between what her heart wants and what the Fates have decreed for her. What will she ultimately choose – her duty or the mortal boy who has stolen her heart?
love and andrew – an otherworldly attraction
Listen, I’m just going to put this out there… I frickin’ love Love! She is the ultimate badass. A goddess with a healthy heaping of attitude and fire – she is awesome. Andrew is also pretty darn fantastic. He is a loner but one with such a kindhearted soul.
Love and Andrew together were amazing. They had such an palpable chemistry. They were not a perfect fit for each other – they disagreed more often than not but their love for each other could not be denied. They were messily imperfect which just made them all the more suited for each other. The romance between them was just so swoon-worthy – I was on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t get enough of their interactions.
I loved all the side characters too, especially Love’s class: Anger, Envy, Sorrow, and Wonder – all of them were wonderful. I felt so bad for Anger. His feelings for Love were always pretty clear to me even if Love herself couldn’t see them (until the end, anyway). They may even have made a good match but at the same time, I think Love belongs with Andrew. I was so happy that Anger would be getting his own story in Torn (which I have read and it is absolutely fan-freaking-tastic!) I also cannot wait to get Wonder’s story.
The world-building was also masterfully done. I am the first person to admit I read books for the characters and the story and world are secondary to me. Everything in this book was just so well executed though. The characters were relatable (yes, even those deities!) and the story, expertly wielded within the modern setting with mythological themes, was just so good. I can’t wait to see more of this world, its characters and its own brand of mythology.
to sum up
Mythology has always been fascinating to me and I am so happy to see a retelling with mythological themes (not that I don’t also love fairy tale retellings but it’s good to mix it up now and again). I would highly recommend this series to anyone who loves all those myths and tales. For those looking for a great sweeping romance with an otherworldly spin. It is just such a great little novel, worthy of all the love (yep, I went there haha!)
for more of my reviews, click the below link:
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
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