Book Review: Tempting Fate by April White

Tempting Fate

Immortal Descendants #2

April White

Genre: YA Paranormal, Time Travel

Seventeen-year-old Clocker, Saira Elian is back on the run and being hunted by Mongers. The Descendants of War are amassing power in the 21st century, bent on controlling all the Immortal Descendants. Their attempt to kidnap Saira, a rare Descendant of Time and Nature, reveals just how brazen they’ve become. Archer, the vampire who has loved Saira for over a century, is willing to risk everything to protect her.

When a horrific vision reveals Ringo, thief and loyal companion from 1888, being tortured at the hands of the bloodthirsty Bishop Wilder in a Renaissance prison, Saira and Archer realize there has been a ripple in the river of Time, and they must travel to 1554 to find its source and save their friend. Their rescue mission lures them to the Tower of London, site of the most notorious executions in history, where they encounter the mysterious Lady Elizabeth who is confronting a terrible fate of her own.

The time-traveler, the vampire, and the thief will need all of their skills and ingenuity as they race against time to steal a document that could change the course of history and put the Immortal Descendants at the mercy of the Mongers. Can they stop a madman bent on collecting the blood of history’s most powerful Seer before the executioner’s axe falls?

I was running with Saira the moment I joined her again in Tempting Fate. I thought we were running for our lives again and I was honing my survival skills. Good thing everything was in motion at the beginning, just like in the first book, because it set the tone and the anticipation for the rest of the book. I knew exactly what I was going to get: adventure. 

I said this before in my review of the first book, Marking Time, but Saira is a really good character. Great even. What made me admire her is that when she makes mistakes, when she’s being reprimanded and scolded by people who love her, she learns from them and she owns them and she would say I’m sorry like she means it and strive to be a better person not only for herself but for others she’s finding she cares about and who care for her in return. This is a continuation of her personal journey from Marking Time. She grew up taking care of herself and she was afraid that if and when she lets others take care of her and love her like she is deserved to be loved, then she would lose herself in the process. She was terrified and it took a queen-to-be and a brother-from-another-mother that she’s hurting herself more along with the people, Archer in particular, who loves her. But she realized that and the fact that she’s not so alone anymore. “And is it so great, what ye’re holding onto?” asked Ringo. All she had to do was be brave and jump. 

I didn’t get the significance of clocking to 1554 if only to save Ringo from Bishop Wilder based on a vision. All they had to do was exclude Ringo from their plans, avoid getting him from his time in 1888. Simple as that. But time and circumstances had a way of getting out of hand and before they knew it they found themselves in situations that they’ve been preventing themselves to get into. There were things they had foreseen that they changed. There were things that they did not expect to happen. And there were things that were just meant to be. 

On a side note, if Mr. Shaw ever taught at any school I’ve attended, I would’ve signed up for every class he taught. 

It started in the first books but this is the first time I’ve noticed it fully, it being that quirk of Saira’s giving nicknames to every person she meets “fairy” for Ava. It helps me actually by giving a “name” to a character before knowing his or her real name so as not to overly use the words he, she, that man, the girl and such. 

About 80% of the book was spent in 1554. I don’t much about that time and history in England except for who was ruling and where the, then, Lady Elizabeth was. But I think my amount of knowledge would increase since I would probably research that time and place to the bone because of all the wonderful, tantalizing tidbits of history that April White so artfully woven into the story.

When is Stalking Nature coming out?