The cover of this book was haunting me since a while. At every book meme concerning eagerly awaited books the Mephisto Covenant was a consistent candidate. So I got curious about this story.I wasn't exactly sure what to expect as the summary doesn't give away a lot. When I started reading I realised that there is no long introduction, you jump directly into it and learn about the background of the main character Sasha as the story proceeds.
Sasha is very sweet girl, almost to good and pure to be true. But as we learn she is an Anabo. As a descendent of Eve, she is a heavenly creature and entirely uncorrupted. She is the opposite of evil/bad and doesn't even know it. She gets trapped and almost killed by the followers of Eryx, an offspring of hell. She is saved by the mysterious Ajax (really cool name!) and his brothers. For Ajax Sasha can be his salvation but he is also 1000 years old and has never courted a girl.
I liked the whole idea. It's a redefined classic. Good and evil, Heaven and Hell.
The two main characters, Jax and Sasha, have an amazing chemistry together and I enjoyed reading about their interactions. Sasha has to make difficult decisions. She is quite alone, without friends and tries to survive. At the same time always thinks the best of people. That's an interesting concept.
The portrait of Jax was well done. I liked that he is not evil but he isn't good either. He has to fight to stay true to himself. He has principles which became obvious when he deals with Sasha. He knows she can be his ticket to heaven, but he doesn't try to cheat her in trusting him. I also like how he became more human in his quest to protect Sasha.
Jax's brothers are an intriguing bunch of characters. They were introduced in this book and I was fascinated by each of them. I'm sure we will get to know them better in future books.
The plot was well planned and there were plenty of twist to keep you hooked. The only thing which annoyed me at some time was the amount and speed of people who suddenly became bad. This was a bit of extreme and didn't really add anything to the story.
Another I liked was the ending. Though this book marks the beginning of a series the story line was completed and most lose ends were tied up neatly. Overall a fascinating debut novel.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley.