The Origin by Wilette Youkey (The Origin #1)
Urban Fantasy
February 27, 2012
Phoenix House Publishing

Reviewed by Tori

Favorite Quote: “She had changed, he made sure of that. “

Our hero, Daniel Johnson, is a dark, broody, emotionally tortured young man who views his special powers as a curse. He never asked for the abilities to save the world and struggles to define exactly what he is. Rather like Batman in the Dark Knight-he is not a bright shining beacon of goodness. He doesn’t fight evil because he is inherently good but because he reluctantly feels he should. When a young woman from his past enters his life, he struggles to keep his distance. He fears emotional attachments and that he will inadvertently hurt her. But Olivia is determined to break through his shell and soon Daniel finds himself falling in love and accepting a future with her. That is until Olivia is kidnapped. Daniel crosses all the lines he has drawn for himself in his search for her and is left questioning if he is the hero or the villain.

We learn throughout the book that though Daniel thought he was alone, there are others out there like him. The reasoning behind that are quite unique and I enjoyed the path Ms. Youkey takes with that.

The Origin is an emotionally dark urban fantasy that plays upon the basics of good and evil with a twist. Set up in a comic book/soap opera style, Ms. Youkey build us a dark and philosophical multi-tiered character driven world that asks the basic question-what separates a hero from a villain? If you commit evil deeds for the good of mankind…can you still consider yourself good? Simple and straightforward writing style sets the story at a steady pace as we meet our hero and heroine and watch their lives unfold and intersect. Multiple sub-plots intertwine, giving us background on our characters and leaving us clues to future storylines. Engaging dialogue with injections of dark and snarky humor keeps the story grounded and realistic.

Olivia King, our heroine, comes off at first as being the perfect girlfriend for Daniel, but as you get to know her, you realize that she is fighting her own demons. An intelligent woman who knows what she wants and she wants Daniel. Their courtship is both humorous and very slow as Olivia struggles to understand why Daniel pushes her away. When he finally reveals his secrets, Olivia acts quite realistic with thinking he is insane and/or making up excuses. She eventually accepts he is what he says, though her kidnapping occurs right afterwards, so we never know exactly how well she was dealing with it. I like how Olivia handles herself in the end. No whoa is me or heavy histrionics. I look forward to seeing how she deals with Daniel in the next book. The romance is heavy with chemistry and tension though the physical scenes are few.

The secondary characters are interesting in their own right. Olivia’s father plays a large role as a controlling man whose actions concerning Olivia and others are going to come back and haunt him. We are left with the impression that he knows more about Daniel and his gifts. A bodyguard and ex boyfriend both have storylines that beg for more exploration.

The villain of the piece inspires sympathy as we watch his rise and fall. With his story you start to get the answer to the question The Origin asks. I would have liked to see more development with them. We only got what was exactly needed from them. That was a problem I had with the story. It stays firmly in the present so we are left with a lot of questions of how everyone got to this point. Hopefully this will be addressed as the series progresses.

The path to the end is convoluted as the main conflict wraps itself up but old and new storylines branch out and to lead us into the second book-The Forsaken-set to release in 2013. A mild cliffhanger promises interesting times ahead.

Overall Rating: C+

Recent Reviews:
Goodreads

Author’s Website l Series Listing

Amazon