ARC Review: The Claiming Words by Tricia Drammeh

Title:The Claiming Words
Author: Tricia Drammeh
Publisher: Iconic Publishing
Date of Publication: Autumn 2012 (October 2012)
Website: http://theclaimingwords.com/
Source: received ARC pdf from author for my honest review of it.

Book Synopsis:
When Jace moves to Oaktree, he attracts the interest of everyone in school, but only one girl captures his attention, or maybe two. Alisa is an outcast, but when she saves Jace from a Hunter, she finds herself drawn into a world of friendship and magic. Rachel has always felt different from everyone she grew up with until an encounter with the new student illustrates how unique she is. As dangerous forces descend upon the small southern town, each girl shares a special connection with Jace. Only one will win his love.



My Thoughts:

This is a sweet endearing Young Adult novel with a loving family at the center of it.  Swirling around this powerful family is demons stalking in the background and two young girls that become a huge part of their world.
This story is told from two different POVs, which usually can't be pulled off well, but Drammeh does it superbly.  I think it also has a lot to do with who the narrators are and I find it refreshing to have the story being told from the most popular girl and the outcast from the school's povs.
We meet Alissa, the quiet girl who has been ostracized by her cousin and the rest of the school.  Alissa is so sweet and reminded me  a little of myself with her shyness from everyone around her.  Everyone treats her like death just because she isn't popular.  I have to say that got my blood boiling a lot.  I cannot stand bullying and Alissa's cousin is the biggest bully there is.  I can't help but hope she will get a dose of her own medicine in the future.
And then we get to see through the eyes of Rachel, one of the beautiful and popular girls in school, that holds a dark secret she doesn't even realize she carries.
I love love love how the characters in this novel grows.  Alissa learns to be confident and Rachel learns to respect and stand up for others.  Trust me there is much more to it but I am not giving anything away.
And of course we have two very hot guys in this story who are passionate, hard headed, loving and yet clueless when it comes to females.
Bryce was by far my favorite.  He is moody, strong, grieving and absolutely to die for!  Even at the beginning when he is such a jerk to Alissa I still felt this huge connection to him and I knew he was going to play a powerful part in this story.  I am glad he did too!
Jace, the younger brother of Bryce, is a powerful person too but he is still learning everything about his powers and limits.  He is strong but he is also self centered which made me want to smack him up side the head a couple of times.  But Jace does have strong emotions and is able to look at the whole picture through a lot of  the tension.
In a lot of ways, this story made me think of Charmed, especially when the demons would go after the witches and they had to fight back.  But there is no power of three.
I loved that the Alexanders are a very strong and close family.  The mother and father are so wonderful and understanding to everything; I almost wished they were my parents!
This book was also close to my heart because of the location.  It is set in a small town in Georgia.  Being that I am from a small town in Ga, this is always a plus for me.  I enjoy when an author can take an out of the way little area and turn it into this mysterious magical place.  This is always nice to be able to connect with something from where you live, even if it is just fiction.
However, I do believe some more background information on the witches' history would have helped even more.  Maybe a little more world building as far as the paranormal aspect goes.
We do have that strong "soul mates" theory running through the story especially where Jace and Rachel are concerned, but Drammeh takes it a step further and shows us that even the love birds have arguments, disagreements, and hurtful comments.
But come on, we have all been teenagers at one time and know that hormones tend to rage (mine went nuclear) making us feel that "love at first sight" emotion.   [Although, even in my mature age now I still get that feeling when I watch Gerald Butler in the movie 300 but I digress...]
There is one couple in this story that I enjoyed watching develop so much and I felt giddy with excitement for both of them that as I finished the story I had this huge stupid grin on my face long afterwards.
I had to give The Claiming Words five hearts and I am already counting down the days until another book(and this one isn't even released yet...Uggh)  I think we can expect really great things from Tricia Drammeh in the future.