Review ~ The Veil by Chloe Neill

The Veil by Chloe Neill
Narrator: Amy Landon
Length: 10 hrs 9 min
Series: Devil's Isle #1
Published by NAL Trade on August 4, 2015
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 336

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I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Seven years ago, the Veil that separates humanity from what lies beyond was torn apart, and New Orleans was engulfed in a supernatural war. Now, those with paranormal powers have been confined in a walled community that humans call the District. Those who live there call it Devil's Isle.

Claire Connolly is a good girl with a dangerous secret: she’s a Sensitive, a human endowed with magic that seeped through the Veil. Claire knows that revealing her skills would mean being confined to Devil’s Isle. Unfortunately, hiding her power has left her untrained and unfocused.

Liam Quinn knows from experience that magic makes monsters of the weak, and he has no time for a Sensitive with no control of her own strength. But when he sees Claire using her powers to save a human under attack—in full view of the French Quarter—Liam decides to bring her to Devil’s Isle and the teacher she needs, even though getting her out of his way isn’t the same as keeping her out of his head.

But when the Veil threatens to shatter completely, Claire and Liam must work together to stop it, or else New Orleans will burn…

I am a big Chloe Neill fan for her Chicagoland Vampire series. It was only natural for me to follow along and see what new adventures she could create.

The Veil involves a paranormal world that I’ve never really envisioned before. There is a lot of prejudice against anything magical. There is definitely a cause for that, but like all prejudice, it tries to encompass all instead of allowing for individuality. The world building in The Veil involves a lot of that which causes the conflict with our main character Claire. The setup of the world seems to fill most of the first portion of the book, which is why I think that the major conflict and storyline seemed to light quickly and then turn into a page turning race to find out what happens. I did find that the cast was quite big to start out with. When things got hot, I had a hard time keeping up with who was who. I could never keep Gunnar and Gavin straight. I think it was the G’s.

Claire takes quickly to the magic that she has tried to hide for so long and finds herself stubborn enough to try things she’s never done before. She’s a very smart character and uses the bits she’s learned to really put together what she needs to do. It’s scary since she always seem to try new things when in the middle of chaos.

I’m excited about the hint of a romance between Liam and Claire. It is going to be a nice slow burn that will probably drive me insane. I live for the little peeks we get into the build up.

I had an instant love for Moses. He was a character I just really connected with and I would love to see more of him too. All of the characters really seemed to get fleshed out nicely, so we have a good idea of where they stand when we get to the next book. We get left with a couple of openings for the next book and I’m excited to see how they go and what surprises are in store for Claire and Liam!

As always, the world building gets to me. It made for a slow start for me, but once we got past that point and really jumped into the meat of the story, I was hooked. However, I felt that once I did get hooked, everything was a bit rushed and stuffed into a small amount of time. For me, this is something I suffer with with every book one of a series. The Veil ended so well for me, that I know I will jump on book two. It seems there are two threads opened up near the end and I’m anxious to see how we follow those up in the next series.

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