Initiation by Rebecca Royce

Initiation is the story of just-turned sixteen-year-old Rachel Clancy. Her life has not ever been easy, and it is about to get more complicated. Rachel is a Warrior by birth. Her parents both carried the gene, which makes her physically ideal for fighting the vampires and werewolves that prey on the surviving humans living underground after the world as we know it ended. Her father has been a drunk since she was born, right before her mother was killed by vampires. She has spent most of her young life taking care of him, and training to be a Warrior, and feeling like an outcast because of the way her father failed their community. Now the day of her sixteenth birthday has arrived and she must take her place Above, fighting their inhuman enemies.

Unfortunately, Dr. Isaac Icahn, the founder of their underground haven, has it in for Rachel, because her father abandoned his duty as a Warrior the day his wife was killed by vampires, leading to Dr. Icahn’s only daughter’s death. His revenge is to have Rachel sent on a mission to travel alone to the next human habitat, a mission she is very unlikely to survive. Even though her teacher, Keith, and Patrick, the father of her best friend Tia, do their part to protect Rachel and to prevent her from being selected for the mission, the vote comes down in favor of sending her out alone. So, she embarks out into the world Above, to encounter hideous vampires for the first time, and to her surprise, werewolves that act surprisingly human, and are not the vicious man-eaters she had been lead to believe.

Rachel ends up being taken back to the tent city of the Kenwood pack of werewolves, and she falls in love with a young werewolf and son of the alpha named Jason, who loves smelling her and continually insists that she is his mate. She makes friends with his twin sisters Luna and Autumn. Rachel finds Jason’s attentions very heady, as they have her feeling like she matters for the first time in her life. She feels a sense of security and hope for the future in the comforting arms of Jason. But she has to go back to her habitat to tell them an important secret, that there are human lives in jeopardy, and it is up to her and her habitat to save them.

Initiation was a success for me. I liked the straightforward narrative, and Rachel’s young voice. She could have been a very morose, mopey heroine, but she wasn’t. She showed a lot of self-possession and emotional strength, considering the way her life has unfolded to this point. Although the world-building was a bit thin, I liked the concept of the Warriors, and the underground societies of humans. Their world was pretty bleak, but society still goes on, surviving underground.

More than anything, along with my admiration of Rachel as a heroine, I really liked Jason. He was adorable. Young, earnest, and determined to convince Rachel that they belong together. I loved his protective, devoted, and tough wolfy nature, and his way of showing his regard for Rachel in many different ways. I really liked their courtship, and I cannot help hoping that things will work out for them.

Book Stats:

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing Company, LLC (July 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1613330677
• ISBN-13: 978-1613330678

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Books in the Warriors series in the order they should be read:
Initiation
Driven
Subversive
Redemption
Justice

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Initiation by Rebecca Royce