Review: Pyxis by K.C. Neal

Title: Pyxis: The Discovery

Series: Pyxis (Book #1)

Author: K.C. Neal

Category: Teen

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: StoneHouse Ink

BLURB (from Goodreads)

Corinne lives an average teenage life working at her dad’s cafe, hanging out with her best friend, and trying to forget a falling-out with her almost-boyfriend Mason. Things take a strange turn when she uses her late grandmother’s food dyes for a bake sale, and her customers suddenly find her irresistibly alluring. Then she discovers she and Mason are haunted by the same dreams of a dark force that consumes everything in its path. 

Pursued by shadowy figures and a crazy woman with secrets from the past, Corinne must find out who her grandmother really was. In her quest to unravel her family’s history, she learns she is destined to protect this world--and the dark world of her dreams. She races to find the answers she seeks before her nightmares break free.

MY THOUGHTS

Pyxis, the first book in the Pyxis series by author K. C. Neal, tells us the story of Corinne who inherits some Pyxis liquid from her late grandmother without knowing its uses and the power it has. I should say that this story was definitely something different from what I had read before. It wasn’t as intriguing as I had anticipated, still it was quite an enjoyable, page-turning and fun read.

First of all, the story was set in the small town of Tapestry and begins with a quirk. The reason I said it was a quirk was because the main character, Corinne, serves her customers with some petits fours that have strange added ingredient in it which she found inside a wooden box. Seriously, who in their right minds would make cookies, cakes, muffins, etc. with an unknown ingredient? Anyway, after some kids begin to act rather odd toward her, she and her best-friend Ang, decide to run an experiment with the rest of the liquids by making some cookies to be given out to other victim which sounded rather compelling to me. Now here are two questions; what if the liquids turn out to be poisons? And why the magic liquid only worked on certain people? The premise of the Pyxis stuff was baffling but I truly appreciated the author’s imagination and her effort had really set her story apart from other typical YA books. 

Moving on to the plot, for a first book in the series, I thought the plot was okay and very comprehensible without too much confusing twists. Although the pacing was slow, the story transition from one chapter to another was smooth and flawless. As for the characters, I don’t have much to say about them mostly because in this first book, I couldn’t bring myself to relate to each of them, especially the main character Corinne. However, that being said, I found she’s likeable and I’m glad she has a trustworthy best-friends in the form of Ang and Mason. K.C. Neal’s writing style was excellent enough in bringing out her personality and through Corinne’s voice, readers are taken to a world full of emotional roller coaster as Corinne is revealed about who she is and her role in saving Tapestry from impending doom. Mason didn’t appear charismatic to me. In Mason, all I could see was an ordinary guy in his weakest effort of trying to charm his best-friend back to him. I didn’t even understand the relationship between him and Corinne. In the second book I understand readers will be introduced to a new character, a hot Australian guy called Zane, so I’m very excited to find out what happens between Corinne, Mason and Zane. Will there be a love-triangle? Maybe, but it will surely be a great addition to the plot. The book ended with a suspenseful cliffhanger which keeps the curiosity in me mounting and hungry for more.

All in all, Pyxis was a wonderful YA book. Though lacking wicked suspense that I liked, other readers would find themselves easily engrossed in the magic K.C. Neal had created in her story. I would recommend this book to just any fans of YA urban fantasy romance.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5!
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*Disclosure: Review copy was provided by the author via BB Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I did not receive compensation for writing this review.