God's Eye by AJ Scudiere

9/10

Katharine Geryon is living the life her family name has dictated, and why not? After all, it has given her a good job in the family company and a fine life with all the things she should want. But all that changes as increasingly disturbing events begin to occur: soot stains on the carpet, glimpses of strange black animals, and cryptic messages written on her bathroom mirror. Baffled and afraid, Katharine begins to doubt her own sanity. At the same time, two charismatic men enter her life: Allistair, her new assistant at work, and Zachary, a well-heeled neighbour who just moved into her building. Katharine soon finds each of them inextricably entangled in her affairs. As her life becomes stranger and her dreams more terrifying, she realizes neither man is what he seems and that she's caught in something far beyond her own comprehension. For the first time, she must reach beyond her own boundaries.

God’s Eye is a supernatural thriller featuring an Angels and Demon concept. But with a twist. I came across this book while updating my Goodreads account, happy that it did and I was even more pleased that Griffin Ink was kind enough to provide me with a review copy. God’s Eye is a downright good read.

Like I mentioned God’s Eye is a Angels and Demon story but not quite the standard run of the mill. Yes, all the elements are present but not the Angels with wings, flaming swords of retribution and where there is a struggle between Heaven and Hell for the upper-hand. No, everything is more put into a everyday style, and focusing on the decisions and actions of one girl who is confronted between the choice; joining up with Heaven or Hell. This allowed both great emphasis on how Katharine developed and still you get the idea that there is more to just the two delegates who were send from Heaven and Hell, Zachary and Allistair.

The main protagonist of God’s Eye is Katharine, whom you get to know in quite a detailed way throughout the story. From the first references she is just as how you would imagine a corporate women heading for the top. She works for a her father's company in investments, Light & Geryon. But as she is living her daily life, all of sudden supernatural occurrences happen around her. Weird soot stains on the carpet, flashes of creatures in her condo and a message written on her mirror. I was quite pleased how she tackled these in the first place. Staying down-to-earth and trying to rationalize them and more thinking to herself that she is going mad. Another plus to the God’s Eye was the dedication of the pages to the work and daily adventures that Katharine had. Trying still to go on with her life as if nothing happened. In continuing this way, Katharine learns more about some of the investments that have been made by her father’s company, with which she does not whole-heartily agree. It is with the use of this undercurrent that God’s Eye feels a well rounded and complete story. Overall Katharine grows tremendously, comparing her with the beginning and ending. She grows more confident on the personal side and this occurs mainly due to the edition of Zachary and Allistair.

The two characters that portray the Angel and Demon in God’s Eye are Zachary and Allistair, but not in that order. All throughout God’s Eye the allegiance of both Zachary and Allistair remains elusive and I could not say if Zachary was the Angel and Allistair the Demon or vice versa. Although they both have their interest in Katharine there is no all-out full fronted confrontation between them. In the beginning there is a mention that they are both equal. So in order to sway Katharine to join either of their side they throw in their charms. The response of Katharine to the two men goes from affection to repulsion and fear. As more pieces of the puzzle fall in to place, and as Katharine starts to see more, the true natures of Zachary and Allistair dawn on her.

There is a fourth addition to the cast, the librarian Margot. Although I did not like her in the beginning she grew on me in the end and was actually a crucial part to the plot. Margot helps Katharine with the clues she gets, those written in the Latin language. But she goes from just a one-time help to a true friend for Katharine. I liked how she was shown in interaction and helping Katharine with her struggles. All the characters that were used were well thoughout and did not leave anything to be desired.

Plot wise and the writing style, God’s eye is good for both. Using a third person narration to explain everything gave a nice bird’s eye overview of each of the characters, on how they thought about each other and leaving nothing out in describing the rich world. As for the plot line, there was nice build up towards the end. This build up was neatly put together with what I described above, using Katharine's strong character in trying to continue with her everyday life as she is now struggling with the supernatural and dark occurrences happening around here.

In short, God’s Eye has great, well developed characters, great writing style and an even better setting, using supernatural, thriller and romantic themes to enliven the story in a nice way. But the focus, in my opinion, is not on any of these three. Instead for me you she how Katharine is struggling in her changed life and how she is tackling some off the new introduced problems, which are caused by the above mentioned themes. In the end there are a few plot twist and the last pages really marks it a nice and well rounded story. Recommended.