ARC Review--Ferocious by Paula Stokes

Paula Stokes returns to the world of Vicarious in this sequel, a high-action psychological thriller with a protagonist out for vengeance.

When Winter Kim finds out that her sister is dead and that she has a brother she never knew about, only two things matter―finding what’s left of her family and killing the man who destroyed her life. Her mission leads her from St. Louis to Los Angeles back to South Korea, where she grew up.

Things get increasingly dangerous once Winter arrives in Seoul. Aided by her friends Jesse and Sebastian, Winter attempts to infiltrate an international corporation to get close to her target, a nefarious businessman named Kyung. But keeping her last remaining loved ones out of the line of fire proves difficult, and when all seems to be lost, Winter must face one last devastating decision: is revenge worth sacrificing everything for? Or can she find a spark of hope in the darkness that threatens to engulf her?

I received this ARC from the publisher, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. I was in no way compensated for this review.
 
PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FROM VICARIOUS WITHIN THIS REVIEW. READ WITH CAUTION!

Paula Stokes amps up the intrigue and adventure with Ferocious, the follow-up and conclusion to Vicarious! We pretty much pick up where we left off and see that Winter is making her plans for revenge against Kyung who essentially ruined her life and killed all the people that she loved. We also learned Winter’s secret, one that she didn’t even realize was a part of her, and that of course is that she has Dissociative Identity Disorder, and we get to see more of this play out throughout the novel. Even getting to read through two of her identity’s points of view.

Winter finds herself traveling solo while Jesse and Baz are in the hospital, healing from their wounds due to the big showdown tat the end of Vicarious. Among the many things she’s learned about herself is that she happens to have a younger brother who might still be alive.  Her goal is to find him and get him off to safety before making a move against Kyung who’s already started contacting her wanting to get Gideon’s technology from her.

This one packs quite the punch for action! If the first one was more about the mystery and intrigue, this one’s definitely about action and espionage! Not long into her journey though, a part of Winter finds she will need more help and Jesse and Baz are quick to the rescue! There’s a lot more traveling in this one! Winter goes from St. Louis to L.A. to Korea! It’s a race against the clock to find Kyung and get back what was stolen before he can use it for his own sinister purposes!

I like that in this one, we get to see a bit more of Winter’s condition. I was pretty intrigued with Dissociative Identity Disorder when I was in a psychology course, I even read Sybil for further research purposes. Winter developed some of her primary identities when she was younger and the abuse she suffered while working for Kyung. And the fact that Paula put so much detail into her disorder was remarkable! It really opens your eyes to this kind of disorder and I even liked that we have Winter trying to help herself this time by contacting her previous doctor to get some advice on certain things. It showed progress for Winter’s own character development.

And can I say again how much I love Jesse? Winter has her issues with Jesse when she learned one of her identities took over for her and instigated something with Jesse. Now Jesse has to gain back her trust and Winter has learn to trust him again as well. Winter’s struggles felt very real. I appreciated that fact. At times she felt like she was going back and forth with her emotions, but given the situation she found herself in, I think that reflects reality a bit. Feelings and emotions aren’t always so black and white. And that we see Jesse and Winter basically starting over again, it kind of hit the right “feels” button at their budding romance!

I liked Paula’s use of shock factor in this one! There were so many twists and turns and turnarounds! It was like whoa! Just when I think I have something figured out, Paula would shake up all the pieces again! And I loved it! I loved how things were never quite the way they appeared to be in this one! The action was well paced too! If you weren’t having exciting and thrilling moments, you were having tension building moments that would lead to those action filled moments, or even watching some great character growth on Winter’s part! This was truly one remarkable read! And the ending was just right too!

Ferocious was the perfect kind of conclusion to Vicarious! I enjoyed taking this journey with Winter and learning a few things too! This was definitely one fun and exciting duology! I’ll be keeping an eye on Paula’s books from now on!


Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars


Ferocious releases August 15, 2017