Title: Wake Unto Me
Author: Lisa Cach
Published: 31st March, 2011 by Speak
Thanks: International Book Tours
Pages: 208
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

A haunted castle, a handsome young man dead for four hundred years, one heck of a scary portrait of a witch, and a treasure hunt — not to mention a princess for a roommate! — all await 15 year old American girl Caitlyn Monahan when she earns a scholarship to a French boarding school.

There are secrets behind the stone walls of Chateau de la Fortune, buried for centuries along with the mystery of who killed Raphael, the charming ghost who visits Caitlyn at night. But as Caitlyn unearths the history of the castle, nothing scares her as badly as the secret she learns about herself, and the reason she was chosen to come to the Fortune School.

And nothing breaks her heart as badly as falling in love with a dead guy.

Final Thoughts: I can’t really put into words how brilliant and well thought out this book was! I loved the premise and wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it was! Wake Unto Me blew me out of the water! It’ll keep you guessing and trying to figure out the mystery eagerly as you turn the pages! Highly recommended!

First of all, this is the first book I’ve ever read on a book tour! If you’ve never participated in a book tour, I suggest you go and sign up for one now as it’s an amazing experience! You get to read yet-to-be-released books and meet fellow bloggers and readers along the way. I don’t know about you, but having a copy of a book that’s travelled around the world is an amazing feeling! While I was reading Wake Unto Me, I was picturing the exact copy in other countries, entrancing other readers than myself!

I said it in my mini summary that I wasn’t expecting this book to be as good as it was. It wasn’t from a ‘huge’ company (not to my knowledge anyway and I live in Australia) and although the cover is gorgeous, it’s not exactly one that looks mass-produced and over promoted like so many YA novels these days. I think that’s a good thing because it is what sets Wake Unto Me apart from so many other books.

I hadn’t read Lisa Cach before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Sure, the premise sounded great and appealed to my sense of mystery, romance and of course – anything French! But would the book live up to the expectations I already had? I featured this book on a Waiting on Wednesday post a month or so ago and never did I thought I’d be able to read this book before it’s release in 2011. Well, I did and it surpassed all my expectations and even got a 5 star rating from me! So to put it simply; get this book when it comes out.

I read on someone else’s blog that this was sort of like Meg Cabot’s The Mediator series, which I think is true. Except, add The Mediator in with Libba Bray’s A Great & Terrible Beauty series and you’ll have kind of an idea about how this story is set out. I won’t re-write the summary in my own words because you’re all smart people and if you’re reading this review then surely you’ve researched the plot up in the blockquote of this page.

The thing that really stood out for me in Wake Unto Me was the amount of research that went into it. It wasn’t predictable or a faint echo of another YA book, it was completely original. Although I guess a few things here and there about the mystery, I never really got ‘the big picture’ and as soon as everything was revealed I was just ‘ohhh’. Lisa Cach really knows how to write a mystery and I was desperately turning pages to figure it all out in the end.

It’s evident that she didn’t tack on a silly ending at the last minute, as hints to the ‘big reveal’ are inserted early on in the book. You’ll really enjoy piecing everything together as I did and enjoy the atmosphere and faces at Chateau de la Fortune!

A great read!

Recommended to: Anyone, really! Especially those for a love of history, ghosts and France! You’ll be sure to enjoy it!

About the Author Lisa Cach was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where she still lives today. Her professional background includes teaching conversational English in Japan, and several years working the graveyard shift on a mental health crisis line. She has traveled to the foothills of the Himalaya, the jungles of Borneo, the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, and the painted caves of the Perigord Noir, in France. She has sailed the Caribbean as a working crew member of a research schooner, and the Bering Sea as a guest on a small ship.

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