Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey

Summary:

Braden was born with witch eyes: the ability to see the world as it truly is: a blinding explosion of memories, darkness, and magic. The power enables Braden to see through spells and lies, but at the cost of horrible pain.

After a terrifying vision reveals imminent danger for the uncle who raised and instructed him, Braden retreats to Belle Dam, an old city divided by two feuding witch dynasties. As rival family heads Catherine Lansing and Jason Thorpe desperately try to use Braden's powers to unlock Belle Dam's secrets, Braden vows never to become their sacrificial pawn. But everything changes when Braden learns that Jason is his father--and Trey, the enigmatic guy he's falling for, is Catherine's son.
To stop an insidious dark magic from consuming the town, Braden must master his gift—and risk losing the one he loves.


Review:

The summary alone forced me to move Witch Eyes to the top of my reading list. Bradon's power (or curse) to see past memories and the seemingly invisible spells cast on him is something I have always wanted to see in YA but rarely have. In my mind, it isn't the type of power that makes a person extraordinarily strong, but it does make a person valuable. Valuable people equal action. Action, if done right, equals a good book. All this depended in the Witch Eyes.

     Sadly, even to the end of the book, I could not fully define a witch, the powers that come with the Witch Eyes, or what is in the supernatural universe of Witch Eyes. At the supernatural bits I would try to reread the explanations on how the supernatural works, but the explanations muddled and explained little or nothing about what I needed to know. I gave up on trying to understand the confusing world of the witches in about halfway through the book, that is when it started getting really confusing.

      Bradon's thoughts could sometimes be funny but also erratic. A thought on hot Abercrombie dude becomes pages on explaining Brandon's gayness. The falling-in-love-with-the-enemy's-son thingy looks hard to mess up on, but the romantic side of the plot got old fast. The OMG, a guy this hot has to be straight phase to the OMG, a gay guy this hot can't be my family's century old rival's son did not do much to make me like or connect with Trey. And because the supernatural was a huge part of the romance I barely understood half of who Trey is. It was confusing about how much of the supernatural world he was actually a part of and why.
    
      It wasn't for me, but the the sarcastic voice of Bandon made me have to read the book through. Although I wont probably pick up the sequel, I could see why die-hard fans of paranormal romance would.



Three stars