Rowena’s review of Sweet Venom (Sweet Venom Trilogy, Book 1) by Tera Lynn Childs.

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.

Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they’re triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful Gorgon maligned in myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.

This is the second book by Tera Lynn Childs that I’ve read and it was a quick read that I really enjoyed. I’ve never been much of a Medusa fan but I can totally see myself as a fan of the girls in this book, well most of the girls from this book. Right now, I’m not much of a Greer fan but I’m sure that will change over the course of the series which I’m super excited to read.

In this book, we meet Gretchen, Grace and Greer. Three sisters that are descendants of Medusa of Greek mythology who meet for the first time in this book. Each sister brings something different to the table and Gretchen is the fighter, the sister who knows all about the monsters that go bump in the night. She knows how to fight them and has been training to fight them for a long time with her mentor, Ursala. Then there’s Grace, the peacemaker of the trio of sisters. She’s been seeing these monsters in her dreams and when Gretchen enlightens her on what they are and what they do, Grace wants to learn all she can to help defend herself and innocent people from them and though there were times when Grace made me roll my eyes down the street because she was so naive, I had to keep reminding myself that she was a teenager and that’s how they think. Then there’s Greer. Greer, who I wanted to strangle because she’s the bratty teen that doesn’t want to have anything to do with whatever Gretchen and Grace has going on. She’s the one that fought them at every turn but you could tell that she would come around when she was good and ready to. Of the three, Gretchen was my favorite because she was just so kick ass. She wasn’t perfect but she’d kick your ass if you said so and I loved that about her.

This story is about bringing three sisters together to fight the bad guys. It’s action packed and just a smooth read that you won’t have trouble falling into. I’m mighty intrigued by everything that’s going on and I’m looking forward to seeing the sisters grow closer and closer together, especially Gretchen and Greer. The way that those two bumped heads throughout this book, I’m looking forward to seeing their relationship evolve. I know it’s going to make for some good reading.

I loved how each sister brought something different to the table as far as the story went and I really enjoyed seeing them deal with the new path their lives have taken. They’re each dealing with different things and they’re trying to find their footing and I’m looking forward to more as the series continues. They’re not going to be able to move forward without all three of them providing a united front so it’s going to be real interesting to see how this all pans out and man am I excited! I think Childs did a wonderful job of sucking the reader into this new world that she’s created for these sisters.

All in all, this is a wonderful introduction into a series that I think I’m going to really enjoy. I enjoyed the writing, the characters and the overall story so I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested. It’s going on my keepers shelf and I’m anxious for more.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

This book is available from Harper Teen. You can buy it here or here in e-format.