To begin, Mortality Bound sounded right up my alley. Written by S.W. Clarke and Ramy Vance, there were demigods, immortals, humans, struggle, a bit of love and one kick-ass heroine. The main protagonist is a 500-year-old “Encantado” who can shift her form. She is dating a human male who has had his DNA spliced with a handful of other immortal beings because he wanted to not be “weak”. There is also the set of 3 cupids, the main one you interact with in the first book is, of course, Cupid of Eros and finally, you have Hercules himself who appears as the final member of the main group.
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A Quick Backstory of Mortality Bound…
Mortality Bound begins in a time where all the immortals, including the Olympian Gods, have “fallen” from Olympus and become mortal beings on their last life, living it on Earth. The series rolls around the theory of the main 500-year-old girl being a geneticist who holds the key to the immortals regaining their immortality by way of reproduction; which is apparently currently impossible. So, the girl and her group of “beings” begin their journey. But the girl and her spliced human boyfriend are being chased by the girl’s previous boss, a woman who is doing the genetic testing on humans with the immortal DNA. She is the one who created the spliced genes for the boyfriend.
Okay, so they are on the run from Canada and cross into America. The girl gets shot with a dart that prohibits her from changing her form so she is now stuck in the current look she has sported for the escape. So far, Mortality Bound is good. There is enough action to keep me interested and the devotion between the girl and her boyfriend appears to be unbreakable. So, they get to a motel in America after a run-in with a monster sent to kill them. They are aided in the kill when you are introduced to Cupid of Eros for the first time. Cupid is described as you could immediately imagine; a young boy with cherub looks wearing a loincloth “diaper” and a bow with a quiver of arrows. Cupid aids in removing the monster from the picture; the boyfriend is unconscious in the backseat of the car because of a side-effect of his spliced genes and the girl rents two rooms at the motel.
I will be honest, I am a little annoyed now because the girl is supposed to be 500 year old magical woman and she is acting like a 17 year old girl who is a bit naïve and the boyfriend is always angry that he is “weak” so he comes off as whiney and incompetent. Cupid, thankfully, provides the smallest comic relief.
Hercules Appears
Suddenly, a “man” appears in the story who is “built like a god with chiseled features that any artist would want to sculpt” … blah, blah, blah. This man turns out to be Hercules who kills the monster from the car chase because it is one of his “trials” he must complete. You all know the story… It turns out, because the boyfriend killed the birds of Hercules’ first trial, they are now fated and tied to each other. If one gets injured or dies, so does the other.
Honestly, at this point I am still reading Mortality Bound just because I am almost halfway through the book and I have never been too picky in the past.
In the end, the book concludes with them running from the antagonist boss, getting to New York, finding the Oracle, getting told some stories, fighting the nymphs who guard Hera’s Garden, going to Hera’s Garden for the apple Hercules must find (ironically found in “The Big Apple’s” Central Park), defeating a 100 headed dragon, getting found again by the bad boss, getting away from the bad boss, finding out the motivating force behind the bad boss is her paralyzed child who she is trying to “fix” with the genes of the immortals she is testing and it ends when they get to a resistance house where they will be “safe”.
I can honestly conclude that this first novel annoyed me more than most. The main character who is supposed to be old acts like she is a teenager and the other characters just aren’t well introduced and built-up. I began the second novel where they are discovered…again… by the bad boss and escape in different directions for unknown reasons and they remove a second tracking device and end up at a train station where they …… you guessed it…. Are found again! At that point, I will be honest with you all, I gave up. I couldn’t do it anymore. The way the author created the story just wasn’t my style. It was simple when dealing with the complex stories of demigods, gods, immortal beings, genetic testing, etc. Perhaps this series is great for some readers who can glaze over certain aspects of mythology, but I am a big fan of mythology and I couldn’t keep torturing myself.
Is Mortality Bound Worth the Grind?
Typically, I am great at reading through some icky parts of a book to get to the good storyline, especially when I have a box set of not 1-3 but of 1-5 of the books, I am fully capable of “grinding” through it and giving it a chance. But honestly, I just couldn’t with this series. It sounded so mysterious with the tagline “Mythical creatures are real and the world is just finding out.” However, I was extremely disappointed. Sure, the characters sound sexy and confident with a good sense of humor, but I didn’t feel that way reading through the first book. It was fast-paced and the action was what kept my light on, not the story itself; and I am a girl who loves the story.
I want to be pulled into the world I am reading, to feel like I am the shadow of the characters themselves, but the writing style of this series just didn’t do it for me. I know there are certainly big fans of the GoneGod world that Clarke and Vance have created, but I sadly am not one of them. Perhaps after some time has gone by, I will try a different series written by these two authors set in this same world, or even I will feel brave enough to try this series out again. Like I said before, after some time. I do know there is another boxed set called Mortality Bites by Ramy Vance and it has the same tagline. Perhaps in a few months you will read a review on that series as well.
I wish I was able to read all five books. Certainly, with five books I could have been pulled into the world to go on these adventures with the characters. Maybe I was just not quite in the right mind-set to fully enjoy them. Either way, I was both happy and disappointed with the Mortality Bound Boxed Set. Happy because I got to experience the frustration of expecting to love a series when reality turned out a bit different and disappointed because I was really excited to enter this world where myth and legend has become a part of reality. Alas, I will just have to wait until the next read to get what I hope is a new world I can enter, fall in love with and join in on adventure!
Final Thoughts
I hope you guys are enjoying your current reads and I hope this may have helped you decide to give this book/series a try or not. Reading books is just like viewing art or listening to music. Sometimes it connects and sometimes it doesn’t. Feel free to comment any books, novels or shorts you have either enjoyed or been disappointed in. Until then… it’s time for another book…
If you enjoyed this, please check out my Curiosities on other Fantasy books!
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