Romeo Redeemed - Stacey Jay

Synopsis: All will be revealed for fans who have breathlessly awaited the sizzling sequel to Juliet Immortal. This time Romeo takes center stage and gets one chance, and one chance only, to redeem himself.
Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo, known for his ruthless, cutthroat ways, is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland. Unbeknownst to her, Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart. (From Goodreads)

I'm SO bummed. I loved Juliet Immortal mostly because I've always hated the story of Romeo and Juliet. Two idiot kids who think they're in love can't be together and kill themselves. Yeah, that's dumb. So I was excited when someone came along and reiterpreted it to turn Romeo into a bad guy who basically dooms Juliet on purpose. I love thinking of Romeo as evil. But he's repentant in this book, and he acts like a victim, and he gets a chance to be happy. And now I hate this Romeo.

I have a lot of issues with this book actually. First, it was way weird that Romeo is falling for Ariel - the girl whose body Juliet last inhabited. That gave me the heebie-jeebies. And to be honest, I kind of hated Ariel too. She's almost too full of teen angst and in the beginning it seems like she plays the pity-me card more often than she needs to. More than once I wanted to tell her to get a grip.

And I was so not okay with their relationship. Romeo is all - I've done bad things, I don't deserve this. And Ariel is all - I don't care what you've done, I just want to be with you. UM. You should definitely care what Romeo has been up to the last few centuries. Maybe people deserve second chances, but if someone I had just started seeing told me he had a shady past, I'd defintely want to know what I'm dealing with. Plus, Romeo is sticky sweet - I rolled my eyes so many times a the words coming out of his mouth. I know his life depends on making her fall in love, but come on. Although she does fall for it - which kind of makes me think she loves him just because he's giving her attention.

Ugh, I sound so cynical. Sorry for the rant. There are a few things I liked - the best parts of this book were the moments Juliet got. I very much enjoy her - probably because we're both a little cranky and completely hate Romeo. I think it's really cool how everything ties back to the initial incident in Verona and the Shakespeare cast of characters makes some sort of appearance. It was also interesting when Romeo would talk about his Verona family and his memories before he became a Mercenary.

So yeah. I'm really sad that Romeo Redeemed didn't live up to Juliet Immortal. I really wish she had stopped after Juliet. I kind of want to pretend this book didn't happen and pretend this story ends with the ending of Juliet Immortal, because that makes my cyncical self so much happier.

Juliet Immortal - Stacey Jay

Synopsis: Juliet Capulet didn't take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, a sacrifice made to ensure his own immortality. But what Romeo didn't anticipate was that Juliet would be granted eternity, as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light. For 700 years, she's fought Romeo for the souls of true lovers, struggling to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent. Until the day she meets someone she's forbidden to love, and Romeo, oh Romeo, will do everything in his power to destroy that love.


This was one of my most highly anticipated books this summer and here's why: I freaking hate Romeo and Juliet. I think that they were both complete idiots and they were just both so willing to throw their lives away for each other when they'd only known each other for a short amount of time and mistook lust and like for love. I mean it would be different if Romeo died saving her from an evil monster or something, but  no, they just died because they couldn't be together. Stupid idiot kids.


So that's why I got so excited when I saw that Stacey Jay wrote this version where Romeo turned evil and murdered Juliet so he could live an immortal life. I loved that Shakespeare's version was mentioned as a recording of an event that Romeo shaped to his own purposes.


Basically, the "true" story is Romeo murdered Juliet so he was granted an eternal life: his catch is that he has to thwart soul mates (something that usually ended in death. Oh, and the girl he murdered, Juliet, was found right before she died and became a part of an ancient group called the Ambassadors of Light. So she gets to stick around for eternity too, following Romeo around making sure his plans don't work. So each time a soulmate is in danger, the two enter the bodies of people around the soul mates and he fights to keep them apart and she fights to make sure the stay together.


It's all been going well, but this time around Juliet falls in love. And oh my gosh, this leads to one of my favorite endings. I kind of saw it coming, but it still made me do a happy dance. I obviously won't tell you what the ending is,  but I can say that this is a version Shakespeare should have written. It's not so aggravating.


There were moments I felt sorry for Romeo, because things aren't working out so well for him. He's finding out that the deal he took has a lot of fine print that's making him suffer. But at the end of the day, he's an idiot (both Shakespeare and Stacey Jay's versions) and he deserves it.
The best way to describe this book is Romeo and Juliet for pessimists. It's almost a demonstration that soul mates exist, but it definitely shows that just because it's meant to be doesn't mean it's going to work out.