Betrayal (The Descendants, #1) [Kindle Edition]

First off let me say that I enjoyed the original story line, and the main character Cordelia. The story drew me into its enticing world and didn't let go of me until the end. I definitely heart Evander.

However, the improper usage of some words began to wear on me. There seemed to be a lot of confusion on the difference between there and their, and past, passed, and pass. I would highly recommend that the author hire a professional editor for her next book, so that the wording can be equal to her storytelling.

I will start by saying I enjoyed this story. The concept seemed like an original take on a fairly common genre, descendants of the Greek gods in more or less modern times. In this story the main character is a descendant of the most powerful god, Zeus but has lost all memory of her power and history. The majority of the book, was her trying to recapture her memories, while trying to navigate herself in this word of demigods that she finds herself in. I liked a lot about this story, from the way there was a whole complex secret empire, to the way even the minor characters felt like they were well thought out and dynamic.

However the biggest problem I had is that this book was in serious need of a good editor. I felt like I was grading a paper written in English by a non native speaker at times, and the author and her editor were unaware of certain conventions in grammar. The incorrect grammar or improper word choice was was often distracting to me, and pulled me right out of the story. Just one example of what I mean would be that she would put a comma after a word like although or however, instead of before when they are in the middle of the sentence i.e. (not a quote from the book)she would say something like "Delia was anxiously awaiting her meeting with Gerald although, she knew she would learn more about her past." To me this was a very confusing structure that would make me stop to figure out what she really meant every time I came across it. And it wasn't just once, which could be a typo, she used this same format every time she wanted to combine her phrases this way throughout the entire book. This is something I would expect a competent editor to catch, since it is not just 1 or 2 typos, or a book being mangled by the conversion to Kindle, this is a systematic misuse of a word or sentence structure. I don't know if i am nitpicking no one else would even notice, but I feel like in some cases the errors made it hard to understand the meaning of a sentence. This kind of thing is a rather big pet peeve for me, and I may be overly critical about it, but it still made it difficult for me to enjoy an otherwise fine book.

Ultimately since it was only $0.99 I am glad I took a chance on a new author and read this book, and I do not want to discourage others from reading it as well, I just want to warn you that if you tend to notice and be distracted by systematic grammar errors, you may want to beware of this one.

"Betrayal" tells the story of Cordelia, a 17-year-old modern girl who is killed within the first few pages, only to be resurrected and sent back to 1891 to be told that she is really a demigod, a descendant of Zeus, and that she needs to stop Victor, the man who killed her in the first place, from assuming power over the empire. But Cordelia can't remember the life she had in 1891, and without her memory, she lacks any power to do what must be done. Many step forward to help her, but she doesn't know who to trust, and time is running out.

"Betrayal" is a page-turner from start to finish. It was refreshing to find a book where the main focus of the story was on Greek myth and characters (instead of angsty vampires). Loved the plot, loved the romance, loved it all. But I had to give it 4 stars because MAN did this book need a decent editor. Way too many grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes for my taste. Gets distracting at times. But I eagerly await the next installment!