The Kings of Charleston by Kat H. Clayton

I participated in the blog tour hosted by Giselle from Xpresso Book Tours

Title: The Kings of Charleston
Author: Kat H. Clayton
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: July 10th, 2012
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 348
Format: Electronic Copy
Acquired: From Author
Interest: Series
Age Group: Young Adult

Casper Whitley is forced to move to Charleston, South Carolina where she’ll be the new kid her senior year of high school. Casper’s upset about the move until she meets the Roman family’s gorgeous son, Cal, but there’s a problem. A mystery surrounds him which can be summed up in one word…Kythera. Never heard of it? Neither has Casper until she finds the word tattooed on cars, paintings and all her new friends.

After Casper’s life is threatened, someone is forced to tell the truth about her parents, the Romans and Kythera’s motives for her being in Charleston. Once the truth is revealed, she must decide whether to protect her family and Kythera’s secrets or walk away from everything she has ever known

A fun mixture of romance and mystery all thrown together into one big novel, where a central theme keeps asking the same question and wondering what is going on.

When Casper moves to Charleston, South Carolina she finds more there than what she had originally anticipated, especially when it comes to Cal and his family. And when it comes to the town as a whole and the one mysterious word: Kythera.

Why I liked the mystery aspect of this so well is that Clayton didn't say that 2+ blank = 5. She gave an entire equation into the mystery instead of laying it out for the reader to see, and that added to the tangled mystery and how it worked to the benefit of the story as a whole.

Her writing, on top of that, was amazing. The words connected and drew the readers in from page one. The one thing that kept going was on what Kythera meant, and just who was Casper herself.

And of course the story between Casper and Cal - well, I'm always a sucker for a good romance. 

While there were a lot of great aspects to the story, some parts left me a little shaky. One of them had to deal with the characters. Her writing was well, but sometimes I kept going back to the characters and seeing that there wasn't much development at all. While resolutions may have happened, I didn't see the growth that I would have liked.

And I think what set my teeth on edge a little was what happened in the end. I know this is a series, especially since book 2 is about to be released, so I wasn't expecting the wrap up that happened in this book until the last one or at least to let it hang over into the second novel. Yet, Clayton closed up like that was the final and even beginning a new plot, or at least from where I stood that's how it felt like.

Despite these moments, I still found the book enjoyable enough to make it to the end and even anticipate the second book.