Daimon: The Prequel to Half-Blood (Covenant)

I love all things Jennifer Armentrout but I've yet to read the Covenant Series (I know, have I been living under a rock or what?) I signed up for the first day so I could start at the very beginning. Though I was a little disappointed the book was only around 89 pages it was only 0.99 cents....so it was no biggy.Well, WOW. That was the best 0.99 cents I've spent in a very long time. It might be short and sweet but it packs a punch heavier than Mohammed Ali could ever throw. Where to start and explain this? Alex is a half blood, her mother is a Hematoi, which is a pure blood and a child of a God and a Mortal. A Daimon is a pure blood that had turned their backs on the gods and they feed on aether, the life force that ran through both pure and half bloods.Still with me? It gets better. Daimons could use elemental magic to conceal their true selves from mere mortals. Only pure and half bloods can see through it, and witness the full horror of their true appearance. Trust me, you don't want to be out in a dark alley and meet one of these.So,the story starts with Alex and her mother at the Covenant, Alex is being examined by the elderly Hermatoi minister for her suitability. I knew when I read this "'She's nothing more than a pathetic, little half-blood', the ancient women had continued. `I say send her to the Masters. I'm in need of a little girl to clean my toilets.' Then she had twisted her fingers cruelly. And I had kicked her shin." That I knew I was going to like Alex.She is feisty and funny, yet a little self depreciating. After the first chapter we jump to what I presume is 3 years along, Alex and her mother are living in Florida outside of the Covenant. Her mother tells her she should remain free and never go back.On a night out with her boyfriend Matt events spiral and Alex does something she shouldn't. She fears they might have to take flight again, but that turns out not to be her worst problem. The next day all hell breaks loose. Jennifer has a style of writing that suckers you in, grips your heart, then wrenches it right out of your chest. I love it.There is only one thing Alex can do, get herself to the nearest Covenant enclave and hope they take her back. The ride was thrilling, the need for speed optimum. I couldn't breathe. If I was reading a book sparks would've been coming off my fingers the speed I was reading. The ending scene is intense and awesome.For a short 0.5 book it was intense, fiery and full of thrills. You don't want to miss this book. I've no doubt it sets up for Half Blood (which I now have in my possession). For 0.99 what are you waiting for?

Armentrout creates a world that is based on the legend of the Greek gods. The gods get together with mortals and the product of their unions become the pure blood race. Half bloods are the offspring of a pure blood and a mortal. Pure bloods have a substance known as aether in their blood in abundance; halfs have some but not as much as a pure. The aether in their blood causes others to be drawn toward them and also is apparently addictive. Daimons are the aether addicted enemies of the pure and halfs that are created when a pure takes a hit of aether in the blood by choice or force.In this society there is a disparity between the pures and the halfs. The society is governed by the pures and the laws reflect the stance that they take with halfs in their society. While pure bloods may choose their path in life, half bloods are given three choices for their lives they can become sentinels (daimon hunters), guards or slaves to the pures; the later choice being one of the worst options available to them. In this society there are two laws that are heavily enforced: first, no half blood may kill a pure, even in self defense. The second, it is absolutely forbidden for halfs and pures to get together romantically, much less fall in love. The Covenant is a safe haven and boarding school that pure children and those half children destined to become either sentinels or guards are sent to at the age of seven.The main character Alexandria Andros "Alex" is a 17 year old half blood that was taken out of the Covenant, a school for training half bloods and pures, by her mother but she is given no explanation as to why. They hide out in the mortal world for three years until through a series of horrible events Alex is brought back to the Covenant. Alex is a head-strong, reckless girl that acts impulsively. And while she may not mean for terrible things to happen, she finds her impulsive decisions sometimes have far-reaching consequences. She falls for a pure blood but a relationship with this person is strictly forbidden. Relationships are not the only story line to this book.With Daimon fighting and twisting plots there is plenty of action to keep the reader turning the pages. As Alex deals with the knowledge of what she is to become she also suffers incredible loss and the heartache of being in love with someone she that she is forbidden to have a relationship with. Alex shows us that this reckless and impulsive teenager can also have great strength and depth of character. I recommend this series to those readers that liked the "Vampire Academy" series by Richelle Mead.

DAIMON A Prequel to Half-Blood (Covenant) by Jennifer ArmentroutDAIMON is a prequel novella to Jennifer Armentrout's Young Adult Covenant series. A daimon was a pure-blood who developed a taste for aether, and is no longer part of the Covenant. Aether is a component in the blood of this supernatural race and like a drug it is something the daimons crave. DAIMON is a short story that reveals the back-story to Alexandria's return to the Covenant and the half-blood life she thought she knew.Alexandria (Alex) is a 17year old high school student trying to fit into a world where she doesn't belong. As part of a race made up of pure-bloods and the descendants of the gods, Alex is a half-blood. Unwelcome and escaping the daimons in her mother's world, they left and tried to integrate into the human world, but Alex never quite fit in. Too intelligent, too strong and too freaky for the other teens, it didn't take Alex long to become restless and withdrawn.Half-bloods were trained to hunt and destroy the daimons feeding off the pure-bloods. Throughout her time with the Covenant Alex had been trained as a fighter and warrior, but living among humans, her power and ability was too strong, until the morning she awoke to find a daimon draining her mother and all training disappeared. They had been found. On the run for days, Alex will find herself surrounded by daimons, facing her own mortality-only something about her blood was different and the daimons wanted to know.DAIMON is a short story that introduces the premise of Jennifer's Covenant series. Check it out today.Reviewed by Sandysee all of my reviews at : thereadingcafe.com

Daimon is a short introduction book to this new world, we're we meet the young half blood alexandria andros and her pure blood mother.Alex is a snarky and strong girl who's been brought up in fighting at a covenant to train to be a guard or a sentinal until her mother had a reason to run away and hide with her into the human world.This is a exciting and engrossing action packed beginning to a exciting new world of Greeks and gods and lovible characters absolutely recommend reading this first before half blood it gives you the insides of why and what happened before hand.

"It wasn't like I could tell him anything. I could see me now. Guess what? You ever watch Clash of the Titans or read any Greek fables? Well, those gods are real and yeah, I'm sort of a descendant of them. Kind of like the stepchild no one wants to claim. Oh, and I hadn't even been around mortals until three years ago. Can we still be friends?Not going to happen..."The Hematoi are the pure-blood descendants of demigods. They have superiority issues. Kind of understandably. They have godlike powers.The half-bloods are half Hematoi, half human. They have no powers and only two possible options.The first is to be sent to the Masters: basically, they'll be servants for the Hematoi. Joy.The second is the Covenant, where they're trained to be Sentinels and to kill daimons.Half-blood Alexandria chose the daimons route.Until she didn't. Until her mother dragged her out of the Covenant without any kind of explanation.She's been living in the mortal world for three years now, trying to be normal and fit in. She sucks at it. She beats some kids up and gets dumped. Lame.Little does she know that's the best part of her week.Suddenly she's alone and on the run, hunted by daimons, the beings she was once trained to kill.With nowhere else for her to go, Alex has only one choice. She has to return to the place she fled from, without knowing why she had to leave and whether returning is any safer than staying away...Those of you who follow my blog may know that I am the biggest Jennifer Armentrout fan on earth. So I've been absolutely desperate to get stuck into her Covenant series for soooo long! When I got the series for my birthday I did a crazy happy dance all over the place. And then I stopped and picked Daimon right up. I loved it. Like seriously freaking loved it. Jennifer is a book goddess - her books are always freaking amazing and always completely addictive. Daimon, whilst only a novella, was no different. It was brilliant - a read-in-one-go little novella. It also left me totally desperate for Half-Blood - thank gods I have it!And Alex was brilliant - so totally kickass! She was a mixture of all my favourite book heroines: tough, vulnerable, funny, sarcastic, witty, brave, loyal, stubborn, kinda violent, in love with totally the wrong guy. She made me laugh and then I hurt right along with her. I can't wait to read more about Alex!And Aiden, from what I've seen from the Half-Blood extract, anyway: Yum. All I'm gonna say. I think that says enough.But this world: loved it! I know it's often been compared to Vampire Academy, and sure there are similarities. You have the magic 'pure bloods' and the 'half-bloods' that serve and protect them. There's a school where the half-bloods train to kill. The only other option for them is less than desirable. There are the 'bad guys' that they could turn into - sorta similar to Strigoi. One of the half-bloods on the run - a sarcastic and impulsive half-blood. So, yeah. Similarities. But also just as many differences. There are gods - awesome. These pure-bloods fight - awesome. The magic is different - and awesome. And so on and so on. Basically everything was awesome - too awesome, really, for the word awesome. It really combined some of the most brilliant aspects of two of my favourite series: Vampire Academy and Percy Jackson. We had the Greek gods and their demigod descendants along with Hematoi, half-bloods, daimons and the Covenant. I just loved this world to freaking pieces!Daimon is only like sixty-something pages long but a hell of a lot happens in these few chapters. More than enough to leave a girl chomping at the bit for more! It was all very fast-paced, but not so much that anything was taken away from the world-building. And already I'm having a sneaking suspicion that I'm desperate to learn more about - like right now! And the writing, as ever with Jennifer, was amazing. I really got a feel of Alex and was laughing along with her and then feeling my heart break a little bit (a lot, really...). I've already fallen for Alex. I'm starting to fall (hard) for Aiden, even from hints throughout the novella and from that one-chapter extract of Half-Blood from the back of the novella. I'm more than one-hundred-percent in love with this world.So this all leads down to two closing statements:One: Read Daimon. It's awesome. I loved it so much. I don't care if you're worried it's too like VA - it's just too good to care! Even from this little novella I can tell this. It's official Armentrout. That is, absa-freaking-amazing.Two: Where'd I put my copy of Half-Blood? I need it right right now. Gimme. *grabby hands* I need more right now now now. I have titanium and I will use it if you don't give me my book. And if you guys don't read this series. And I'm totally giving all of you deadly serious looks right now.Don't make me set a daimon or something on you. Not sure how I'd do it, but I'd find a way. And that's a promise.

ISBN: 9780983157267Publisher: Spencer Hill PressPages: 67Formats Available: Kindle, paperbackBLURB from GoodreadsFor three years, Alexandria has lived among mortals--pretending to be like them and trying to forget the duty she'd been trained to fulfill as a child of a mortal and a demigod. At seventeen, she's pretty much accepted that she's a freak by mortal standards... and that she'll never be prepared for that duty.According to her mother, that's a good thing.But as every descendant of the gods knows, Fate has a way of rearing her ugly head. A horrifying attack forces Alex to flee Miami and try to find her way back to the very place her mother had warned her she should never return--the Covenant. Every step that brings her closer to safety is one more step toward death... because she's being hunted by the very creatures she'd once trained to kill.The daimons have found her.MY REVIEWI purchased this prequel from Amazon.co.uk after Kayleigh - a fellow blogger literally raved about this series. also Spence Hill Press sent me a paperback copy of Deity! So it spurred me on to buy the previous books to it to enable me to review the series.So, I knew that Aiden was ...er gorgeous but when JLA describes his eyes oh wow! Talk about a dreamy kind of guy, and he only has a brief appearance in this novella. So now the cover, is a flower that has a kind of smoke of Aether coming off it, I find it attractive and like the colour too. It does tie into the book as flowers are mentioned so thats, good too.Anyhow back to the book, I did enjoy the plot, the Academy setting always seems to work really well. Though in this book we meet Alexandria and her mother Raschelle. They have been left the safety of the academy for three years now. everything seems to be going to Raschelle's plan whatever her plan is. She won't even tell Alexandria why they had to leave the Academy so quickly.There's a tragic attack that forces Alex into making the decision that she must make her way back to the Academy. Will she reach the "safety" of the Academy alone, or will she be attacked along the way.A great short novella, that introduces us to Alexandria and her mother, along with providing us with the knowledge that they left the academy under somewhat of a cloud and in a hurry.The novella sets the scene for the rest of the series.So did I enjoy it? Yes Will I read more of the series? Of course! Would I recommend? At this stage I want to read some of the first full book first, but pushed into a yes or no....hmm Yes

I managed to get the first book in the series `Half-Blood' for review and I wasn't too sure if to start this pre-sequel before or after I'd read it. As you can tell, I went with before.....and yeah! I'm so glad did.This short story introduces us to Alex, a young who has been living in the human world with her mother for three years after fleeing the covenant. Alex isn't like normal girls; she's half human, half god making her a half-blood. When Alex's mother is suddenly killed by Damions, Alex has no choice but to go on the run. With no other options she plans to return to the place that she once fled, but her journey doesn't become as easy as she once thought. Damions are quickly on her trail, leaving her in a very dangerous situation with no-one to help.I really enjoyed this. Even though this pre-sequel is only like 70 pages, I was surprised by how quickly I was swept up into the world of Damions and Gods. I instantly liked the characters and the world that has been created and I found myself really interested to learn more.Our main character Alex is a fighter and a strong minded one at that. Losing her mother was unexpected and it was honestly really sad to read about. I felt all the emotions she was going through and l felt sorry that she can't mourn her mother's death like a regular person can before all the craziness starts again.As Alex's journey unfolds, I was really excited to see what happens but then WHAM! The story ends on a massive cliff-hanger! For the people who have read this and do not have a copy of Half-Blood yet, I feel for you......I'm dying to know what happens next so I can't imagine what it feels like for you having to wait until September.Overall, this is an exciting short journey that will leave you begging for more. Jennifer Armentrout has managed to captive me in just a short amount of time, leaving me excited to start Half-Blood and I'm so glad I have my copy ready and waiting.

I was unsure which of JLA series to read next but the moment I started Daimon I just knew I was going to love the Covenant series. I loved that we got a little window into the Alex as she was when she lived among mortals. We got a wonderful glimpse into the world of the Covenant and honestly by the end of this novella I was already totally in love with Alex.