{Short Story Sunday} Review: Elemental by Brigid Kemmerer

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Short stories are awesome.  They give us in-depth insight into characters, providing anecdotal proof of why some characters are they way they are.  They entertain by creating a certain mood or focusing on a singular effect...some instance in a previous body of work (or one to follow) that might have been glossed over or ignored completely in a longer novel. 

And so, every Sunday for the foreseeable future, I would like to highlight short stories and novellas set in worlds I've already come to love and learn a little more about some of the secondary characters in my favorite novels.  I'll be underscoring some of my favorite aspects of these short works of fiction, in addition to offering up a mini review of each work.

This week I'm featuring a prequel story as part of the Elementals Read Along:

Title: Elemental
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Series: Elementals, book #0.5
Publisher: Kensington/KTeen
Publication Date: March 27, 2012
Source: free from Kensington (promo code VCARD), also appears in back of some copies of Storm
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Earth, Fire, Air, Water – they are more than you dream.

As an air Elemental, 17-year-old Emily Morgan doesn’t have much power. That’s okay—she knows what happens to kids who do.

Like Michael Merrick. He’s an earth Elemental, one with enough power to level cities. Which makes him sexy. Dangerous. And completely off limits. At least according to Emily’s family.

But her summer job puts her in close contact with Michael, and neither of them can help the attraction they feel. When forces of nature like theirs collide, one misstep could get someone killed. Because Emily’s family doesn’t just want her to stay away from him.

They want him dead.

This prequel novella set in the Elementals world introduces us to the eldest Merrick brother Michael.  I think it's rather fitting that the last brother to get his own full-length novel is the very first one we meet, assuming we're reading the whole series in chronological order.  (And I am...reviews of each novella and full-length novel are forthcoming as part of our read along.)

Michael's family lives in fear that they're going to be discovered for what they are...by Emily's family and those like them.  So, there's quite a bit of animosity already brewing between these characters before we even meet them.  A chance encounter gone wrong leaves big brother Merrick in an even more precarious situation.  But he is resolute, and despite any internal conflict, he takes his chances with Emily.

I love good banter.  I'm pretty much guaranteed to love any relationship that starts with this.  And although this is a short story and I didn't get to spend enough time with the characters to see the romance fully develop, I know I would have shipped it.  Because not only was there banter, but they outgrew their bias of each other over the short period covered in this story.

So, I read this as a precursor to the Elementals Read Along spanning April and May.  I am one of the Elementals Virgins, and I vowed to lose my v-card to the Merrick boys.  I think I got to first base with this novella.  I haven't learned a ton about Michael or any of the brothers, but this short story served as a great introduction to the series, and I feel like I've been properly initiated into the Elementals world.


Rating:  

Elementals series

About the author:

Brigid Kemmerer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, though her parents quickly moved her all over the United States, from the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the lakeside in Cleveland, Ohio, and several stops in between, eventually settling near Annapolis, Maryland. Brigid started writing in high school, and her first real “novel” was about four vampire brothers causing a ruckus in the suburbs. Those four brothers are the same boys living in the pages of The Elemental Series, so Brigid likes to say she’s had four teenage boys taking up space in her head for the last seventeen years. (Though sometimes that just makes her sound nuts.)

Brigid Kemmerer finds the time to write somewhere between caring for her family and working at her day job, but sometimes she ends up mothering her coworkers and managing her family. Storm: The Elemental Series was her first novel.

Find Brigid:

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