I love an amnesia trope,but it's very difficult to do it correctly - but this author just about managed it.

It starts off as a very action-based thriller, which is what I'd been expecting from the blurb, but relatively quickly allof this dies down and it becomes very character-focused, with the mystery subplot simmering quietly under the surface.

This wasn't much of a problem, because the characters and their internal conflict were excellently written and there was a lot of focus on Vax finding himself, and the aftermath of his ordeal. But I think what would have pushed this book into 'excellent' territory is if there had been more of an actual mystery, with more plot twists and Big Revelations. It's clear this is more of a character-based book than a plot-based one, so this didn't hinder the book massiely, but the balance was perhaps tipped just a little too much into character-driven.

3.5 Stars

Eidolon felt more like a Part I and Part II to me, as the tones and pacing of the first half were completely different than the focus and feelings of the second. Part I had more of a sci-fi action/thriller focus, wherein the MCs are uncovering the corruption of Cyrex Corp. while simultaneously discovering Vax’s unremembered past. It was fast paced and there was a threat hanging over their heads. Part II focused on the aftermath, and Eidolon shifts to more of a melancholic tone and feel as Vax and Zai attempt to comes to terms with and work through the revealed truth and repercussions of all they learned.

Through the first half of the book, I was enthralled with the action and mystery aspect of the story. Though the hidden truth of Vax is not necessarily a surprise, the figuring out of the how and why kept me wanting to know more. As they raced the clock as well as assassins to figure out the levels of deceit and corruption within Cyrex, I was glued to every word. The tension between Zai and Vax is palpable—Vax the assassin versus Zai the crusader of truth—their professions keeping them on opposite sides, but the situation forcing them to unite against a common enemy. There initially is little respect, but then, as they spend time together, the coldness thaws and a slow burn begins to simmer.

The second half of the story slowed down, the mystery of Cyrex was uncovered, and Vax is faced with a lot of information hidden from him as well as him finally admitting to the abuse he endured under their employ. No more action, no more mystery, there was just coping with what was left, dealing with everything that was unearthed. It was unexpected and then threw me off. I kept expecting the action to pick back up. I was anxiously awaiting someone or something to surface, bringing the Cyrex drama to the surface, but it didn’t happen. The story stayed at a mellow pace, continuing to explore the mental toll and impact of everything that happened. Told from Vax’s perspective, it delves into a deep and harsh subject matter. There are dark thoughts, depression and PTSD are at the forefront, and Vax finally confronting memories and his truth of being a victim rather than forcing the horrible memories into a box and locking them away. Vax struggles. Zai struggles. They try to find their footing in their new situation and where to go from there, both as individuals and in their forming friendship, which includes romantic feelings.

While there is a developing relationship and romance, there is no sex. One of the characters is Ace, so the relationship is explored through different methods. Since sex mattered next to nil to Zai and Vax, there wasn’t the constant referencing in their mental dialogue about bedroom activities, which I actually appreciated. Sometimes it can get a big daunting when the prose is littered with intimate acts, or the protagonists imagining the physical intimate acts, but there was no doubt there was a romance between them, and I respected the way that the relationship was portrayed. While their chemistry wasn’t physical, the connection was felt mentally and emotionally; it was just as impactful.

My biggest concern is the unexpected shift on the focus. It almost felt as though I was reading two different books, one being sci-fi/suspense while the other is a more of a contemporary romance with a darker edge even though they were both told from Vax’s perspective. I had gone in expecting action and suspense throughout the story, and while it was there, it was wrapped up rather quickly and then moved in a completely different direction—one I wasn’t completely prepared for.

Both parts, told separately, were well written and engaging for different reasons. Together, it didn’t quite flow well. Shoot outs, assassination attempts, running for their lives and going into risky situations all of a sudden came to an abrupt halt and the pace slows immediately, the focus more on mental health and recovery for Vax and Zai. The transition was jarring, and I kept waiting for something more to happen since it felt as though it was wrapped up a little too quickly and cleanly. As the story proceeded and no further action or suspense was revealed, I felt let down.

Despite the dramatic shift in focus at about the halfway point, and the fact I felt a little let down by the lack of action in the last half, I found myself enthralled by this well written spec fic, and I truly appreciated a different type of romance being presented. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

I knew I wanted to read Eidolon when I heard there was an ownvoices asexual main character, and I loved the premise. However, there were some major faults with the execution in this story which kept it from being as great as it could have been.

[su_quote style="modern-orange" cite="Goodreads" url=”GOODREADS LINK TO YOUR BOOK"]

When bioaugmentation giant Cyrex Corp sends Vax to assassinate journalist Zai Lumero, he thinks it’ll be a straightforward job. With his bioaugments, he's never botched a job before. But when Vax unexpectedly fails his assignment, he finds himself on Cyrex's hit list as well.

The last thing Vax wants is to partner with a justice crusader who hates his profession, but he doesn't have a choice. Zai is the only one who can expose Cyrex's secrets and take the company down. And what starts as mutual hostility soon gives way to Vax's grudging admiration for Zai's determination...and possibly something more.

Yet as they race against time to unearth Cyrex’s secrets, it’s also clear to Vax that Zai is hiding something from him. And the closer Vax gets to finding out Zai’s secret, the more he suspects that the truth might destroy him. [/su_quote]

I received an eARC of Eidolon via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Eidolon needs trigger warnings for assassination attempts, mentions of repeated sexual assault, gaslighting, amnesia, medical tests, mentions of torture, self-medicating, estranged parents, and PTSD attacks.

I loved the science fiction and mystery aspects of Eidolon, but it kind of failed me on the romance front, and a little bit on the asexual front.

I wished that the augmentation aspect was given more history, and the reaction of the world to it as they develop. It would have helped the world feel a lot more real for me in this near-future world.

We don't learn that Vax is asexual until literally the last five percent of the book, because he doesn't remember that he is asexual. I didn't love the way it was handled.

Mild Spoilers Ahead
Vax thinks that he's broken because of his head injury, or because of past sexual assaults, and Zai is the one to tell him that he was always asexual and uninterested in sex.

Zai's exact response to Vax saying he couldn't have sex was "I thought that might be the case. I'm fine with that. It wouldn't make things that different from how they used to be."

There's nothing necessarily wrong with the interaction, but the context around it bothered me in a way that I can't let go.

Overall, I didn't really feel Zai falling in love with who Vax actually was. I can't really go into it too much without spoiling a major plot point, but it felt rushed, while the rest of the book dragged on around it.

I felt like there was at least one subplot that could have been cut to make this a much more enjoyable read. However, I did otherwise enjoy the story. If this sounds more up your alley, pick up a copy on Amazon!

[su_box title="ABOUT EIDOLON" style="default" box_color="#ff4400" title_color="#f2f2f2" radius="3" class=""]

Title: Eidolon

Author: E.S. Yu

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: August 20, 2018

Rating: ★★★ / Three stars

Genre: Science Fiction/Mystery

Representation: ownvoices chinese american love interest, ownvoices asexual main character, ownvoices mental illness rep, bisexual love interest

[/su_box]

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Disclaimer: All links to Indiebound and Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy through those links, LFAI will make a small amount of money off of the sale.

This is a mystery thriller set in our near future. It's LGBTQ but not necessarily romance.

Vax is a hired assassin working for one of the big corporations spearheading implants and bio-augmentation. Zai is a journalist uncovering the corporation's shady dealings. When the hit on Zai goes sideways, the two of them end up on the run together.

What I liked most about the story is the near future world it describes. What I liked least is the mystery. I felt like I had most of it figured out pretty early on. I liked the characters although they were sort of simplistic.

Overall this is a pleasant, if not a heart stopping, mystery thriller.

I enjoyed the futuristic rollercoaster ride E.S. Yu took me on with Eidolon. Loved the quirky romance wrapped up in a mystery novel. I felt the story ended too quickly and more could have been done to establish more of the backstory of the corporate experiments but overall I enjoyed the story.

This is probably more of a 2.5 rounded up because while I liked the characters and general premise the pace of the plot was just sooo slooow. I was expecting a pretty fast-paced thriller but most of the page time is just the two main characters sitting around talking [about their feelings or about some plot point/reveal that they should honestly have already figured out]. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that but I personally like a more action-driven plot so I definitely found myself getting bored sometimes [especially at the end where it went on for several chapters after the final fight was taken care of]. I did like the characters though and I liked that one of them was asexual [although it's not really discussed much until the end]. It's an okay read, but someone with more patience than me would probably get more out of it.

What would you do if you woke up one day without any memory of your past? Could you become a completely different person, a contract killer? The plot of this book is interesting, but a little slow to develop. Vax's story is compelling, but the MM romantic aspect of the story felt lacking, maybe it was just because I didn't connect emotionally with the characters.


Please note, I received a copy of this book from NetGalley, but had no impact on my review.

The book caught my attention with two magic words: assassin and asexual.

Eidolon is a sci-fi book about an assassin who was hired to kill a journalist investigating the company the assassin is working for. When he tried do his job, he was in for nasty surprise.

Vax, the assassin doesn’t seem to be hard-core and deadly. He seemed more like a harassed salaryman trying to get the job done and get the boss off his back. His boss being Atali Norman, CEO of Cyrex and one hell of a manipulative bastard. When Vax was confronting Atali, I was like, just shoot him already! Don’t talk to him, he will mindfuck you! Vax then proceeded to prove himself human.

Zai, the crusading journalist, is out to uncover the nasty secrets of bioaugmentation companies.I liked that he is very dedicated to his job. Meeting Vax was like meeting a ghost but that doesn’t stop him from involving Vax in doing what he set out to do. There were a LOT of complications, personal and otherwise but Zai was, if anything, determined to do good so he made it work.

I think this should really be two stories. First is the sci-fi dystopian thread where humans were augmented with electronic parts for medical purposes or more insidiously to create super soldiers and spies. This is a fast read and the writing was easy to go through. I liked the world building here. It was not bogged down by info-dump but relevant bits and pieces were mentioned here and there that mesh naturally to create a good picture of the futuristic city of Orphis. There was a big mystery and some action scenes. This part by itself makes for an interesting read.

The second part was a hurt-comfort story about a man trying to deal with PTSD, depression and amnesia. This had a more contemporary feel, the futuristic elements were insignificant and barely mentioned. I liked how the mental issue and the asexuality were handled. I felt the friendship more than the romantic spark between Vax and Zai. I think Vax is in dire need of friends right now although their relationship had a good potential to be so much more exciting had the story been solely about second chances and dealing with mental illness.

Overall, I wasn’t blown away but I liked the story. The sci-fi elements were done nicely, the mystery was intriguing enough to hold my attention, the premise was interesting and the prose is uncomplicated. However, the first part and the second part seemed disconnected and I would have preferred two different stories if not a better transition/connection between the sci-fi mystery and the drama part.

P.S.

I received a copy of Eidolon from Ninestar Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating:
3 Stars - not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked it

Soundtrack: Someone Great
Artist: LCD Soundsystem
Album: Sound of Silver

Eidolon is one of those books which really ought to have worked for me but, in the end, came up short - this was mostly because it felt as though the author was trying to do way too many things. As the plot went along, new elements got thrown into the mix every so often until it was all a little bit unwieldy and also pretty much unresolvable by the end of the book. I really liked the cover, though, I have to say!

The book is set in the near-future, where brain and body augments are pretty much commonplace, and where a moustache-twirlingly villainous CEO sends an augmented assassin after a journalist who's been sticking his nose into the company business a little too much. The assassin in question has all the latest technology but is still unable to do what he's being paid for and ends up eventually on the run in the company of said journalist after the CEO sends yet more killers on their trail. So far, so good, even if the assassin (Vax) is woefully crap at his job in the first place, in order to progress the plot.

The plot thickens when Vax discovers that he is the spitting image of his target's dead boyfriend and he, conveniently, can't remember anything about his past either. Now I love a good amnesia plot and there's plenty here for me to get my teeth into, except that this is only one of the things that's getting explored here. Neither main character completely convinced me and there's just too much effort put into making sure there's some kind of happy ending to be completely convincing.

Likewise, while it's also revealed at the end that one of our main characters is asexual, that just drops out of nowhere with pretty much no foreshadowing at all. As a result, it feels a bit like 'well, here's an excuse for no sex' whereas I really don't think that was the author's intention. So, all in all Eidolon kept me turning the pages but never completely convinced me that it couldn't have done with a little more editing in terms of pruning out a number of the themes that kind of strangled the overall story.

Hmm, this book was interesting, but it started to feel like it was being dragged out. There are several points were there seems to be filler scenes, just to show time passing rather than saying time passed and getting to next point. This in and off itself isn’t a bad thing, but I think there were just too many of them, especially in the second half of the book when majority of the action was done and it was more getting to milestones do healing for Vax.

I was excited for this book when I saw MC was asexual, and it has an interesting premise. And the beginning of the book was interesting and drew me in, but as the Big Bad situation got resolved the entire tone of the story shifted from action/thriller to healing love story. That dramatic shift made me feel like the second half of the book dragged.

That said, I actually really enjoyed the way healing was handled and the development of relationship between Vax and Zai. Their history is explored and how Vax’s amnesia affects things is also discussed. Love doesn’t heal and both of them have mental health to work through, and I found the ending very sweet.

Overall, this was an interesting story with an interesting premise, but in some ways it felt longer than needed. I’d still definitely check out future books from the author.

Content warnings: PTSD, Grief/loss of loved one, assault, murder, violence, suicidal intentions, explosions, war flashbacks,operation without consent, off page rape, depression, ableist language.

Rep: East Asian character, MC with PTSD, MC with depression, Asexual MC.


Eidolon is told from the POV of Vax, an assassin hired by Cyrex, a corrupt cooperation, to kill Zai Lumero, a journalist about to uncover and reveal all of Cyrex’s dark secrets. Of course, shit hits the fan and Vax and Zai team up to take down Cyrex.

I’ll be honest for sometime I had no idea how I felt about this novel. If it wasn’t for the ending and how well done I thought the Ace Rep was I may have given this 2.5 stars but because of the ending I’m rounding up to three stars.

Eidolon wasn’t a bad book, it was quite good. However the pacing was off and it went from a crime/ mystery type story to well, basically a sad...romance? I can’t explain much without spoiling the book. It went in a direction I didn’t expect and personally I didn’t enjoy it much. It was well done just not what I expected.

I did adore the characters. Vax broke my heart. Shattered it to be honest. He was such an unexpected character and everything that caused him to become the man is was heartbreaking. I genuinely felt his pain. It takes talent to make a reader sympathize with an assassin and the author did a great job. Zai, on the other hand took me a while to warm up to. He was selfish and flawed but in the end he also stole my heart. I felt his grief and I liked how he calls himself out on his actions. It was clear the author put a lot of work into her characters. Zai is also East Asian and while Vax’s ethnic identity isn’t verified he is asexual.

The world building was interesting and the descriptions about Cyrex and the city were well done. The plot caused me the most issues. It didn’t feel like it had a direction, one minute it was about one thing and the next about another. On top of that, I’m all for happy endings but everything tied up too quickly without much results. It was almost too easy.

Overall, Eidolon was an interesting read. The characters and world building were well done but the plot let the book down. I do recommend to people who want a read with good asexual rep and characters that you’ll hate to love. I don’t recommend for the mystery or crime aspect because it wasn’t good.