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Glimmer (Nina Decker #1)

by Vivi Anna (Goodreads Author)

3.58 of 5 stars 3.58 · rating details · 100 ratings · 20 reviews

Although Nina Decker's father is one hundred percent human, her mother is not. She belongs to an ancient and rare race of people called the fae. But these fae are not those written about in fairytales, with pretty gossamer wings and fairy dust, no they are sinister, malevolent and unkind, dwelling in another realm called Nightfall. More prone to destroy than to create. Aba...more

Kindle Edition

Published 2011

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Apr 17, 2011 Kara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fae, paranormal, review-sent-to-author, werewolves

Summary from Goodreads:

Although Nina Decker’s father is one hundred percent human, her mother is not. She belongs to an ancient and rare race of people called the fae. But these fae are not those written about in fairytales, with pretty gossamer wings and fairy dust, no they are sinister, malevolent and unkind, dwelling in another realm called Nightfall. More prone to destroy than to create. Abandoned at the age of ten, to be raised by her father, Nina has never forgiven her mother for that or f...more Summary from Goodreads:

Although Nina Decker’s father is one hundred percent human, her mother is not. She belongs to an ancient and rare race of people called the fae. But these fae are not those written about in fairytales, with pretty gossamer wings and fairy dust, no they are sinister, malevolent and unkind, dwelling in another realm called Nightfall. More prone to destroy than to create. Abandoned at the age of ten, to be raised by her father, Nina has never forgiven her mother for that or for ruining her father. A man of only sixty, he appears to be closer to eighty with a frail body and mind. He’s been fae-struck and is slowly fading away to nothing. This is one of the reasons why Nina has never gotten too close to any one man. She doesn’t want to seal his fate like her father’s has been.

But she can’t deny her fiery connection to Severin Saint Morgan, a sexy as hell werewolf and the alpha of the Vancouver wolf pack. He’s an Australian immigrant working at the university as an associate professor, and the publicized face of the werewolf species. He makes her blood boil with desire and makes her tremble with fear. But its only when her mother reappears with startling revelations about an upcoming war between the fae and the werewolves that Nina realizes that she may be a pawn for both sides.(less)

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Glimmer by Vivi Anna was a pleasantly surprising read. I quite enjoyed it. I won this book in a giveaway and while I was looking forward to reading it, I had other books to get out of the way first. This book is what you would call an Urban Fantasy. But the author has written novels for Harlequin before, so it's also a romance, and a quite steamy one at that. It's a very quick read. It only took me a few hours to get through and it was extremely well paced. It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it was definitely a fun read. This one though, is definitely for the girls. Men won't enjoy this, unless you're my dad. He reads anything as long as it is suspenseful. And this is.

I loved the main character Nina Decker. I love strong females in novels and for some reason they are hard to find. I blame Twilight. Reading about the fae is definitely not my favorite topic, but it has grown on me. Werewolves are not my favorite either. But Severin is definitely a hot hunk of man. And he's Australian. Kill me now. In case you haven't figured it out by now, I have a thing for Australian men. Why? It's the accent, ruggedness, and intelligence combination that sends me over the edge. Sigh.

Based on the way this book ended, I have to assume there will be a sequel, or maybe a series. There's definitely a conclusion, but there are also unanswered questions. And I would be more than happy to continue reading. It's nice to break up my monotony of serious books with a fun read once in awhile. So check it out ladies, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

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Apr 14, 2011 Majanka rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: novella, paranormal, paranormal-romance, faeries, fantasy

Glimmer is a novella-length paranormal romance/urban fantasy novel about a half fae, half human woman named Nina Deckers. Nurse by trade, fae by legacy and birth, Nina has some trouble staying unnoticed in a society where creatures like werewolf have already gone public. Scared off by human’s repulsion for the unknown, and their prejudice towards werewolves, Nina is terribly afraid of what might happen if they find out what she really is. Back at home, she has a fae-struck father to take care of...more Glimmer is a novella-length paranormal romance/urban fantasy novel about a half fae, half human woman named Nina Deckers. Nurse by trade, fae by legacy and birth, Nina has some trouble staying unnoticed in a society where creatures like werewolf have already gone public. Scared off by human’s repulsion for the unknown, and their prejudice towards werewolves, Nina is terribly afraid of what might happen if they find out what she really is. Back at home, she has a fae-struck father to take care of, who is in a condition close to dementia, and is still hopelessly in love with her runaway mother and fae princess, A’lona.

When Nina meets the sexy alpha werewolf Severin, she believes she may finally have met her match. However, Severin is hiding dark secrets, one of them involving Nina. When an otherwise-harmless pixie starts attacking her father, and she figures out the creatures of Nightfall are trying to assassinate the both of them, Nina must do whatever it takes to protect both herself and her father. On top of all that, Nina feels herself changing, and she is slowly becoming like the creature she loathes more than anything. Her mother.

Glimmer is a rather interesting and entertaining read, but it left me feeling very dissapointed as well. The trouble is that this is a novella, and the author is trying to include either too much or too little – that I have yet to decide. We are introcuded to a wide cast of characters, but we hardly get to know any of them in-depth thanks to the short length of this novel. I loved Nina’s father and mother, the human and the fae princess, and how they did manage to love each other one day. I somewhat-liked the character of Nina. I found her struggle to keep her fae side a secret very entertaining and realistically described, but I thought her attraction to Severin, the alpha werewolf, exaggerated and unnatural. She reminded me a lot of the average love-struck teenage girl: swooning over a hot boy so much that they can barely see what’s going on around them. Last time I checked gazing in the distance for ten minutes after a guy kisses you, is not normal. Add to the fact that Nina really isn’t a teenage girl, but rather a grown-up woman of twenty-eight, I found her behavior when with Severin rather childish and immature. I didn’t like this part of her personality.

I liked the storyline, as far as it concerned faeries. I loved Nina’s mixed heritage, and her struggles with her growing wings, and to accept the fact that she’s half fae. The addition of iron-disease was an interesting bonus as well. The portal in the garden, the pixies, Nina’s father’s fae-struckness, etc. were all nice and original additions to the story. What I didn’t like, were the werewolves. For instance, I had no idea what exactly they were doing, or what their importance for the storyline was. There is nothing in any faerie lore that even suggest a connection or a war with werewolves, and I imagine faeries would rather fight humans, or other supernatural creatures in general, or even fight each other, then they would go through the trouble to declare a century-long war on werewolves. To be honest, werewolves aren’t exactly the most interesting supernatural beings out there. And even if you add the changes Vivi Anna included with regards to werewolves – they apparently don’t need full moon to change, they don’t age, and they can spot faeries – then they are still not-all-that-interesting. At least not when compared to the timeless and immortal beings that are faeries.

I hated Severin. Really. He just seemed to be stuck-up, full-of-himself bachelor number forty, with an unkeen interest in our heroine from the start. And why exactly? His motives aren’t all that pure, but even though so, he still manages to act like a love-struck puppy by the end of the novella. I just had the feeling that on the one side, everything was happening too fast to really let me grasp everything that was going on, from the werewolf-faerie war, and Nina’s change into a faerie, to Severin’s secrets and his relationship with Nina, which developed at lightning speed. On the other hand, I had a feeling that nothing was happening at all. So we meet Nina and her Dad. They get attacked by pixies gone rogue with a keen desire to kill the both of them. In comes Severin, the sexy werewolf and love-interest for our heroine. Then Nina gets ill, and grows a pair of wings. Then some more things happen, which I won’t include for spoiler’s sake, but by the end of the novella, we’re still nowhere. The journey is yet to begun, Nina has yet to make her descend into Nightfall, we don’t know why half of the things that happened did happen (for example, I’m still wondering what got that woman who died at the beginning of the story. Sure it wasn’t a werewolf…then what the heck was it?) and I had the feeling this was still just the beginning of the story, and the real story had yet to begun.

I think this novella would have been a lot better had the author decided, rather than make a series of short novellas, to write one full-length novel, that would cover the entire story. I don’t know what it is with authors preferring to write series of short stories nowadays rather than simply write one novel, and wrap things up nicely by the end of it, but it certainly isn’t something I prefer. I can imagine the appeal of a novella to some readers – it reads faster, you don’t have to indulge in unnecessary details – but the downside is that you cannot connect with the characters, the storyline is sometimes lacking and leaves you with a lot of loose ends, and the story just feels unfinished. As I already said in one of my previous reviews, it takes a special skill to a novella that actually works. I just had the feeling this wasn’t the case here; and I’m pretty sure I would have liked Nina’s story a lot more if it had been longer and I could relate to the characters more.

There were some original ideas introduced in Glimmer though. As I already stated, I loved the whole faerie-thing, from the wings, the portals, the runaway Mother, to the assassination attempts from Nightfall. The writing was decent as well, and the plot offered originality, a fast pace and some nice twists. If you want to relax for half an hour to an hour, or if you just want to doze away to a world where faeries walk in the mortal realm, and werewolves have gon public, then this novel is something for you. I did enjoy reading it, but it left me unconvinced. It has potential, but in the end, it doesn’t come through.

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Mar 30, 2011 Karen Fowler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great, quick read with interesting characters and original plotting. Where this novel shines is in the characters, and interesting glimpses into the fae world. Let me add that I generally don't read books with Faires in them, I'm more of a vampire/werewolves type of girl. But there's enough "big and bad" in this novel for me. Nina, the main character has just enough spunk in her to make the story vivid and compelling. And the romance part is, in a word, smoldering.

This book was a little shorter...more

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May 28, 2012 Nereid rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fairies

this book was just okay for me, the story was about a half human/half Fae woman whose mother was the dark Fae queen and Nina was a princess but she just wanted to be human. Her mother abandoned her and her father when she was young and left them to fend for themselves. Nina's dad was Fae-struck and was suffering from symptoms sort of like dementia but ultimately caused by her mother and Nina wanted nothing to do with her ever. Nina worked as a nurse and was flying under the radar or so she thoug...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Lillie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-galley, ebook, for-review, i-own, nook-books, received-for-promotion, review-copy, reviewed-for-blog, series, book-or-blog-tour

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. See the full review at: Read My Mind

My Review:
GLIMMER was a surprising book in several ways. The beginning starts off with a fairly gruesome attack having taken place. The victim has been brought to the hospital where Nina Decker works, and the reader is immediately thrown into the dual world that Nina lives in. One where humans exist with werewolves, but don't know of the other danger -the fae- that also share their space. Nina is half-fae, and knows that they are far from the "fairies" descri...more See the full review at: Read My Mind

My Review:
GLIMMER was a surprising book in several ways. The beginning starts off with a fairly gruesome attack having taken place. The victim has been brought to the hospital where Nina Decker works, and the reader is immediately thrown into the dual world that Nina lives in. One where humans exist with werewolves, but don't know of the other danger -the fae- that also share their space. Nina is half-fae, and knows that they are far from the "fairies" described in books. They are dangerous, vicious creatures, who only wear the mask of humanity when they want to.

What surprised me was that I really expected an action-packed urban fantasy, in which the heroine tried to solve the question of who attacked the victim in the hospital. But, the war that is coming is far more than this isolated experience. Even though the attack is the catalyst for the beginning of the book, the real plot is the exploration of Nina and the way that she identifies herself. She is fae, and isn't. She fights half of herself because she doesn't want to become the creature that her mother is.

Even before I reached the end of the story, I knew that I would be left wanting more. Not just because of the page length, but also because Vivi Anna's words drew me in. She has a talent for darker paranormal, and her character, Nina Decker, was a interesting person to get to know. Though the book does leave the reader hanging in terms of Nina's story having just started, I didn't feel as if it was a cliffhanger, in the traditional sense. Nina went through a transformation, and the first part of her new life had left her changed.

Hopefully, any subsequent Nina Decker novels will pick up what was started in GLIMMER. I really enjoyed the attraction between Nina and Severin Saint Morgan, the face of the "out" werewolves. I really enjoyed the glimpses of Nina's father, a cautionary tale of what becomes of a human that is fae-struck. Though he struggles with lucidity when seen throughout the novel, I thought it was interesting to have an example of the darker side of having the fae among humanity. Mostly, I would just love to return to this world that Anna has created, and take another trip through the surreal with Nina Decker.

4.5/5 for plot
4.5/5 for characters
3.5/5 for language

My Rating: 12.5/15 (3.5 stars) Highly Recommended
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Mar 14, 2011 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was engrossed in Glimmer from the moment I started it! Nina Decker is an emergency room nurse with a potentially dangerous secret that she has kept for her entire life. After the fallout when werewolves let their existence be known, she is more determined than ever to keep her secret from being discovered. After an unexpected meeting with the Alpha of the local werewolves, Severin, Nina's life begins to spiral out of control as everything she knows begins to turn upside down. The story line wa...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Andrea rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Readers over 18

First off, I just want to say that I think the cover of Glimmer is stunning. The fact that I found it so beautiful was almost reason enough to read it. Once I started reading, though, I found Glimmer instantly engaging. The dialogue between Nina, an ER nurse, and her coworkers is quick and witty. Nina is a smart, tough and easy-to-love character. I loved the fact that Nina was so strong and un-intimidated by anyone: her boss, her father, her fae mother, and especially Severin Saint Morgan.

Ah…S...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Stacy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bewitching-book-tours

Reviewed by http://urbanfantasyinvestigations.blo...

I enjoyed Nina from the first chapter. The story was intriguing and filled with information to keep you interested. The book as a whole was super fast and easy to read. The romance and connection between Severin and Nina was apparent from the moment they were introduced. I loved the way the author expressed Nina's flaws. She just wants to be human and nothing else and she really struggles with accepting anything having to do with her mothers si...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Brandy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like the base for this book but I feel it leaves to many questions unknown. I assume there will be a 2nd book and I hope there is so I can get some awnsers to these questions. Nina is a strong character and I love that the book is centered around her with everyone else thrown in. Severin is a hot mysterious werewolf who lusts after Nina. BUT is it for the right reasons???

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Sep 09, 2011 Jess rated it 2 of 5 stars

Check out my review here: http://frommetoyouvideophoto.blogspot.com/2011/09/disappointmentville-nina-decker-series.html

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Apr 01, 2011 Ju rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book the first in a new series. The characters are great. The first few pages were slow but it picked up. The ending leaves you hanging and I hope the next installment is soon. It is a great urban fantasy about the fae and werewolves.

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Mar 26, 2013 Jacquelyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: baby-blue, dark-fantasy, faeries, nook, own, winter-fairies

I enjoyed this story the characters was good. I can't wait to see where the next book takes us.

Nice read...

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Jan 29, 2012 LadyCroft86 rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-my-kindle

Surprisingly good. It had some editing stuff that could be fixed but the story was great and I really like the characters!

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Oct 28, 2012 Carley Knight rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book ended too abruptly. It ended just as the story was getting good.

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May 09, 2011 Angie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fae, paranormal-romance, werewolves, first-in-series, kindle, read-in-2011

Good start but I hope the next one is a bit more fleshed out as I felt like thios finished just as it was getting good.

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Mar 23, 2011 Annabel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Review will be up on my blog soon

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Feb 29, 2012 Kristen Byers rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookrooster

Nina's life is transforming in more ways than one. Her mother is a fae and her new love interest is a werewolf. When Nina learns of an ancient war between the two races, she doesn't know which side to choose.

I would have liked this book better if the ending wasn't such a cliffhanger, but I suppose I'll just have to read the next book in the series to learn more about Nina's fate.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.

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Mar 31, 2011 Tishia (Paranormal Opinion) rated it 4 of 5 stars

View my review here:

http://paranormalopinion.blogspot.com...

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Aug 06, 2012 Kerry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-have

It was a good quick read. Lots of laughs in there. I liked that it was to the point for the most part. Very short though. It was set up well for the next one.

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Jan 05, 2012 Kyanara Night rated it 4 of 5 stars

You can view my review by clicking in the link below
http://kyanarasmadreviews.blogspot.co...

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Apr 17, 2013 Ninab added it

Shelves: shifters, shifters_wolves, first-in-shifter-series

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About Vivi Anna

A BAD GIRL at heart, Vivi Anna likes to burn up the pages with her original unique brand of fantasy fiction. Whether it's in ancient Egypt, or in an apocalyptic future, Vivi always writes fast paced action-adventure with strong independent women that can kick some butt, and dark delicious heroes to kill for.

Once shot at while repossessing a car, Vivi decided that maybe her life needed a change. Th...more

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Glimmer (Nina Decker #1)

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