Embrace: The Tale of My First Series Obsession

​Reading awakens a sleeping dragon inside of you— flames igniting after every word and every feeling. One moment you’re home, then suddenly a fiery imagination takes you out of your reality and transports you to another realm. When you find a book that draws you in so deep that you don’t care about getting burned, never put it down.

That book for me was "Embrace" by Jessica Shirvington.

Embrace follows a seventeen year old girl named Violet Eden whose life turns upside down when she starts to have strange dreams that leave her with real bruises when she awakens. Things get even weirder when Lincoln, the guy she’s been love with since forever, tells her they can’t be together because he’s her mentor and she’s a Grigori, protector against fallen exiled angels. Suddenly Violet is thrown in a fight between good and evil and the fate of the world rests on her shoulders.

Corny, I know.

I first read Embrace when I was around 14 or 15 years old. I had ventured to the library with my mom and spent hours taking my time to skim over the books and pick the most perfect one. Just as my mom told me to hurry up and choose, my eyes landed on a purple book with a girl sitting in a cloud of smoke as black feathers fell to the ground around her. Maybe it was the synopsis that pulled me in or maybe the fact that the author and I shared a name, but that day I left and took my time reading word for word.

It didn’t take me long to finish the book. At that age when I found a book I thought was worth reading, I read it nonstop. I stayed up late nights only putting the book down when I fell asleep with my cheek on the pages.

As soon as I finished "Embrace," I begged my mom to take me back so I could find the next installment. I went through the series fairly quickly and began to search and see if Jessica Shirvington had created any more stories I could fall in love with.

Jessica Shirvington is an Australian author born and raised in Sydney, Australia. She is married to former Olympic Sprinter (how cool) Matt Shrivington with whom she has two daughters. Other than writing, Shirvington has opened a coffee distribution company in London called Stella Imports and manages restaurants such as the Tow Bar and Fuel Bistro in Sydney in her free time.

I haven’t gotten around to reading her most recent series which was released in 2014 entitled, Disruption.

When it comes to writing, Shirvington said one day instead of finding a book to read she began to write one. She likes to draw on personal experiences and feelings she’s going through. When Jessica gets stuck she often turns to her friends and their experiences to help her through her writers block. Like me, Shrivington has always had a thing for fantasy stories and tales about ancient times.

Jessica Shirvington played a key role in molding the writer I am today. Yes, her stories may be corny to some people but stories like those are the ones we need the most when we want to escape.

​Fantasy and fiction books are what people turn to when they need to be released from the hold society has on us.