Review: Elixir by Hilary Duff and Elise Allen

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Pages: 336

Source: Personal Ebook

Clea Raymond is a seventeen-year-old photojournalist. She’s constantly in the limelight; her mother is a high profile politician, and her father a world-renowned surgeon. Paparazzi have wrecked havoc on her social life. As difficult as that has been, her life comes crashing to a halt when her father goes missing. It has been a year since he went missing, and Clea cannot move on, she’s constantly thinking about her father. Her mother has done the opposite; she’s thrown herself into her career and quickly changes the subject when Clea brings up the situation. Clea visits an empty grave, and wonders if her father may be alive. For a year now, Clea has wanted to visit Brazil and investigate her father’s disappearance. When a photojournalist job is pitched to Clea, she has to convince her mother to sign the parental authorization form. While it does come with a lecture, Clea is allowed to go as long as she goes with her friend/bodyguard named Ben. Before she sets out to Brazil, Clea notices something very strange in her pictures. Upon enlarging her photos she notices a man in each and every photo. It’s even creepier when Clea explores her father’s photos and noticed the same man in pictures with her. These photos really disturb her, and he begins appearing in her dreams. Every time she closes her eyes this man appears, the time frames shift and Clea becomes different women but he is always there. On her trip to Brazil, the man appears again, but this time he’s living and running away from her. Clea eventually catches up to him, and notices her father’s coveted watch on his arm. Clea should be scared but she’s more intrigued, and attracted to this stranger- there is something about him that makes her feel comfortable.

Elixir was a really enjoyable read and I was pleasantly surprised. Elixir has great plot-twists, a captivating romance, a mysterious disappearance and the element of surprise. I didn’t expect much from this book, and I had seen very mixed reviewed. I think Duff should have written under a pseudonym, she might have received a different reaction. Elise Allen is credited as a co-writer, and I think the two pair up well. I won’t say that this book is written flawlessly, there is room for improvement but the entertaining aspect of the book had me hooked. I was actually counting down the page numbers, because I was getting worried about how it would end. I did find it weird that as a Senator’s daughter everyone knew who Clea was, that was a little unrealistic to me. The secondary characters are memorable, and help build to the story. Elixir had me engaged and left me wanting more. I will be reading Devoted soon, because I need to know what happens next. Since I received the ARC, I went home and flipped through some pages because I needed to know where the book was going. Overall, Duff had me wrapped up in the romance, and love triangle, I was turning the pages as fast as I could to find out what would happen, and I hoped she would find her father alive.