Summary from Goodreads:
In the City of Lights, two star-crossed lovers battle a fate that is destined to tear them apart again and again for eternity.
When Kate Mercier's parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life--and memories - behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art. Until she meets Vincent.
Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate's guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he's a revenant - an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart, she may never be safe again.
Kate is coping with the grief of losing her parents not too long ago and she does this by immersing herself in books and art. At first, Kate gives the impression that she is smart but as the story progresses, this image seems to wither away because school becomes so unimportant she can just skip whenever she wants to. If school is mentioned at all, it was just to say that her day was boring. I found it a shame this Amercian School of Paris wasn't explored and the story wasn't expanded to include some newly formed friendships for Kate.
Kate is drawn to Vincent the first time she laid eyes on him at a cafe. Vincent appears mysterious and dangerous but once Kate got to know him and his 'true' self as not-so-human is revealed, it was charming to see how he was so caring and honest. I kind of expected the bad-boy route but that was not the case and it was refreshing. The revenants was an interesting concept. As I got reading about what they were and how they functioned, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to popular paranormal creatures. In a nutshell, I would say the revenant is a cousin of the vampires and zombies except they have one fate, which is to sacrifice their life over and over again for others.
Much of the book was focused on the difficulties of Kate and Vincent's relationship so it felt that the plot of evil revenants (the Numa, the enemies who kill to remain immortal) trying to kill Vincent's kind, was just a roadblock for Kate and Vincent's relationship. I found my predictions coming true as this plot unraveled but with a few surprises which was good. The climax was over really quickly and the violence was quite jarring since the rest of the book was at the very bottom of the gore meter. Once Kate and Vincent navigated this roadblock, their scenes were definitely very romantic but I just couldn't understand why Kate was picked out of obscurity to be the special and unique one who captivated Vincent when she was quite ordinary and in a constant state of sorrow when he first met her. I love me some good development so their start wasn't satisfying.
Overall, the book was easy to read. I'm hoping the next books focus a bit more on plot because it seems like there's so much more that could be done with the revenants concept.
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