Review: Hyde by Lauren Stewart (Hyde #1)

Hyde (Hyde #1)
Lauren Stewart
Published: July 8, 2012 (Off the Hook)
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon
Review source: purchased  

Reviewed by: Jenn

Rating (out of 5): 5 stars

While surfing through the urban fantasy section of my kindle, I came across a cover that made me stop long enough to read the blurb. Yes, I am one of those people, if you have a pretty cover, I will judge. So, already taken in by the cover, I read the blurb, and hit buy.

Hyde, as you can probably guess by the title, is a modern day take on the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one of my favorite stories, cause who doesn’t have a little bit of crazy buried deep?

The story introduces us to Mitch, who on the outside is your average every day hunk-o-hunk of man candy, but on the inside is rotten and cruel. The only way to control Mitch’s inner monster is by venting his rage and frustrations on everyone and anyone he comes into contact with. Seriously the guy made a day job out of being a jerk.

Then there is Eden. Sweet, innocent, virgin, who doesn’t lie to anyone. Everything in Eden’s life is going well until she wakes up naked in a stranger’s bed after a night that she has no memory of. But what Eden doesn’t know is that she has a second personality that is the opposite of everything she is.

As the story unfolds, Mitch and Eden are thrown together because she literally keeps waking up on his doorstep. In order to find out what is happening to her, Eden begs Mitch to help her, something he really doesn’t want to do, but since he can’t seem to get rid of her, he finally agrees.

In their search to help Eden understand her alter ego, Mitch and Eden discover that their lives have been being manipulated and everything they believe to be true, the people they have chosen to trust, and the world as they know it, is all based on lies.

I adored Mitch. I mean the guy is one of the biggest jerks ever written, but, oh, is he a fun jerk. The author has written him so well, that you can’t help but be amused by his smart mouth and prickly personality. I think he is book boyfriend material for me. I liked Eden too, she’s really weak at the start of the book, and she loses her morals pretty quickly in the story, but she grows as a character by the end.

I love the backstory of this book, the big, bad corporation doing illegal experimentation on unsuspecting people, it had a kind of Resident Evil feel to me. We don’t learn the extent of the experimentation in this first book, but you get enough to understand how deep it really goes.

The story itself is fun and entertaining, a book I didn’t want to put down because I needed to know what happened. Hyde ends on a cliffhanger, so I immediately jumped up and purchased the second book in the series and finished that one in two days.

Sexual content: graphic sex