by Lynda Lyons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have to admit I wasn’t entirely sure where the plot was going through a good portion of the book. I felt sort of dropped into the middle of events that had already started. This might be because this book is the second of a series, though can be read as a standalone. I have not read the first so I’m not entirely sure if I might have a better grasp of the characters and world if I had.
The writing does have an interesting quirk. There are a lot of characters that the narrative focuses on in order to progress the story. Some sections are short, a paragraph or so, and some last several pages. This caused me to slowly get familiar with anyone and see each step of the narrative progress from many different angles. This was interesting, though I admit it was a bit hard to keep track of everything going on and all the characters. Plot details take a while to become obvious, and some things didn’t really get a lot of explanation, but again this could be because of the fact I didn’t get a good world introduction from the first book.
All My Thoughts
May contain spoilers.
There was quite a bit going on with this book. The author has an interesting narrative style by jumping points of view very frequently. Some sections are only a few sentences to a paragraph while some last several pages. This is both the books most interesting feature and biggest flaw. I got a bit confused for a while because so many names were being thrown at me rapidly and because some of these perspectives were so brief I didn’t get a good sense of each character until I got further into the book. Every character was developed slowly this way. This also made the narrative push forward in a unique way. It was presented to us from multiple angles that gave us several different threads all leading towards the same conclusion. This is a style I enjoy a lot and I got what the author was doing with this, but I do feel like things were kept a bit too vague early in the story and again, it didn’t allow me to get really pulled in until much later. I did find the plot interesting once things became much more clear, and finding out the true villain and evil plot was exciting. Not something I was anticipating and honestly even when it became more obvious I was still questioning until the very end.
While this book is the second in the series it can be read as a standalone. Sadly though, I got the feeling that I would have had a better grasp on things if I had started with the first one. There wasn’t a lot of world development to get me comfortable with the setting. I didn’t even fully realize that there were even aliens in this world until farther in the book even though it’s already established. I can’t confirm if these are the kinds of things I would have had a better grasp of had I read the other one, but I imagine it would have helped. To be fair, the aliens have very little to actually do with the story being told in this book, so I can honestly forgive this aspect. I can’t help but assume this is also why the characters don’t really get introduce clearly to the reader. I can’t say for sure who is in the first book and who is new. Characters like The Doctor felt like I should have known who they were. The Doctor was probably the most confusing aspect for me personally. As I was reading I felt like there were things I was supposed to have already known. I’m not sure that I clearly understand her even after finishing even though I found her to be the most interesting character in the story.
Overall
The story was a wee bit convoluted and the unique narrative style might be a bit off-putting for some. I do feel that this is a standalone best enjoyed with the benefit of knowledge from the previous.
Book provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
Tome Reader Reviews 
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