Since the death of her husband, CAeli has begun to doubt her sanity. The night of their tenth anniversary, Vin died in a violent storm trying to protect her. Now CAeli hears his voice calling to her. Is it a trick of her grief stricken mind or something unexplainable? Does it have anything to do with her sudden string of troubles?
Vin, having crossed the barrier between life and death, is surprised to find that he feels no different than when he was alive. Beings of great power inform him that his work is not yet over; but only just begun. He learns of a talent inherent in his blood; one that allows connection with and manipulation of the element of air. These beings try to teach him to harness his ability so he can protect the very barrier he just crossed from annihilation.
On the living side of the barrier, a madman seeks the Book of Elements so he can tear down the barrier and be reunited with his lost family. Can Vin learn to harness his power in time? Will that power be enough to save the world of life from being destroyed? Book Description.
This book is in the fantasy/paranormal genre – I usually love these books but sadly just couldn't get into this one and didn't finish it. My review is based on what I did read – about half the book – and why I didn't like it. There are reviews from people who have loved this book and of course much of what we want to read is very subjective to individual taste. Although I didn't like this book clearly others do, so my opinion is perhaps most relevant to those that like the books I do, and you can find that out from my other reviews.
The novel starts with a couple celebrating their 10th anniversary watching the night sky and looking for comets. Its a rainy evening however and they leave to return home, run into a weird storm, the car is run off the road and Caeli wakes up to find herself injured and alone. She gets taken to hospital and recovers but her husband Vin has disappeared. He's actually a man with some talent that allow him to manipulate air and has been taken by angels to an alternate reality where they teach him how to harness his skills. This is where the book began to fall apart for me as I felt I was reading two stories. Caeli narrates her part and Vin his and I don't seem able to relate to the characters enough to care about what happens to them. I'm not sure of the storyline and plot and just couldn't get into understanding what was happening. As I said its clearly a personal issue but I wasn't interested enough in the book to continue to the end. I'm quite picky though, I used to read books through religiously but now if something hasn't sparked my interest by halfway through I just drop it. I felt the characters were very flat, I didn't see them as “real” people and I found that there just wasn’t enough engagement between the characters.
I did read through to where Caeli wants to continue the search and where she begins to hear or imagine she is feeling Vin around. There is also a mysterious person out to get her and she gets her house broken into – the police are worried for her safety and there looks to be a budding romance starting between her doctor friend and one of the policemen. Just when I feel I’m getting a grip on what is happening with Caeli the book reverts back to Vin and his interaction and training with the angels. They mention the book of elements and it appears that Caeli's grandfather (I think) had a book that was hidden to keep it safe, which seems to be the mysterious book that has to be kept in safe hands for fear it will destroy the living world.
The book itself is well written without obvious spelling and grammatical errors, one of my more frequent issues with kindle books. Its a good length at 602kb – so many kindle books are little more than short stories or novellas – fine if that’s what you want but I like a good long book. It's published in kindle format only currently.
Its quite difficult to work out why I didn't get along with this book – there's nothing obvious and the premise fits all my usual criteria. I think its just that I couldn’t relate to the main characters and the plot lines seemed to jump about too much for me to follow. Just when I begin to get interested in one sub-plot the story jumps elsewhere and by the time it returns to that part I’d lost interest. There is a sequel planned for those who have enjoyed the book though so watch out for that.
For star ratings it has to be a two star – but remember that reviews are very subjective and not all readers want the same thing from a book. You may want to look at my other reviews to see what books I do enjoy to see if we share the same taste before discarding this book.
~ Midnight Ruby
2 Stars!
Reviewed by Midnight Ruby
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