Haven Lost
The Dragon's Brood Cycle, Book One
by Josh de Lioncourt
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite
Emily is a high school hockey star in Minneapolis, with an extremely dysfunctional family life. For the most she is a typical teenager, except for her strange ability to know when and where another player on the ice is going to move. One day it all changes when she starts seeing the reflection of a boy in mirrors and windows, and when she gets home finds her mother dead of a drug overdose. She runs away and when she awakes she is in another land, another time, another world? Haven Lost is the tale of Emily's discover of what is important to her and her life in this strange place. She makes friends, decides without any prior knowledge of people who is good and who is evil and sets out on a quest she doesn't understand. Along the way she picks up a best friend in Celine, a ward in Michael and someone who just might become more than a friend in the future, Corbbmacc. Together they travel the land, looking for the answers that they need to understand what is going on. Josh de Lioncourt has done a wonderful job of mixing history, fantasy, and magic together into a tale that is compelling and exciting.
Haven Lost is set to be the first book in a series titled The Dragon's Brood Cycle. This first book sets the story up very well, you have a grand adventure, and it is not a short adventure either. It takes time to tell, yet the story never seems to get bogged down or drag, it is always moving along and begging you to turn the next page and keep going. The answers always seem to be on the next page. Josh de Lioncourt is a wonderful storyteller in that he is able to keep your attention and have you guessing the entire book. I never saw the reveal from the last three pages coming until I got to them, and that is not usually the case with mos books. This book and series has the potential to sky-rocket into the forefront of youth and teen reading, becoming the next Harry Potter series.
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The Legacy of the Key
Ancient Guardians, Book One
by S.L. Morgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .
Reece is your typical college student, dealing with classes and unfortunately, her father's passing. At least that is what she thinks anyway. She is heading to San Diego to finish up things on her father's estate, when she notices two handsome young men at the airport, and then they are on her plane, which ends up having trouble and returning to Philadelphia. She later notices them again while out with friends, and while out on a run they save her from being abducted. Turns out they are her Guardians and she is someone called The Key. Now she must understand that there are other dimensions and worlds other than her own, all while hiding for her own safety. Ancient Guardians is a young adult tale of character and honesty. S. L. Morgan takes fantasy and morals and makes it into a wonderfully captivating romance novel between a young girl called the Key and her Guardian.
Ancient Guardians: The Legacy of the Key is the beginning of a new series, and it is a strong start to the series. It lays a good foundation for more to come. The guardians are shown to be a people that a strong, yet morally upright and have good values; which is why they were originally chosen as the guardians in the first place. Greed and power are the opposite and are shown to get in the way of life and what is really important. This fantasy novel is set in multiple dimensions, which is a fun concept to think about, with Earth being the central focus of the dimensions. Although there is some fighting, the crux of the story is the romance between the Key, Reece and her guardian, Levi. This is a great young adult and teen novel in that the romance is also woven in with a moral message of honesty, trust and doing the right thing. This novel will also appeal to older readers as well, and given that it is very clean, even mature younger readers would do well with the novel.
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Microchip: The Agenda Is Now
by Chey Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reveiwed for +Readers' Favorite .
This generation's version of George Orwell's "1984".
The world is changing, and ever so quickly. It used to be that everyone used paper money, and you got paid with a paper paycheck. Now it is credit and debit cards and your payroll is direct deposited. What is next? Microchip envisions a future that could easily be only years down the road in where now, everything is done with a mircochip in the hand. For the most part, the world goes along with the idea and complies without really thinking, but this story follows a few different types of people who question this process for different reasons. As each of these people search for a way to escape the law of mircochipping, they find themselves in the same place in Utah. Chey Barnes takes each person and their reasons, explaining them and giving them a place, and then you see what happens when they are all together. This is a science fiction story that hits just a little close to home.
Microchip might be science fiction today, but there are real life facts and information included in the book, and indexed in the back, that will leave you thinking hard about what you read. It's not a warning book, but a story of how different people are dealing with the law and what happens to them, there is a real human element in there. It is also very thought provoking and would be an excellent book for a book club or discussion group. Chey Barnes takes the information and technology of today and advances it only by a few years to give us this story. Although there is family and a little romance in the story, there is more a cautionary spirit that we need to be more careful and thoughtful, not just accepting everything that is handed to us. I think this should be a required reading just as George Orwell's 1984 used to be when I was in high school, this is a newer version of big brother.
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Embarkment 2577
by Maria Hammarblad
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .
Alex awakes but can't remember anything, and she is certain she is dreaming when the doctor, or at least the person in the white lab coat turns around and has yellowish-orange skin. Wake up, wake up, wake up Alex screams in her mind but nothing changes. Everyone in the room keeps saying everything will be better when Adam gets her, who is Adam? It seems that Adam is an android from the year 2577 that landed back in present day, and Alex helped him to get back home, but in her final act of bravery she took a bullet that killed her in our time, and Adam brought to this time to be saved. Now she has to learn life all over. Embarkment 2577 is actually a collection of three small stories about Alex and Adam and life in the year 2577. Alex learns to live on the ship, and in each book it seems she causes some problem, without meaning to or knowing it. How the crew and her friends have to work to get her out of some sticky situations are what all these stories are about Maria Hammarblad does a wonderful job of adding in enough information facts to make you really feel like you are learning about living in space along with Alex but not enough to bore you.
Alex has the needy quality to her, but not in a bad way. She can take care of herself, but her she is in a completely new world and has no idea what to do. Adam is supposed to be an android, but he is more human than anything we've seen before. Maria Hammarblad gives us a real life feel in this science fiction novel. The aliens sound plausible and interesting. If anything Embarkment 2577 make me want to delve more into science to see if we can't make some of this come true.
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Divided against Yourselves
by Bill Hiatt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite
Divided Against Yourselves is the second book in the Spell Weavers series, but unlike a number of series this book can be read on it's own without having read the first book and without feeling lost. Tal is a teenager dealing with reincarnation, in fact he is the reincarnation of the original Taliesin, a bard in King Arthur's court. Tal has successfully to this point merged his past lives together with his present life quite well. His best friend Stan is also a reincarnation, but his is not going so well. He past life as King David wants to take control too often. Even after defeating the witch Ceridwen last Halloween, Tal and the guys think they can relax and go back to normal life, only for Tal to be surprised by the appearance of Morgan Le Fay, who help Ceridwen at Halloween. Tal and his warriors work to figure out what Morgan wants and how to protect everyone at the same time. Bill Haitt does a wonderful job of weaving a magic tale into a modern day high school and making it work.
This is the first book I can remember reading that took on the reincarnation topic as a theme to the magic. It was novel of Bill Haitt to think of that plotline for a story, and it made this story compelling and interesting. It also opened a number of question that have me asking what is the next book after Divided Against Yourselves. I found the teenagers in the book to be real and remind me of my own teenagers at home, some of the bantering between the boys is stuff I hear coming from the boys in my sons room all the time. I felt the story was well developed and the action scenes would entertain and keep a good range of boys interested in reading. There is a puppy love vs. true love kind of thing, you know the kind that happens when you're sixteen through that along with the magic would keep girls reading. There are so many different side stories and themes in the book that are weaved together so well into a complete story that it will appeal to a great variety of readers.
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The Sundered
by Ruthanne Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers Favorite
Water is no longer blue, it's black and it's dangerous. Not only is it dangerous, but it covers most of the world. The world is inhabited by the humans and those they can The Sundered. The Sundered come from the water, but can be controlled by the human mind. It can be difficult, but they have to be harnessed for humanity to live in this world. Ruthanne Reid weaves a story of co-dependency and mutual distrust. The humans need the sundered to grow food and survive on the world. The sundered don't need the humans, but they are less powerful and submit to the control, for the most part. The story follows one young man, and his group as they search the world over for the Hope. The Hope of Humanity is rumored to be what will fix the world back to what it used to be. Other's want to destroy the Hope to in turn destroy the sundered and take the planet for themselves. The truth, is somewhere altogether different.
Ruthann Reid creates a world that feels like Earth, only many years advanced when water covers most of the planet and land is rare. The humans can't touch the water, it will drag them in and kill them. They have to have the sundered to get the water to live. The Sundered is well written and has you really thinking. There are the two factions, one that says the Hope will fix the world, the other that says the Hope must be destroyed. As the story progresses and you learn more, things are uncovered that make you question each faction. Can two cultures survive on the world together, or does it have to be just one or the other? Which culture is really the one that invaded the other and forced themselves on the planet? Great read for adults and teens alike.
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Exiles of Gaia
by H. R. Olsen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Exiles of Gaia is aptly titled. As humans in this future world we are exiled from Earth. We did not take care of the planet and it could no longer support life. Everyone now lives in space stations or colonies on the moon. Only one mission to Earth has taken place in the time they have lived in space. That mission ended badly, now another is in the works. H.R. Olsen does a wonderful job of weaving together the flight crew, the movements, political intrigue and murder to create a captivating story. As there are grass root movements today, there are groups that want to return to Earth, some that want to stay in space, and still others that love the Earth but don't want to return to it. As each of these groups plot against each other and political rivals face off over the planned Earth trip we follow the story, twisting and turning until the end.
H.R. Olsen is a wonderful writer, in that I started reading this book, and just couldn't put it down. I wanted to keep reading to find out who and where. As you turned each page in Exiles of Gaia and got further into the story, what once seemed like random characters are starting to come together. They are crossing paths and being connected to each other, making for unplanned twists in the storyline. It is a great science fiction book, even for young adults and teens, as well as the older crowd. Everyone would get enjoyment out of this book.
Reviewed by Michelle Randall for +Reader's Favorite
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