My Review of The Unknown Sun by Cheryl S. Mackey

The Unknown Sun is a Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Romance novel, not my typical genre, but it sounded interesting so I decided to give it a try, and I'm glad that I did.
Moira is a young woman with a chilling past. Not once, but twice, she has been the sole survivor when terrible accidents have claimed the lives of her family members. Both of her parents and two of her sisters have died tragically in a car wreck and then a plane crash, leaving Moira basically all alone in a world she doesn't understand where everyone, including herself, wants to know why she didn't die.
When she is attacked at her home by a strange boy she vaguely recognizes from school, she cries out for help, but the twins that show up to save her are not ordinary themselves, and soon she finds herself in another world surrounded by strangers.
Despite knowing no one and nothing of this strange land, she soon discovers there are links between her past and this world. The twins, Airi and Bel, were able to save her through the use of a magic portal. It is up to Moira to work with the twins to save their world and activate similar portals throughout the land while avoiding the evil forces that seek to destroy them and claim the throne from their father.
As Moira works with the twins, she begins to discover she has much to offer. She transforms from the weak child she had been on Earth and finds her own power. She also quickly makes a love connection with Bel and learns to love his sister, Airi, as a best friend. She soon realizes that this new land will be her home and she must do what she can to protect it, no matter the cost.
There were a lot of things that I really liked about The Unknown Sun. First of all, Mackey has a gift when it comes to word choice and prose. Parts of the piece are actually written so beautifully it is as if one is reading a poem.  I really enjoyed savoring the word choice and letting the perfectly chosen words roll off of my tongue.
I also thought Mackey did an excellent job of building the world as we went along.  This is a distinct place, which is difficult to construct, and sometimes authors get so bogged down in building the land they forget to advance the story. That did not happen here. The pace continued as it should while the world was built around it.
I also felt like the story itself was very engaging. There were some creative ideas here that I hadn't considered before, starting with the idea that Moira had been the victim of these two accidents that had shattered her family.  There needed to be a reason, of course, and I feel like we find out enough information about those events later for it to make sense.
There were a few things that I would have like to have had better clarification on. For one thing, the new world involves a new language--although I'm not clear on how they actually also know English so well--and a lot of the words were confusing to me. I don't feel like I learned them well enough to know what they meant when I heard them later in the story. Some of them were very similar to each other.
I can say the same about some of the characters. There ended up being a lot of characters with strange sounding names, particularly towards the end, and some of them started with the same letter, so I couldn't always remember who was who, especially with characters that were mentioned but did not actually appear in the book. Towards the end, I finally decided I had given up on trying to remember who a couple of the characters were and I decided to go ahead and finish the book and if I needed to go back and figure it out later, I would. I didn't have to do that. It might be more important in a sequel, possibly.
On the subject of the sequel, this book was first published in 2014, and while the back matter promises a sequel, to my knowledge, one is not out yet. That seems like a really long time to wait for a sequel to me.
Finally, this story gives new meaning to the phrase "love at first sight." Bel loves Moira immediately and it only takes her half a second to realize she loves him, too. She is young, though, so maybe that is plausible.  I am a bit confused about their relationship, however, especially since we find out later that they may actually be related, and that doesn't seem to make a difference to them at all.
Overall, this was a good read. I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy novels, particularly those set on other planets. It will also help if you like romance.  I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review, but you can purchase it here, and the current price is $2.99.

My Review of The Defiled and the Second Son by BJ Leonard

Y'all, I did it! I finally found a book I really liked! It's been sooo long since I read a good one, a book that mad me think about it while I wasn't reading it, one that made me wonder what would happen next, where the characters stick with you and have you longing for the next installment. I'm so glad I found this book! I was beginning to lose faith in my ability to pick a good one!

The Defiled and the Second Son by BJ Leonard is enthralling!

The Defiled and the Second Son is science fiction,  a genre I don't typically select, but this one seemed interesting to me from the description, and it honestly seemed a bit more like a paranormal romance storyline--with aliens instead of vampires or werewolves.
Elan is a high school teacher who lives a pretty boring life until her new gardner, an extremely attractive stranger recommended to her by a neighbor, begins to hit on her. She is shocked and suspicious. And just when she begins to consider exploring her options with River, two other attractive men show up in her life and let her know of their interest in her as well.
It isn't long before Elan discovers she's actually been identified by an alien race as a precious commodity, a woman pure of heart who can be used to help repopulate their devastated planet. The only problem is that these aliens are on two different sides of a very real war. The Defiled, the dark side of the race, are willing to break all of the rules to claim Elan as their own, while the Legitimates must follow all of the rules and find a way to enlighten Elan so that she can recognize her own strength. Soon, Elan finds herself in a dangerous position as the two sides battle over her, and she isn't sure who to trust.
This was a great read for several reasons. The characters are real and engaging. The dialogue is great, the descriptions are poignant, and the plot moves quickly and keeps the reader driving forward. I found this book to be both creative and relatable. While it is similar to some of the paranormal romance novels I have read, the fact that we are talking about aliens makes it unique. Likewise, the thought that went into each of the characters, particularly the 11 Legitimate brothers, is impressive. I am very hopeful that Leonard continues this series and we can find out what happens to the third son when he comes to Earth to look for his soulmate.
The book references Twilight a few times, and I think if you enjoyed that series, you will like this one as well, though, in my opinion, this book is better written as far as the prose and word choice are concerned. You can read my slightly different five star review on Amazon here, and please check out The Defiled and the Second Son by BJ Leonard here. The current price is $2.99.

My Review of The Zarion: Saving Mankind by JE Grace

This is a science fiction novel with a good dose of Christian faith--a rarity in my experience, and if you're into that sort of thing, then this might be the book for you. If you read my blog a lot, you'll notice I don't usually read sci fi, but when the author, JE Grace, contacted me and asked me to review her book, I obliged. It's not that I don't like sci fi--I love Star Wars--it's just not usually my genre of choice. I was intrigued by the premise, however, which equates the return of Christ as the savior of the world to a scientist in the future whose purpose is to save humans from aliens--or at least that was my understanding going in.

"Beam me up, Zarions!"

The main character, Davis, is slated to work for a shady company called Interplay. In fact, the book starts with his kidnapping and being instructed that he will be working for Interplay--which should have been a big heads up that something might not quite be right with this company. While Davis and his co-workers go about trying to solve some of Earth's most drastic problems--like running out of food--a sneaky member of their crew is sabotaging them. We find out later that this turncoat is not the only one, and that he, along with many other characters, is actually an agent of The Fallen.  This group of aliens, led by Lucifer, is trying to take over Earth.  As Davis begins to uncover what is happening around him, he also learns of a group working to save the inhabitants of Earth, the Zarion, and he also finds out his link to these benevolent beings is more than skin deep.
There is also a bit of romance in the novel, though nothing to make one blush, which gives another dimension to the story. Davis is intrigued by his colleague Janette from the moment he meets her. He'll have to wait a while to find out whether or not his feelings are reciprocated, and as a reader, it kept me interested to see what would happen between them.
There is a lot of action, lots of espionage, lots of intrigue. If you like sci fi, the description and dialogue regarding traveling into space, etc. sounds pretty right on to me.  In a lot of ways, it reminded me of one of those old movies you might catch late at night when invaders are coming to Earth and the strong hero-type astronaut guy has to come to the rescue.  The dialogue is sparse but sensible, and Davis and Janette are likable right away, though she is certainly not one I would describe as a strong, independent woman.
This book is not quite written in first person. It oscillates back and forth from Davis's perspective to the point of view of other characters. At first, this phenomenon only occurred between chapters, but then it got more frequent. Sometimes we get more than one point of view in the same paragraph. This makes it a bit hard to follow. Also, it is written in first person omniscient--which means Davis sometimes has the ability to know the motivation and private thoughts of other characters he is interacting with. Again, I don't mind omniscient, but  it does make the story hard to follow when Davis is talking but we suddenly know what another character is thinking. And, if he has some sort of mind-reading abilities, this is never mentioned in the plot line.
It is also written mostly in passive voice.  A lot of the action is explained to the reader, rather than shown to us.  There are whole scenes that are summed up after the fact, which took me out of the book a little bit. I didn't ever quite feel like I was in the moment with Davis, rather a bit more like he was giving me a summary of what had occurred much later in time.
I also noticed there is no editor listed.  There needs to be one--possibly another one--because there are a lot of errors, especially punctuation errors, but the mistakes aren't limited to that. There are some word usage errors, misspellings, etc.  A thorough read-through by a good proofreader should take care of that, but I would also suggest an editor go back and make some of the POV switches a little clearer.  My personal opinion--pick a POV and stick with it. Either first or third, but not both. I have read a few other books recently where this worked, but it's really tough to pull off, and I honestly didn't think it worked here as I was often confused about who was talking and how Davis knew certain things.
There is an overwhelming amount of coffee drinking in this book.... Just an observation.
I do like the concept, and as a Christian I appreciate the idea.  It's possible that this book could reach some sci fi readers who are not aware of our faith. There were some things that could have been better, but it was a quick read that kept me turning the pages. Other readers have given it four and five stars. You can read The Zarion: Saving Mankind for yourself on Amazon here. The current list price at time of post is $2.99.