Coexist (Keegan's Chronicles #1) [Kindle Edition]

Julia Crane (Author), Cheryl Bradshaw (Editor), Kadri Umbleja (Illustrator)

Book Description

Sixteen-year-old Keegan is struggling to keep her huge secret from her friends--she's an elf, descended from a long line of elves that live in secrecy alongside humans.  
 
In elfin society, mates are predetermined but not allowed to meet until they are eighteen.  Against tradition, Keegan's brother Thaddeus told her Rourk's name because his visions warned him she'd need Rourk's protection, especially since Keegan will play a key role in the coming war between the dark and light elves.
 
Rourk finds himself drawn to Keegan's side every time she thinks his name. He wants to talk to her but remains in the shadows, silently guarding her every time she mentally beckons him. A twist of fate thrusts the two of them together when Rourk is forced to step up his protection and make his presence known.
 
An ancient prophecy deeply entwines Keegan's family and the future of their society. Somehow they must find a way to thwart fate and win the battle...without losing Keegan. With war brewing, and dark forces aligning, will Keegan and Rourk ever have the life together that they both desire?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The mythology is beautiful and the story line is believable. I really felt for Keegan. "Coexist" is a quick, fun read that mirrors mythical creatures acting like normal teenagers. The plot line is interesting and noteworthy. I will definitely follow this series." - Reviewed by Sylvia H. for Readers Favorite

About the Author

Julia Crane is the author of the YA paranormal fiction novels: Keegan's Chronicles, Mesmerized and Eternal Youth. Julia was greatly encouraged by her mother to read and use her imagination, and she's believed in magical creatures since the day her grandmother first told her an Irish tale. Julia has traveled far and wide to many of the places her grandmother told her about, gaining inspiration from her journeys to places like Nepal, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Italy, France and many more. And who knows? Maybe the magical creatures she writes about are people she met along the way. Julia Crane has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Although she's spent most of her life on the US east coast, she currently lives in Dubai with her husband and three children.

Product Details

• File Size: 365 KB
• Print Length: 239 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0983752001
• Publisher: Valknut Press (June 10, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0055HFZ3A
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #563 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #8 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Family Saga

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it! June 15, 2011

By Brenda Flores

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

What I loved about this book was the representation of the characters. Especially how the main character, Keegan, matures through out the story. There's romance, war, and supernatural all thrown in to make this incredible story. I was hooked from the first chapter,i'm hoping and waiting for a sequel.
I would highly recommend it to everyone of all ages looking for a good read!

- Brenda

81 of 88 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A novel of several great strengths, and a couple annoying weak points July 12, 2011

By Craig Hansen

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Coexist, the first novel in a planned series, and an outright first novel ever by Julia Crane, is a paranormal romance with an Irish flair. It's a tale of elves and love and destiny, the struggle between light and dark, and the consequences of war. And yes, part of the novel - a very important part, by the way - does take place in Ireland, though the main setting is the US.

The main characters Coexist is concerned with are Keegan, a sixteen-year-old elf, and her intended mate, Rourk, who's a bit older than her. Emphasizing romance, Julia Crane's elves are more human-like than one might expect, appearing normal enough to blend in with human society. Sure, they are shorter than other humans, but they don't have a green skin-tone or twelve-inch-tall pointed ears or anything like that.

Crane's conceit is that elves are unusually attractive, which makes great fodder for a romance novel, of course. And also, Crane's elves share a trait in common with some old-world cultures: their mates are pre-selected for them, almost from birth, and are guaranteed to invoke in each other the proper amount of love and romantic chemistry.

But they aren't allowed to meet until they are eighteen.

Different elves handle this sense of destiny in slightly different ways. Keegan has decided to use her youth to date a few human boys, though never seriously, just for fun and as a way to kill time waiting to meet her intended mate.

Rourk, on the other hand, has done no such dating, preferring to focus himself entirely on waiting for his intended mate. Given that he is a warrior, he uses a fair amount of his "spare energy" in combat training....

An interesting supporting character is Thaddeus, Keegan's young brother, who despite being very, very young, is the most gifted elven seer of the current elven generation. And there's a need for him because... a great battle is coming between the light elves and the dark elves.

And it's coming sooner than anyone can imagine.

Tossing complications into the mix are a couple interesting twists: first, for reasons that are murky, Thaddeus has told Keegan the name of her intended. This complicates the natural flow of elven mating because whenever an elf thinks of the name of his or her intended, the other notices... to the point that they can track them down if it seems they are in danger. And like any teenage elven girl with the opportunity, she turns over the name of her intended, Rourk, in her mind quite often, a disconcerting situation for him.

The other complication is that Thaddeus has had a vision of the coming war, and it's set to happen on Keegan's birthday ... and to end with her death.

Interested yet?

I know I was.

Rising above the average level of most entries in the paranormal romance series genre, Crane's novel stands out because, although part of a series, the tale she weaves has a clear and satisfying sense of a complete tale; it has a beginning, an intriguing middle, and a clear sense of resolution to the current circumstances.

While the novel leaves room for new adventures to take place, there's a clear sense that something big happened, there was a cost to it, and the status quo has been affected, by the end of the novel.

Too many novels, especially first novels in general, and particularly first novels in a series, lack that sense of a complete story being told; they spend time setting things up, then end the novel at a certain word length leaving readers hanging... and sometimes frustrated.

But that is not the case with Coexist; Crane's tale is well crafted and delivers a solid standalone story even though it exists as the initial entry in a promised series.

Crane's skill at plotting and character development are admirable, and honestly not as common as one might wish among first novelists. Crane has those things down ... in spades.

Yet there are flaws to Coexist as well. The most notable is the book's uneven editing. While none of the mistakes are big deals, there are enough of them that it can become distracting. The book's credited editor, Cheryl Bradshaw, needed to spend a bit more time nabbing typos, as well as looking for missed words, wrong words, and punctuation use; the simple, copy-editing stuff.

Aside from the state of the proofing job, however, the book only had one other, rather minor, weakness. While the book bubbles along for the first three-quarters of the way, toward then end, and especially when the climactic war sequence between the light and dark elves take place, Crane seems to rush the pace of the novel's most important scenes.

Clocking in at approximately 41,500 words, Coexist veers closer to "novella/short novel" length than to the length of a standard novel. Had the author slowed the pace down and handled the climactic scenes by letting them play out more dramatically and less in summary, the book could easily have swelled to 50,000 words or more and been even more satisfying than it already is.

While a deeply satisfying read with engaging characters and an excellent plot, all of which draw me toward looking forward to the second installment, those are my only areas of hesitation on Coexist. The proofing element is easily fixable; the brevity and summary nature of the climactic scenes, well... those aren't bad, they're just not living up to potential because they're a bit rushed.

Overall, none of this puts me off Crane or the Keegan Chronicles series, which I'll be looking foreword to more installments of. There's more strong points than weak points, and considering it's a first novel, represents a decent, if not quite spectacular, debut.

Considering her strong sense of story and plotting ability, I'll be back for Book 2 when it's released. Read more ›

32 of 38 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Is it Possible to be Worse than Absolutely Horrible? December 2, 2011

By Molly

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book had great promise from reading the description, however, the book itself was just sad. First of all, I read the 1 one star review there was when I bought this, but then disregarded it because there were so many good reviews. What a mistake. Seriously, are those people crazy? This was not good literature! The main character was spoiled, bratty, obnoxious, shallow, kind of a hoe-bag (for lack of a better term) and just generally immature. When her father told her that there was a war that could decide the fate of her race and that he was chosen to lead them into battle and her 12 year old brother would save them all, she was just like "alright, can I go to my room now?" I was shocked by her casual reaction and kind of disappointed that she had no purpose in the "final battle." The main character should always be a major player!

Okay, so I completely loved the idea of elves in modern day times, and especially the idea of light elves fighting a war against dark elves, however this novel does it laughably. The war was like a weekend at a camp ground and the actual fighting was just sad. Everyone just flies to Ireland, sets up tents and waits for the fighting to beginning. And when it does begin, it's just everyone slashing at everyone else. Nothing too exciting. Then at night they just hang out and eat cake like hundreds of their race didn't just die. Oh, and of course it makes perfect sense that everyone at Keegan's school is also a creature of the light and because a shape-shifter who can read minds, they're all going to show up, right?

*Sigh* The only redeeming quality of this book was the love interest. Rourk was SO great.... He was caring, protective, loving, brave, a great warrior--basically all the things a good love interest should be these days, and yet he had to be stuck with Keegan for the rest of his life? Poor unfortunate soul! I loved everything about him (he was honestly the ONE reason I stuck with it to the end) and I felt that the cliffhanger was very upsetting, both because I felt so sorry for Rourk and because it was an attempt at a gripping suspense filled sentence, but it just wasn't.

Final thoughts? Keegan was a weak, annoying character who seemed more childish than your average 10 year-old. Rourk was awesome, but the book was so bad that it might be worth missing him just to save yourself the hours it would take to read this. I am so upset that I spent 3 dollars on this, as it was one of the least enjoyable books I've read in a long time. The writing was all over the place and not very well developed, and the dialogue was just painful to read.

To conclude, take my advice and don't read this. I didn't listen to the one person that read this who actually has a sense of good literature, and I seriously wish I had, because then I would have 3 more dollars and a few precious hours of my life back. Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Breathtaking June 16, 2012

By Gary Girvan

Format:Kindle Edition

I really loved this book, not just because of the flawless storyline, or the realistic characters, or even the mystical setting. The mood of the entire story was happy, never really overdramaticizing anything that didn't need to be. Keegan is an innocent, fashion-loving compassionate young elf who wants to meet her true love, but knows how important it is to save the elven race. Her parents are not spoiling her, they care about everything that goes on in the story. Then there is her little brother, whose name I can't spell. He is possibly my favorite character because he knows so much, and quotes the 48 Laws of Power a few times, keeping him significant. Some people say that the battle seemed rushed through, and I agree. But if that part wasn't sped through, you wouldn't have really understood the evles quite as much. Even though there are warriors, the elves in this story want peace and harmony between each and every creature. It seems as thouh they are only truly fighting out of nessecity. All in all, I would reccomend this book to anyone who is feeling down, because the entire story is truly uplifting.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun Story November 9, 2011

By Sheri

Format:Paperback

On the surface, Keegan is your typical 16-year-old girl. She spends her time hanging out with her friends, shopping, texting and dating. But Keegan is an elf. She is really living a secret life, trying to fit in with the humans, all the while just passing the time until she turns 18 so she can meet her chosen mate.

I liked this book. I thought this was a fun story. I liked that we got to meet both Keegan and Rourk and see the story from both of their point of views even though they did not get to meet right away. I thought the plot made a great story. The characters were fun and overall likeable. This is the first story I have read focusing on elves, and I liked the elfin world that the author created.

One thing I really did not like about this book was the overall length. The book was short, and it just felt too rushed. I would have loved to see the main characters been given more depth. Some of the supporting characters, such as Anna and Donald, seemed almost a passing thought. You get their point of view very quickly one or two times in the story, and that is really all you get to see of them. It would have been nice to have a little more background on them as well. There were too many scenes that also felt too rushed, and I would have liked to have them elaborated on as well.

The other thing that bothered me was the very quick changes in point of view. There was no transition between the thoughts of one person to the next. Sometimes I would have to actually back up a couple of sentences as I was reading because all of the sudden I realized that the point of view had changed, and then changed again, without warning.

Overall, I liked this story; I just wanted more of it.

More About the Author

Julia Crane is the author of the YA paranormal fiction novels: Keegan's Chronicles, Mesmerized and Eternal Youth. Julia was greatly encouraged by her mother to read and use her imagination, and she's believed in magical creatures since the day her grandmother first told her an Irish tale. Julia has traveled far and wide to all the places her grandmother told her about, gaining inspiration from her journeys to places like Nepal, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Italy, France and many more. And who knows? Maybe the magical creatures she writes about are people she met along the way.

Julia Crane has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Although she's spent most of her life on the US east coast, she currently lives in Dubai with her husband and three children.