This novel, written by Amber Kizer, is about a teenager named Meridian. She is not like everyone else. Dying animals seem to find their way to her. On her 16th birthday, her family leaves and sends her to her Auntie, who shares her same name. This is both for her and their safety. She soon learns she is a Fenestra, half angel-half human, and that her purpose is to help the dying transition their soul energy to that person's version of 'heaven'. But, she also learns there are dark forces after her. She must learn to transition the dying and learn a way to defeat the dark forces. Her quest is aided by Auntie, a great-aunt and also a Fenestra, and Tens, who is destined to be her Protector.
This book was pretty good. I read it in one day. The plot was not only interesting, it was gripping and the book had good dialogue. I honestly could not put it down. Thank God it was a fast read!
The mythology was well developed for a first book in a series. The author has announced a companion book to this one. I do not know if her plan if to develop a series, but she should! There is a lot of material to explore.
The protagonist was believable and interesting. I enjoyed reading about her. She seemed to grow onto her new role, maybe a bit too fast, and take the events happening relatively well. She proved to be a worthy heroine and extremely likable. Not very whiny either, like Bella in
Twilight. (I liked Twilight though). Custos, a wolf, kinda-adopts Meridian and becomes her constant companion. I would love to learn more about Custos, is there something more about her, something magical/supernatural perhaps?
I wish Tens was fleshed out a bit more. I would like to learn more about him. He does seem to behave like any other boy, like Katy Perry's song
Hot N Cold. Completely believable as a male character in my own humble opinion. ;-)
That said, there were some flaws with the book. The villain in the story, Pastor Perimo, seemed to lack a clear purpose and focus. In the end, he looked almost cartoonish in his actions and end-dialogue (the dialogue throughout the book was pretty good). I just think the villain should have been better defined and should have been given a bit more of a back-story. He, at times, seemed inconsequential.
At times the book was hard to follow and there were fluidity problems. It read as if the author had skipped a line of prose and we are missing an entire sentence, or paragraph, to tie things together.
The relationship between Tens and Meridian happened way too fast. I think it would have been better if this had happened over the period of 2 months, instead of 2 weeks. Also, Meridian's learning occurred way too fast.
Things wrap too quickly at the end, and too easily, as another reviewer said "too convenient." The coincidences at the end should just be called fate because it was just too convenient. It was even a bit predictable...all those business cards... I have the same issue with
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes books. The events near the end were just too convenient.
I debated the rating for this book. It's between a 3 and a 4. While there are definitely some things to fix, it was intresting enough to keep me glued until the very end.
As a last note, the cover is excellent.
UPDATE of 8/21/2009: I e-mailed the author about the possibility of a series; I had to know. She replied and told me that she is currently writing the companion book, to be published sometime in 2011. She said that there is possibility for a series and that "there are lots of Fenestras in training fighting Noctis all over the world." I guess it all depends on the sales and the response that this book gets. Her publisher is Random House.
UPDATE of 9/26/2010: Title for the new book is Wildcat Fireflies.
