Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Createspace
Date of Release: September 23, 2015
Pages: 209 pages
Format: ePub
Links: Good Reads, Author Website, My Autistic POV, Tumblr, YouTube
My Rating:
3.55 Stars
About the Book:
When the Earth is reduced to a smoking crater, the only thing left to do is turn back the clock.
Lily Snow, granddaughter of Death and one of the most powerful magical beings on Earth, knows that her daughter most likely won’t survive in this timeline, so she gives her life to create another.
No one remembers the war between humanity and magical beings, and humanity has become altogether blissfully unaware of magic.
Freya Snow, now a sarcastic, awkward, probably-autistic teenager, has spent her whole life moving from foster home to foster home, wanting nothing more than to start living her life, rather than being stuck in the stasis of high school.
But when the ghost of her mother’s mentor appears to protect her from the demons hunting her, she finds that she should have been careful with her wish for change.
The world is a dangerous place, and a pup without a pack is nothing but prey.
I received this eBook from the author in exchange for an honest review.
The story starts out with an introduction to Freya’s mother and to her guardian, Amber. It introduces the realm that Freya is from, and that her mother didn’t make it and the father is unknown. The way to save Freya was to take her to another realm.
Which fast forwards us to Freya, age 14 and in the foster care system. She is possibly autistic, and has been in and out of foster homes her whole life. All she has is her roommate and best friend Alice, until she is fostered by a young couple living in the next city over. Which for any teenager is tough, new school, city and new people. Freya protects herself though, keeps to herself until she befriends Damon, an unusual boy who has clearly been living under a rock.
After accidentally flooding the bathroom at her new school, her suspicions of being watched are confirmed as a spirit possessing a teacher informs Freya that she is a family friend tasked to her care and education of unknown and latent magical powers.
While you get the concept of the story; it is a common one with a kid who has no major family ties and struggles to make friends, finds out they’re super special and begin a journey to hone their skills, and possibly save the world.
One of my biggest issues with the book, however, was the lack of world building. Yes, Freya had magical powers but there was little information about where she was from. It would have been a good idea if this story had delved into that more, to introduce the history and to give the reader an idea of what ride they were in for.
I also found that Damon’s family’s position in the story was a little too confusing. Even with the explanation of his uncle’s partner.
But at the same time, there were good things about the book too. Freya often didn’t seem her age, and her maturity was refreshing. She also took to being told she has latent magical powers and isn’t from Earth originally pretty darn well. Her eagerness to learn was enjoyable as well, and her willingness to learn on her own too.
This story just needed a little more build up to make it a little more believable for me. But I absolutely enjoyed that Freya was autistic and it was interesting to see the world from her eyes.
Where to Buy:
Amazon CAN | Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
About the Author:
L.C. Mawson is an autistic author and blogger. When she’s not writing, she’s studying autism from a sociological standpoint. And when she’s not doing that, she’s blogging about how allistic writers can better write autistic characters, and about her life as an autistic woman in general. She also reviews current examples of autism in media on YouTube.
Matthew Goldstein has been writing novels since he was a teenager, and won first place in his college’s short story competition. He worked for seven years as a Game Designer at 1st Playable Productions where his tasks included writing for video games. He recently completed Voices in the Night, the third book in The Dark Mind Trilogy, which was released in August 2015. He received his degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In his spare time, he loves to play drums and compose music. He lives in Pennsylvania.
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