Review: `From this day forward, they will be known as the Huldra, meaning secret desire.'
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 18, 2014
Evelyn J. Squires was born in Asker, Norway, the second of eight children. Her father, being an entrepreneur, moved the family back and forth from the US to Norway, ultimately settling in Utah in 1992. After high school Evelyn entered Brigham Young University to study Comparative Literature and Ballet among other things, and in 2007 she opened a ballet studio in Florida. Having a lifelong love of for reading, she has written poetry, lyrics and short stories. In 2012 she began writing as a new career. Her initial series, A Viking Blood Saga, reflects her ancestry - an epic Fantasy centered on Norse Mythology and the Vikings. Wraithsong, the first book in the Desirable Creatures series, is her first contemporary Paranormal Romance and is based in Norse Folklore.Sonia is a high school senior approaching graduation and her eighteenth birthday.  She is dealing with typical adolescent girl problems and in an altercation with another girl named Savannah accusing Sonia of a completely inappropriate assignation with a boy, Sonia displays her personal conflict resolution style: she spits in the Savannah's face resulting in a principal's office visit and a work detail punishment with Anthony, the boy for whom she has special feelings. It is through this altercation and Sonia's act of spitting that she her act has a supernatural effect on others: the act brings people under Sonia's control - a trait she seemingly shares with her mother. Sonia becomes consumed with her desire for the handsome Anthony but that desire is thwarted as Anthony seems not only disinterested but Sonia's ability to control him is blocked by some mysterious force. Strange things begin to happen: three of Sonia's cousins are murdered, her mother disappears, and Sonia discovers she belongs to a mystical group - the Huldra - a band of beautiful, powerful creatures facing extinction by one of their won. The possibility of that creature being Anthony's mother. Anthony informs Sonia that her mother has actually been kidnapped by Anthony's mother and is being held on an invisible island called Wraithsong. Sonia and Anthony plan their saving journey to Wraithsong but Anthony's mother sends someone to kill her son and capture Sonia.As much as this story is about mythology and paranormal concepts it is also a coming of age story that young adults will recognize as the same changes that occur within everyone as they enter that frightening realm of adult life a time when anything can happen to alter the step into the new world. This is a well-written book that will appeal to a large audience of young adults, especially those who have followed such successes as the Twilight Series. Squires appears to have a bright career ahead. Grady Harp, March 14