Review: Entertaining Read About Spiritual Realms
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2013
I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.Dani-Lyn Alexander's book Trust and Betrayal is an interesting twist on the subject of unseen spiritual realms. The book starts with action, just the way I like it. There is nicely paced ebb and flow between fast paced action sequences and slower paced narrative scenes. Ms. Alexander weaves characterization and world building within the action and dialogue throughout the book without dumping tons of information on the reader all at once. And that is a good thing, because some of the crucial details of how the three different realms interact with each other would be lost if Ms. Alexander had indulged in an information dump at the beginning of the book. Fortunately for the reader, the author builds the worlds at just the right pace.Shay McKeon lives a difficult life as a widow and single mother to three children...in the Mortal Realm. When she receives a phone call threatening her children, she rushes home from work to protect them and takes a shortcut through a dark alley she would never otherwise walk through. Mortally wounded, she is healed and taken from the Mortal Realm to the Realm of Light by Guardians, where she is allowed to recuperate until she is strong enough to deal with her new reality.But things move slower in the Light while circumstances are moving at a horrifyingly fast pace in the Mortal Realm. Regulators from the Realm of Darkness want Shay's daughter Nicole and are plotting her kidnapping. Shay's consciousness of the intersection between the Mortal Realm and the Light awakens when she begins dreaming about the danger her daughter is in. That's when Mason Constanza, the leader of the Guardians, "opens her eyes" and explains her new existence as a Guardian. Together they transfer to the Mortal Realm to fight for her daughter's life.Shay learns that good and evil are nothing like she envisioned. She must rely on complete strangers to help her protect her family from the evil beings that wish to destroy her. As her trust for Mason deepens so do her feelings for him as a man.Trust and Betrayal is an entertaining read. My only problem was with the narration of action sequences. At times the scene seemed choppy and out of focus. I had a hard time following who was doing what and when, especially when the action moved quickly near the end of the book. The confusion often disappeared or was explained a few scenes later. However, this left me puzzling through things at crucial points in the plot. This was not a major enough issue to diminish the book's enjoyment for me.Overall, Trust and Betrayal is an entertaining read with an interesting twist on the ancient battle between good and evil in the spiritual realms. I would recommend this book to readers of urban fantasy. This is the first book in the Realm of Light series. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.