Review: Great debut for Danube Adele!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2014
favorite quotes“Life is so weird. You just never know what the next day is going to bring.”“He really and truly needed me. Me. This big, powerful warrior wanted me.”why I picked it upOkay honestly? Because it’s an alien book. You don’t get too many of those now-a-days, and it just sounded interesting. It had secret agents and aliens. What more can you ask for?plotQuicksilver Dreams was filled to the brim with action and danger. Lots of things went on in this novel, ranging from evil aliens trying to kill Taylor, from Taylor and Ryder fighting their attraction, to Ryder being iffy about Taylor because he thinks she’s a traitor. There was definitely never a dull moment in this novel.Leading lady“His light eyes bore into mine. I could see the puffiness of his lip, as well as a dried fleck of blood. I’d done that? For a moment I stared at the evidence, in awe of myself. I truly was a badass. Then I confused myself because I also wanted to kiss it better. I never said I was consistent.”Taylor was our female protagonist, an almost-adult making her way in life in Hollywood. She’s escaped and come from nothing, and she does anything and everything she needs to to make sure she’s independent. She really took the things that were thrown at her in this novel well, proving how tough-minded she was. She was brave and stepped into the role that she was to play in all that was happening. She was determined and courageous and brave, which are really admirable qualities in a leading lady.leading male“His pale eyes looked into mine steadily before he gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘All right. I’m agreeing to this because I see your point about the safety of being in the building and because you’re agreeing to update me on things. Regularly. Frequently.’ ‘Right.’ I grinned, though he was still hesitant to let go. Teasingly, I added, ‘Good progress, sweetheart. We’ll take this in baby steps, and before long, your control-freak tendencies will be a thing of the past.’”Ryder was our love interest in this novel. Ryder is tortured and hardened. He’d lost people to the war raging on his planet, and had become someone completely different because of it. Not to mention, he had a role to play as one of the best agents on his planet. His loyalty to his people was rock hard, and he wouldn’t even let love come between him and his people. Although that was irritating at times, I came to accept it. Other than that, he was arrogant, cocky, and hot and cold. One moment he was nice, the next he wasn’t so nice. But he also was very protective of all of his friends. Which made him that much more attractive.other charactersFrank was the villainous character of the novel. There’s really nothing to say about him, except the fact that he was very scary. Cynthia, Taylor’s roommate, eventually is exposed as tied to the world that Taylor was thrust into. I’m kind of glad that she had a familiar face to fall back on, because I kind of think Taylor wouldn’t have taken things so well without someone she trusted explaining things to her.romance“I had to admit. I was E.Z. I sighed. ‘You’re being irrational.’ That was apparently a bad thing to say to an angry guy. ‘I’m irrational?’ His look was one of disbelief. ‘Yes, you are. I’m sitting here perfectly fine and no one died, but you’re stomping around here, huffing and puffing—’ ‘Huffing and—’ ‘Puffing. Yes, that’s what I said.’”Ryder and Taylor had a very interesting relationship. At first, there was the attraction. But then, some things happened on the actiony-alien side, and there was distrust of each other for the longest of times. Although, over these times, they got to know each other more. Eventually, they fell hard, but they still didn’t let that get in the way of the things that they needed to do, and I find that a great point of their romance. It wasn’t all-consuming. The two of them were complete opposites yet worked well with each other. I loved reading them together.world buildingIn this novel, Adele creates a new world that is light-years away from Earth. And on this planet, there is a special material that allots them special powers such as teleporation. It was a very interesting concept that I enjoyed, and it kind of reminded me of Jennifer Armentrout’s Lix series, probably because it was centered around aliens. Regardless, the world that she created was thorough and complex, although it wasn’t confusing–it was easy to understand, which made reading about it more enjoyable. I can’t wait to see how else Adele can evolve this world in the next novel.conclusionOverall, this novel was a great debut novel for Danube Adele. With an interesting twist on extra-terrestrial creatures and non-stop action, its a novel that I just couldn’t put down.