Review: Dennis Waller Writes With Vivid Imagery and Poetic Lines, The Story Will Stick To You Long After You've Read It
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 10, 2014
The book is written well, quite poetic even, using poetry within the lines to express strong emotions. It is a mix of mystery, mythology, romance, the paranormal, and love that extends beyond the grave.Warning: SPOILER ALERTThe Prologue is intriguing, with mystery. A haunting tale of love beyond the grave. The mystery begins: Who killed Daniel's wife, Vanna?The characters are carefully crafted, each is described in vivid detail. The main character Daniel struggles with the unfairness of it all, why did Vanna have to die so soon? At 29 years young she had to be taken away from him. The happy memories coming back, haunting him. The loneliness.Then readers are taken to the future, 40 years later where the author Robert is interviewed by Vincent. And Robert asks Vincent if she trusts her partner.Part One starts two years before Vanna's death, it details their story of falling in love, with scenes and lines that make you smile as you read them.Part Two begins to show you that something paranormal is going on, that the meeting between Vanna and Daniel was predicted by a Shaman back when Vanna was just 16 years old in a seemingly innocent fortune telling. The emotions go stronger between Vanna and Daniel and the reader is pulled along. Eventually this leads to their marriage.The pace from Part One and onwards is fast, and you begin to care more and more about what happens next to the characters.Then readers are taken back again to the future, with the interview between Robert and Vincent. Readers may wonder, is Robert the same person as Daniel? Is Robert the pen name of the successful author? Otherwise, how can this Robert know so much about Daniel and Vanna's story?Robert continues telling the story, but this time telling it from a third person perspective, rather than the story unfolding itself. It turned out that Daniel and Vanna had a little lover's quarrel, jut before Vanna was killed.Then we are taken back to the past, after Vanna's funeral, where Daniel searches for a way to be reunited with Vanna. Then it's like a miracle, Vanna returns to him. Her sweet voice, her sweet laugh. Neither Vanna nor Daniel knew how it happened.But their happiness was cut short.It turned out that there were forces that Vanna and Daniel didn't know about, forces that made sure the dead remained in the realm of the dead, forces that would try to rip the two apart from each other.Daniel and Vanna had to figure out how to keep that from happening.At this point, I'm so engrossed in the story I couldn't put the book down.They try to piece back what happened before Vanna died, in hopes that it would somehow give a clue to who was trying to get her back again to the world of the dead.It gets more and more interesting as the rest of the story unfolds, and as Daniel recalled a mysterious monk he met before Vanna died, the monk told him that love so strong can bring back the dead back to this world. That solved one mystery.But the mystery deepens with the identity of the guardian who sought to bring back Vannah to the realm where she belonged, a Chinese looking man named Lin Xin who it turned out Daniel had met before in his book store and they had a lot of conversation on philosophical works.Lin Xin, it turned out, was also known as the Dragon in eastern mythology.The story ends spectacularly, an ending I totally didn't predict, all in all a haunting but happy ending. I can't wait to find out what's going to happen next in the sequel! The story will stick to you long after you've read it.