Angel Leya

As a short 40 minute read, this novellette surely delivers the backbone for what is surely a really good story that stars a teenager named Astrea who grew up as a sort of social misfit in a tiny village inhabited by ousted criminals and their innocent offspring such as herself. Her family loves her and many members of the tribe don't find any qualms. But some people constantly make fun of her strawberry red straight hair, blue eyes, and relative lack of freckles.

Forced to hunt due to a famine, she captures a male unicorn named Windmere alive and brings him to the village to let the elders discuss whether to risk a curse by eating the creature. She eventually has a change of heart regarding the beast, and with the help of her parents that know something about her true origins all along, they flee the village to an uncertain fate.

Now, the story is definitely good, and the writing is descriptive and gets to the point. I believe the book began as a sort of weekly series of some sort, which is partially why each chapter is unusually short for a fantasy book.

If there are two things that I found wrong with the story, it would be: believe it or not, most kinds of piranhas are perfectly edible. Astrea and Windmere escape the horde of furious villagers thanks to a river of these beasts. Apparently, the villagers don't eat them for some unexplained reason. Poisonous? Harder to catch than a mythical magical beast? Religious taboo because of the risk of unintentional cannibalism? The book never explains this further. I went to google and looked it up, and the blog posts about the odd flavor of piranha meat makes me want to visit Peru and Ecuador just to see if they taste as gamey and bloody as food culinarists claim.

Exotic food comments aside, the real reason why I gave an otherwise really promising book 3 stars is that this isn't even a real book as such, it's like a sneak-peak preview of the first 30 pages. Running Towards Illumia contains 4 parts that are all extremely short reads. I expected the sneak peek book I downloaded to be slightly longer, but in reality, 30% of the kindle file is the first part of book 2. You could almost simply skip book 2 and get to book 3. I could somewhat understand slicing a really long 900 page novel that took 10 years to publish (Vanity Fair anyone?) into different parts, but 3 of the 4 portions of this book were published on the exact same day, whereas the final 40 pages were published less than 3 months later.

I personally believe that this book should have a republished edition where the 4 portions of the story are glued together as one. Many people don't mind at all paying 4 dollars for an ebook, and the quality of writing surely makes the price worth it. Freebie previews should either be awarded as gifts for mailing list subscribers or have a prequel with story extras to entice people to test the waters. With such a short story that together will probably be less than 150 pages, it feels kind of disappointing to get excited with a rather good story to realize it's been sliced for some odd reason.

PS: I checked Amazon and apparently the author already republished the 4 parts into one complete book. I think to avoid unwanted confusion, the author should just unpublish the following incomplete chapters and aim all promotion to the complete and fully finished edition of the story.… (mehr)

Overall this was an average, semi-enjoyable book. The storyline was very interesting and has great potential, but the execution fell a bit flat. It could have done with a bit more backstory/perspective. Although each of the characters were interesting in their own right, the interactions between them felt forced, especially the Gander/Astrea relationship. It felt obligatory and rushed, which was probably my biggest complaint. The ending was just barely interesting enough to make me want to continue to read the series, but I'm not waiting on the edge of my seat for it. So overall, it's a worthwhile read if you're in the mood for something in the fantasy YA genre, but it's not spectacular.… (mehr)

Reviewed by Samantha Gregory for Readers' Favorite Skye's Lure by Angel Leya is the story of Skye, a mermaid who lives in a pod with other mermaids. One night she sees a party boat and a man falls overboard. Skye breaks all the rules by saving his life. The man she saved, Vince, intrigues her and she visits the boat again. She lets him see her and they talk. Vince reveals he has a condition where his legs will eventually give out on him and he will end up in a wheelchair. Skye, however, longs to have legs. The two form a friendship, until Vince does something stupid. Can Skye forgive him? Or could he help her get what she wants? Angel Leya has written a good story with Skye's Lure. It will be compared to the likes of The Little Mermaid and Splash, but that isn't a bad thing. As a Little Mermaid fan, I enjoyed this story. It went in a different direction than I thought it would. Skye was a good character and, as a mermaid, it makes sense that she would want to see what land was like and would make a bad decision to do that. Vince doesn't start out as a very sympathetic character, but again, considering what he faces, it is understandable. This book is listed as adult fiction, but I think it would do well with the young adult market too.
 
Original review can be found: https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/skyes-lure… (mehr)