Review – All That We See or Seem

All That We See Or Seem

by Tempest C. Avery

from goodreads.com Read it and Reap program

This book takes place in Bevain (faery) but the people who have landed there are from the human realm.  It was a little confusing because it opens with four 16 years olds who have just woken up after being transported to Bevain.  They were reincarnated on earth after a lifetime in Bevain because they still have a prophesy to complete.  But the person who brought them is gone, they don’t recognize their surroundings, and they don’t fully remember their previous lives but are slowly remembering things as the book starts.  I think the transport must have happened in the prequel which I didn’t read.  But these guys are coming to and wondering where they are.  So there is a lot of information that has to come across quickly about what is going on, why, when, where, who etc.

So, the characters are interesting.  The language is clunky and needs some cleaning, but the bones are there.  There are The Four who have come back to dethrone the evil king and fulfill a prophesy.  The evil king has the hots for Lily, the leader of the four.  He is the reason they were killed and reincarnated on earth 300 years later (the second half of the book says 100 years).  The people of Bevain are exhausted and ready to rebel and get rid of this guy.  But the kids work hard to get back with the program, lead the rebellion, get their magic online and remember everything, no small task.

Unfortunately, this book was not scrubbed, edited or reviewed for typos.  Because I don’t think anyone looked at this story very critically before publication I was made me crazy for a while and constantly removed from the action.  There are errors galore.  Spellcheck was used, but fury is “furry” and “there” vs “their”, “too” vs “to” among many others disrupted my reading flow.  They were checking the dead after a battle and they were counting the “diseased”.  People were sick?!  WTF?  Oh, I then realized it should have been deceased.  It really threw me and then cracked me up – wrong reaction for that particular scene really.

Ok, I had to get that off my chest.  I haven’t read a “published” book like that before.  I really wanted to take a red pencil to it all. 

I did really like that the bad guy is a blond, not stereotypically dark haired…and he wore skinny jeans in one of his appearances.  So…the evil king is hip.  The story ends at a break in the action, but there will be a sequel.

The story is interesting and has a lot of potential, but in my opinion, this book is not yet all it should be to be considered published and saleable.  Though I think it has a beautiful cover, I really like the sepia.