Steampunk with some horror & fantastical elements.

Great book, though the nature of the heroine's abilities, of the main antagonist and his plans might be just a tad too reminiscent of Lyra and some of the events in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. ( )

Wow.

I am going to be very frank with this review. A few months back I was contacted by the Author through the Goodreads mail system. He asked if I would be interested in reading his book he just published because I enjoyed The Golden Compass. I was ecstatic! How often does that really happen?! I read the description of the book and thought "Well, it might be interesting" but put it aside while I read other stuff for school.

Fast forward to last week. I was procrastinating on writing a paper for class and I was sick of reading depressing books for my Young Adult Literature course, so I picked ALD up to read. The first couple pages sucked me right in, I was hooked!

The story...AMAZING! The character building as well as the world building was perfect. The philosophical ideas touched upon here were great as well. I love when authors take a new or different stance on life and death, heaven and hell, good and evil, which Kee was able to do superbly.

He imagines the afterlife to be more "What dreams may come" than the standard biblical myth. With that being said, I see this book landing on the banned list at some point in the future, which as a reader I consider a phenomenal compliment. ;)

So great job Mr. Kee! I LOVED THIS BOOK!! It has easily earned a spot of honor on my bookshelf. Now, I am impatiently awaiting the publication of Bloom. ( )

A little uneven, but pretty satisfying (and creatively unique, while keeping to several different styles) in the end. Something of quest, coming-of-age, steampunk, mystery, procedural, etc. ( )

A story of witches, the church and the afterlife... or is it? This was a book that I found myself very deeply involved in. I read it from beginning to end, intrigued by the twists in the plot as things went along. The characters and their interactions were well thought out and perfectly developed, as was the plot of the story itself. Many times in this book I found myself wondering how all of these little tidbits were going to tie in with each other and I was simply amazed at how complete the whole thing was. From beginning to end you are introduced to characters who don't just have walk on parts, but have some sliver of the story all to themselves and everyone finds some form of closure.

As far as the world the book takes place in, it was very easy to visualize what others were seeing, where they were standing and how they were experiencing what was happening around them. It is no small thing to say that it felt as if reading made you a part of the action, you honestly could feel as if you were there, experiencing everything for yourself.

This story has action, adventure, science fiction and fantasy all blended together in an amazingly well told tale that will suck you in and keep you involved all the way to the end. If you haven't had a chance to pick this book up yet, you should be sure to make the time.

Note: Though this book was a free gift from the author, the content of my review was in no way influenced by the gifting. The book speaks for itself and my review would have been worded just this way even if I'd gone out and bought it. I also give bonus points for Text To Speech enabling on Kindle format.... but that also wasn't a factor in the above review. ( )

Wow.

I am going to be very frank with this review. A few months back I was contacted by the Author through the Goodreads mail system. He asked if I would be interested in reading his book he just published because I enjoyed The Golden Compass. I was ecstatic! How often does that really happen?! I read the description of the book and thought "Well, it might be interesting" but put it aside while I read other stuff. I mean I am just finishing my last semester of Grad school so I don't really have a ton of play time.

Fast forward to last week. I was procrastinating on writing a paper for class and reading depressing books for my Young Adult Literature course, so I picked ALD up to read. The first couple pages dragged me right in, I was hooked! (However I really hated that the main character's name was Skyla...) I don't know why it irritated me so much. But it made it so much better when later in the story when Harold said "Who names their child Skyla?". This was perfect because it gave me an in to relate to him, something I was having a hard time doing before then. Writing it out now it seems rather stupid, but it worked.

As for the story itself...AMAZING! The character building as well as the world building was perfect. There is nothing more annoying than reading a story and having the characters do things that are vastly out of character for them, this book didn't have that at all.

The philosophical ideas touched upon here were great as well. I love when authors take a new or different stance on life and death, heaven and hell, good and evil, which Kee was able to do superbly.

He imagines the afterlife to be more "What dreams may come" than the standard biblical myth. With that being said, I see this book landing on the banned list at some point in the future, which as a reader I consider a phenomenal compliment. You just can't bash on The Church like that and not get banned...

So great job Mr. Kee! I LOVED THIS BOOK!! It has easily earned a spot of honor on my bookshelf. Now, I am impatiently awaiting the publication of Bloom. ( )