By Barbara Kloss
This book is beautifully written and a joy to read. The imagery is amazing and the wording was so well done I often found myself rereading certain phrases because they were so stirring. The author has a way with words that not only paints a beautiful picture but seems to touch your other senses as well.
Daria Jones lives a secluded live in Fresno with her father that she longs to break free from. When her father up and disappears Daria must depend on family friends, the Andersons, including their son Alex: a childhood friend that she hasn’t spoken to in three years. Due to some miscommunication, and therefore a glaring misunderstanding, Daria and Alex are completely estranged.
Alex shows her a portal to a magical world called Gaia where Alex and his parents promise they will find her missing father. The Anderson family has been sworn to secrecy by her father to not divulge too much information about this other world. All they will tell her is that she was born of this world, and her father kept her away for her own safety. Daria tries to strike out on her own for the answers that she is being denied, but her journey takes a nasty turn.
I wouldn’t want to give away any of the surprising twists and turns, but I will say that she meets many interesting and magical creatures. The most promising, in my eye, is a wizard that the author refers to as “Gandalf’s hippy brother”, a description that both made me smile and almost instantly take a liking to this warm and strange new character.
The Andersons keeps promising answers as soon as they find Daria’s father, and even though Daria is determined to find out answers for herself the author does a great job keeping the mystery alive. That being said, if you want instant gratification you will be disappointed. The book does end with her learning her true identity, but the story is far from over and many questions are left unanswered; an undeniable segue into the second book. Leaving me no choice but to purchase and start that book the moment I finished the first.