Phantasmic Reads: Review and Giveaway - Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster

Monday, April 22, 2013

Review and Giveaway - Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster

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Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster
Publication: April 25th 2013
by Dragonfairy Press
Genre: YA Sci-Fi

The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone's been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end.

Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans.

Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to suspect that the future of the world may depend on Ashara's death.

Amazon | B&N | Goodreads

Alicia Wright Brewster is a mild-mannered lady of average height and above average paranormal obsession. By day, she works in an office. At night she is an author, an electronics junkie, and a secret superhero.

In her virtually non-existent free time, she loves to read, watch movies, and eat food. She is particularly fond of the food-eating and makes a point to perform this task at least three times per day, usually more.

Where to find Alicia:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Let me start with...I love this cover. Absolutely love this cover. Gorgeous. Perfect. Love it. I would have bought this book based on the cover and blurb alone. And I would not have regretted it.

10:04:21. Ten days, four hours, twenty-one minutes until the end of all things we knew - or so the vision said. Echo starts off with a bang and does not stop. The reader immediately finds out that four rewinds have already taken place, making this the fifth timeline. Ashara Vinn is summoned to the Council, where she's assigned to the Ethereal task force.

Ashara is understandably confused, since she's never shown any talent. But being a good citizen, she answers the summons. We're introduced to her best friend Rey, who is a Breather - an air manipulator. There are other practitioners we meet throughout the story, some of whom I would gladly have slapped.

When Asha reaches the Council, she comes face-to-face with Loken, someone she hasn't seen in a while and the person who will lead her task force. Loken and Ashara have history which makes for some fun interaction in stressful times.

The elders are the only ones who retain memories from previous timelines, so they are the people who dictate the next course of action for the practitioners. During previous timelines, new information became known, which changes the direction they will take in this fifth timeline.

I found Ashara to be a strong-willed, outspoken, and thoughtful heroine. As Echo progresses, her history with Loken is revealed, along with a few other things from her past that had me feeling for this young woman.

While I realized the direction some plot threads were headed, there were several others that smacked me upside the head. Not because they didn't fit, but because I really had not seen them coming. At all.

Ms. Brewster did an amazing job telling this story. The writing is polished and clean. The pacing is tight, which encourages rapid page-turning. Before I knew it, I was being blown away by another of those little plot twists I mentioned. Echo had me smiling at some points, frustrated at others (with the situation, not the writing or the story!), and flat out cheering at the end.

Any book that makes me think and feel the way Echo did is a winner. I'm not sure if this is a stand-alone or if there will be others in this universe. I would definitely read another tale of this world - if Alicia Wright-Brewster decides to write it!