Release Date: Dec 3/2012
Adquired: Ebook provided by author
Goodreads: ADD
Purchase: Amazon
Maya Price is a typical eighteen-year-old girl without much going on in her life. Her biggest problems include getting ready to leave her hometown for college, figuring out how to avoid her ever-so-strange stepmother, and trying to muddle through her feelings for her best friend, Pete. Yet, on one of her last nights in her hometown, she and Pete are in a car accident. A stranger pulls Maya from the accident, leaving Pete behind, and takes her out of this world and into another dimension.
Maya soon discovers that she has been taken to a dimension called Leets by a group of people that call themselves shifters. Shifters are of mixed human and onyx blood and have various abilities. These shifters are able to travel between dimensions and control the four elements (fire, earth, wind, water) and the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch and taste). Their leader, Victoria, informs Maya that she, too, is a shifter and that she must choose to join them or risk being sought out by their greatest enemy, a shifter named Leonas.
Maya joins Victoria and her ragtag group of rebel shifters in Leets, where she is teamed up with a group of seven other shifters. Her new "teammates" include a street-smart girl named Luz, who is especially adept at controlling fire, her twin sister Espy, and a nervous boy named Lamar, who can manipulate sound better than any other shifter. Together, Maya’s team trains for the battle that will soon be inevitable.
However, Maya soon learns that her purpose is not to just move the earth or send water flying into the air. There are rumors of a hidden prophecy and that the prophecy mentions Maya by name. Supposedly, the prophecy says that Maya will one day have to choose a side and will be essential in bringing her chosen ally to power...
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A confession: I initially judged this book by it's cover. I took one look at it and thought, "ugh..my chances of loving this are slim." Now, here I sit, silently scolding myself for having jumped to such superficial conclusions. WHO NEEDS COVERS I say!? Identified is officially in my top YA paranormal books of the year. It's SUCH a pity that it's a self-published book, it demands to be picked up by a major publishing house.
I've come to notice that there is an extremely fine line between poorly written paranormal fiction, and outstanding paranormal fiction. A pace written too fast in either direction can make or break a novel, a character or situation described just a little too much can have me wanting to put it down. It's such a fine art, crafting non-existent, and far-fetched worlds in such a way that makes it believable to even the skeptical of skeptics. Identified was a novel that someone clearly took the time to care about enough. Faith A. Rice-Mills used a fine tooth comb it seems, ensuring that nothing happened too soon, no one believed everything immediately, and the best part, the "paranormal aspect", was gradual, and had the most satisfying build-up. Identified is written from different perspectives, aside from the ongoing Maya Price story line in present time, there are letters, memories and journal entries from other characters dated in the past and future. I loved the flow, it was perfect without being too perfect-told at a pace that was realistic enough to grasp onto.
Maya was outstanding as the main lead. You want to know absolutely everything about her, right away, and then you want it to stop, and let her new fate slowly mold her into something else. I was never bored, or impatient, or frustrated, I was only engaged, every.last.word was something that needed to be told, and I wanted to listen. The characters are plenty, but there will get under your skin, and you will find yourself picking out your favourites very early on. The idea of a "prophecy," and the "chosen one," might be an overplayed route, but when it's done well, it seems as though you're reading about the idea for the very first time. That's what Identified did for me, I was taken to someone I've visited a million times, but yet, it was the first time, and I was completely.blown.away.
Recommended for Fans of: YA Paranormal, Magic, Hex Hall, The Nightmare Affair, Harry Potter
I've come to notice that there is an extremely fine line between poorly written paranormal fiction, and outstanding paranormal fiction. A pace written too fast in either direction can make or break a novel, a character or situation described just a little too much can have me wanting to put it down. It's such a fine art, crafting non-existent, and far-fetched worlds in such a way that makes it believable to even the skeptical of skeptics. Identified was a novel that someone clearly took the time to care about enough. Faith A. Rice-Mills used a fine tooth comb it seems, ensuring that nothing happened too soon, no one believed everything immediately, and the best part, the "paranormal aspect", was gradual, and had the most satisfying build-up. Identified is written from different perspectives, aside from the ongoing Maya Price story line in present time, there are letters, memories and journal entries from other characters dated in the past and future. I loved the flow, it was perfect without being too perfect-told at a pace that was realistic enough to grasp onto.
Maya was outstanding as the main lead. You want to know absolutely everything about her, right away, and then you want it to stop, and let her new fate slowly mold her into something else. I was never bored, or impatient, or frustrated, I was only engaged, every.last.word was something that needed to be told, and I wanted to listen. The characters are plenty, but there will get under your skin, and you will find yourself picking out your favourites very early on. The idea of a "prophecy," and the "chosen one," might be an overplayed route, but when it's done well, it seems as though you're reading about the idea for the very first time. That's what Identified did for me, I was taken to someone I've visited a million times, but yet, it was the first time, and I was completely.blown.away.
Recommended for Fans of: YA Paranormal, Magic, Hex Hall, The Nightmare Affair, Harry Potter
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Faith A. Rice-Mills is the author of Identified: The Maya Price Story and a handful of short stories. She moonlights as a Spanish teacher, but has wanted to be a writer since she wrote the poem “The Jackowhipp’s Wail” as an eight-year-old. Her writer’s spirit resides somewhere between Narnia and Mount Doom, but her physical body lives in Texas with her family.
Besides writing, she loves reading (and will take recommendations!), yoga, coloring with her daughter, and watching Parks and Recreation with her husband. She dislikes snakes, the word “literally,” and teaching double object pronouns in Spanish. She is currently working on Burdened, the second book in The Maya Price Story series and is writing whatever short story she has to get out of her brain.
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Thank-you to Giselle from Xpresso Book Tours for hosting this tour, and to the author for sending me an ecopy of the book to review!
CLICK HERE to follow the rest of the tour
This is a very different cover for YA, eh? I think it's kind of neat in the simplicity, though. I'm glad you did enjoy it, I love alternate dimensions it kind of boggles my mind! And Maya sounds like a fantastic MC! Great review! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the review and being part of the tour! I love the feedback!
ReplyDelete