OnlineBookClub.org

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Shade Sister" by Melody Hewson.]

The Shade Sister by Melody Hewson is a sci fi novel based on a world like ours but culturally and evolutionally different.

The story itself is a girls adventure traveling outside her small town for the first time with a strange young man who arrived one day in search of someone to help his master.

Bethia, the main character, is warned to stay away from him by townsfolk but is irrefutably drawn to him which leads to her eventual journey across her worlds magical land.

The story is well written, fast paced and short compared to other novels; which appealed to me because it made things entertaining rather than dragging on. I finished it in one day in the space of a few hours.

The setting of an alternate, earth like planet made the course of the story unpredictable, which I liked, anything was possible in this new world and I was instantly drawn in.

I found Bethia quite flaky, ditzy and kind of an airhead. This made her quite annoying as the main character and only served to detract from an otherwise good, referral worthy novel. Many times she would not finish a sentence due to being overwhelmed or confused and tiptoe around a simple answer to what she was being asked rather than replying like a normal sound minded individual. This break in communication amongst characters made their dialogue frustrating to read as they fumbled around trying to understand one another. As a result of the latter, I was reading for the sole purpose of her odd travel companion Thom. I didn't know if the character was good or evil, if he was acting to be good or was a threat to Bethia when she agreed to travel with him. His calmness in contrast to her impulsive, silliness made me continue reading to unlock the mystery which was him.

Bethia's growing interest and descriptions of Thom produced the prospect of some romance which drew me in further, however this served to disappoint as her delusion of Thom and reality in general prevented her from seeing the situation and their relationship as it truly was. It was quite vexing that she blindly ignored key pieces of information e.g. how Thom was linked to his master and what that meant for her in pursuing a relationship, because she was so enamored with him. The reader being kept in the dark about all the things she learnt from talking to Caelan for hours was also annoying as we, the reader, are not let in on the mysteries kept from us.

Thom's character also failed to deliver secrets behind his intentions or the hidden personality I began to hope for while reading. He is what he is at face value- which isn't much. This is deflating as you root for him to be someone who can whole heartedly return her love like one human to another. As the male protagonist, Thom lacks personality, is robotic and emotionless in nature- which makes him boring.

As a whole, I found the story quite depressing and sad however it did have many interesting ideas making up Bethia's adventure with Thom and life's journey. The latter is why I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It was a nice fable like story to read. For a higher rating the main character, Bethia, would have had to have been less ditzy and more in tune with reality.

This book would appeal to young adults rather than an older audience due to it adventure like story.

******
The Shade Sister
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3 out of 4 for a good adventure despite annoying characters. I'll take it! Thank you VERY much for your review!!

I'm a little surprised that you didn't mention the children/grandchildren but I would assume it was to avoid spoilers.

To address a few of the points you brought up, Bethia was very sheltered and had little interaction with people her own age, which led her to develop an overactive imagination, which then led to everything else that happened to her. I meant for her to seem like she was SO wrapped up in her own version of reality that she would willfully block out obvious facts in order to stay safely cocooned within it. Unfortunately this did make her unlikable and annoying at times, but not completely unrelatable.

Thom was meant to be ambiguous even after his secrets were revealed. I was hoping to leave the possibility that he could transcend what he was meant to be and leave that for the reader to decide. It sounds like that didn't come across and it's something I'll have to work on in the future, so thank you for pointing that out.

As for any secrets between her and Caelan, other than trying to figure out what a soul is and what it does, something Bethia has clearly never given much thought to, I personally imagined most of their time was simply spent chatting about nothing. Here are two mostly lonely and isolated individuals finding kindred spirits, and both mostly living vicariously through imaginary means. So the chatter would have come across as boring to the reader. Although I suppose this could also leave an unexplained mystery instead. I didn't think of this when I wrote it.

I was going for several themes with this story, which do not always come across as I would like them to. With Bethia, she's happy in her ignorance. Even when the truth is staring her in the face, she just looks the other way because it doesn't agree with her idea of what SHOULD be.
Caelan, and by extension, Thom, are the opposite. They WANT to learn the truth but are not above practicing some deception to get it. Caelan and Thom's happiness is much less apparent.
The ending with the children I prefer to leave up to interpretation rather than give my personal opinion because all of my pre-readers had a different idea about it than I did.

Thank you again for reading and reviewing Shade Sister and I hope you enjoyed it! If anyone else reads this review and decides to check it out, then I hope they can enjoy the story as well.