Broken Destiny by Serena LindahlMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Interesting NA Paranormal Reverse Harem
This is a very promising start to a new series. I’ve not read anything by this author before, but this book is encouraging me to keep an eye out for other works. One of the main things that attracted me to this book was the disabled protagonist.
Zosia is an unusual character. She is 19 years old and spent the majority of her childhood in an orphanage. She has no memories before the age of 12/13 when she woke up in a hospital with her legs shattered. She has unusual abilities in that she can sense other supernaturals and she can see ghosts. The ghost that she spends the most time with is Kodi, a ghost that first appeared to her after she moved to the orphanage. He appeared to be around 19 years of age when he died, but he has no memories of how that happened. He is Zo’s only friend and he helps protect her in the orphanage from those that see her as a weak target.
She is able to move around with the aid of crutches or a wheelchair. Sitting for long periods hurts her almost as much as standing does, so she alternates between the two. This detail is one I love. This is something important to convey to physically fit people, that when you are disabled it is often the case that being in a wheelchair is not the disabled person’s only option, and sometimes that option is not the best one. If you don’t understand that all disabilities are different it makes no sense that you would use a wheelchair if you didn’t need to, or would choose to stand if it hurts too much. While this is not a disability advocation book, it does my heart good to see someone with a disability being central to a Reverse Harem book.
In actual fact Zo’s disability is not the main thing holding her back, it’s actually her loss of memory. In this book she is discovered in the orphanage and taken to Apocrypha, a Hidden Academy for young elite supernaturals to learn how to lead their world. Zo knows she doesn’t belong there as her magic is weak and she doesn’t know what she is, but the supernatural man who discovered her is sure that she has a role to play as the future Librarian at the academy. The Library is a source of supernatural knowledge and filled with power. If there is no Librarian than the academy will not be open. This man believes that Zo is the only one who can fulfil this role properly.
This story covers her starting her new life and finding guardians who can help her in her new role.
I really liked this story and the characters are all intriguing. I can tell the author has fleshed out the characters and history, even if not much of it is revealed in this book. It means that their interaction feels real, even if we don’t know why yet. The plot is intriguing as it feels like this is simply an introduction to lots of things to come. There is a lot of information dangled just out of reach that you want to grasp hold of but the author won’t let you just yet. It’s a frustrating but clever tactic to make you want to read the next book.
The world building feels a little lacking, but that may be another tactic on the part of the author. It always annoys me when I feel that I have missing information about the world in which the characters walk, and this is the case here. Given the apparent talent of this writer I have high hopes that some answers will appear in future books.
Apart from my moderate annoyance at missing information, this was a very engaging book, and I look forward to reading the next one in the series.
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