Beyond the Reflections Edge by Bryan Davis

Nathan Shepard is living the life. Not a normal life, or anything vaguely resembling one; but an interesting life, and a very wonderful one at that. His father being an investigator, Nathan has been through dozens of missions and chases around the world. He also symbiotically doubles as a violinist, in the footsteps of his mother, who is world-renowned for her talent.

Of course, that all changes very quickly when they are unexpectedly killed. His only hints at what to do next lie with a mirror his father left him, as well as noted from his last case. Nathan moves in with his father's old college friend and his daughter, Kelly. Things get strange when events that haven't happened and people that don't exist appear in the mirror.

This book was... okay. Unfortunately, that's all I can really say about it. I was expecting something vaguely reminiscent of Davis' two "Starlight" series, but got something very different instead. Beyond the Reflection's Edge was sort of a mash of three different sci-fi series I read way back, 10 different quantum physics movies, and random bits of teen culture. Not exactly what I was hoping for. In addition to this, I didn't really love the two main characters. They were much too similar to the characters Jason and Koren from Dragons of Starlight. However, these characters seemed very inconsistent and unrealistic.

While I am not really a fan of Beyond the Reflection's Edge, I am not giving up on the series yet. I feel there were some hints that the story might take a big twist, so I guess I'll have to keep reading, in order to find out.

I received a free copy of this book from Zondervan, in exchange for my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Predator by Terri Blackstock

Ella Carmichael was killed by an online predator through her detailed schedule that she updated constantly on the social website, GrapeVyne. Careless? Absolutely. But it still got her killed. She was dead, and there was nothing he sister, Krista, could do about it. Except, perhaps, to hunt down and catch the killer...

Krista creates a false GrapeVyne account in order to lure in the killer. But when her trap works, will she be able to control the outcome? Even with GrapeVyne's CEO, Ryan Atkins, working with her, the game still comes down to predator vs. prey.

After my mournful departure with the Intervention Series, I knew that I had to read another Terri Blackstock novel. Predator being quite recent, it seemed the logical choice. So I went for it.

The first few chapters unfortunately took a while to pull me in. Not that this is an unusual characteristic of a mystery novel; there is so much information to convey in so few pages, but I found it a little disappointing to pop up in this novel because I was really craving something that I could chew easily, without having to poke around with my fork.

Once Predator picked up a bit, I found it a very enjoyable story. I loved that the author chose to include the CEO of a major company, for no other reason than that is a main character I have never personally encountered in the fiction world. And having that person be the parallel of an infamous person we all know from the media- very brave, in my opinion. The character would have to be spot-on or it would interfere with the story. And I think that Terri got him right. A fresh, intriguing mystery,
 perfectly set for the current media age.