Publication: May 20th 2016 by Mirror Press
Source: Received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review from ebooksforreview.com. Thank you!
Goodreads Summary: From the Book of Ether comes a haunting story of two royal sisters. The elder sister, Ash, will do anything to bring her father, King Jared II, back to the throne. The younger sister, Naiva, only wants to save her family from destruction. The bond of sisterhood becomes precariously fragile when one man . . . named Akish . . . falls in love with the younger sister, Naiva. Yet he chooses to marry the elder sister.
The sisters’ hearts are divided. And when Ash becomes queen, seduced by the promise of power and wealth, Naiva watches her world crumble away. She sees only one way out. But it will require forsaking all that she holds dear.
Goodreads Page
My Thoughts:
More of a 3.75 stars read for me. First of all, I feel the need to do a disclaimer for this review: I'm not Mormon and am completely unfamiliar with the Book of Mormon and most of what the church and followers believe. I am purely reviewing this book by its entertainment level for me and do not mean to offend anybody who has a deeper connection to the story.
Moving on. I requested to review this book because I skimmed the summary and it sounded to be Biblical and interested me. I've also read other works from Heather and have enjoyed her writing in the past. I thought at first that the summarist had misspelled the name "Esther" (from the Bible). When I started reading it however, I was completely confused at the unfamiliar names, both of places and people, and finally figured out near the end of the book that these are all people from the Book of Mormon and not the Bible. That being said, in hindsight, would I request this book again? Probably not since I feel religion is always a sensitive topic and someone outside of the religion reviewing a story that is probably held sacred is probably not the best idea. But I have to write a review so here we go.
I did like the book. I found Naiva to be a very real and relatable charater. From the very beginning, you get a sense of her character and I love how she developed throughout the story. Her fierce loyalty to her family was definitely admirable but also something that irked me as she let her own happiness pass by over and over again. The other characters were also interesting and pretty well developed within their roles. Regardless of how she treated her sister, I still found Ash to be an intriguing character with her repeated plans and manipulation. The brothers featured in this book definitely added a lot to the story. As Akish's real character is revealed, I found my thoughts towards him change more and more and he definitely shares some similar character traits to a few kings in the Book of Kings from the Bible. His brother Levi was an interesting character as well and captured how different family members can be. Although I do have to tend to agree with Naiva when faced with Levi and how he would try to change so much about her. That's definitely something that I rebel against in relationships and I could relate to Naiva in that way.
The plotline ran pretty fast-paced. I didn't find myself losing interest throughout the book but it also wasn't one that I was dying to keep reading. I think that if I was familiar with the story, the characters, and the places mentioned, I would have had more fun reading this. Particularly the places in the story meant nothing to me so when different villages were mentioned, I had no idea what the distances were (and none are given for the ordinary reader) and what their importance might be. However, Naiva and her spirit carried the book for me and I'm glad that I read it.
Likes: I liked all of the characters, even the evil ones. The character development. The plot was pretty fast-paced.
Dislikes: Virtually no explanation given of the places mentioned and no distances given so I had no idea how far Naiva had to travel, etc. Because I'm a different religion, there were some beliefs that I didn't agree with such as that Ash would go to hell for the things that she had done. Of course, this makes sense if you are of the Mormon faith and believe that what you do in life determines where your soul will live on. I however believe that there is nothing God cannot forgive if you ask for His forgiveness besides the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Overall:
Recommend? Yes, if you're Mormon. If you aren't, I feel you'll have a similar reading experience to me.
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