Many of you probably know about free e-books that are available both from Amazon and iBooks (those are the two e-book formats I am most familiar with). In fact, I get daily e-mails with free or bargain priced e-books offerings. I have read a couple of those by "undiscovered" writers, and they were a huge disappointment. Nonetheless, a few free book titles do catch my eye every now and gain and I download them onto my e-reader. To make the long story short, last week I read an amazing book that is available for free on Amazon called
Inquest by DelSheree Gladen. It is Book 1 in a trilogy, and what a way to hook you with a free offer! It is an urban fantasy book and is completely different from anything I've read so far.
The events occur in the present time, but the world is completely different. There are no countries. The world is ruled by one President and his army of Guardians. All humans have super-powers called "talents" and they are Strength, Speed, Naturalism, Spiritualism, Perception, Vision and Concealment. Most people have 2, 3, or 4 of them at the same time. The talents are revealed on children's sixteenth birthday and reach their full potential when they turn eighteen. The main protagonist is a girl named Libby who is about to have her talents revealed. As you might guess, she is not like everyone else. She is the prophesied Destroyer, born with all seven talents and is destined to destroy the world.
When I started reading this book, I knew nothing about the author or the story line. In other words, I had no preconceived notions or expectations. The book captured my attention from the first chapter and I literally could not put it down until I finished book one and then read the rest of the trilogy. You do have to pay for books 2 and 3 (but they are very reasonably priced). Gladen is an amazingly talented writer. Her story is unique and fresh, her writing moves at a nice pace, and her word choice is not trite or eye-roll worthy. The way she describes what the characters feel is amazing. You get sucked into her world and walk among the characters. I love the way she wrote the relationship between Libby and Braden (you'll have to wait for book two to really get into this, so I won't give you any spoilers). The entire trilogy is well outlined and all the different story threads are nicely tied off at the end. I had a lot of fun reading these books. My only complaint about the e-books is the number of typos that they have. They can be quite distracting. These are excellent stories and it's a shame the publisher does not take the time to fix typos.
In conclusion, if you are planning a beach trip, have a long airplane ride ahead of you or simply want to spend a weekend curled up with a good book, get your free copy of
Inquest. It will not disappoint.
