"Seeker" by Arwyn Alys Dayton

I got an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Seeker officially comes out next month on February 10.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is a cross between urban fantasy and high fantasy with some dystopian themes mixed in. The first few chapters the setting felt quite Medieval, but then rather unexpectedly we are given glimpses of modern technology such as mobile phones and aircraft. So the world building was not very clearcut to me. For about half of the book I felt that too much information was withheld from the reader such as the history of Seekers, their mission and purpose, how their unique travel ability worked and what was the place the author called "There". I also did not feel particularly attached to any of the main characters and for the longest time could not even figure out who I was rooting for. All of them seemed to have some major flaw: they either directly engaged in some bad/evil actions or silently stood by and did nothing (a very anti-hero behavior in my opinion). Perhaps this was the author's way of making her characters more human and letting them figure out who they were. But as a result I felt confused and not vested in the story.

I did have an unexpected favorite among the secondary characters. I find Maud (one of the three Dreads in the story - humans with very unique powers) quite fascinating.  Unlike with the main characters, we get an insight into her background quite early on in the story and get to observe her inner dialogue and struggle as she figures out her own role and purpose. I was glad to see her play a much more prominent role in the book than I originally anticipated. The overall story gets much better after you get roughly half-way through the book. We get much more information about Seekers and their history, and the main characters finally figure out their place in the world. This also helped me to decide who to root for. The last third of the book was excellent: action-packed, fast-paced and I really enjoyed how the story ended. Of course, this is not the end. We are told this is Book 1 in a series and the next installment is expected in spring of 2016. Overall, I rated Seeker at 3 stars out of 5. It is not quite the page-turner I expected but I did enjoy large portions of the story and would consider reading the sequel.