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In the beginning of this book we follow 17-year-old Diana through the last 2 days of her junior year of high school. Diana is a pretty typical student and is active in a book club with her 2 best friends, Maggie and Sam. However, Diana has been plagued by nightmares of her dying brutally in many different ways since she was 10 years old. They were almost always of her dying while fighting demons. She couldn’t ever figure out why she had these dreams until she watches a YouTube video of a priest with Maggie. Diana recognizes the priest from one of her dreams; she had saved him from a demon. Suddenly, there’s a very real possibility that her nightmares are more than just her subconscious torturing her.
Maggie helps Diana track down the priest, Paul Soratino, online. He’s a bishop at the Vatican and there is a phone number listed. Diana’s world is rocked again when she calls him, and he not only knows who she is but enlists her help. He claims there is a demon infestation in the catacombs. With a little prodding, she convinces Maggie and Sam to go with her to Rome. Diana has a pit stop to make in New York first though and goes on ahead.
In New York, she follows the cues from her dreams and finds a house she had set up for herself in a previous life. In her safe house, she finds Jarret, Helen, David, and Solomon. They are all warriors for the light as well. They decide to go to Rome as well, but don’t let the bishop know that anyone besides Diana is coming. During her time in Rome, Diana runs into someone else from her past lives, Alex Black. Diana has no idea how to handle the appearance of this man she has dreamed of loving and being killed by in countless lives.
Lets get what I wasn’t crazy about in this book out of the way first. The first chapter as a whole is really rough. It read like the creative reading assignments I’d read from my classmates in high school. I think it was a choice the author made since it’s written from Diana’s point of view. I just didn’t care for it; it felt choppy and had way too many explanation points. Some of the transitions into dream sequences aren’t very well defined either, but that improves the further you get into the book as well.
What I loved about this book is how you get discover Diana’s past lives with her. She recovers bits and pieces and it reveals enough to help the story move forward without giving everything away. It’s also clear that Rider did her homework. She weaves real people and events, as well as biblical events, into her story. She also took the time to look into reincarnation and Hinduism. It was a very entertaining way to look at a classic theme of light vs. dark.
I give this book 3 out of 4 stars. There are parts where I feel like the writing definitely could have been stronger, but overall it didn’t take too much away from the book. Rider also left it open for a sequel and I would be interested in reading more of Diana’s adventures.
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