1 out of 4 stars
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Lily’s Awakening is the first book in the Elemental Guardian series by Omni Delano. Lily lives a seemingly normal life in her little village on the mountain. Her mother and father are healers, while Lily and her brother, Luke, do what they can to help. Lily knows nothing about the mysterious guardian of the mountain, Rain, who is tasked with protecting her. One day, danger comes to the mountain in search of Lily, and her family is attacked. Rain steps in to help them, but he is too late to save Lily’s mom. Luke, Lily, and their dad find themselves in need of a refuge, so Rain agrees to take them to his home in the realm of the Eavald.
When starting to train with the Eavald, Lily discovers she is more than normal. She soon learns that she has latent magical abilities that can be harnessed. Her brother and Rain go back to fight the men and monsters who threaten Lily’s life. When they return, they must tell Lily the truth about why she is being hunted. Lily is the only one who can end the violence and hostilities, so she sets out on a quest to heal the world.
This is a multi-faceted story which has so many intricacies. However, I wish the author had taken the time to enhance the narrative. This story was a sprint when it should have been a marathon. Every piece of important information was rushed in order to get the story told. The characters, the world, and the relationships between the cast were left behind in her haste to get to the finish.
I still don’t really know much about our main characters. I know a few basic physical characteristics of Lily and Rain. I know Luke is younger than Lily. Apart from that, the other characters' names are all I know about them. The characters start with no backstories, and they achieve no growth throughout the book. It was jolting to have Lily and Rain declare their love for each other without having had a single conversation. In the beginning, the younger version of Lily (we don’t know her age) distrusts Rain and doesn’t tolerate him. There is no connection between the two. Rain leaves for eight cycles — which I assume to be much like years — and returns to tell Lily how she is all he has thought about. It was unrealistic.
That was not all that was unrealistic. In one of the first scenes, Lily, Luke, their dad and Rain were setting up camp on their way to Rain’s home. They managed to make a shelter for everyone, catch a deer, and find fruit, berries and potatoes. They then somehow managed to make a spit to put the deer onto. This spit was able to be turned by a young Lily. I’m not sure the author is aware of how heavy a deer is, or how long a spit roast like that would take to cook. Without any explanation, this was virtually impossible. But with an explanation of the circumstances – this could have worked. Maybe they were in a jungle with an overpopulation of edible foliage. Maybe the deer were pygmy deer. Maybe Lily had super strength. This is how I felt through the entire book. I just wanted some perspective.
Things happen in this book because it is the way that the story is headed - not for any other logical reason. The Eavald, as a race, are not explained at all. I discovered about halfway through the book that each of them has a unique power. This would have been so much fun to read about! This was one of the many things I found absent as a result of the lack of depth and description in this story. Another was that there is no concept of the world in which the story takes place. There is so much potential for a truly fantastic world in this book.
The most bizarre part was the random and exceptionally explicit sex scenes. They were so out of place in this narrative. They were also completely unnecessary. I have no problem with sex in a book, but only when it serves a purpose. The sex scenes were thrown into the storyline for absolutely no reason. They just popped up out of nowhere. This book reads like a young adult novel, until it abruptly becomes erotica. It was jarring.
The one redeeming quality is that the story itself has a lot to offer. There is definitely a future for this series, but only once this story gets the development it deserves. The editing was good; I found errors, but nothing that detracted from the book. As it stands, I can’t see myself recommending this book to anyone. It’s because of this that I come to a rating of 1 out of 4 stars. There is a lot of work to be done. This reads as an outline of a book - the idea before the first draft. It needs depth, and with this storyline, I hope the author achieves it.
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Lily's Awakening
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I don't mind sex in a novel either; I just usually prefer it to be a fade out scene where it's clear what's going to happen, but doesn't give explicit details. I also don't mind if there are a few lines in the next scene or chapter that describes if it was generally great or awkward. If there's going to be an explicit sex scene, I'd want it to be for a purpose, like you've said.
