Gregory L. Norris

For Phillip McKinley, life in the rural town of Verdance seems textbook perfect on the surface: he's captain of the high school football team, dating the girl most of his buddies wish was theirs, and forced to endure the usual problems of popular, attractive eighteen-year-old guys. But Phillip, like the mysterious new arrivals to Verdance who take up residence at the local haunted house late one rainy night, is a young man with secrets. Phillip's deepest desires manifest in the form of show more Julian, the shaggy-haired youth now living up at Hindenwood House.

Julian's crafty guardian refuses to let Phillip anywhere near his charge, though the attraction the two come to feel for one another could be the key to victory in a devastating secret war whose opening shots are creeping ever closer, and stopping an invasion that could soon engulf the world. show less

Too much story for the length. This plot had novel length written all over it.

It needed more world building, a more dramatic climatic scene, a finale that was more considered.

Parts of it were convoluted and confusing.

I liked Gable and the relationship, although I wish it had more room to develop.

An intriguing concept that needed more time. I'd be interested in reading a longer version of this story.

The pacing in this was incredibly fast. I realize it needs to be relatively fast because of the length, but it just felt overly fast to me at many points. The "evil" was a bit too cartoonish, in my opinion, but with the pacing I suppose that's necessary. It's interesting and I wouldn't be opposed to reading a sequel it was just a bit more hectic than my personal preference.

This review is based on an advance copy of the book.

The story seemed to bounce around more than necessary. For example, the dream sequence giving background would have been better just being in the beginning. The plot was convoluted and difficult to follow at times. At the same time certain parts were overly simplistic to the point of cartoonishness like the villain. There was no motive given for anything, just evil is evil because it is evil. I also felt like the relationship was too fast, show more even for as short as the story was. It couldn't seem to decide what level of description to give with sex either. There was a combo of YA level fade to black with more adult levels of description and I wasn't sure where it wanted to stand. The writing was decent enough to save this from being a one star book, though. show less