Link: The Shadow of Light (Book !)

Link: The Shadow of Light (Book 1) by Summer Wier    318 pages

For her 17^th birthday, Kira’s closest friends---Zane, Fischer and Faye---have taken her to their favorite camping spot in the woods.  Kira has a crush on Zane, and the feelings seem to be reciprocated, but neither acts upon them.

As Kira takes a midnight swim, a foreign light, races toward the lake. The collision between the light and water pushes Kira toward the bottom. Faye best describes the incident, “It fell out of the sky, and then nothing. No rock, no meteor, not even a UFO. Did you see how it lingered on the lake? Dancing like…I don’t know, liquid fire melting into the water.”

It seems whatever happened out there, it changed Kira. She awakes two days later, realizing she has been somewhere else. The place seemed like her planet, but it’s not. There is a boy, Evan, who seems to be her guide. He shows her how to navigate the carnival-cave she materializes in, so that she can slip through her world and his. When she goes back to sleep, she awakens on her own planet.

Turns out Kira has descended into a black hole. The star that gives her the power to move between planets is dying. She can feel the light ebbing away from her. She must solve the problem of her missing father, and stay back home before her star dies, trapping her in the other world. To mention anything else, would give away the plot, and I won’t do that to you.

I like the way author Wier describes both planets like Earth. I was rather taken back when I learned that Kira and the gang’s home was not planet Earth, but that’s part of the premise that human life as we know if can exist on other planets. There is some real science in the book, not enough to turnoff readers, but enough to give Wier’s theories validity.

I was pulled into the story until about page 75. I didn’t like the way it ended, with no real resolution. I understand that Wier is luring readers to want to read Book 2. I think I read somewhere that The Shadow of Light series is to be a trilogy.

For those reasons, I give Link: The Shadow of Light (Book 1) 4 out of 5 stars.