speed of light

speed of light
amber kizer
fiction/ya/fantasy
random house
published 2012

Meridian Sozu and Juliet Ambrose are Fenestra: half angel, half human.  Their job is to transition the dead to the next world.  But that's all they have in common.

Meridian is close to mastering her destiny, but she doesn't know how to embrace her future with Tens Valdez, her soul mate and Protector.  Can they build a life together?  Or will the coming storm sweep away their love?

Juliet has been molded by a childhood filled with abuse and neglect.  Unable to trust others, she's never formed lasting friendships, and the select few she's loved haven't been able to stay.  Trapped in her loneliness, she finds it all too easy to fall back into the familiar patterns of fear and rage.  Can she uncover her past without betraying her new family?  Or will she be faced with an impossible choice?

When Meridian, Juliet, and Tens uncover an Aternocti plot to kill innocent spectators at the Indianapolis 500, every relationship will be tested.  Time is running out for the hundreds of thousands of people gathering for the huge race.  In a climactic battle, Light and Dark will fight for control - and not all will survive.

I agree with a lot of readers who said that this book was unnecessarily long.  It really is.  I wasn't really bored, but I was comfortable reading it.  There wasn't any excitement.  Seriously, none at all.  And the Indy 500 being the focal point for the Nocti?  Lame.  Seriously, lame.  And you spend about 375 pages slowly trodding to this complete clusterfuck of a Light vs. Dark ending.  It was so dang confusing at that point that sometimes I had to re-read paragraphs and was still completely lost at exactly what was happening.

Meridian continuously talks about widening the rings of their influence.  Opening their circle to more people, trusting more people and that's wonderful, but near the end there were just too many characters to keep track of.  Not only that but I swear that at one point Meridian asked Nelli if Bales was her boyfriend and then in the next chapter they were EdwardandBella in love and insane out it.  I'm pretty sure that happened in a day.

Kizer does such a great job of setting scenes and Meridian & Tens character development, but then she kind of flubs everything else.  It kind of felt like this was the last book in the series and I hope that's true.  I know there's another book called Counting Tens that's in development.  I hope that it's just Tens story and not a continuation of the main story.  I don't think I can take another book!