Book Five of My 2013 Goal

Purgatory Reign by L.M. Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Purgatory Reign by L.M. Preston is a Young Adult Fiction book but I would go further and say it is a Paranormal, Thriller, Mystery, Suspense with some Action and Adventure thrown in for good measure. I was in no hurry to read the book but once I started reading the first page I was hooked and finished the book the next day. I just didn't want to put it down because there was something always happening and I was dying to find out what.

The story starts with the main character Peter Saints who is a sixteen year old that lives in an orphanage since his parents death some years before. As the story progresses we learn quite a bit about Peter as a person. He has issues trusting people, he doesn't want to get close to anyone because he thinks they will be taken from him just as his parents were, he even admits to doing things just to get the attention of Pastor Finnegan (Finn) who runs the orphanage and who he looks at as a father figure. All of these add to his character and the believability of his character since they seem to be 'normal' for what he went through. What wasn't normal about this well developed character is that he was always protected and when he snuck away from the orphanage a 'gift' was given to him from a dying friend. This gift is like no other and he often wondered if it was a curse.

Peter is told to leave the orphanage by Pastor Finn since he can't protect him any longer and he provides him with some things he will need and sent him on a journey. He meets up with Angel and then later on with Kyle. Kyle was the least developed but it seems to me the author did this intentionally. She wanted a bit of mystery around him so the reader would not know who's side he is on for sure. Kyle was the kid with the humor and his character really added to the story. Angel also had a secret that is eventually discovered. It was an interesting twist I didn't see coming. Another interesting thing is all three of them discovered that none of them have parents that are alive and they all were treated like there was something 'off' about them. Either they were sheltered and kept inside and even home schooled so they didn't have to go out or when they did go out their parents were very uneasy and always looking over their shoulder. Things they overheard their parents say even made them wonder if their parents were crazy. They also found out they had other things in common too, right down to the blood in their veins.

On their journey they discover the when, where, and why they are running from others who want to kill them. You can read what the Author wrote about the story yourself so I won't recap the whole story but I was at the edge of my seat when the enemy was close or when there was the discovery of some new information or place. The imagination and all the details with their twists and turns really kept me glued to the book. In fact, it is very hard to write a review for this story because I don't want to include any spoilers which means I can't really say a lot about it. There was something going on all the time but in order for you to understand it, I would have to explain it which means "a spoiler". I don't want to do that and ruin it for you so you will have to take my word for it, it was full of things happening, people trying to kidnap the main characters (in fact, they did kidnap one of them), new secret places being discovered or artifacts being discovered that were hidden many years ago by their ancestors, and the ever present danger of the Extraho of Obscurum being rebuilt and their "Master" bonding with a human to enact his reign of terror here on earth and beyond.

There really wasn't a lot of swearing. In fact, it was minor things. There is a 'love scene' and I use that loosely because it was short and it involved kissing and some touching with the 'desires' explained but nothing more happened. By today's standards I don't even think they would call the intense kissing a 'love scene'. There is a lot of fighting and people dying but there really is nothing detailed where it would cause concern and the fighting for the most part was justified by a ' it's either you or me' (good vs evil) scenario.

The only negative things I have to say is there a format issue that I found distracting, the LM Preston and the number was in odd places and at times even right in the middle of a sentence. (I read the Kindle Version so maybe on a Nook these were not a problem.). There were also several spelling errors, "Angel" was "Angle" and "his" was used instead of "he" in sentences such as "His kissed her" and "His bit his finger". Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing. I absolutely enjoyed this story. In fact, I loved the story!

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