Book 24 of 2015

Illuminarium by Truth Devour
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! What a cover and what a book! Illuminarium: Book 1 - Soliloquy's Labyrinth Series by Truth Devour is a book that goes beyond a page turner. This book had me glued to it and I didn't want to put it down: I had to know what was next and where it was going. This fictional, urban legion type book is not for the faint of heart as it does contain some gore and adult subject matter but even the swearing is done in a way that it is somewhat what you would expect in the situation and is realistic for the characters.

Something that makes this book unique is that it is a story within a story. When the main character, Harper, finds a book and starts to read it, it tells a story of what is happening to York, the main character who is eventually taken to mental institution instead of an orphanage when his mother had to split the family up. Although what happened to York had happened in the past, Harper reading it throughout the story makes both these stories happening simultaneously. The way it was done is not confusing, brilliant the way one story affects what is happening to Harper, and it is amazing the way these two stories have connections. That doesn't even take in account for the supernatural, crime, mystery, and everything else involved in the stories.

Everything in the book is not dark, at times it even makes me laugh since Harper is quite the comedian. She strikes me as the kind of person who can tell someone off without them even being aware of it. She is serious and all business at times while she can be quite the prankster and comical at others. She is extremely intelligent and knows things that most do not or even believe in: possessions and reincarnation being some of them. I don't want to write any spoilers so I am limiting it to just that but there is much more.

Speaking of characters, all the major ones (both in the story and the book Harper is reading) were developed into multi-denominational characters although not everything about them is known (after all this is a series) while the minor characters were certainly developed enough to make sense out of who they were and what was going on, time wasn't wasted developing them instead it was concentrated on keeping the stories forward moving and interesting.

The multi-plot on all its levels were easy to understand and the book always stayed on focus with it. At times I may have questioned if I was just taken off in another direction but after reading on I realized I was not and it was always on target. Because this is a series, some things may not be clear yet but enough is known to totally make sense and have satisfaction with reading this first book.

If there were any errors in the story, I was so engrossed in it that I didn't notice any. I do know the different characters were all with their own drawl or way of speaking so some 'off' sounding sentences were done on purpose because that is the way they spoke: 'fer' instead of 'for'. I did not notice any format issues either.

I recommend this book to all adults who like supernatural, urban legion type books that have mystery, gore, and thrills.


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