Monday, October 14, 2013

The Garden of Eden


Series: The Legend of Eden #1
Re-Release date: October 22nd 2013
Publisher: Anchor Group Publishing

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
It has been four years.

Four years since the day the Catchers found her family.

Four years since she escaped capture.

And four years since the day her mother locked her and Will, a boy she hardly knew, in an attic, 'for their own protection'. 

Now, Eden White is fifteen, and sick of being a prisoner of parents who all but abandoned her. It was as simple as one walk down a beautiful, foggy beach, but it ended with Eden and Will face to face with Catchers - and this time, there is no escape.

When Eden wakes, she finds herself on an island, surrounded by hundreds of stolen children. Enrolled in the island school, Jordan Hall, Eden quickly learns that the island is not what it seems.

And, in the woods surrounding the school, she discovers a wild, beautiful magic inside of herself - one she has no idea how to control. With three unlikely new friends, Eden begins to realize that the headmistress is hiding much more than the stolen children - and what they learn in the laboratories below the school could cost Eden her life.

~Eating Magic~

I'm reading Garden of Eden, The Legend of Eden Book 1 by Kate Cowan. It's kind of a dystopia horror island story, but it begins in an lollipop-shaped attic. What's interesting about the novel is that once you think you've hit a wall of predictability in the plot, on the next page the wall comes down. There are themes and motifs that have been done thousands of times before: Children locked away in dungeons and labs, drugged, trained, threatened, and hunted depending on the day. Yet they're tossed together in the salad bowl of this novel in an organic way.

It's a first book in a series, so many doors are opened and nothing is really closed. The main thing is: Eden wants more of a life than being locked away in castles, towers, attics, and dungeons, or being told not to go out into the woods. Something she does, every chance she gets.

There's a psychedelic quality to the plot that's refreshing. It's an easy read with a nice pace. Eden is likable… perhaps the most likable when she's persuading ice queen Adriane to train her into becoming something more tough and battle ready.

The most unusual story element is Liddon, a magician Eden stumbles upon in that forbidden forest…

~Excerpt~

I walked toward the spot where the noise had come from, curious to see if I was truly hearing things. But as I neared, I realized with a chill that the woods were not as empty as I had assumed. And then again, clearer this time, the laughter rang out again.

I first glimpsed the man as I hid behind a thick tree trunk. It was a sycamore, with dense branches low enough so I could climb them with no trouble. I started scaling it as quietly as I could, my muscles still aching from my training with Adriane. I don't think it would have mattered if I'd thrown a grenade at this man—he wouldn't have noticed. If I had ever thought I was insane, I was sorely mistaken. This is what insanity looked like.

From my vantage point high in the tree, I studied the man. He was tall; one of the tallest people I had ever seen, and maybe in his mid-thities. He wore a bright pink and purple striped suit jacket, with an orange collared shirt underneath, and a tie that hung just half-tied, as if he had once been ready for a very colorful formal event. His pants were old, torn and pink, to match his jacket. On his head he wore a furry lime-green bowler's cap, which seemed to exist only to hold his mass of wild, shoulder-length brown curls.

He danced like a wild man around a tiny fire, and I noticed a little monkey perched on his shoulder, and a huge, bright blue bird flying through the air around his head.



About the Author 
Kate is an artist, an animation student, a black belt in karate and now, an author. She didn't discover writing until mid-high school, when she began writing an (unintentionally) hilarious novel involving a teenage girl and a magic necklace. Her current novel series, The Legend of Eden, began as a story of Arthurian magic, but quickly transformed into something much different.

Kate currently lives in Ontario, Canada, in a zoo of a house. When she isn't writing, she's drawing, cooking, or browsing the Internet for new music.


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