REVIEWED by Jay V.
TITLE: The Manuscript
AUTHOR: J.D. Light
SERIES: Beyond the Realm: Remember #6
PUBLISHER: B4 Dawn Publishing
LENGTH: 82 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 22, 2020
BLURB:
There’s no time. Remember the Manuscript.
Omi has had vague but vivid dreams his whole life but would forget them within minutes of opening his eyes. When he started writing the dreams down as soon as he woke up, he suddenly realized the significance when things in those dreams would pop up in his daily life. A broken toaster that caused a ridiculous automobile accident that was thankfully not fatal to anyone. A pop can that exploded in the middle of class and covered his least favorite teacher in orange soda.
Omi’s dreams about a man with sunflower eyes were his favorite and enough to fill the pages of a manuscript. He couldn’t help but fall madly in love with the man, even if he never had a name. But the beautiful stranger never appeared like the other objects in his dreams and with every day that he didn’t, Omi became more and more depressed until he finally had to lock the manuscript away and stop writing about the man.
Six years have passed since Omi has touched the manuscript, but he would recognize the man that shows up at his favorite coffee shop anywhere, even before he gets close enough for Omi to see his sunflower eyes. How is a guy supposed to react to seeing the man he’s been in love with from the time he was eighteen in real life for the first time? Probably NOT how Omi does.
Canton knows that Omi is his oracle the moment he sees him… just like he knows that Omi is his mate from the very beginning. But that is impossible, since fate weavers haven’t had mates in centuries, and it is absolutely forbidden to mate your oracle.
Canton has waited for his oracle for two hundred long years, and he desperately wants to finish his work, but the more time he spends with the feisty man, the harder it is to remember to keep his distance emotionally. How can he possibly spend endless hours with a man he wants so much and not get to treasure him like he wants?
The answers to that just might be found in the pages of a manuscript Omi isn’t sure he wants to share.
REVIEW:
Omni has always had dreams and visions. He’s tried to live with them, he’s tried to document them, he’s tried to ignore them, and suddenly, everything comes to a head when Canton drops in to his life – the man he’s been dreaming about for years. What does that mean? Are they meant to be together?
Each book in this series starts off with a basic premise sentence and leads into a wild story. I love this idea which should lead to intriguing stories. This story deals with dreams, memories, and writing. The story starts our really promising – Omni wants to know why he’s having these persistent dreams – is he going crazy? Should he finally ignore them? What does it mean? Or does it not mean anything at all? As you get to know Omni, you get a real sense of him and can emphasize with his plight. He’s torn up inside and then suddenly his world is turned upside down.
Canton, on the other side, is the subject of Omni’s dreams and he has his own issues. Wandering life without his mate, which he should have had years ago and now he might have met his, but the rules point to that not being the case. They must figure out how to proceed and what is their purpose together.
Up to the middle of the book, Light paints an intriguing picture of these two men and throws in a lot of interesting, researched mythology. As they struggle to find out the meaning of their relationship they go on a journey, but it turns out it’s not that interesting of a trip. What they find out eventually puts them together but the conflict doesn’t seem large enough and the “big bad” kind of fades to a whimper.
This book is short, and I don’t discount novels that are not lengthy as long as they tell a complete story. This book does not – the first half was very interesting, but it’s like the author hit the page requirement and just wrapped it up. Such a shame as it had great potential but there just wasn’t enough of a conflict nor did the stakes seem that high. I’m not giving up on the author as the core writing was good but I would hope she is more developmental in her other books.
RATING:
BUY LINK: