Review:

D.J. Niko cre­ated an amaz­ing story that I can only see gath­er­ing a fol­low­ing as more of the Sarah Weston Chron­i­cles arrive on shelves.  Approached by her pub­li­cist, I wasn’t sure if this would spark my inter­est enough to read it, review it, and do an author inter­view.  I was wrong.  When I fin­ished, I had so many ques­tions I wanted to ask that it was hard to nar­row it down to a hand­ful.  My inter­view with Niko will go live on Thurs­day, May 10.

While work­ing on another dig, Sarah Weston lis­tens to her gut and embarks on a jour­ney that takes her across the world and across cen­turies.  Alter­nat­ing between Sarah’s dis­cov­er­ies and flash­backs to the arrival of the Tenth Saint, Niko weaves a tale that you won’t want to put down.  At times, Sarah seems like a bel­liger­ent child try­ing to get out from under her father’s shadow, but as a char­ac­ter, Sarah grows into her own through­out the story.

At times, the story reminded me a lit­tle of the orig­i­nal Tomb Raider movie, a strong female lead, fol­low­ing her instincts, hunted by a num­ber of big bads, all while try­ing to find the truth.  Daniel comes in as the well-known arche­ol­o­gist and seems to be get­ting in her way only to play a piv­otal role in her story.  And yet despite the sim­i­lar­i­ties, Niko’s story stands on its own and is so much more per­ti­nent to real-world sce­nar­ios than Tomb Raider will ever be.

Sarah’s dis­cov­er­ies lead her across the world, and while the reader learns of the saint’s life and how he falls into this, Sarah must piece it all together for one amaz­ing twist of events.  Niko’s end­ing wraps up the story beau­ti­fully, and yet, leaves you want­ing more.

Filled with amaz­ing descrip­tions, like­able char­ac­ters, and a very unique story, Niko has only just begun to cre­ate a grip­ping series.