Name: Eden at the Edge of Midnight
ISBN: 9780957238947

John Kerry

Sixteen-year-old Sammy Ellis, meddles with the magical bracelet that was meant to send the chosen one home and gets sent in their place, transported to the realm of Perseopia where she finds herself lost in a twilight land of giant mushrooms and pursued by dark forces.

Eden at the Edge of Midnight

The Vara of Yima, the original Garden of Eden, sealed from the rest of the world and populated with the fittest of men and women. A secret paradise that 150 years ago became ravaged by smog that choked out the skies. Now the Vara exists in a permanent state of darkness and its people need a champion, a chosen one to save them from the smog that threatens to fill the realm and poison its inhabitants. That's what they needed. They got Sammy Ellis instead. She isn't important enough for her dad to stick around for. Forget saving a realm or junk like that. Her only responsibility was to help the chosen one open the gateway into the Vara, but not only has she entered the realm in their place, she's also locked them out in the process. Stuck in a twilight land of giant mushrooms, pursued by dark forces and still in her pyjamas, being unimportant back in the real world is starting to seem way more attractive.

Daniela V.

I've won this book on a giveaway. Thanks to John Kerry for sending the book.

Eden at the Edge of Midnight is a very innovative fantasy novel. I'm sure that it would deserve a 5-star rating if it were not for some usual paths of fantasy present on it.

Sammy Ellis is a teenage girl that doesn't seem to fit in. She starts to notice a strange old woman is following her. One day, she decides to find out what she wants. The old woman gives her a bracelet with a big green emerald and a dial. The woman, named Esther, says she needs Sammy to find out how the dial works but she warns her by telling her not to try until they meet again.

Do you now what happens next? Well, Sammy disobeys and is transported to Persopia, a very unique realm, plagued with mushrooms, smog and weird creatures.

The first thing that bothered me was the excessive use of precious gems as portals through different worlds or any other types of magic artifacts. It's a very common explanation in fantasy to use gems. I can't see why, because I don't give a damn about them.

The whole world building was amazing, though. Original and precise. The descriptions of the creatures that inhabit Persopia were perfectly made, so perfect you almost think those creature are real flesh-and-bone animals. Eden at the Edge of Midnight has everything: manticores, walking dinosaurs, pterodactyls, crabmen, etc.

One of the characters is Louis, a gastrosaur that carries a cottage on its back and communicates with humans by moving its ears. Louis is one of the most astonishing and fresh characters I've met in a while.

The prose is wonderful. I liked how tiny bits of poetry were intercalated through the novel as riddles or enigmatic information.

A few plot twists were completely unexpected. I liked how a few characters were so cryptic you can't never know what they are going to do or who they really are.

The main character, Sammy, bothered me sometimes though. She apparently has a lot of power but she is stupid and naive. How can someone so dumb have so much power and great abilities?

Oh, and finally, there's a young adult book where the parents of the main character exist. That was great.

The ending was nice but... John Kerry, I hope you are working on the second installment of The Vara Chronicles! I'm so intrigued.

Eden at the Edge of Midnight

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