Amelia Maylock: book one. The 12th year awakening. By Jay Ellis

Wanda Hart

Amelia Maylock: book one.  The 12th year awakening. By Jay Ellis.

Genre: Young Adults, paranormal.

Basic story line:

This book is the first of a series of books by Jay Ellis.  Amelia, a twelfth year old girl learns that she is special.  Real special. Amelia is a witch.  Not any old witch either.  She is a very powerful witch.  A witch who will need all her powers to face the future destined for her. 

Amelia learns that she, as a witch is the counter to her evil twin, Erryas.  As witches, the two of them together with others can move between dimensions.  This is cool right?  Not always!  Amelia gets drawn into dimensions she is unfamiliar with and in which great mortal danger resides.  She survives these exploits at first due to her friends and later due to the fact that this girl is built out of guts and determination.  She is only twelfth though and unlike her sister she is new to her powers.  It becomes a race against time to get Amelia first to accept her true calling then to get her to accept her powers and train for a battle against the ultimate evil. Erryas. 

Amelia learns that she and her evil twin, Erryas were born during a massive evil thunder storm.  She was taken to the earth dimension where she grew up loved, wanted and protected.  What happened to Erryas is a mystery.  It becomes clear that only person knows what happened during that storm.  Only one person can answer Amelia?s questions.  But that person is dead. 

Amelia needs to learn how not only to protect and defend herself, but also to protect those dimensions opposed to evil.  But will she live to be able to do that, and is she powerful enough to go up against the greatest evil in all dimensions - her twin?

Amelia's friends include an old Hag; Ellis' description of this old woman had me laughing out loud.  You cannot help but love her. Anin is Amelia's primary trainer.  And not a women to be messed with. I loved the fact that she is a strong character who cares so deeply for Amelia and that she is not scared to make her feelings known.  Apart from the evil and unknown forces Amelia also has a voice that keeps popping up, instructing her.  Guiding her.  The question is; can she trust the voice?

Review:

I give this book a 4 / 5 star review.  At first I was skeptical as to the pace the story takes on from basically the beginning of the book. Soon however I discovered that the pace is indicative of the danger lurking and the fact that in the fight between good and evil, time is not on the side of good.  This is brilliantly displayed by the pacing of the story, fast to start with and almost speeding along at the end.  The reader cannot help but be swept along with it.  The sense of urgency of the coming dangers had the reader riveted and the role of time is unmistakably written into each and every page as the story builds from one momentum to the next.  I personally find this technique of Jay Ellis a brilliant one, the tempo?s increase has the reader thinking that this is a fast sweet read in the beginning but soon the frantic feelings of the Old Hag and Anin becomes the readers own.  As the intervals between incidents grow smaller all the time the reader is left with the same urgency of that of the Old Hag and of Anin.  Amelia must be ready.  Or all hope is lost. 

The story line is fresh and not boggled down with any overly long dialogues.  The fast pace of the story lets little time for character development of characters although Ellis' seems to fit in enough information to make the reader not only like the characters but also to have us rooting for the good guys and leaving us in anticipation of the next book in the series. 

Although this book is primarily aimed at the younger spectrum of the YA market it is soon apparent that the book is a great read for any age kid.  At 38 I myself enjoyed it immensely and did not find that patronizing tone from the author that I have come across previously when reading YA books.  I am about to start the second book in the series and cannot wait to read the next adventures of the young heroin.  So for now, I say goodbye and hope you will read the book.  It is really worth it.