Tuesday, July 16, 2013

My review: Healer by B.N. Toler

"Submerged in a world of sex, danger, and vampires, will Aldo find the answers she seeks before it's too late?" 

HEALER 

There is balance in life most know nothing about. Some are put here to simply exist, while others have been placed here to ensure life. Healers such as Aldo Lawson understand the power of their gift, although at times, it seems more a curse. Upon meeting a handsome young healer named Thomas, Aldo’s life heads into a tailspin. With his arrival, Aldo’s aunt is forced to share a hard and scary truth—vampires exist. And not only do they exist, but they thirst for healer blood. 

Despite this new and frightening information, Aldo longs for a normal senior year. So close to achieving her goal, her world turns upside down when her aunt is murdered and Thomas disappears. Riddled with questions, she sets out to find him. 

Submerged in a world filled with sex and danger, Aldo hopes to find the vampires that will lead her to Thomas. When they find her first, she is forced to piece together truths, deal with her pain, and find that not everything is what it seems.


Prior to reading this I heard this is the next up and coming book in the vampire craze.  While there are vampires the book is not overall all about vampires.  This book was brilliant.  While reading it, I kept thinking to myself that this must be an author with dozens of titles on Amazon.  My surprise was this was the only book by B.N. Toler on Amazon and it rivals most of the books I have read today as one of the best novels I have read so far this year and left be yearning for more in Aldo's story.

Aldo, her two bothers, and her aunt Lucy are used to life on the run.  Their aunt wanted nothing more than for them to have some sort of a normal life their senior year in high school, so she settled them into town.  Their goal is to lay low, but while that's what was suppose to happen, it didn't stay that way for long.  One day at the store, Also sees a young girl get hit by a car in the street.  Aldo rushes over to save the girl from death.  What does no one know?  That Aldo and her brothers have a gift.  The gift to heal people.  They can't save anyone who is already destined to die, but they can help others that are hurt.  You see, not only is she rare as a healer but the fact that she's a triplet and all three of them have the power to heal others make them rare and according to their aunt, sought out.  It's here that Aldo meets Thomas.  Thomas also tries to help the girl, and reveals in the process that he is also a healer.  Thomas grows close to the family. He's 6 years older than Aldo so she knows they can never be since she's only seventeen, but that doesn't stop Aldo from falling in love with him.

Aldo has many gifts, another unique gift she has is gathering information about those she touches and in her dreams she learns useful information about them.  It's here that Thomas begins to visit her.  Normally her subconscious makes those that visit her, but Thomas has the ability to dream walk and comes to see her many times.  Thomas himself has many secrets, most of which are never revealed.  He does however tell Aldo that he and his brother move around a lot also hiding from the vampires.  Vampires use their kind to make blood healers, in which the vampire drains a human of blood and the blood healer heals the person.  Aldo doesn't know what to make of it so when she confronts her aunt about it, she's shocked to discover that Thomas wasn't lying.  Thomas and Aldo continue to grow close and on their last night together they consummate their relationship in her dreams.   After that moment, Thomas begs Aldo to run away with him.  He says he most leave but cannot tell her why.  She agrees, but the next morning her world begins to fall apart.  Lucy tells the triplets that she has a healing session and to go to the mall and come back in six house when they come back their aunt is dead and Thomas is gone.

What ensues is a series of events that will change the course of Aldo's life forever.  She leaves her family behind in hiding and goes on the search for Thomas.  It takes her five years to find him.  It's here that she's kidnapped by the blood healers.  But what if she finds out things as she thought they were are not really what they seem?  What if she answers she's been searching for turn her entire world upside down?  Who really are Rhett and Sarah and what will they teach Aldo about their way of life?  What if she really discovers that blood healers are more than just soul less vampires created only to take her life from her?

At first I was confused between the back and forth between five years ago and the present.  But as the story progressed I started to see that every single event from five years ago was relevant to the present day story.  This book was great and I just couldn't stop reading it.  I look forward to reading the next book in this Hybrid and finding out what happens next in this compelling series, 5 stars.

A huge thanks to the author for sharing her work with me and introducing me to Aldo and her story.

My first novel HEALER will be released on July 15, 2013. I am a happily married, mother of three who lives in Virginia. Please visit my website, www.bntoler.com, or like me on Facebook or Twitter at B N Toler.


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