All-right. This is our first post and I had hoped it would be less newsy and more personal but it’s five am on the west coast and I can’t sleep. We have six weeks before Broken Circle is released and we’re a bit late on posting all the reviews and events coming up. So I want to get the reviews out and posted events are coming!
First, I want to say that Matt and I have been hearing back from readers and one of the first things they express is disappointment. No! Not disappointment at the book. Disappointment that the second installment is not out yet and that they’re going to have to wait to read it. We’re still writing it, folks….
For those who haven’t read it yet, here is what one bookseller and two trade magazines said! Booklist is publishing their review on September 1, so I’ll wait to post that in 10 days.
“Adam’s ‘nightmares’ are so amped up that they begin to reveal to him truths about his parentage, and the mantle that has been placed upon his shoulders by his father, a grim reaper. There are so many other questions he wants answered and consequentially, he is shipped off to a ‘rehab’ which is actually the citadel for ‘soul guides.’ Teen and adult fans of the Sookie Stackhouse novels and the Mortal Instruments [series] will find Broken Circle a tight competitor for the new most addictive paranormal read.” —Jilleen More, Square Books (Oxford, MS)
KIRKUS, July 15, 2017
“Adam Jones is a 15-year-old white boy who just wants to be “normal,” but his life is anything but. Unable to go to sleep for dread of monsters that stalk his dreams, Adam’s insomnia leads to a breakdown at school. At home, his mother’s been dead for years, and his eccentric father is often absent. Add his paranoid grandfather, who is convinced the family’s at risk. But is it really paranoia? Adam is forced to confront all this when a strange man with a broken-circle medallion shows up, demanding that Adam’s father get Adam in line with his “True Destiny.” This destiny involves a special boarding school, where things become stranger and scarier. But Adam finally begins to understand some things, and somehow he feels he belongs with this group of strangers, due in large part to their common roles as shepherds for souls of the newly dead. All is not bliss in his new life though, as it seems his new classmates are from competing families who seek to control lucrative territories in North America. A slowly unwinding tale about life and death and the in-between, this sibling collaboration may initially frustrate readers with its withholding of answers, but the Powerses’ worldbuilding and writing will keep them hooked. They will find themselves questioning what is fact and what is fiction and cheering Adam on as he journeys in this new, strange world. A gripping, philosophical paranormal thriller.”
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, August 1, 2017
“Adam has been plagued by nightmares since his mother died, but it’s not until a psychotic episode overtakes him at school that his dad ships him off to a private academy for help. Here, Adam learns his True Destiny—he is a soul guide, one of the few beings trained to lead a soul through death, into Limbo, and out to the Other Side. A child of two warring guide clans, Adam has been raised with no training on how to use the giant powers roiling inside him; and although warned to trust no one, he doesn’t know enough to avoid La Luz (a shadowy organization seeking to overthrow death itself—and, by extension, the soul guides, too) in time to prevent a schoolmate’s death.
“He is ultimately on his own when it comes to dealing with his (quite real) inner demons. Although the authors’ world-building is thin and the last chapter is more a pause for breath than a conclusion, readers will forgive these aspects in favor of Adam’s wry, funny, and ultimately sweet voice. Through the horrors he encounters, he realizes that the family he longs for is more than just blood ties. Savvy readers will be disappointed with the sketchy details of the soul guide’s world. The blood, gore, and period explicit language render this better for older readers. Fans of Holly Black and Cassandra Clare will enjoy this series starter. VERDICT Buy where YA urban fantasy circulates briskly.”