DISCLAIMER: I was lucky enough to read this book after the author reached out to me. I hope the prospective reader will read this review fully before making any prejudgments on the book. I will give the book my thoughts, good and bad. Also, this review contains opinions that are my own and not the author’s. My thoughts will be different from your thoughts and just know that before reading the book.

After reading the first book in the VanWest series, The Past, I read on to The Present. This takes place after the first novel. VanWest has to confront his dark past. This is what has to be done to defeat the universal council. To defeat the Council’s space army, he has to uncover the many secrets of Mars and bring together Earth’s main opposition groups. VanWest sees success, but nothing is what it seems. There is a twist of fate that he could never have foreseen.

I love that there was a reminder of the world that we were living in. VanWest is experiencing a dark world that he thinks is the end. I love the addition of the universe that we know in this book. It is exhilarating to be able to have what we know as Mars in the story. The first and second book have the same style in writing. It made for the perfect continuality that was easy to connect the points that were important in the first book and the second. If you think of the book as a thread and you connect the first and second, you find that it threads in and out of the books. They are connected almost at a deeper level.

The characters in this book are just as amazing as the first! I want to talk about the most important thing that can ruin a second story is when the characters seem different in the second book than the first. There is something that is amazing about a book that has the same people and they act the same way. I felt as if I could read the first and second book mixed, and the people would all have the same personality. This is an amazing feat. I wasn’t expecting this kind of brilliance from an up and coming author.

My Rating: This is absolutely a 5 out of 5 stars. Since the first book was fast paced in setting, the second needed to be as well. This was fast paced all in the right ways. I think it is a book and an author worth watching. This book is a read again, as well as the first one. This was such a different book for me to read. I am not regretting it at all. I am so glad I took a chance on a new story. I would recommend this book to the readers who don’t read sci-fi, don’t read a lot, or the readers who want to take a chance on a brand-new adventure that is truly out of this world.

I hope this review helps you in making your next book choice. Happy reading!