Book Review: Time Heals

Time Heals

By:  Dina James

Publisher:  Mundania Press

Publish Date:  March 26, 2013

Format:  eARC, 207pgs

Genre:  YA Urban Fantasy

Series:  2nd in A Stranger Things Novel series, 1st Book ~ All Wounds

Recommendation:  YES!!! Go get it, and the first book. *sigh* LOVE these characters, the world, and the story they are in.

Synopsis:
Rebecca MacDonnell is strange.  More than that, she's a Stranger, a human born with the ability to use her own life's force to heal ethereal beings.  Vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, goblins, and other things thought only imaginary all need help sometime, and when they do, they come to her.

Somethings, however, are beyond help.  Something is stalking all Ethereals, great and small.  Beings of every race are fleeing a terror no one will acknowledge, let alone name.

At seventeen, Mistress Healer Rebecca is still learning to manage her power.  She must learn to control it before it controls her.

Unless it's already too late.

When her burgeoning ability gets away from her, that which heals turns to harm and drives her loyal man-wolf bodyguard Billy straight into the arms of the unknown horror.

Unlikely new friends are her only hope to finding out what's happened, and she must enter new - and dangerous - territory in order to do it.

First Sentence:
"That's it...now...ease up on the clutch...easy...easy...let it out a bit and giver 'er some gas...go on..."

Purchase At:

Mundania Press

My Thoughts and Summary:
Two months as an Ethereal Healer and still getting use to her abilities and responsibilities, Rebecca is glad school will be over soon.  The word is getting around the Eastern Enclave, her Enclave, is open again and more and more beings are slowly coming for help.  Rebecca receives a visit from a spider-man of a reclusive species, T'Maru, for help with his baby brother.  Easily remedied but Rebecca is now concerned as their numbers seem to be dropping, and worried there is trouble in their kind.  Noth, the guardian Lord Notharion's oldest hellhound pup, visits for comfort as he's done from time to time and talks of his family of guardians having to move when the masters decide where.  He doesn't want to go.  A tomte and her child turn up under Rebecca's bed, known for family tightness and without the husband/dad, looking for a safe place to sleep.  The Ethereals are all stirring it seems, but no one really knows the reasons.  Troubles will stir with friends and her boyfriend when Rebecca can't control herself and hurts close person.  Rebecca is worried and in helping her new friend, T'mei - the spider-man from T'Maru beings - find his whole mysteriously missing clan and to help her closest dying friend, Rebecca will learn more about her powers and those around her.  There is a family past that will be shared...

Rebecca is a normal kid, but a Stranger too.  She sees the Ethereal which humans don't.  She's learning mundane things along with how to use her Healer powers.  Rebecca's instincts are right on from the beginning.  She feels for one reason or another that everyone, Ethereal and human, are acting strange.

*sigh*  I can't tell you how much I love ALL these characters!!  Really.  I fall in love with them all each time I read these books.  Billy...the man-wolf.  He's an anubi, and an amazing person.  You have got to love Billy's easy personality.  I just want to hug him.  Ryan...Oh Ryan.  He is a special boy (vampire) that Rebecca met in school in the last book.  He's the bad boy persona, but I love him so.  Syd...the Master Vampire.  Syd is learning a thing or two here as well.  But he is one for the eyes and heart.  Noth!  Ooo, how I need me a hellhound just like Noth.  He can save me any day.  And a few others we know from the first book, and a pleasure to see again.

Then we have new friends (beings) as well.  T'mei, never thought I'd fall in love with a spider-man character. Sweet as he is, and his people too.  Now, we do see the dangerous demons again.  But interesting to see them from this vantage point.  You won't believe what Rebecca does to them!

There are broken family ties we learn of.  And a history that might be best left hidden, but finds it's way to the surface.  There is more to Rebecca's parents death (as suspected).  We learn more of Billy's history with being kicked out of the pack and how he is tied to the family so closely.

We see more of Healer magic and of one who twisted it.  Rebecca learns there is some that can't be saved, and there could be potential harm if she decides not to help but hurt.  There is a fine line there.  Rebecca does learn a lesson, but in a hard way.

Could you read this book without reading All Wounds?  Um, yea, you could.  But why would you want to do that when you could fall in love with these characters from the gorgeous beginning?  Learning how they all came to where they are now.  Believe me.  Read All Wounds, you'll fall for the characters as much as I have.  Dina is an author of many talents, one is making you love the characters she writes, even the ones you aren't suppose to love.

This book touches on so much I was looking for with these characters and the story.  Well done.  It is a Young Adult book, but I would HIGHLY suggest it to any and all, of all ages.  You will love the characters and their stories just as much as me, along with the magical world around them.

I can't tell you how HARD I LOVE these characters.  I want to bring them all home with me.  In a world full of Ethereals (supernatural types).  Man-wolf, Vampires, Tomte, Goblins, Spider-men, and demons.  Love the story, characters, and world in this amazing Young Adult series.



***I read this book for an honest review from the author.