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Hallandra Irese has been bonded to the wrong man. She’d known that for several years now, living through a miserable existence married to Reverend Arad Sterne. The problem was, as a Talian woman, her husband had been chosen for her when she was but a child, and she couldn’t leave him now. Sterne was abusive and conniving, but Hallie had never known the depth of his evil until she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit – a crime that Sterne had conceived, complete with a paid accuser and irrefutable contrived evidence.
When Hallie wakes up in the Zebulon Facility, an inescapable computer-run prison, she’s devastated. Raised in a dessert, and unused to close spaces, her cell is more of a torture than the abuse she’d suffered at Sterne’s hands. Worse still, she finds that her accuser, the man who was responsible for putting her there, was also incarcerated in the Zebulon Facility.
Burke Conlan, a Drifter and doer of unsavory tasks, had been blackmailed into helping Arad Sterne convict his bond-wife of a crime she didn’t commit – adultery, to be precise. Sterne had wanted to be rid of the Talian woman, for no other reason than his own desires, and accusing her of adultery was the only way to go. Burke had resisted at first – he’d done unsavory jobs before, but getting rid of someone’s wife, even through legal means, was not something he would willingly stoop to do – but after Sterne had threatened the only thing that Burke loved, his young daughter, he’d had no choice but to go along with Sterne’s plans. He consoled himself with the thought that, although she’d be returning in disgrace, the Talian woman would at least be able to return home and leave her nasty husband behind.
But Sterne wants no trace of his deception to be discovered, and so, Hallie and Burke are doomed to reside in the Zebulon Facility forever.
When a storm damages the facility, Burke and Hallie choose to face the unknown dangers of the emerald twilight outside….
EMERAL TWILIGHT is a serial, and this, the first season, ends just as things start to get interesting. Author Robin Maderich has created an intriguing world, with strange creatures, exotic peoples and mystic abilities for EMERALD TWILIGHT. Maderich’s characters are well-written, her style is fast-paced and interesting, and the details of her world are provocative.
As a serial, it is hard to tell if this story is a winner or not. The first season ends when the story is barely getting started, leaving this reader with lots of questions, and frustrated by the thought of waiting for the rest of the story. Will the sparks that have begun to form between the two main characters flame into something more? Will the hero and heroine die trying to escape their prison? Will the unexplained creatures outside the Facility really be as interesting as they seem? Will we learn more about the Talian world? What will happen to the intriguing mystic left behind in the prison?
As promising as EMERALD TWILIGHT seems, I vow never to pick up another serial until I have a hope of reading the ending. Other readers may disagree, and some may even find the serial format addictive - I, however, would simply label it irksome.
Reviewed by Janean Nusz
for The Road to Romance
April 14, 2006
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