The Bookwyrm's Review of Threads of Fate

 

Author: M.W. Arita

Length: 340 Pages

Publisher: Aeonian Entertainment

Release Date: September 14, 2014

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

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I make no great secret of my love for urban fantasy. whether it be the Dresden Files, the early Iron Druid books, Jane Yellowrock, Dante Valentine or the United States of Monsters series, I think there are just so many talented writers out there writing amazing stories. I had the chance to check out Threads of Fate, and I was glad I did, since this is definitely a fun beginning to a series. 

PLOT SUMMARY

As the story starts, we meet Tasia, a high school senior, at her part-time job as a barista in a local coffee shop in a town in upstate New York. Having a bad day at work one day, she upsets several customers, just feeling out of sync. After she leaves work, she is accosted in the park by one of the customers, who is ranting crazily that she ruined his life by messing up his coffee and he's going to kill her. Freezing up as he approaches her, she is shocked when a mysterious figure appears to save her, fighting the unnaturally fast and strong would be killer, and stopping him with a giant scythe with the help of Tasia, who mysteriously manifests a scythe of her own. 

Tasia's savior turns out to be Ace, a half-vampire Reaper who's job as a Reaper is to collect Remnants, parasitic remnants of souls that feed on specific negative emotions, taking over a host and emphasizing those negative emotions, creating chaos with them. Tasia just tries to continue on with her life afterward, but is surprised to see Ace the next day at school, who acts like he doesn't recognize her. She finds out what this is all about when her sister, Vivi, is kidnapped by a mysterious Remnant, and while Tasia and Ace try and stop the kidnapper, a female vampire hunter tries to kill him. Its only with the help of Ace 's twin Sunny that they manage to escape, although they lose Vivi in the process.

This starts a wild series of events, where they end up meeting the Ace and Sunny's long lost mother, a powerful vampire named Mira, who helps them along to the Reaper realm, where Tasia meets the queen of the Reapers, and is given the chance to take the reaper trials, even though she has not gone to the academy yet. This leads her to finding the kidnapper, who host is someone she never expected, and also brings out another powerful vampire, Hat, who wants to drain Tasia and gain her abilities, which turn out to be much more than just summoning a scythe and using Reaper powers. The Remnant that kidnapped Vivi has a connection to the girls they never expected, and is more powerful than they could have imagined. The final battle with the Remnant stretches all of their abilities to the utmost to avoid being killed and letting an evil far greater than could be controlled loose.

CHARACTERS & WORLD BUILDING

The characters are definitely the driving force with this book. Tasia especially is such a relatable character. She is not some perfect paragon who discovers her powers and masters them in two days and goes out and wrecks villains. Instead, she is a typical teenage girl, dealing with mean girls at school, job troubles, a drunk father, and helping control her wild child younger sister, all while dealing with crippling doubt in herself. Her character arc is handled really well, with plenty of setbacks and goofs to go along with her triumphs. In some cases, its just sheer willpower keeping her going. The other characters, such as Sunny and Ace, Gwen, the head mean girl, and Vivi, are all given some little growth arcs themselves, with the same combination of triumphs and failures adding so much to their character.. The antagonists are really well done, and the main villains are especially tragic, really taking a toll on Tasia and Vivi especially. These are definitely some of the better characters you're likely to find in urban fantasy.

The world building is very well executed. Taking place in a city in upstate New York, a setting not often used in urban fantasy, it creates good settings for the action to take place. The addition of the vampires hiding place in a magically hidden castle, as well as the very cool Reaper realm, gives a more mystical feel to the settings, and some of the other realms that are hinted at point to other potential settings in the future, adding another layer to the world. The magic is varied, but hidden from the mortal realm, and quite a few supernatural can learn to use it through spells, creating the potential for a lot more magical action in the future. Tasia's powers are really rare, and seem to have a really powerful potential behind them if she can learn to control them. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

As I read this book, I realized, as a 50 year old, I probably wasn't the target demographic for the book. However, It's been said of me that I'm just a boy grown tall, and there's some truth to that, because I found this book really enjoyable. It had some interesting, sympathetic characters that you can really get behind, and even the villains are more tragic than despotically evil. The author took the time to develop character arcs, which is something a lot of writers skip today, unfortunately, getting right into blowing stuff up. That's not to say there's no action in this, because there's plenty, but its just integral to the characters story arcs, not just tacked on. I think this book will appeal to a lot of urban fantasy fans, especially ones that like a good character arc. Its not a perfect book, but it is a really good one.