Lightening Rider by Jen Grayson
My first impression of the Lightening Rider I didn’t know what to think. Evy is racing home to catch Nick her loser now ex-boyfriend in the act of robbing her blind. But is side tracked by a lightning storm and curious cop. Needless to say she doesn’t get there in time to stop jerk Nick now thief ex-boyfriend, too late, and the story begins.
Time travel via lightning? Writer Greyson’s concept intrigued, me. Lightening Riders those who can travel back in time and orchestrate “alterations” that changed the destiny of people. Individuals who ultimately change our history, sometimes for the better like draining a malaria infested lake in Africa. That saves a family near by that turn out to be the descendants of Nelson Mandela and others not so much. Writing about certain subject like time travel isn’t easy to pull off, go too far and its ridiculous, so I wanted to see how it would translate in this story. Time travel via lightning? Interesting. Writer Grayson manages it well keeping the world plausible.
What I didn’t expect was to like Evy as much as I did. She was not the kind of girl one puts in the corner. And I liked that, she didn’t sit and wait to be rescued she figured it out herself. Evy is Latina, by nature she is assertive, confident she questions status quo of what a woman is allowed and that makes her an awesome heroine but Evy is still human and her she doesn’t always follow through, she skirts commitment and secretly I think it’s the reason she picks loser boyfriends because they live up to Evy’s expectations.
I like the fact that she made mistakes they made her flawed, human and real but she didn’t fall prey to making her mistakes own her. E.g Nick the thieving ex-boyfriend she felt stupid, embarrassed and when she had to crawl home to crash. Because he taken the bed too. She felt like a disappointment to her father, lesson learned. Evy moved on unlike some characters. The progression of her character from a babe in the woods so to speak to a kick ass heroine was a nice change. Evy learns to control her gifts and learns the notions she had of right and wrong don’t or won’t always apply, because the world now opened to her eyes wasn’t always going to be black and white but sometimes varied shades of grey in between.
The romance is steamy but sad because she’s from the present and Constantine is from the past. Constantine is the opposite of the jerks Evy usually dates. He respects Evy, allows her to be herself his equal. That’s what makes it so sad the question mark on their future, nice little drama there. I loved the father daughter relationship and push and pull of it. Illif I didn’t care much for and his chauvinistic notions, turned me off. As for Penya she is his polar opposite, but I like the way her character is written as a question mark can you trust her intentions, does she have her own agenda?
These are reason I gave The Lightening Rider a four out of five. Writer Grayson weaves a compelling story that has the reader flipping, even tempted to skip pages to get to the ending and find out what happens. I enjoyed the Lightening Rider and though it didn’t end with a pretty bow on top. Some questions were answered, while new questions came to light. These however are questions for the next book to answer.
Rating: 4/5
Title: The Lightening Rider by Jen Grayson
Series: Lightning Rider Series
Publisher: The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House
Published: May 30, 2013
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
Source: Netgalley
Age Group: 18+ (16 maybe)
Format: eBook
Pages: 474 KB
Buy: Amazon
For Evy Rivera, thunderstorms have always caused her physical pain, but she’s never known why. When a record-setting storm arrives on the same night her father finds ancient ancestral documents, Evy is set aglow with mysterious tiny lightnings she can command. Even worse, she alerts some people in the universe who’ve been looking for her family for a very long time.
Thrown back into ancient Spain and tasked with killing a Spanish legend, she must train alongside Constantine, a sexy yet obstinate Roman warrior. He teaches her how to wield her lightning as a weapon, through more errors than trials. With a relationship as explosive as their late-night training sessions, Evy and Constantine battle their push-pull relationship while trying to ignore the two-thousand-year difference in their birth-dates.
Ilif Rotiart, her quasi-mentor, is appalled at Evy’s skill. He would prefer to train her father and keep Evy on the sidelines—where women belong. Evy has a feeling Ilif is keeping something from them, but she must play nice until she uncovers the truth. And if he’s lying, it will be the worst day of his four-hundred-year life.
Penya Sepadas claims she’s Evy’s rightful trainer, and she has the prophecy to prove it. Penya doesn’t share Ilif’s misogynistic attitude, but she does have her own agenda…and her own secrets.
Evy must sort through the lies and find the truth behind her family’s time-traveling past before the wrong history obliterates the future. She’s spent her whole life fighting for her place. Now, as the first female lightning rider, she’ll dedicate her existence to fighting to save the world. But will Evy learn to manage her lightning and find the truth before it’s too late?