Written by Joe Jackson

This book is very interesting for a number of reasons. First, let me give you all a description of the roller coaster of awesome I got to ride for a few days.

Salvation’s Dawn takes place in a world not much like earth at all. There are creatures, humans, demons, even half-demons. But—get this—the main character is NOT human! And this is not a children’s book. It’s not often I come across books where the main protagonist is not human. I’ve read things about vampires and wolves and such but Kari is Terra-Dracon, a species I’ve never heard of until now.

I can’t give you all too much information because I don’t want to spoil it, but Kari is the type of character who can steal the show. A strong female lead isn’t exactly how I would describe her, she’s more like a commanding presence that dominates the story. Yes, she dominates because she is the main character but also because she has a leadership mentality—which is expected from a military trained Demon-Hunter, right!?

Kari was resurrected against her will to fight in a war that’s not much her business or responsibility—I mean, she was resurrected 200 years after her death! After joining Silverblades, Kari faces a quintessential battle of good versus evil. This is always a plus for me because, who doesn’t love a good old right versus wrong smack-down?

The world building in this book reminded me of those MMORPG video games the kids are playing these days—that’s Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game for those of you who aren’t nerds XD. Things like World of Warcraft or even League of Legends. Think Lord of the Rings meets Dragon Age. It’s an epic fantasy of epic measure, something I honestly wasn’t quite used to. When I say I like fantasy, I mean simple things like magic here and maybe a witch there but not half-breeds, not a world on the verge of an apocalyptic meltdown, not a creature that isn’t human but has very human emotions. This book was an adventure that I had to take my time to enjoy. I mean that in a positive way, while I had to try hard to imagine Kari’s looks and piece them together in my head, Jackson did a wonderful job with his small hints of detail.

There were no ‘info dumps’ where I was reading paragraph after paragraph of details and long running descriptions. Everything I needed to know was carefully woven into the passages in a very smooth and graceful way.

Kari is probably my favorite character here, I know it’s easy to love her because she’s the main character but Jackson does such a wonderful job at ‘getting in her head’ despite having the book in third person narration. I can see Kari’s facial expressions, I can feel her fear and confusion in those heart-pounding scenes that Jackson is so good at writing. The beginning of the book has Kari flying across the skies—yes, she has wings, awesome right??—and I just remember feeling like I was floating right there with her. I could feel the icy air whipping across my cold cheeks, I could imagine the texture of her rough feathers. It’s a beautifully structured piece when it comes to those little details that are so easy to overlook.

One of my favorite things about Jackson’s writing? He makes it look like a work of art that comes so easy—when we all know it does not. This book is almost a whopping 200k words! But it flies by so smoothly because of Jackson’s graceful tone and smooth talk. Look at me, making this sound all romantic and such! Speaking of love, it is so absolutely easy to fall for this book. Coming from someone who wasn’t so sure about it at first, that’s a huge complement.

I would still most definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys high-fantasy and original characters/settings. Trust me, you will enjoy this.

*A last note, I would not label this as a ‘religious read’ but there are slight references to deities and other spiritual concepts. It’s minute enough where it wouldn’t be classified as a religious or strictly secular book. Have some imagination and give it a chance!