Paradise Seekers by Nathan Major

Haven–a land where no one knows who they are, where they’re from, or how they got there.  A place where everyone has a different recurring dream every night, which gradually grows in intensity until it drives them to madness.  A place where everyone has only a short amount of time to find Paradise, before they perish.

When Sam first comes to Haven, he thinks he’s found an idyllic utopia.  However, as he slowly uncovers the gruesome secrets of the place, he realizes he’s in a race against time to make Atonement and escape.

But how can he do that, when he can’t even remember who he is?  And how can he save the girl he loves, when she has only days before her dreams drive her into madness?

A few weeks ago, I said I’d start reviewing indie books on this blog.  This is my first one.  As a disclaimer, Nathan Major is a fellow Utah writer and a friend of mine, and I received a copy of the book for free, with the agreement that I would review it.

I genuinely enjoyed this book.  It’s a very compelling story, with a mysterious dystopian world and an intriguing premise.  Nathan is very good at building suspense and keeping the reader hooked, and the ending fully lived up to its potential.

As far as editing goes, I noticed only minimal spelling and grammatical errors.  However, the copy I read had some major formatting issues, such as wacky indents and an auto-generated table of contents that missed a few chapters.  Nathan assures me he’s fixed those issues, but I can’t vouch for the most recent copy.

As for the story, while I enjoyed it, it did feel as if it had been published too early.  More than once, I wanted to scream at the characters for doing something stupid, and the romance was occasionally over-the-top sappy.  The level of melodrama was on par with most anime, which is great if you can stand it.  Still, the story kept me hooked, and while I occasionally had to put the story down just to cool off, I always came back to it, right up to the very satisfying end.

If you like dystopian YA, I think you’ll like this book.  It reminded me a little of The Giver, with the urgency and sense of danger of a thriller.  Like I said, it also had a bit of an anime flair to it, so if you’re a fan of anime and manga, the issues I had with it probably won’t be as bad for you.

Overall, I rate Paradise Seekers at 3.5 stars.  If the formatting issues were fixed, I would rate it at 4.  Nathan has a natural talent at good storytelling, and I expect we’ll see many good things from him in the future.

Paradise Seekers is available for .99c from Amazon and free on Smashwords.