Angeline Trevena

Cutting the Bloodline by Angeline Trevena is a great novella about a crime-free society and the chaos and repercussions it causes.’

It’s an inventive storyline, set in the future 2052 England, a society that decides that a crime-free environment is worth the segregation of certain types of people, based solely on a DNA test that hasn’t been fully studied in an honest effort. Today as a modern society, we’ve already been exposed to political agendas that have turned out horribly wrong. We’ve seen affected factions of society, who are left in dire consequences because of faulty policy and laws. Think of the leprosy colonies and their segregation from normal society over the centuries, as an example. In this plot, the agenda for power creates a struggle between sides, some calling for a revolution.

The turmoil comes to a head when the protagonist, Journalist Kenton Hicks, decides to write a tell-all book. This story thread, of course, has my full attention at this point.

The author did a great job with the characterizations. Kenton’s personality is fleshed out well, and we experience his struggle as a writer, and his ability (or lack thereof) to accept his work as merited and needed. He interviews the lost generation, those shunned by mainstream society. He questions how far society should be allowed to go—using advanced technology to label babies as criminal before they are even born. The characters feel authentic, the situation defined. More development and transition in the relationship between Kenton and Amie would have been nice, since both characters are so wonderful. They went from a hostile first interview to Kenton becoming too involved. The growth of the relationship between them is implied, and because it’s a novella, less words available for it to evolve. Therefore, the reader needs to embellish the love interest a bit. Fair enough, this is not a romance but a Sci-Fi Utopia story, after all.

The plot thickens and as policy makers are challenged, they react as if threatened. Soon Kenton’s life is in danger. The people who follow his cause are also vulnerable.

The scenes are action packed and will keep you reading . . . This is a refreshing plot and begs us to question—that bad things will develop if we are not careful about the policies we back. I enjoyed reading this story and found the characters engaging, and hope to read more about these characters and more stories from Angeline Trevena. Well done!
… (más)

An excellent story and a creative world dreamed up by author Trevena. The reader can't help but empathize with the main character, Maeve, and her dire circumstances dealing with her evil Uncle Lou. Her tribulations are many, but so is her quick thinking. Maeve takes the cruelest acts against her and tries in her way to make them right. Revenge, but in a unique and twisted way. The descriptions of the people she meets, her friend, and the places she visits are deeply cultivated within the rich world that the author ables us to see and feel. The stairs leading up to a better place may not be the stairway to heaven after all. The winding plot gets thicker, as more revelations push Maeve into drastic situations requiring extreme measures. There is a lot of bad happening in this dystopian world, not only for Maeve. Still, there is hope, and the twist, in the end, will give hope. It also leads well into the next story. You'll want to pick up the next in the series. Well written and provoking book, I recommend you read the series.… (más)

The Bottle Stopper (The Paper Duchess #1)  
 
An excellent story and a creative world dreamed up by author Trevena. The reader can't help but empathize with the main character, Maeve, and her dire circumstances dealing with her evil Uncle Lou. Her tribulations are many, but so is her quick thinking. Maeve takes the cruelest acts against her and tries in her way to make them right. Revenge, but in a unique and twisted way. The descriptions of the people she meets, her friend, and the places she visits are deeply cultivated within the rich world that the author ables us to see and feel. The stairs leading up to a better place may not be the stairway to heaven after all. The winding plot gets thicker, as more revelations push Maeve into drastic situations requiring extreme measures. There is a lot of bad happening in this dystopian world, not only for Maeve. Still, there is hope, and the twist, in the end, will give hope. It also leads well into the next story. You'll want to pick up the next in the series. Well written and provoking book, I recommend you read the series.
 … (más)

Maeve is orphaned after her mother is arrested because she was a seer. She is put under the care of her uncle, who runs an apothecary shop selling slum water as medicine in pretty bottles. Her uncle treats her miserably. She learns about the perfidy of her uncle and meets her father who is a nearby monk of a rather unsavory monastery. Both her uncle and father cannot resist the ladies of the night. Maeve vows vengeance after she learns her uncle initiated her mother’s arrest. Her father has remorse and sets up a refuge for abused and wayward women. But that doesn’t happen until a series of dramatic events take place. To reveal all that would be to spoil the intrigue of this horror story. Very well done…

I received an electronic copy in return for an honest review.… (más)