4.5 stars. Fascinating fantasy world. Magical pieces are well constructed even if there are pieces still not 100% understood at the end of the book. The author does a great job of helping the reader understand the world while still holding pieces back to discover as the story evolves.

Nara is a great character. I loved her quiet strength and compassion for her family and friends. While this particular story is wrapped up at the end, there's more going on in this world, so there will surely be a sequel.

The cover is beautiful .I have mixed emotions about this book. I loved the starting and the ending, but the story in the middle, was kind of dragging. The story is narrated from the POV of different characters. I loved reading the narrative when Nara was involved. I found that Vorrick ‘s narrative was boring. I enjoyed the showdown at the end . The world building was good , I would love to know more about the backstory of Anne. I found the concept of runes giving magical abilities interesting. The story has fantasy,magic and action and my favorite character is Mykel.

A really captivating story that quickly drew me in. A lot of characters are introduced to us and we follow many different POVs even if Nara and Mykel are the principal protagonists. The story offered by David A. Wilson is quite interesting and I enjoyed following Nara and Mykel during their journey. I'm also curious about what will happen next. Powers, betrayal and a burgeoning romance make for quite a compelling plot.

I received an ARC of this book by Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

Looking for Dei is a bit more on the fantastical side than I normally read, but the beautiful cover and interesting blurb intrigued me. The writing is very descriptive and makes it easy to picture the settings and people. That in itself is a great thing for a fantasy novel and lends itself to pulling the reader into the story. However, we also get a bit of information overload at times, which can be distracting. These times felt a bit like the author was attempting to get everything about that particular character or place in at once and then back to the story. I appreciate thorough world building, but I came away feeling like a little less info all at once would've let the story flow more organically. We do get multiple POVs throughout the story - something I enjoy - so we know what's going with several characters as opposed to just one or two. The switches from one character to another did tend to be a little abrupt, making it a tad confusing until I got used to it. In the end, I finished this one with mixed feelings. Nara's story of magic and adventure did hold my interest, but some things about the style made the book feel a bit scattered for me. It is worth the read and I would recommend to teens who enjoy fantasy.

Nara Dall hated the scar on her back and the secrets she had to keep about magic abilities she had. Every three years, a ceremony is held to find those with magic, but no one had been found in her village in decades. Once she fixes that, she and her best friend are on the run with her adoptive father. There are larger secrets than the ones she knows, which draws attention from those in political and religious power.

Nara starts off as a rather sweet and innocent character. Despite all of the pain she endures throughout the story, her spirit remains unbroken and the same. It's interesting how she and Kayna, her twin, have affinities for magic that are opposites of each other. Even their natures are opposite, which is pointed out through their actions. I like that it's up to us to realize this about the characters, and we are shown the nuances in their motivations over time rather than told outright. The changing perspectives take a bit of getting used to, but the world building and magic system are very well done and drew me in.

The ending of the book is tied off rather neatly, but there are still possibilities for another book in this world. I'd be interested to see what happens to the land and the twins, and how the prophecies play out.

My chief complaint was that this book felt so long. It dragged along, with very little happening in the first third of the book. For me it went into way too much detail about things that had no impact,on either plot or character development. There were large information dumps, often telling the reader a characters entire background and motivation. Show don't tell! I guess I was put off by the wordiness of this book. Further I never connected to or particularly liked any of the characters. So although I liked the concept, and the world was interesting, I just couldn't get into Looking for Dei.

There are things I liked about this book and bits that were just ok for me.

The novel focuses on Nara and her friend Mykel as they flee their village after everything goes rather pear shaped at a village ceremony designed to find young people who are skilled or blessed with some sort of magic. The rune-based magic system was quite different from the usual fair and I liked that. I thought the emphasis on a God and religion was interesting and the world building was good, though I felt it was never fleshed out enough for my taste. I could not really understand the lay of the land, so to speak.

The characters is where I felt the story fell a bit flat, especially in the first half. Somehow they failed to come alive in my imagination until the last few chapters, when I finally connected to them.

Overall, I think this is a good fantasy novel with some original features. It definitely feels like it is building up to something more and I think it may be worth reading further books in the series.

This book had an imaginative concept. There is sweet, innocent love. Magic. Evil. Funny old lady. Traitor. It has all the necessary characters. It’s almost a mix of a fairy tale and a Lloyd Alexander novel.

Nara grows up with an adoptive father and her best friend in a poor small village. She knows she holds some type of special magic that she doesn’t understand. She is a tender hearted girl who only wants to help. In a decision to try to help the village, she sets into motion more than she ever bargained for.
I liked reading from the different view points of so many characters. I didn’t like how the wording and sentences seemed almost juvenile (although I don’t think the book is). I think this might be the authors debut novel. On top of the choppy sentences, the story really drags. I think the whole book could have been shortened by a hundred pages.

**There is violence, including two abusive fathers, death, mentioning of rape (once saying an army raping women as spoils of wat was a reward).

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review through Net Gallery.

"Looking for Dei"

By: David A. Wilson

Nara, a young girl living in an orphanage, was abducted by someone searching for a "separated" twin with multiple gifts. Raised in an obscure town with her benevolent captor, Nar keeps her magic secret as long as she can.

She does not know she is prophesied as a "savior" and one half of a good/evil pairing. She sees the gifts as uses to imbue her town with prosperity, not understanding that she is a sought after commodity.

When her gifts are discovered, her captor/guardian whisks her away to try to hide her from those that would try to exploit her talents. Along for the ride is her closest friend who is in love with her and a "watcher" (a rival Barron's employer) who has been sent to discover those with magic abilities.

Life becomes a struggle for escape and survival for the group. Nara has loyalty and treachery among her daily worries as she searches for "Dei" and her destiny.

Enjoyable young adult read even if predictable. The writing and storyline had a nice flow but I didn't find my heart pounding or my heart melting. I felt that it would be a great read for those that appreciate stories with young adults taking on challenge and strife and trying to do the right thing.

I DNF this book. I felt that the blurb was misleading, the writing wasn't to my style, and I found myself not becoming invested with the characters or the story.

And the phyili was put asunder; separated, but not destroyed. Each defied the other, bringing conflict, pain and death to many. In the end, only one remained. - Cataclysmos 18:10

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you again, Netgalley for the opportunity to review ARCs. I love this chance, and I'm always ready to read the books you have available.

Now, on to the book.

The premise was pretty interesting, at least I think so. There are certain people in the world that either has gifts (they are called gifted if they have more than one special power). Then there are others that are plain, and others that are considered cursed. The ones with powers are conscripted to the government, whatever entity their abilities would be the most useful, and it gives them an opportunity to send money back to their village. The cursed are usually killed almost immediately as they are seen as an abomination to the church that needs to be put down. Pretty nice, right?

So it seems like the main character, a young fifteen-year-old girl named Nara, has so many abilities that she's developed at such a young age. Her father figure, a man named Bylo, told her from the moment he saw her exhibit some powers to keep them a secret from the rest of the village. It seems like she has a combination of all the known powers, and yet she is so much stronger than what she seems. So when her power is discovered on the day the village finds out that her best friend is cursed, that's when things hit the fan.

I feel like the book got way too descriptive about things that didn't seem really important. There was a character that was introduced in a chapter, only for that character to be killed off mere pages later. And it wasn't just a mini introduction. It was more like the character's life story. So you feel like you have to invest in one more character, and then they are ripped away from you in seconds. It's so hard to read a book that does that, or to introduce characters that don't seem to have any significance until later - or never - and still keep track of everyone.

I understand that this is an ARC, so I'll be forgiving about the grammatical errors I've found. I'm hoping those will be fixed by the time the final comes out. All in all, I think it could have flowed better, but it wasn't terrible. I wouldn't mind reading something else from this author, but this book just wasn't my cup of tea.

Received from NetGalley

Story is set in high-fantasy world, full of magic. Magic is a gift from Dei (their deity). Every few years they test young people with special weapon in announcement ceremony, to see if they have any gifts.

Those with gifts are celebrated, but her little town didn't have any gifted for very long time. Nara discovers the reason, and is determined to fix it, causing more trouble for her and her friend, than she could ever imagine.

Nara has a secret, she has a gift, but not just one. She is always holding back, so there she isn't even sure what she is capable

Announcement ceremony goes horribly wrong and before she knows it, she, her best friend and Bylo are on the run.

I love the world Author created and the magical system in it, is really interesting and unique. The idea behind the story is great and interesting. What I didn't love is the writing style, it didn't give me depth I wanted (for the characters and story) and it dragged at times.

Regardless, I enjoyed it and would love to see what Nara will do next. :)

I could not finish this book when it had religious type content in the story. I am not interested in that type of story. I guess the synopsis doesn't talk about that.

Looking for Dei is the story of a prophecy involving twins, and one of the twins is the main character. Nara is a teenage girl with secret abilities she is trying to hide from an annual tradition that exposes people with powers. Although Nara isn't discovered one of her friends is deemed to be cursed, causing her, a father figure, and her friend to all run away.

One of my biggest issues with this book was the cliches. We had Nara, who was not like other girls. "Nara didn't fit in with the other girls, and she wondered what Mykel saw in her. She didn't look like the other girls either, with bright-red hair that others often commented on- hair that stood out in a crowd." (Location 138 from the kindle edition) Then alongside that her best friend Mykel was in love with her, but she didn't love him back. Also Nara was not a particularly strong lead until around the end of the book. She was fueled by her powers but she wasn't much of a fighter. All she really did was heal people.

This book also contained a lot of information dumps where the author just wrote a character's entire story. From reading a few paragraphs I knew everything there was to know about Gwyn or Mykel because the information dumps covered everything. In the span of three paragraphs I knew how the characters looked and also their tragic backstories.

When I started this book I was not expecting their to be more than one character's point of view. I think the element of getting more than one character's perspective really made this story more three dimensional. Willson wrote chapters from the perspective of both the protagonists and antagonists. The points of views changed without a certain order, which sort of bothered me because I was never sure what character I was about read about.

The last thing I have to complain about is that there were several misspellings and typos in the arc copy I read, so I hope that these are all cleaned and polished before the book actually releases in the Spring.

Now, onto the good stuff! Willson masterfully creating a aura around this book. I don't even know how to describe it, the entire book just felt unique and real. The characters were diverse and easy to tell apart from on another. Willson also came up and used some creative names for his characters, which was refreshing. Unique names without the pain of trying to figure out how to pronounce them.

The book was a quick read that only took me a little over three hours of complete. I read almost all of it in one sitting than finished it up the next day. Quick reads are amazing, I love when I get can through a book without it taking a long time.

I would like to thank NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I quite enjoyed this novel! The characters were nicely shaped; the plot was intriguing and fresh, yet easy to follow (wasn’t unnecessarily convoluted); and it quickly drew me in.