Review for "Daughter of the Red Dawn"

"Daughter of the Red Dawn" is the book in the series 'The Lost Kingdom of Fallada' by Alicia Michaels.
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The cover features a young woman. Her skin is pale almost bluish in color. Her hair, with severe bangs, is red and straight. She wears a red cloak trimmed in gold, the hood of which is halfway pulled down. She stares out at the reader with deeply shadowed eyes. In the background to either side snow topped pines hold court. And in the center where there should be sky, the blue eyes of a wolf waver almost on the edge of unseeing.
Selena McKinley lives in the backwoods country town of Twin Oaks, Texas. In a small community such as hers, any difference is quickly seized upon and Selena knows she's different, no matter how hard she tries to disguise it. She dreams of draining her savings account and leaving town in a cloud of dust. Her plans are turned upside down when a handsome and dangerous stranger sees her running faster than should be possible through the field behind her home. The stranger tells her she's not from there, that she's a long lost princess, and that someone is coming to kill her.

What I liked:

• I found Selena's gift, what appears to be the gift of inhuman super speed, to be at the very least unique from many of the gifts we often see in these stories even if not much else is.

What I disliked:

• The story is chock full of pop culture references. Its as if the author didn't have a single original thought in her head. From the floating ship, we are referenced to Peter Pan and Neverland. From werewolves, she mentions the Twilight series, even going so far as to say that her werewolf is as hot as Jacob. Then we have the white evil queen with her polar bear drawn chariot, which immediately brings to mind Narnia. Even the classic way in which she describes the clothing and the kingdom of Damu immediately makes me think of Aladdin. And when Selena's gift grows we are brought full circle to the Last Airbender. It's almost as if the author took every fantasy movie she'd ever seen and tried to cram them all into story, thankfully not mentioning all of them in the process.
• The relationship between Titus and Selena manifests and progresses extremely quickly, without much in the way of supporting evidence.
•  The dialouge most often sounds a little forced and childish.

"Daughter of the Red Dawn" is currently available for the Kindle for $3.99. The author promises the next book in the series 'Child of the Sacred Earth' will be available sometime this year. You can find out more about the author and her other works at www.fantasybyalicia.com.

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 3 out of 5 smilies
Recommended for tweens and teens only.

Synopsis" These are dark times in the land of Fallada, and I fear that they will only continue to grow darker. Only the return of those we’ve lost will even the score.
It will begin with first line of the prophecy, which foretells of a red sun over the desert sky…
--Adrah, Queen of the Fae
On the outside, seventeen year-old Selena McKinley is like any other teenage girl. Yet Selena has always felt as if she doesn’t belong and is counting the days to graduation and her freedom from the small town that makes her feel so out of place, when the arrival of a stranger turns her world upside down. Selena will learn just how different she is and the truth of where she comes from.
A lost princess, they call her, the catalyst for a war involving a world that Selena was taken from as a child. An evil queen obsessed with her own beauty with a plan to enslave the human race.…the notion seems so silly, yet Selena knows in her heart that it is true. Then there is Titus, the shape shifter whose blue eyes and claims of destiny hold her heart captive. Can Selena find the strength to do what she must while following her heart?"