Who says you have only one soul mate? And you thought your life had drama. Newly edited & revised — Enjoy the best selling, first book of the ‘soul mate fiction adventure series’ that is the Luminary Saga for free. Endearing characters, suspense, true love, plenty of twists, this epic fantasy will keep you guessing as it jumps between worlds. One is a supernatural landscape and the other is … and the other is as comfortable as your own backyard.
Emily is an every-woman, still waiting to find Mr. Right and fall in love. But she’s unaware that a great tragedy has happened, killing her soul mate and the backup one– two young men that she has never met. Does that mean she’s doomed to a life without true love?
A supernatural race known as Paragons– who work in the shadows must do something unthinkable. They must retrofit a new soul mate for her. Change the make up of a human’s soul so that he’s her perfect complement in every way. It’s their only option for insuring a soul mate match — which releases much needed magic into the world. Magic that advances the causes of mankind.
Reshaping the precious hallmarks and soul markers is a nasty painful business without guarantees. But they must try– if the girl is to have any shot at real happiness.
Emily Wren is focused on school and her budding career. Smart, confident, feisty and too modest to realize her own beauty, she’s never had a boyfriend. If her protector is successful that could all soon change.
But life in the supernatural world, even the secret world of Paragons, is never quite that simple.
Treachery from an unsuspected quarter threatens the super immortal’s plans. Even more baffling– vampires, werewolves, a shapeshifter, witches and a psychic have suddenly developed a not so subtle interest in the love life of the woman. Will she meet her soul mate? Or is something else going on? Is there more at stake than the happiness of one special human?
Read Luminary, for a truly unique perspective on soul mates and the role of coincidence in finding “the one.” Book 1 in the Luminary Saga by P.S. Meraux.
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Categorized as a “paranormal romance,” P.S. Meraux’s Luminary can best be described in one word: charming. Or maybe two words. Wildly creative. Or maybe three: A terrific read! At the heart of the best fiction, we find some action, a little intrigue and suspense, good character development, and a logical plot that moves along at a steady pace. Luminary, the first in Meraux’s Luminary series, has all these attributes.
First we meet Emily in her early 20s as she awakens from dream about an experience she underwent when she was only twelve. She followed her brother into the woods where he was to meet his jock friends, snags some of his rum and coke, manages to get half drunk, heads home through the woods, gets lost, is threatened by assault but magically rescued by two luminous beings. Years later, Emily doesn’t know what to make of this. Was it real or “just” a dream? Next we meet David, a soldier home from the war who suffers from PTSD and has these awful battlefield nightmares whcih he has to contend with frequently.
These two are not alone in the world. Meraux introduces us to a cast of supernatural beings – seers, wizards, elves, luminaries and Paragons, each with his/her own agenda. Chief among them is Paragon Wicus and his sidekick Luminary Waxine. Wicus, like other Paragons, has the challenging task of finding a soulmate for thousands of humans under his care. Emily is his special concern. She’s a sweetheart, a girl-next-door type, intelligent, hardworking, kind, and friendly. She worries about her “thunder thighs,” not realizing just how pretty she really is. Her best friend is her dog Max, and, most of all, she’s lonely. Wicus wants to fix that by finding her the right soulmate. He has two candidates, Josh and Charlie, who require “retrofitting” to be suitable for Emily. However, Wicus becomes quite annoyed when David appears on the scene.
This sets the reader up for a tale that whisks along with a fair amount of suspense as we wonder who will become Emily’s soulmate. It’s important because when the souls are properly matched, they exude a magic that keeps the world in balance. There’s a mystery at the heart of this story, too. Something has happened to a large number of souls who are not properly matched. Wicus begins to suspect foul play. He wants to know if the souls that are being targeted or is it the Paragons? And if so, why?
There’s a kind of existential dilemma, too. Why is there so much “barren love” in the world? Why do so many humans fall in love with the wrong person and never become mated to their soulmates? Wicus has concluded that too many of us are too needy for validation that we exist and that our existence matters. This craving for validation leads to wrongful pairings.
Luminary has a couple of problems. One is the last chapter which resolves the mating issue – sort of. Emily meets the right guy but isn’t really well-connected to him yet. And other questions brought up in the story aren’t really answered completely. This semi-ambiguity is a clear lead-in to the next book in the series. But even one in a series requires the ability to stand alone, and Luminary just barely meets that requirement. Also author Meraux repeatedly makes a specific type of grammar error that a copyeditor should have caught, and that readers find very distracting.
Despite these problems, the story is sound, very creative, and very well-done. Five stars