Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Revealing Eden (Save the Pearls Part One)
by Victoria Foyt
320 pages, hardcover, 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
Publisher: Sand Dollar Press Inc. (January 10, 2012)
ISBN: 978-0983650324
In this world where runaway global warming and climate change has damaged the Planet, the darkest skinned people (the Coals) are prized and can survive much better than the fair-skinned (Pearls). Pearls are considered undesirable and go to great lengths to be more acceptable by covering their white skin with dark make-up, and Cottons, albinos, are considered the lowest of the low and are actually being hunted down (if they still exist).
Here a new Apartheid rules, one that works the other way round than did the South African ones and, in all truth, it is one that in some countries, where Black majority rule has taken over, already exists. However, this is a different time, and a different situation.
Eden Newman, the heroine of this book, is 17 and running out of time. She is a Pearl and if no one picks up her mating option by her 18th birthday, she will be sent outside to die. Her father is a scientist working for a wealthy, charismatic Coal named Ronson Bramford. Bramford believes that Dr. Newman has developed the technology to save mankind by producing a super-being who can withstand the deadly environment and thrive.
This is an exciting fast moving book which is very hard to put down. It was that way definitely for me. To read a 307 page book, in the little time that I have for reading, in three days is very good going and speaks well for the quality of the writing. I could bet that most readers will want to read the entire book in one go even.
As I do not wish to spoil the reader's enjoyment I will not give away too much of the plot of the book and will leave it with the description I have given above.
The author covers interracial issues, what beauty means culturally, and environmental destruction, all in one book while all time entertaining the reader with one twist after the next.
While this book is, to all intents and purposes, aimed at young adults and here probably more the female than the male even, and I am neither, i still thoroughly enjoyed this book in the extreme and I cannot, I have to say, wait for the sequel.
Please, Victoria, don't keep us too long in suspense.
A great read and I can definitely recommend it without any caveats.
© 2012
