REVIEW: Swirls (The Outsiders #1) by F.A Hershey

Author: F.A Hershey

Pages: 254

Genre: YA - Sci/Fi - Fantasy

AMAZON: Swirls (The Outsiders)

Swirls was kindly provided to me by the author

Synopsis (Goodreads)

Sixteen-year-old Julia finds herself leaving her London life behind to move with her parents to the Amazon jungle.
A native descendant, she becomes familiarized with her own roots for the first time in her life. However, she never imagined she is about to discover much more than her own past but also just how crowded our little planet is...

This is a present time sci-fi/ fantasy story about trust, friendship, love and self-discovery.

REVIEW: 3 out of 5 stars

‘Swirls’ was kindly provided to me by the author, F.A Hershey and is the first book in ‘The Outsiders’ series.

Julia feels her life is in turmoil when her Biologist father receives a job opportunity in Brazil; reluctantly they make the move from London leaving behind her home, her grandmother who she shares a close bond and her friends.

On arrival in the Amazon, Julia meets Halola, they form an immediate bond and soon realize they descend from the same Kanuayed tribe. Julia is accepted into the tribe with open arms and finds out she has special abilities which she will need to hone in order to fulfill her role and purpose.

I was curious about the tribal history and traditions and the link they had to Julia’s grandmother; there was a lot of learning and training for Julia to undertake in order to perfect her abilities which she was starting to understand correlated to the unusual dreams or visions she had been experiencing as well as to the woman who appeared in these dreams.

Julia is on a journey throughout this book of self discovery and new beginnings, she shows a lot of emotion and has personal struggles she needs to get through, she grew from strength to strength as the story progressed and as she learnt more about her heritage you could see her growing as a character.

I did enjoy the relationship between Julia, her best friend Lola, Yoji and of course the love interest Gabriel, there was mystery and something unusual about him that made me want to explore who and what he was. I hope to see their relationship progress.

Julia’s relationship with her mother was strained, before they even moved from London it showed they didn’t share a close bond but it was tested when Julia wanted to meet the tribe, there were secrets that certainly weren’t meant to be revealed and abilities that should have remained hidden; I was disturbed by the outcome of their not so pleasant meet-up at the tribe.

The pacing for me started off slowly but picked up around halfway, it is a well-written story with an original take on the YA genre, I haven’t read a lot of sci-fi so I don’t have a lot to compare it to but the world Ms Hershey has built is certainly fascinating and unique and I am eager to find out how the story will progress in upcoming installments, especially since it ended on a cliffhanger with both Gabriel and her parents.

All in all, an enjoyable debut in this new series by Ms Hershey.