I am a huge fan of author Lizzie Ashworth. She amazes me with her writing and in this book series (House of Rae) her imagination amazes me. She is a very creative soul or she knows something that I don’t want to know. The idea that this could be our world one day scares the hell out of me. I might not be around, but my children and grandchildren will be. Her description of what the world looks like in another 45-50 years is just incredible. The way she paints pictures with her words brings the scenery to life for me.

This book picks up a couple of years after Salvation ends. Josh and Anne are carving out their happily ever after. Josh gives up everything to move to California with Anne so that she can do her graduate studies and help develop a cure for the illness plaguing the earth, or so she thinks. Things are not as they should be when they arrive in California, Josh starts having strange visions and Anne can’t understand why no one at the University wants to hear about new ideas for treatment. 

I LOVED this book. It is told from multiple points of view, which to me is always a plus. With this story in particular, the varying points of view add to the puzzle like quality of the story. Little bits of information revealed here and there until the full picture starts to take shape, but by then, well, the action is underway. People who don’t know each other become connected by actions created by who knows who, it was WONDERFUL!!! I love Josh Carter; my heart broke for him in this book. Once again he is faced with struggles and circumstances he must deal with or die. I cannot wait for book 3. The only negative about this book, and it might be just me, but the first book, as most of Ms. Ashworth’s writing, has heavy erotic scenes. This book did not. Regardless of that, this was an incredible story. I give it 5 stars. Donna

—

What do you get when you cross New Age mysticism, corporate intrigue, a weird wasting disease related to pollution, a psychic cure for it, a string of murders and the development of a man from an upstanding citizen to a gutter bum and back to an upstanding citizen again? I you’re thinking it’s Lizzie Ashworth’s Denial then you’re right. If you’re thinking of something else let me know, because I’d probably like to read that too. This is the second book in the House of Rae series, following Salvation which I reviewed previously. I enjoyed the first one and I can’t help but think that this one is even better precisely because it came afterward and she had more experience writing SF/F.

Ashworth’s work has all of the themes listed above and it mixes them really well. She finds a way to switch between points of view and tie things together that, if you were to describe them to me verbally don’t sound like they would fit together all that well. Don’t ask me how she made it work. I’ll just say she did. Ashworth has a sharp mind and makes her characters believable.

This book, like the one before it, has a point of view that can only be described as a limited first-person omniscient. This is something I hadn’t seen until I read her first book but now that I have a bit more familiarity with it, having read the work of both Ashworth and Daniella Bova, I’m actually enjoying it. It can be a bit strange if you have to abandon a book mid chapter but she manages to identify her characters well enough that after a sentence or two you can figure out who you’re reading. And wow, do those characters vary. 5 Stars  Jim

—

A wonderful follow-up to ‘Salvation’! As we are reintroduced to characters from the first book, we realize a lot has changed in the 3 year plot gap between the 2 books. I will not spoil anything, but prepare yourself, the Josh you knew is not the Josh you are going to know. In a good way! You may have thought the boy became a man after all the madness of Book I but lookout, because there’s more to come. Apart from the plotline, one of my favorite things about this book is Lizzie rotates the point of view between about 4 major characters allowing the reader to know what those characters are thinking as the plot unfolds. It’s a wonderful affect! 5 stars Raven