My chief complaint was that this book felt so long. It dragged along, with very little happening in the first third of the book.  For me it went into way too much detail about things that had no impact,on either plot or character development. There were large information dumps, often telling the reader a characters entire background and motivation. Show don't tell!  I guess I was put off by the wordiness of this book. Further I never connected to or particularly liked any of the characters. So although I liked the concept, and the world was interesting, I just couldn't get into Looking for Dei.

There are things I liked about this book and bits that were just ok for me.

The novel focuses on Nara and her friend Mykel as they flee their village after everything goes rather pear shaped at a village ceremony designed to find young people who are skilled or blessed with some sort of magic. The rune-based magic system was quite different from the usual fair and I liked that. I thought the emphasis on a God and religion was interesting and the world building was good, though I felt it was never fleshed out enough for my taste. I could not really understand the lay of the land, so to speak.

The characters is where I felt the story fell a bit flat, especially in the first half. Somehow they failed to come alive in my imagination until the last few chapters, when I finally connected to them.

Overall, I think this is a good fantasy novel with some original features. It definitely feels like it is building up to something more and I think it may be worth reading further books in the series.

This book had an imaginative concept. There is sweet, innocent love. Magic. Evil. Funny old lady. Traitor. It has all the necessary characters. It’s almost a mix of a fairy tale and a Lloyd Alexander novel.

Nara grows up with an adoptive father and her best friend in a poor small village. She knows she holds some type of special magic that she doesn’t understand.  She is a tender hearted girl who only wants to help. In a decision to try to help the village, she sets into motion more than she ever bargained for.
I liked reading from the different view points of so many characters. I didn’t like how the wording and sentences seemed almost juvenile (although I don’t think the book is). I think this might be the authors debut novel. On top of the choppy sentences, the story really drags. I think the whole book could have been shortened by a hundred pages.

**There is violence, including two abusive fathers, death, mentioning of rape (once saying an army raping women as spoils of wat was a reward).

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review through Net Gallery.

It is hard to take a classic fantasy trope and create a new twist. The idea of siblings, one good/ one bad, I can't say that I've read a book that involved conjoined twins, so I would say this author did just that. And he did it well. At first, I had no idea where this book was headed. The story unfolds between multiple POV's, with the majority of the story told from Nara's viewpoint.  I enjoy a book like this. I also enjoy books with women in leadership roles. I think the author did a great job creating and developing his fantasy world. It read very realistically.  This book had so many things that I like in books, but it had one big negative thing going for it and at times this made it hard to read. There were a lot of long narrative passages of backstory. Some chapters had no dialog. Because of this, I did skim some parts of this book. I don't think this is urban fantasy at all, but rather a nod to high fantasy. I think for a debut novel, the author shows strong ability and I think the backstory will be less in the subsequent books.

"Looking for Dei"

By: David A. Wilson

Nara, a young girl living in an orphanage, was abducted by someone searching for a "separated" twin with multiple gifts. Raised in an obscure town with her benevolent captor, Nar keeps her magic secret as long as she can.

She does not know she is prophesied as a "savior" and one half of a good/evil pairing.  She sees the gifts as uses to imbue her town with prosperity, not understanding that she is a sought after commodity.

When her gifts are discovered, her captor/guardian whisks her away to try to hide her from those that would try to exploit her talents.  Along for the ride is her closest friend who is in love with her and a "watcher" (a rival Barron's employer) who has been sent to discover those with magic abilities.

Life becomes a struggle for escape and survival for the group.  Nara has loyalty and treachery among her daily worries as she searches for "Dei" and her destiny.

Enjoyable young adult read even if predictable.  The writing and storyline had a nice flow but I didn't find my heart pounding or my heart melting. I felt that it would be a great read for those that appreciate stories with young adults taking on challenge and strife and trying to do the right thing.

Wow, what a great story. Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this. I was enjoying the book every moment I could, and I’m so sad it’s over. I think a lot of people will love this story.

I think I would have enjoyed this book much more if the action/adventure part started sooner. I was about 1/3 of the way through the book and I felt like the story wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't interesting to me enough to continue and finish the book. An upside is that the author writes in great detail; I could picture everything very clearly. However, some people it may think that it would be too much detail and explanation and not enough action.

I DNF this book. I felt that the blurb was misleading, the writing wasn't to my style, and I found myself not becoming invested with the characters or the story.

I was pleasantly surprised when I read "Looking for Dei." The author, David A. Wilson, creates a unique new world with an astounding setting. This setting is unlike ones from other works of literature, and it appears surprisingly vividly in the reader's imagination. For example, the magic and peril of the characters are very exquisitely presented throughout the novel. Another example of creativity in this book is the unparalleled aspects of Nara's world. Overall, I recommend this book for readers who enjoy seeing the words of a novel float off a book's pages in a myriad of eloquent colors.

Was unexpectedly thrilled by the quality of this book! Amazing settings, characters, feelings, and the ups and downs got me dizzy--in a good way! Would definitely recommend to a friend!

The prose is beautiful and helps to create deep immersion in the book. Very unique and seemed to breathe with life. The characters breathed with life as well, each being unique and different from each other. This especially helped with the POV jumps. Which are constant and jarring at first, but doesn’t take long to adjust to. Nara is a proactive main character and consistently drives the plot. From demanding honesty from Bylo, to sneaking into the church and training as hard as she can, she always acts and always does what she thinks is right. I really enjoyed reading about her. Also, the magic system is very unique as well. It focuses on a monotheistic, magical religion which includes runes, “gifted” and “cursed ones.” 
As I said before though, the POV jumps very often and will be jarring at first. It was for me, but this helps to make the world seem much more rounded. However, I noticed that because of this, I tended to skip some parts and scenes. Especially if they were somewhat redundant. For example, when the announcement ceremony turned to chaos, we were retold the events from three different character perspectives and one verbal retelling. This is fine, of course, as it’s good to understand what the varying characters are thinking and feeling, but I felt it to be too redundant and, as I said, I unintentionally glanced over those parts or skipped them.

This book had an interesting concept and was set in a unique world but failed to enthrall me. The perspective shifting is one of my pet peeves and made it difficult to read.

And the phyili was put asunder; separated, but not destroyed. Each defied the other, bringing conflict, pain and death to many. In the end, only one remained. - Cataclysmos 18:10

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you again, Netgalley for the opportunity to review ARCs. I love this chance, and I'm always ready to read the books you have available.

Now, on to the book.

The premise was pretty interesting, at least I think so. There are certain people in the world that either has gifts (they are called gifted if they have more than one special power). Then there are others that are plain, and others that are considered cursed. The ones with powers are conscripted to the government, whatever entity their abilities would be the most useful, and it gives them an opportunity to send money back to their village. The cursed are usually killed almost immediately as they are seen as an abomination to the church that needs to be put down. Pretty nice, right?

So it seems like the main character, a young fifteen-year-old girl named Nara, has so many abilities that she's developed at such a young age. Her father figure, a man named Bylo, told her from the moment he saw her exhibit some powers to keep them a secret from the rest of the village. It seems like she has a combination of all the known powers, and yet she is so much stronger than what she seems. So when her power is discovered on the day the village finds out that her best friend is cursed, that's when things hit the fan.

I feel like the book got way too descriptive about things that didn't seem really important. There was a character that was introduced in a chapter, only for that character to be killed off mere pages later. And it wasn't just a mini introduction. It was more like the character's life story. So you feel like you have to invest in one more character, and then they are ripped away from you in seconds. It's so hard to read a book that does that, or to introduce characters that don't seem to have any significance until later - or never - and still keep track of everyone.

I understand that this is an ARC, so I'll be forgiving about the grammatical errors I've found. I'm hoping those will be fixed by the time the final comes out. All in all, I think it could have flowed better, but it wasn't terrible. I wouldn't mind reading something else from this author, but this book just wasn't my cup of tea.

Received from NetGalley

Story is set in high-fantasy world, full of magic. Magic is a gift from Dei (their deity). Every few years they test young people with special weapon in announcement ceremony, to see if they have any gifts.

Those with gifts are celebrated, but her little town didn't have any gifted for very long time. Nara discovers the reason, and is determined to fix it, causing more trouble for her and her friend, than she could ever imagine. 

Nara has a secret, she has a gift, but not just one. She is always holding back, so there she isn't even sure what she is capable

Announcement ceremony goes horribly wrong and before she knows it, she, her best friend and Bylo are on the run. 

I love the world Author created and the magical system in it, is really interesting and unique. The idea behind the story is great and interesting. What I didn't love is the writing style, it didn't give me depth I wanted (for the characters and story) and it dragged at times. 

Regardless, I enjoyed it and would love to see what Nara will do next. :)

Excellent story-teller. Engaging premise with a clearly defined page turning plot!

I could not finish this book when it had religious type content in the story. I am not interested in that type of story. I guess the synopsis doesn't talk about that.

I got an e-copy ARC of this book from NetGally in return for an honest review. This book was a quick read. Took me a day because I was also studying for exams. The plot was interesting however the writing was a bit scattered. There was a a lot of information dumps which made it a bit dull to read as the author tended to drag out character descriptions. But it was interesting enough to keep reading.

While the plot is intriguing and makes for an interesting read, the writing itself makes it a struggle. It is too abrupt in the shifts from one paragraph to the next making it hard to transition between each section. The writing often includes unnecessary details that drags sentences out and makes it dull and so much is revealed about a character or location or plot point in large chunks rather than pulling it out throughout the story. It wasn't the worst read, by far, and it can be an enjoyable book; however the writing makes it difficult to want to get through it

Looking for Dei is the story of a prophecy involving twins, and one of the twins is the main character. Nara is a teenage girl with secret abilities she is trying to hide from an annual tradition that exposes people with powers. Although Nara isn't discovered one of her friends is deemed to be cursed, causing her, a father figure, and her friend to all run away.

One of my biggest issues with this book was the cliches. We had Nara, who was not like other girls. "Nara didn't fit in with the other girls, and she wondered what Mykel saw in her. She didn't look like the other girls either, with bright-red hair that others often commented on- hair that stood out in a crowd." (Location 138 from the kindle edition) Then alongside that her best friend Mykel was in love with her, but she didn't love him back. Also Nara was not a particularly strong lead until around the end of the book. She was fueled by her powers but she wasn't much of a fighter. All she really did was heal people.

This book also contained a lot of information dumps where the author just wrote a character's entire story. From reading a few paragraphs I knew everything there was to know about Gwyn or Mykel because the information dumps covered everything. In the span of three paragraphs I knew how the characters looked and also their tragic backstories. 

When I started this book I was not expecting their to be more than one character's point of view. I think the element of getting more than one character's perspective really made this story more three dimensional. Willson wrote chapters from the perspective of both the protagonists and antagonists. The points of views changed without a certain order, which sort of bothered me because I was never sure what character I was about read about.

The last thing I have to complain about is that there were several misspellings and typos in the arc copy I read, so I hope that these are all cleaned and polished before the book actually releases in the Spring.

Now, onto the good stuff! Willson masterfully creating a aura around this book. I don't even know how to describe it, the entire book just felt unique and real. The characters were diverse and easy to tell apart from on another. Willson also came up and used some creative names for his characters, which was refreshing. Unique names without the pain of trying to figure out how to pronounce them.

The book was a quick read that only took me a little over three hours of complete. I read almost all of it in one sitting than finished it up the next day. Quick reads are amazing, I love when I get can through a book without it taking a long time. 

I would like to thank NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I quite enjoyed this novel! The characters were nicely shaped; the plot was intriguing and fresh, yet easy to follow (wasn’t unnecessarily convoluted); and it quickly drew me in.