Release Date: July 20, 2011
Publisher: N/A
Page Count: 426
Format: ebook
Ripped away from her quiet Connecticut life with the force of a lightning bolt and glitched into a weird alternate universe, Jaden Beckett lands smack in the middle of a kidnapping--her own!The powerful Inter-Universal Guidance Agency (IUGA) engineers her escape and is working overtime to return her home.
But now Jaden's not sure where she belongs. In this world, she has her mother back (a miracle she never imagined). She's known as Princess Jaden, a member of the royal family of one of the three surviving nations,and against her better judgment, she's fallen insanely in love with Ryder Blackthorn, the most wanted outlaw in the land.
Can the IUGA force her to go? Or is Jaden what others in the land beleive she is--a Transcender with the ability to travel among alternate worlds at will?
She's not sure what to believe or who she can trust--except herself.
While I usually don't read let alone review books like Transcender by Vicky Savage, this one was a bit of a special case. Originally I somehow discovered and read Transcender two years ago and liked it enough to continue onto its sequel, at the time the third book in the trilogy was unreleased so thinking nothing more of it, I set the books aside. Fast forward to this summer and I rediscovered the trilogy and reread the books in hopes of enjoying them again. While Transcender was an OK read, even good in some senses, it wasn't anywhere near how I remembered it and left me disappointed.
In terms of the world-building it was somewhat of a hit and miss with an interesting premise that couldn't follow through. While the idea of multiple worlds/universes and people who travel through them has been broadly used, it was the alternate time line part of Transcender that truly interested me. Along with setting up an agency to control the fates of these worlds and different time lines and the whole transcender vs. IUGA (the agency) tensions, Vicky Savage started up the book promisingly. Unfortunately, that's where the positive side ends as the rest of the book couldn't continue the momentum started in the beginning. Information was relatively scarce throughout the book, both in general and in regards of the other things that I mentioned; along with only OK descriptions and settings. While Transcender started off on a good note, it unfortunately couldn't keep up with it and lost its quality the more you read.
The characters of Transcender were thankfully better compared to the world-building and didn't get worse as the book continued. Personally I enjoyed the characters and the way Vicky wrote them into the book but once again they could have been better, more life-like perhaps or more background stories. Additionally, the "bad guys" were pretty weak for who they were, whether it be Ryder at first or the prince and his men later on. The same goes for the romance, I'm not saying there should be NO romance but the amount in Transcender drowned out the other important events. With a bit more work, the characters of Transcender can become better and improve the plot line of the trilogy.
Discovering Transcender was more of a mistake then anything else but despite that its still not a hopeless case. While I would only consider it an OK book at this point, with more work it definitely has the potential to improve. Transcender might be a good pick for people who enjoy indie books, romance, and only OK writing.
3/5 - OK book
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