The Beacon: A Finding Justus Novel

by Ashley Lynn Dotson

This is the first in the "Finding Justus" Layla Justus is a young girl who moves to Providence, RI with her father, a history professor at Brown University. Layla has strange run-ins with a captivating young man, Orrin Darringer. He makes her blood boil and temper rage, yet she can't seem to stay away from him. He is drawn to her as well. Orrin reveals hidden secrets into Layla's past and helps her uncover her own birthright as a Beacon. Together they battle beings from heaven and hell to stay togther and stay alive. This is the beginning of a long journey Layla will embark upon to discover her that own choices will either save the world she knows or bring it to an end. Unfortunatley she will have to do it alone.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

358 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2013

About the author

In the magical, mystical world I inhabit, I am queen, and all subjects clean their rooms, do their homework, and brush their teeth....Sadly that is not the case!

I am a mother, teacher, life-long learner, and lover of books. I am currently influenced Young Adult fiction and my son Callum, another writer I admire, who is constantly challenging my imagination and patience. In addition to this I spend my days with my husband, the football coach, my three other children, two dogs, nine chickens, and the elusive cat, Clementine.

Reviews

[Jill]

It has been awhile since I have read a paranormal romance book. I think I was sort of exhausted with the genre. I also tend to have a lot of issues with the way relationships in these books are presented; which is usually co-dependent with one partner being far more powerful (usually the male) than the other (usually the female). In this book, both Layla and Orrin are supernatural beings and she is the stronger of the two (yay!). I haven’t read too many books with demons, or in this case daemons, so this was pretty new to me. I thought a fair amount of the exposition of the daemon world was interest; however, at times was a lot to take in and could drag the story down a bit. Dotson’s writing is impressive for a new author. She has a definite tone and style suited for this story. She has definitely put a lot of thought and work putting together the mythology of this story and that is definitely one of the strongest aspects of the story.

I liked Layla. She was first sort of the vanilla YA paranormal romance girl, but she did grow a backbone and evolve into a stronger person as the book went along. She was strong yet vulnerable, conflicted yet determined, and emotional yet grounded. I loved the fact that she wasn’t a waify girl like in many YA books and this was stressed many times. One thing that I really loved though was that she had a friend. I cannot think of the last YA paranormal romance where there was a friend that was present as much as Ben was in this book or wasn’t a boy that was also in love with her. That made me so happy because most people have at least one really good friend in high school that isn’t their boyfriend. I loved that Ben was understanding of Layla’s relationship but that Layla also took time to make sure she was maintaining that relationship with Ben.

I found Orrin a bit problematic. At first he was awful, I mean he has his excuses for being awful, but I definitely think he went way too far with the slut shaming and all that. I get why he was being mean, but there was probably a better way to do it. It was nearly impossible for me to actually like him for the rest of the book. I grew to tolerate him and I understood why Layla liked him and I did appreciate the fact that she did stand up to him many times when she felt wronged or when he was being a jerk.

Overall I liked the book. There are a few things I did not love (Orrin for example), but Dotson has written a story with a strong female character in a story with good mythology setting. I enjoyed the surprises at the end of the book, and I am looking forward to read the next book to see what happens.

[S.S. Lange]

I really enjoyed this book and had a very hard time putting it down (a lot of lost sleep!) I've just started getting into the paranormal genre so some of the concepts were all new to me, so I felt on par with Layla :) My one criticism was that it could use a solid clean up from an editor. But even despite the typos and errors, I was still drawn into the story and am excited to read the sequel as well.

[J. Kahele]

Kept me engaged

Is it wrong that I loved the fact the author double spaced? I am not a reader of Ya, but I really enjoyed the way the author portrayed the true feelings of a teenager. I will definitely be following this author.

[Christie Killebrew carroll]

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. The plot held many twists and turns and kept me expectant to the very last page. I am anxiously waiting the next installment!

[Lorin Ruscher]

Really fell in love with the characters!

[Sue.schooley]

This is an OUTSTANDING book!! Can't wait for the next one

[Sarah Renee Jones]

This story is so unique and awesome.
I immediately fell in love with it. I've never read anything like this before! And am so glad that I did!

Sarah Jones of AskSeekKnockReviews.blogspot.com

[ktsonofwill]

[Shirley]

This was a good book. I loved Orrin and Layla. I can't wait to read book two!