We’ve all seen it happen. A well-meaning but possibly misguided individual reads an e-mail pass-along that strikes a chord and resonates with the individual and passes it on without considering how those same words might be interpreted by someone of another faith or nationality. Before you know it, one person is shouting about his or her right to practice a religion or the intricacies of international commerce while the other is shouting about his or her God given right to freedom of speech.
I could argue the validity of rights versus privileges and responsible actions, but I won’t. What I want to discuss today is religious tolerance and those delightful pass-alongs, many of which are very well written though biased, if you look closely enough at them. ALL of these messages are written with the express purpose of enflaming the passions on both sides of an issue...but we’ll get back to that.
At the risk of being misunderstood, I think a lot of people pass on these messages in ignorance of how it might make others feel. Believe me, if it was against their religion, it might make them think twice, but it’s not, so it goes blithely onto the lists. I honestly don’t think most people intend to be cruel and mean-spirited about the whole thing. They simply don’t consider anyone beyond themselves when posting.
Does that mean I condone these messages? No. I think they are propaganda that reflects the state of unrest in the world. As I said, they are carefully constructed to stir this unrest, and people have been playing this game in one form or another for many, many years. It’s called politics.
Does it bother me to see them? A bit, but more that people are incapable of letting things lie. Certainly not enough to leave a list I love over it or lose friends I love over it.
I have two bumper stickers on my van that I think sums it up for me. #1...Freedom of religion means ALL religions. #2 And just what does my religion have to do with you? That’s the trick for me. What you do and what I do have nothing to do with each other.
Does prayer in school bother me? No. As long as you don’t tell my child to say your prayer or prostelize to my child, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t let my own step-mother prostelize to my children, and she’s family!
Does the word God in documents, on money and in the pledge bother me? No. It’s tradition. If it didn’t bother the forefathers enough to complain about it...and there were well-known people who weren’t Christian in the US then. Moses Michael Hayes comes IMMEDIATELY to mind here. In my mind, people can feel free to disregard it or to substitute their own deity/ies into the pledge in their heart. It doesn’t mean you are kneeling to a god who isn’t your own.
But, here’s the trick. By my own reckoning, I just wasted my breath. Why? What I think shouldn’t matter to you any more than what you believe should matter to me. Respect for each other doesn’t mean I have to agree with you or believe as you do. The same works in reverse. In the meantime, notice that I never said what I believe. In the end, what does it matter what I believe? Or what you do? Respect and tolerance CAN be universal...if people let it.
Brenna Lyons is the author of PROPHECY (Volume One: REVELATIONS and Volume Two: RAPTURE), a neo-pagan parable examining religious tolerance and the deeper issues of whether religion makes right. Stay tuned after the excerpt to see what reviewers say about PROPHECY...
Chapter One
April 9th , 2001
Joe Connor ducked to the right, his shoulder brushing the rough brick storefront.
His smile widened as he caught sight of the telltale flash of auburn three
doors up. He surged forward as she slowed, taking chances as he read in
Kyla’s actions that she was close to her destination. Kyla slid left
between two businessmen, and Joe lost track of her for one heart-stopping
moment. As always, her way of neatly avoiding the crush allowed her moments
of near-invisibility in the rush of taller pedestrians.
She reappeared, her slim figure outlined in the streetlights as she prepared for a dash across the busy street. Joe slid in behind her, daring to inch into her personal space. Kyla shivered and smoothed her hair, so close Joe could have raised his hand and allowed one of her curls to brush around his finger. He didn’t, and she didn’t look back at him. Kyla never did. It had taken him more than a month to learn that about her.
Joe wasn’t worried about Kyla seeing him, and tonight was a night to take chances. A loner, with few friends and little time for family, Kyla didn’t fit into the pattern of city life. For any other stunning redhead, a night out like this would be commonplace, but this was Kyla. She didn’t typically go out this late. It only took him a week to learn that.
Joe startled and blended into the group of people behind Kyla as she lead the way across the street. Her stride was purposeful now, and Joe gave her an extra few yards lead on him. He’d seen that walk before, just before the quiet, introspective young woman unloaded her anger on the one boyfriend Joe had seen her with in his two months on the job.
When Gram first approached him for this job, Joe thought she was crazy, but the money was right, and he couldn’t argue with that. He smoothed the bristling hair at the back of his neck. Gram was easily the most intimidating employer he’d ever had. The elderly woman could never be mistaken for feeble, even in her age and infirmity. She had resources that boggled him and a foreknowledge that was downright spooky at times. That was what really bothered him about Gram. She made him uneasy.
The job was simple. Keep as close an eye on Kyla Keating as possible twenty-four-seven. Kyla was a woman Gram couldn’t even claim to know except by reputation, yet Gram was paying a lot of money to make sure Joe kept on her tail. Joe’s needs were all met as part of the job. He was provided with an apartment near hers, money for expenses: meals if she ate at a restaurant, movies if she went there, an all-zone bus pass every month, and a car in case someone else drove her. The small apartment he occupied was across an alley from the rear of hers, but the entertainment center wasn’t just for amusement. It was wired to Kyla radio, as Joe liked to call it. For two months, he had gotten to know Kyla in a way he was sure few had.
Kyla seemed oblivious to how unique she was, to how she stood out in a crowd. Joe had learned her favorite foods, her favorite songs, and her favorite pastimes. He caught glimpses of her drawings and heard her recite her own poetry as she wrote it. Some nights, Joe watched Kyla move around her apartment using the binoculars. Some nights, he laid back and listened to the sound of her voice. He wondered if she could fall for a security guy with a few semesters of college under his belt. Joe sighed. Kyla was definitely out of his league.
At any rate, while Joe was having a completely meaningless relationship with a dream, Gram wasn’t interested in any of this. It confused him at first, but Gram explained that she only needed to know two things. Was there anyone else watching Kyla, and did he see anything unusual?
“Unusual how?” Joe had asked her.
“Anything that happens around her, to her, or that she does. Anything, no matter how irrelevant it seems, may be important,” Gram had answered him.
Joe kept following Kyla, and he learned more about her every day. So far, he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. Of course, Joe had no idea what he was looking for either.
He dodged right without conscious realization that Kyla had made the same move, following her as she stepped into line at the Rex Theatre. Even with the single person between them in line and her voice low, Joe picked out which of the two movies she was seeing easily. He cringed at how he would have to fake his way through if he hadn’t.
Ticket in hand, Joe strode inside. He passed on the concession stand just as Kyla had. His dinner had been a big one. He could afford to pass on popcorn and candy to secure a seat close to her.
Joe sucked in his breath as Kyla turned into her row, her eyes sliding over the crowd and passing over him like a warm touch. She hadn’t noticed him. Kyla never noticed him. Joe reminded himself that he should be glad of that. His job was to watch and report. He couldn’t do that if she knew he was there.
Joe sighed as he sank into his seat two rows back from her. As usual, he would miss most of the movie watching Kyla. Was it a good thing or bad that she liked such good movies?
* * *
Kyla’s eyes were on the screen, but her mind was elsewhere. There was something behind her that she should see. Most of her life, feelings like that had plagued her. She’d turn suddenly to see a flash of movement reflected in a mirror or a shadowy image fading away. She hated the cold, feathery, static-charged feeling it gave her. At times, Kyla would turn to a voice over her shoulder, and there would actually be a person there.
The person would stare back at her; annoyed, amused, kindly or startled, and her mother would drag her away. “Don’t stare, Kyla. It’s rude.” Her mother was always there, waiting to pounce on her. “What is wrong with you?” she’d hiss. “Stop it.”
Kyla knew what the problem was. The flashes of movement were phantoms, afterimages of things not there anymore. The people hadn’t actually said what she heard them say. But, if she told someone that, they’d lock her up and hurt her. Was that something her mother told her, too? Kyla couldn’t remember her saying it, but she had known it was true from a very young age.
As time went on, it simply became easier to ignore that nagging feeling, to avoid crowds, and to forget the dreams. It was better not to see what was over her shoulder. Kyla pushed away the feeling and tried to concentrate on what was on the screen.
* * *
Joe followed Kyla at a good distance. He knew she was headed home, but he had to follow her the whole way. Her apartment was on the south side of the city in a redbrick apartment building that housed four two-bedroom units. She had shared the unit with a roommate, while they were both in college, but when Sarah married and left the apartment, Kyla didn’t take a new roommate. That made Joe’s job easier. There was no one else in the apartment to confuse the bugs, to close window blinds, or to make Kyla ill at ease.
Kyla approached the last intersection. Even from here, Joe could tell she was nervous. Did she realize he was following her? He ducked into the shadows, just in case. Kyla reached the corner and turned suddenly. The street was empty except for a few cars. She looked right at him, and Joe reminded himself that she couldn’t possibly see him in this light. Still, he held his breath, wondering at the changes in her. Kyla never looked back. She turned away.
* * *
Kyla was sure there was someone behind her, but no one was there when she looked. The nervous energy grew stronger, until she felt she might jump out of her skin if it didn’t stop. Suddenly, an idea came to her. She wondered if she could still pull it off. After all, it had been ten years since she had tried it last.
Kyla moved to the switching box and looked around. If no one saw it, what was the harm in trying? What about your unseen stalker, if there is one? Kyla decided there were worse things than ridicule in life. She ran her hand down the side of the box until she felt that old power surge coursing through her. She tapped the metal. Kyla knew it was unnecessary, but it helped her focus, so she did it anyway. Change.
She glanced up at the light. Well, it still worked. As soon as the light changed, Kyla launched across the street. She labored the near freezing air in and out, pausing after her four-lane dash to concentrate on the light again. Change. She smiled as the lights obeyed and turned to the front door. Whoever you are, try that on for size.
* * *
Joe stared after her for several minutes before moving to the lamppost. For two months, he had watched that light changing. It was four minutes on one side and two on the other. It had never changed like that before. He timed it through several more cycles, all four minutes and two.
Did Kyla do that? Was it some type of trick? Joe ran his hand over the box. Whatever she had been looking for, he couldn’t find it. He placed his hand in roughly the same spot Kyla had and hit the box. Nothing happened. Joe shook his head. This was definitely one to tell Gram, but what was he going to tell her? He noticed the light changing and hurried across the street. Joe passed by Kyla’s building and headed for his own. “Time to listen to some Kyla radio,” he muttered.
Inside his apartment, Joe dropped his jacket on the chair as he dialed Gram. That was her order. If either of the conditions were met, he should contact her, any time day or night. The phone rang. Again. Three times. He was about to give up when Gram finally answered.
“Hello?” He had woken her, he could tell.
“Gram, it’s Joe.”
“Joe, what’s wrong?” She woke quickly when she heard it was him.
“Nothing, Gram.” He hesitated. “This is going to sound nuts.” Joe rubbed his fingertips over his forehead and tried to find a way to begin.
“What did you see?” she asked patiently.
That was as good a starting position as he could have asked for, he supposed. “Well, I think I just saw her change a traffic light. I mean, it made no sense. She was nervous. She walked over to it, touched it and it changed. As soon as she was across, it changed back, and she smiled at it.”
“You’re sure it’s not a quick light?”
“No way. I timed it before, and I timed it after. It was a complete anomaly. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Good. Just as it should be.” He could hear the smile in her voice.
“What next?”
“Keep me informed. And Joe?”
“Yes?”
“Good work.”
“Thanks.”
The line went dead. Joe hung up slowly. The old woman took this all in stride, as usual. He shook his head. He was never going to understand Gram.
It wasn’t simply Gram’s whacked belief that her Goddesses had taken a personal interest in Kyla and wanted her protected that bothered him. Religion wasn’t Joe’s thing to begin with, and Gram’s religion went beyond his ability to comprehend any belief structure. Assuming her gods existed, why would any deity bother with someone not even of his or her own faith? Joe wasn’t sure what Kyla was religiously, but she wasn’t quoting Goddesses.
It wasn’t that Gram was paying Joe big bucks to watch, report, and protect Kyla but didn’t seem to care about anything he told her, even the weird stuff she demanded to know. Okay, that did bother him, but only because he didn’t understand why she did it. She was paying Joe a lot of money. That demonstrated a sincere interest in Kyla despite Gram’s seeming disinterest.
Something bothered him about Gram that he couldn’t put his finger on. Was it that her Goddesses wanted Joe here? Not any bodyguard for Kyla but Joe, personally? He’d ignored that because of the money involved, dismissing Gram as a religious nut with deep pockets.
But Gram was more than a religious nut. She not only had Joe following her on this crazy expedition. She had devoutly Christian Eric, Episcopal Jason, agnostic Stacie, atheistic Liz, and an undisclosed number of support team members, including Catholic Howie and even a Jewish doctor named Bruce Rosenberg. Her ability to pull that off made Joe more nervous than anything else he’d seen so far did.
Joe smoothed the hair on the back of his neck and settled into the recliner to tune in Kyla radio. He brought the binoculars up to his eyes and looked at the lighted window across the alley. Kyla was in the kitchen making hot chocolate. Never coffee or tea. Always hot chocolate. She didn’t smoke and rarely drank alcohol. Never to excess.
She had changed into a short nightshirt that barely covered her upper thighs when she reached for the top shelves of the cabinets. All that and smart and psychic? She was a fascinating woman. Joe had a wild urge to accidentally run into her a few times. Maybe, she might even let him pick her up. “But, what then?” he asked aloud. If she knew him, she could pick him out in a crowd and realize he was following her.
He sighed. Kyla’s favorite quote from Shakespeare flitted through his mind. "Til then, his love must lie unmade at home,"; he could hear her say. So much for fantasies. Back to reality.
Kyla set down a mug and returned the powdered chocolate to the top shelf. Yikes. She was spectacular. She took the mug and disappeared up the stairs. Joe watched as she climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up to her hips while she sipped the hot chocolate. After a few minutes, she laid down and pulled the blankets up to her shoulder. As always, a small colored light in the corner was left on all night. Joe wondered what personal demons it was intended to ward off.
He set down the binoculars and settled back with a cold Coke. “Good night, Kyla,” he whispered to the dark room.
* * *
The ringing of the phone jangled Kyla’s nerves, and she shot up in the bed. Her hand rested on the phone as she squinted at the illuminated numbers on the bedside clock, which read midnight. She pressed the phone to her ear. “Somebody better be dead,” she growled into it.
“Kyla, it’s your mother. Is that the way I taught you to answer a phone?”
Hang up. Her mind screamed at her to hang up, begged at her to hang up. Instead, she answered. “No, you didn’t, but you also taught me that it was rude to call family after nine o’clock and anyone else after eight.”
“Not as rude as not returning phone calls.”
Kyla had closed her life off from Briana in every way she could. She tried changing her phone number and even getting it unlisted, but someone always made sure her mother had it. In the end, it became cheaper and easier to screen her calls. Some days, she called back and made her excuses for not seeing Briana. Most days, she ignored the machine.
“I went to a movie and didn’t get home until ten thirty. It would be rude to call then. Now, if you’re done interrupting my sleep, I’ll hang up.”
“I waited up for you.”
“Then, you should have said that in your message. I’m not a mind reader, you know.” Briana got very quiet, so Kyla continued. “Besides, if I had called you at ten thirty, you’d have been asleep and told me how rude I was for calling.” Kyla was pushing it, but she was tired and ticked off.
“How dare you.” Her voice went shrill. “How can you be so ungrateful to me? So critical? Don’t you know how much I’ve given up for you?” Briana was spun now.
Kyla decided that anything else she said was wrong, anyway. “I’m sure it cut into your bar-hopping incredibly.”
“Who do you think you are?” Briana raged at her.
“A grown adult who needs her sleep for work tomorrow and who has asked you repeatedly not to call me. That’s the way it is. Don’t expect my gratitude for waking me up like this.”
“I won’t stand for—”
“Then don’t call me.”
“I trust I won’t see you this weekend?”
She’s having friends over, Kyla remembered from the answering machine earlier. "Sorry, Mother. I'm already committed for this weekend,"; she rehearsed in her mind. Committed to what? Well, there is Saturday dinner with Dad. "I have other plans."
"With your father, I suppose." Her anger melted into that disconcerting distraction.
“Part of the time,” Kyla admitted.
“And the rest?”
“I have a date.” She grimaced at the lie, but it was better than the truth. Or was it? Kyla wasn’t sure about that anymore.
“Bring him along.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
Briana was angry again, but Kyla was beyond caring. “I might want to marry this man, Mother. Why ruin it right off the bat by introducing him to you?”
Briana grew very quiet. Kyla guessed that she was somewhere between shocked and pissed, now.
“Good night, Kyla. I hope you sleep better than I will,” Briana said with a note of finality.
“Good night, Mother. I will. I’m sure,” she practically sang back into the phone before she hung up.
That was refreshing. Maybe she should have done that years ago. On second thought... Kyla picked the receiver up and punched in *67. She had been toying with the idea of blocking Briana’s number for months. No time like the present, right? Kyla smiled as she settled back onto her pillow.
She sighed, unable to sleep now that thoughts of Briana had been set free to plague her. It was always like this when Briana made it past Kyla’s carefully-prepared walls.
Her mother wasn’t part of her family. She hadn’t been since Kyla was eighteen and was finally, legally allowed to run away from home and have a real life. From that day on, she made it clear that she was her own person. It had been over a year since she had seen Briana.
When her parents divorced, Kyla would have given anything live with her Dad. Instead, the mother-friendly laws kicked in and she was stuck with Briana.
Briana was always cold and unfriendly toward her daughter. Nothing Kyla did was ever good enough for the domineering woman. If Kyla made Dean’s List, that last grade should have been an A instead of a B+. If Kyla got rave reviews for her supporting role in a high school play, she should try harder so that she could be the lead or not do it at all. Kyla found that Briana rarely approved of the things that she cared about. Drawing and writing were a waste of time.
“It doesn’t put food on the table,” Briana was fond of pointing out.
“What about Stephen King?” Kyla bit off many times. She knew she wasn’t that good, after all. So, Kyla picked one of the many things that she was good at to major in, and took as many electives as she could in the things she loved.
College made life easier. For one thing, Briana wasn’t paying the bills for school anymore. Kyla went through on a competitive scholarship, so Briana couldn’t complain about how Kyla wasted her mother’s money. That didn’t mean she had no complaints at all. That simply wouldn’t be Briana.
She complained that computers were a man’s field. “Why not go into secretarial or paralegal instead?”
Kyla rolled her eyes at that. Leave it to Briana to pick things she had no interest in. For her age, Briana was stuck in an unrealistic place. She was married in the early seventies not the fifties, after all.
Kyla guessed that Briana was ticked off at having lost control of what classes she took completely. Briana had to approve her high school schedule, but minor or not, Kyla filed her own schedule in college. Then, her salvation came. She turned eighteen a few weeks into the school year. Her time with Briana ended less than a month later.
Kyla smiled again. She was free, and sleep would come.
* * *
Joe laughed so hard, he almost toppled out of the chair. For two months, he had listened to the acidic banter between mother and daughter. Briana Keating was a class-A bitch. There was no doubt about it. There was also no doubt that Kyla had spent years perfecting the art of not letting Briana get the upper hand. Joe wondered how many years the domineering woman had made Kyla’s life a living hell to rate this response. Too many, he decided. It was a disturbing thought.
So far, Joe had become accustomed, as much as anyone ever could, to Briana’s verbal abuse, her guilt trips, and her seemingly neurotic obsession with her daughter’s social appearance. Everything was centered on what was rude or inappropriate. Joe could see how that would get old fast. He knew some people weren’t cut out to be parents, but Briana took the condition to extremes. Joe wondered what other horrors living with that woman exposed Kyla to. He didn’t like that answer any better.
Of course, Joe knew that Kyla’s claim of the date was a lie, but how she used the excuse to get the upper hand was pure poetry in motion. Joe was introspective for a moment. It was strange. He had no hope of ever getting to meet this woman, and yet he realized he was relieved at the thought that Kyla didn’t really have a date.
Joe raised the binoculars to watch the young woman. Even in the pool of green light, she was beautiful. Her face clouded over.
“ A nightmare?” he asked aloud.
Kyla was muttering something. She cried out harshly and sat straight up in bed. The light in the corner blazed brighter than usual and exploded, sending shards of glass out into the shade. The room was lost in the instant darkness.
Joe was stunned. What was that? For several minutes, he stared through the binoculars into the darkness while Kyla's breathing normalized. The hall light flooded the room. Kyla wrapped an errant lock of hair behind her ear as she stared at the mess. She retrieved the vacuum from the hall closet and a wet washcloth from the master bathroom. Dutifully, she cleaned the mess. She threw away the glass-filled rag and returned the vacuum.
Her finger was bleeding, he realized. Kyla sucked at the cut while she screwed in a new bulb, blue this time. Joe wondered if the color had any significance to her. When it shined to life, she turned off the hall light and crawled back into bed. Kyla crossed her arms around her knees and stared at the lamp.
“Should have known better than to mess with the traffic lights,” she commented in a quiet voice. “At least it wasn’t the wiring this time.” She curled back under the blankets and sighed deeply.
Joe put down the binoculars and took a deep breath. Kyla did that? She couldn’t have. It was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?
Kyla’s voice wafted out of the speakers and interrupted his train of thought. “Honestly, what man would want to marry into this?” Even without the binoculars, Joe could tell she was looking right at him. “He’s out there somewhere. He just has to be. There’s someone for everyone, right?”
Joe felt a lump in his throat. What was wrong with him? He was stuck on this job for so long that he was losing his perspective.
RTR Reviewer’s Choice Award Jan 2004! Treble Heart Award Finalist!
“This is a stunning work of art...this book is splendid from start to finish. The mystery surrounding the Prophecy is deliciously frustrating. The characters are phenomenal. This is a tale that could please many readers who read any kind of genre. PROPHECY 1: REVELATIONS deserves more than five ANGELS for its perfection, Brenna Lyons’ talent and the overall captivation of the story. I can’t recommend this book enough!
“Never have I seen characters as strong as the ones in this story.
Prophecy is not necessarily only about the religion that threatens their
lives and Ms. Lyons pens this tale of faith, love, dreams and choices with
a sure hand. While most would turn away from a tale where religion plays
a factor, Ms. Lyons sweeps the reader in and makes them care so much about
the characters that it is impossible to walk away unaffected. This sequel
was intense, exciting and in one word, unique. Very rarely do we see the
aftermath of something this horrific. The battle that the characters fought
was full of consequences, pain and suffering, and it was interesting that
there was still so much story afterwards and that Ms. Lyons wrote of the
aftermath that Kyla, Joe and the others had to face. Rapture is for any
type of reader; there is romance, psychic phenomenon, action and adventure
and intrigue. I know that I have been seriously impressed by the power and
the imagination of Brenna Lyons words. This sequel was all I had hoped it
to be and more! The Prophecy series, Revelations and Rapture are destined
for keeper shelves everywhere and most certainly not to be missed!”
Reviewed by Tracey for Fallen Angels Reviews 5 ANGEL REVIEW!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“This story was masterfully written, compelling, emotional and suspenseful.
This book speaks of religious views that do not overshadow the story at
all and adds many aspects to ponder on. Prophecy: Revelations is action
packed, stunning; a one sitting read and shows the true talent of Ms. Lyons
in this reviewer’s opinion. I have already read Revelations a second
time in a matter of a few weeks; it just keeps calling me back for more.”
Reviewed by Tracey West for The Road to Romance
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Two volumes of Prophecy contain an ambitious project embracing a
huge cast of memorable secondary characters and several philosophical issues
woven into the fabric of the action / thriller / romance plot. It is definitely
a mainstream book, spanning several genres in the net of the story and offering
something for readers of all genres. It possesses a refreshing originality
of style, and the apparent easiness with which the author handles the sophisticated
architecture of the plot deserves high praise.”
Reviewed by Daria for Romance Junkies 4 RIBBON REVIEW!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“This is quite a change from her more popular works. This is a strong,
captivating, and emotionally binding story. The religious inferences do
not isolate one specific religion as the right one but instead takes pieces
of each and brings them to the forefront. This is a story with a little
of everything; it has paranormal aspects, suspense, love, and action. This
book will keep you entranced and waiting for the conclusion in Rapture.”
Reviewed by Sara Sawyer for The Romance Studio 4 HEART REVIEW!
“Ms. Lyons treads into a very controversial subject: religion. Ms.
Lyons does so with a style and dexterity that was wonderful. Rather than
dwelling on one religion or faith as the “right one,” it more
centered on personal free will to worship as you choose to. A superb conclusion
to an enthralling and action filled chronicle about choices, faith, trust,
and most of all, love.”
Reviewed by Sara Sawyer for The Romance Studio 4 1/2 HEART REVIEW!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Brenna Lyons’ talent will blow you away. You are kept guessing until you read a conclusion that will leave your heart beating rapidly. The characters, story and situations are astounding. The secondary characters in PROPHECY: REVELATIONS are extraordinary. The experiences occurring are so captivating that whenever I had to put the book down, I found myself plotting the next scenes and chapters. Ms. Lyons will find many a reader that will take this book and give it a prominent place on their keeper shelf.
“The conspiracies that are connected to the prophecy involving Kyla
are amazingly intricate. PROPHECY: RAPTURE is utterly exciting, and will
keep you pinned to your seat. Brenna Lyons has written one of the most incredible
stories I’ve ever read. The prophecy involving Kyla is astonishing.
Just as the story will capture you, and hold you tight, your connection
with the characters will be just as tight. Any reader who picks up PROPHECY:
REVELATIONS and PROPHECY: RAPTURE will not be disappointed. You will find
two exquisite volumes that contain a story that will remain with you for
a long time to come.”
Reviewed by Robin Taylor for In The Library Reviews
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Ms. Lyons has created a modern fantasy adventure with a well-developed team of characters who must learn to work together to achieve their goal. It is a true quest, pitting good against evil, with the future of mankind as the prize. Readers will thoroughly enjoy PROPHECY: REVELATIONS, and I highly recommend it to fans of science fiction and fantasy.
“PROPHECY: RAPTURE and the first volume, PROPHECY: REVELATIONS, are
not about religion so much as about religious tolerance. The theme of the
story -- that an evil act done in the name of God is still an evil act --
carries through both volumes and brings together thoughts and ideas from
many different religions. What I loved about the story is that the author,
Brenna Lyons, lets you know what happens after the guns stop firing and
the dust settles. The denouement is heartwarming and sweetly satisfying
as the characters find their way to becoming a family instead of just comrades-in-arms,
and there are still some unexpected twists and turns to the plot that will
surprise you until the very end. PROPHECY: RAPTURE and PROPHECY: REVELATIONS
are definitely keepers, but they do not stand alone. PROPHECY: REVELATIONS
stops virtually in the middle of the story, with all of the plotlines loosely
woven together but not tied up. I highly recommend getting both volumes
and being prepared to stay up all night to finish this story. This reviewer,
for one, is already looking forward to re-reading this engaging tale.”
Reviewed by Kathy Samuels for Romance Reviews Today
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“This is a marvelously intricate book, posing hard questions about the nature of religion (Is there only One True Way? Is organized religion the best path to God? Is violence justified to safeguard a faith?) and the reason things happen that aren’t answered completely. The love story is complex and complicated, as these two prickly people find their way through the maze of secrets and lies and danger to each other’s arms. And Gram, the pagan priestess, is a pure delight, exactly what every pagan wishes they had leading them. Heather, the ghost in Kyla’s head, has a wonderful personality, as does Molly, her five-year-old psychic sister, who is a terrifically realistic child, and not the usual gaggingly cute tyke. Nail-biting suspense and a good love story are hard to combine but Lyons has also tossed in hard issues to ponder. If you’ve been looking for a book which satisfies your heart and your mind, this is it. Forget the DaVinci Code and download the Prophecy series.
“Lyons has created strong, believable characters you can care about
— imperfect people whose flaws end up being their strengths. Even
her villains are memorable and some of them don’t stay villains, which
works as more than just a mere plot device — they are well-drawn enough
that there IS room for growth and repentance. She takes on organized religion,
televangelists, religious hypocrisy and the nature of life and still manages
to pull off a story of unbearable suspense. Another story that keeps you
on the edge of your seat while still managing to wrestle with the nature
of reality and religion. I unabashedly love these two novels. Two terrific
books by a rising star with an original point of view.”
Reviewed by Gillian Fitzgerald for Sensual Romance Reviews