Beyond The Reflection’s Edge

Nathan gave a nod, then tightened his chin. He couldn’t believe it. No… he wouldn’t believe it. No matter how many times his dad’s investigations had exposed a nest of human rats, he had always managed to escape their plans for revenge. As a master illusionist, his collection of mirrors and lights would confuse his pursuers, allowing him to disappear like a phantom. Maybe even the bodies in the coffins were an illusion of some kind. And how could Dad ever be duped so easily by Dr. Simon? He was too smart for that. He was too… He shook his head slowly. Clara was right. This time everything was different. Dad was dead. So was mom. Not only that, his father had said that Dr. Simon wasn’t so bad, so maybe he really was fooled. And maybe this Mictar was just too powerful.

Book: Beyond the Reflection's Edge (Echoes from the Edge) by Bryan Davis, Zondervan Publishers, 2011

Genre: Science Fiction

Subjects: Loss, Good vs. Evil, Purity, Friendship, Love

Summary: His parents are dead. The evil men who killed them are after him. He’s been sent to the home of an old friend of his parents whom he does not even know. And when he plays his violin strange things happen. Places, people and alternate dimensions to the universe begin to appear in mirrors. Soon Nathan is on the run with a beautiful teenage girl, her friend, and a young child. Everything he thought he knew is about to be challenged. Can he hold on to what his parents have taught him in spite of the trials?

Notes: This is the first in the Echoes From The Edge trilogy. It’s a science fiction book about different dimensions/time travel/alternate realities. The idea is that the characters have found a way to visit different dimensions and interact with themselves in those different dimensions. The spiritual value comes in the realistic fiction part, the interactions between the teenagers. Nathan struggles to come to grips with his parents’ death and fights to cling to the values they’ve taught him. When Kelly, an attractive girl who is used to using her body to get the attention of boys, enters his world he must learn what love really looks like and how to show love to someone from a worldview so vastly different than his own. It’s a beautiful picture of change through love rather than condemnation and a beautiful picture of taking ownership of one’s faith.

Spiritual Content Recommendation Scale: 5/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

Ephesians 4:22-24 – You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.