Maiden
Teresa A. Harrison
(The Lightwalker Series, #1)
Published by: Acorn Publishing
Publication date: October 13th 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Marta and Jayme are childhood friends with different beliefs. Marta dreams of becoming a healer. Jayme has been schooled by the black-coats, a group of priests who claim women are inferior, and he fears Marta is jeopardizing her eternal future.

Despite a heated debate over Marta’s soul, Jayme betrays her to the priests. The consequences of this betrayal change Marta’s life forever and sends Jayme on his own journey.

After a brutal massacre, Marta awakens deep in the forest overcome with grief for her lost sisters, but the world will not let her rest. The tragedy has changed her. She hears the call of nature, eventually steering her toward a small cottage in the wilderness. There she learns of nature’s magic and what it means to be a LightWalker. The path is there for her to follow. If she’s strong enough to embrace it…

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My Review

Maiden is the first book in the Lightwalker series, and I have to say, it will start off making you angry. Like, really angry. Marta, our main character, is part of a group of women who use "pagan rituals" to ensure a great harvest, bring about rains, heal, etc. Her best friend Jayme, though, now belongs to a group of priests who teach that there is only one God, and one way to be. They also teach Jayme that women are "bad" and "inferior to men" and all that jazz. They're basically sexist pigs.

Jayme, believing Marta's soul to be in danger if she continues down the path she's on, outs her and her group to the priests. But when things take a terrible turn, Jayme realizes the mistake he made. Determined to try and right his wrong, and to bring the truth about the priests into light, Jayme sets off on a mission that will reveal even more than he ever could have imagined.

 Marta, on the other hand, ends up on a quest of her own, and discovers that she is destined to become a Lightwalker. What does that mean for her? Read it and find out!

I thought Maiden was a decent start to the series. It's mostly a lot of build-up to the coming books in the series. There isn't a lot of action, and nothing really exciting happens, but it sets the tone, and it intrigues you enough to make you curious to see how the next book will play out. 

The plot was a little slow in spots, but for the most part, it held my interest and had me flipping through the pages pretty quickly to see what might happen while both Marta and Jayme were discovering their own truths.  

I liked the character development with Jayme especially. He starts off one way, but after everything is revealed, he learns from his past and grows as a person, becoming someone you can actually like and want to see reconcile with Marta. 

I do wish there had been a little something in the story to give it a bit more oomph, if you will, but overall, it's a good setup for the upcoming books, as I mentioned before. I am curious about the second story, and I'm looking forward to seeing more with Marta and Jayme as they come into their new lives.

I give Maiden 4 stars.

Author Bio:
Teresa Harrison grew up in Decatur, Illinois, and graduated from Eureka College with a BA in Speech and Theatre. She has a son and daughter-in-law and now two beautiful grandchildren.
She met her husband, Glenn, while on a spiritual journey to Sedona, AZ. They realized they had something special, but they lived on opposite edges of North America. Two years later, she joined Glenn in Southern California.
Teresa has been studying spiritual topics for nearly 40 years and is a Reiki Master, a Breathwork Facilitator, an herbalist and teacher. She has studied Universal Laws, Reincarnation, aromatherapy, yoga, meditation and many other spiritual topics.
Teresa has been reading and telling stories her whole life, and now she has finally written one of them down.

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