Just got a 5-star review of the draft manuscript for my YA-historical, “Ripple in the Sea,” from ReadersFavorite.com. Wow. Always so cool to find a happy reader! (It was reviewed in the “fiction-historical-event/era” category, since they don’t have “YA-historical.”) Here’s what they said:
Reviewed By Rabia Tanveer for Readers’ Favorite
Ripple in the Sea by Charley Pearson is the story of Kristy Hara, a Japanese-American girl who is trying to redeem her family name, only to find that it is far too dangerous and hard for a young girl like her. Kristy has never enjoyed living with her family. While her father is a meek man, her mother is one to look out for. However, when she finds out that her mother has betrayed her country, young Kristy is determined to clear her family name. So, she plans to get inside the Japanese prisoner of war camps and try to save as many people as she can. She wants to save them from the horrors of torture but little did she know that she was about to step into a place where nothing would be in her control. She has no idea who she can trust, who is loyal to whom and what is it that she can actually do. But now she is in the middle of it and there is no turning back.
I thought this would be a somewhat modern rendition of Mulan, but it was so much better. I enjoyed the flow of the story and the narrative, even though it was written in the first-person narrative. The author kept a slow steady pace, ensuring that the characters had time and page space to bloom and enough pages for the story to become alive in front of me. The first-person narrative brought me up close and personal with Kristy. I could feel her tension and experience her hardships. She was a naïve girl in the beginning, but towards the end, she was a mature person who understood the consequences and made intelligent decisions. This novel was filled with drama, action and well-researched information that made this an intense yet entertaining read. Very impressive.