One Way Fare (Book 1, Null City)

Heaven and Hell are fighting, and two human factions have joined in. The only safe place for those of one factions is Null City. In order to live there, you have to give up the powers that make you more than human, but less than demon or angel. But as Leila, Gaby, Luic and Thomas find out, nothing is straightforward, especially since heavenly angels aren't the good guys.

This is either the weirdest story ever or the most brilliant.  It will stick with a reader for days trying to decide, and the fact alone makes it absolutely brilliant. A true Mobius strip of a story, it starts out in the 70's, moves to contemporary, blasts the reader to France, throws everyone into Victorian Seattle, several times, sends you reeling into contemporary France, back to Victorian Seattle, into France of the 70's... These blasts never lose the reader - each is painstakingly marked - so the reader moves right along, knowing less than the characters. The only problem is that the chapters are not offset with a page break.  That visual break is needed, desperately, to allow the reader to breathe for a moment. The puppet masters only show up in the very beginning and very end, when the main characters have a happy ending, but the Mobius strip doesn't end. This is a world where moving through time is possible, but changes cannot be made.  The past cannot be affected so as to leave the future intact, yet at certain point in the past, all four main characters must converge for future events to occur. And it's not over, even when it's over.

Astounding, and highly recommended.

Julie York