ORDER OF THE SEERS starts out with two different storylines,
which eventually merge together. The reader is first
introduced to Liam and Lilli, brother and sister teenagers.
Lilli is a seer, and has the ability to see visions of the
future. This makes her highly prized by an organization
known as the 'Guild', who capture and exploit the seers for
their own gain. Lilli and Liam's mother is also a seer, one
who has escaped from the Guild. When she is found
murdered, Liam and Lilly go on the run for their lives.
After moving around for three years and sometimes barely
escaping hunters from the Guild; the teens finally make
their way to a safe haven compound.
Alessandra and Marcus are powerful seers who have been
captives of the Guild for some years. They have both been
drugged and their minds and memories altered over time.
Alessandra has the pale skin and opaque eyes unique to
'purified' seers in Guild captivity, but has powers far
above the average seer, as does Marcus. These two seers have
powers so great that even the drugs they are being fed on a
regular basis cannot completely control them. Once these two
seers are together in the same 'Quorum', their combined
powers enable them to escape the Guild and seek sanctuary,
along with seers Kaido and Lucia.
As Liam and Lilli's are led by visions to the Fox River
Commune, so are Marcus and his group of escaped Seers. There
is a measure of happiness and safety here for the Seers, a
sense of belonging. The Seers begin to test their visions
and powers, learning to use the powers and project them to
others. As their visions become more accurate and their
powers grow; the group attempts to rescue more Seers and
bring them and their families to safety. Eventually, they
decide that something must be done about the Guild, and
makes plans and carry out raids against the Guild.
ORDER OF THE SEERS is an interesting and enjoyable read; lots of
possibilities for a series. There are several growing
relationships, especially the one between Liam and
Alessandra. Lilli's talents are growing, far outstripping
those of the other Seers; but I couldn't help feeling that
some of her powers were a little over-the-top. There is a
happy surprise for Marcus near the end of the story. There
is no cliffhanger ending, but the story is left open-ended
for a sequel or more books to the series.
What would you do if you held infinite power in the palm
of your hand?
Order of the Seers poses this question within a story
that fuses action, mystery, romance, and adventure in a
science fiction novel that keeps you at the edge of your seat.
Order of the Seers begins with the journey of Liam and
Lilith Knight, a brother and sister who are hunted by The
Guild, a ruthless world organization that seeks to capture
and exploit Lilith's unique ability as a Seer to envision
the future. Soon after they are forced to leave their home,
Lilith and Liam discover that she is not alone. Other Seers
like Lilith are routinely kidnapped and enslaved by the
Guild for the purpose of consolidating wealth and power
around the world.
But from within the organization, Marcus Akida, a
captured Seer with powerful visioning capabilities, quietly
plots his daring escape with the help of a beautiful and
tortured Seer named Alessandra. When the escaped Seers are
drawn to the same remote commune in Iowa as Liam and Lilith,
they each find a place where they can rebuild their lives
and rediscover their passion for life and love. As the
Guild's efforts to find them intensifies, the Seers ban
together with outlaws from the commune to fight back against
the organization that threatens their lives – setting off a
chain of events that will unleash the full power of the
Seers and change everything we know about the true potential
that lies dormant in each of us.
See the Power Within
Excerpt
When Liam pulled his father's green 2002 Saab in front of
their small brick house, everything seemed as it always
did—quiet and predictable in their modest yet
comfortable home. They had lived in a much bigger house
before his father died, but Liam never minded sharing a
bathroom with his mother and sister. All the toys and
trinkets that had mattered to him when he was a child were
rendered insignificant the moment his mother told him that
his father would never come home again.
As he got out of the car and began to take the front
steps two at a time, he noticed that Lilli had stopped at
the tree stump his mother had cut down the week before.
Sitting down, her eyes remained on the ground. Just as his
mouth formed the shape of a question, she spoke.
"No, you go. I can't see it again."
Liam didn't stop to ask what she meant. Whatever she
meant, he was sure it was worse than he thought. He tried to
hold back the swell of fear in his chest as he ran to the
front door, but his emotions spun out of control the moment
he tested the front door knob and found it
opened—easily. They never left the front door unlocked.
When he stepped into the house, he actually felt the
life, the person he had been, rush past him and out the door
as his eyes took in the overturned, splintered remains of
their living room. It was a feeling he'd felt only once
before, when his father died. But what made it worse, what
made it permanent, was lying in the middle of the floor,
with its contents thrown everywhere. It was his mother's
purse, which had not been there when he left that morning.
"Mom!" he shouted as he raced up the stairs to her room.
"Mom. Please!" he shouted again, but no one answered. In
every room he looked, it was the same – scattered
clothes, broken mirrors, and silence—a deafening
silence that rang louder than the sound of his own shallow
breathing.
If he took the stairs at lightning speed to make it to
the second floor, an age could have passed during his
descent. The entire house consisted of three bedrooms, one
and a half bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a small
open dining area that you could see clearly from the front
door. As he walked down the steps, he knew there was only
one room left to check. His mind was frozen on what to hope
for as his hand reached the end of the banister. If she
wasn't in the kitchen, she might have been taken, but at
least there was a chance she was still alive. If she was in
the kitchen, it was unthinkable.
Lilli's words came to him just as he rounded the doorway
to the kitchen.
"No, you go. I can't see it again."
He found his mother sitting with her feet planted on the
floor, shoulder width apart, bright eyes open and cast to
the ceiling, with a hole blown through the middle of her chest.
Liam braced himself against the door frame as he began to
sob, the sounds seemingly emanating from a place far away
from where he stood. He could not look away from the
horrific image before him, the last image of his mother. He
stood there with wide–eyed and tear–stained pain
as the last measure of his youth drained from him like blood
rushing from an open vein. When it was done, his body slid
to the ground.
We are alone, he thought. There's no one left.
Ever since his father had died, Liam lived in fear that
one day he would lose her. Unable to tear his eyes away from
her body, he could hear her vehemently denying that there
would ever be a time when she wasn't with them. "Never," she
would say.
Never, he thought, has finally come.
Though Liam had been staring at her body since he entered
the kitchen, he had not seen the gun in her hand until he
noticed a fly land on it. Years of training to keep the gun
out of Lilli's sight made him jump to his feet until he
remembered that Lilli was still outside. He knew the gun
well; it was his mother's. She had taught him how to use it
and to keep it out of Lilli's reach when she was small.
At first his mind could not decipher the meaning of the
scene before him. Was he meant to believe that she did this
to herself? Why would the people who broke into their house
ransack the place and then try to make it look like a
suicide? But he couldn't think straight, couldn't figure out
the logic or the answer to any of the crazy questions
running through his mind. Why would she kill herself? He was
sure the answers were obvious; he just wasn't making sense.
None of this was making any sense.
His confusion caused him to draw closer to her body.
Kneeling down beside his mother, Liam took the lifeless hand
that dangled at her side, the one that was not holding the
gun. Though his eyes were still filled with tears, they were
no longer breaking through the barriers of his lower lids.
This momentary fortitude allowed him to have the courage to
look directly into her face and see her open smile. The
sight of it knocked him down and back into the base
cabinets. She was smiling. She was smiling, he thought. She
had known what was coming, and she was smiling.
Suddenly, he remembered his mother's constant warning
every time they went to the shooting range. "Don't pick up a
gun unless you mean to use it. There can be no hesitation.
Do you understand me?" she would ask him sternly. Liam knew
Jill Knight was skilled at using a firearm. If she had a
chance to draw her gun, no one could take it from her. The
implications made him immediately sick and angry before
their full meaning could even register.
As if retching the contents of his stomach into the
kitchen sink made room for clarity, he suddenly understood
the reason behind her smile. She had killed herself. She had
done this to herself, on purpose. He threw up again in a
wave of protest at the notion that she would abandon them,
even as the resentment of her betrayal took root. When he
was done, he didn't want to turn around, didn't want to face
her.
How could she do this? She wouldn't do this. She promised.
Holding himself up at the sink, his thoughts turned to
Lilli. Is this what she saw?, he wondered, fighting a new
wave of nausea. No wonder she cried like that. No wonder...
Rather than try to sort out the conflict of thoughts and
emotions inside him, he decided to check on Lilli and make
sure that she remained outside while he tried to figure out
what to do next.
As he peered over his shoulder toward the doorway, his
eyes caught the folded cuff of his mother's sweatshirt,
which was turquoise save for the blood, and a little corner
of white paper that was peeking out. He knew his mother hid
things in the cuff of her sleeve all the time; it was one of
the many old lady habits Liam enjoyed teasing her about. He
stared at the white edge of paper for a long time, warring
with his own feelings of anger and grief before simple
curiosity forced him to bend down and retrieve it. As his
fingers curved around the edge of her sleeve, he could feel
something flat and hard inside. When he rolled down her
sleeve to get it, the key to his gym locker at school
slipped out before he could fully unroll the note.
When he did, it unleashed a new avalanche of questions
upon heartbreak over questions.
In his mother's tiny cursive handwriting, the note read,
‘Go now. Protect her.'
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