Book Review: First Visions Second Sight
First Visions, Second Sight
by Heather Wood
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
Blurb: Two years ago, 21-year-old Kate Edwards became deathly ill and slipped into a coma. While unconscious, she crept into the mind of a missing boy and awoke with the knowledge of his location. Friends and family were skeptical and wary of her new ability to see into the minds of others. Their fears prompted Kate to keep her psychic powers a secret. Feeling alienated, she dropped out of college and spent most of her days holed up at her mother’s home.
Now another child has been abducted. Police detective Jared Corbett seeks out Kate for her help in solving the case. Reluctantly, Kate agrees and they must work together to bring 8-year-old Cori Preston home to her family. Although attracted to one another, Jared has a girlfriend with ties to the abduction case and Kate is sarcastic and guarded since her coma. With visions she can’t control and an uncontrollable attraction to the detective, she wonders if she can leave the past behind and finally stop hiding from the world. Otherwise, Cori may be lost forever.
Review: Kate Edwards was a shy quiet teen who wanted what most teens desired – what she got was totally different. During her first semester in college, Kate contracted bacterial meningitis and fell into a deep coma. Fewer than 1500 cases of this type of meningitis are reported each year. She had a 20% chance of losing a limb or becoming brain damaged and an 11% chance of dying from the disease.
Kate not only awoke from the coma with no loss of limb, she was not brain damaged either. Or at least not the way most would consider. When Kate awoke, she was psychic. As soon as her eyes opened she recalled a dream about a boy who appeared to have been kidnapped. Relating that dream to her family and eventually the police led to the recovery of the boy. The odd thing is that the boy was kidnapped while Kate was in the coma so she could not have had any knowledge of the incident.
The news spread fast, creating a circus atmosphere around Kate and her family. The press, television and other media wouldn’t leave her alone. Mail arrived from thousands of people seeking information about missing loved ones. Her life became a living hell.
How could a young woman go through the life changing experience Kate went through and not have trauma in her life. Worse, though is having family and friends walk out of her life for something she had no control over.
Wood is a wordsmith who took me on a roller coaster ride, filled with emotions, deceit, and betrayal as she worked the story of Kate into my heart. I had to read more. I had to learn what would happen to this wonderful person who received the short end of the stick. The read was definitely worth my time.