"Author Deborah L. Rhodes has crafted a fanciful, cinematic, and extremely poignant work that toys with your consciousness and your own ideas about the world as you read it, which was really refreshing and exciting to find in a modern speculative novel.
One of the most striking features for me was the description of Shona's actions and her relationship with the physical world, which always carried this ethereal air about it, and a very abstract approach that intensified the metaphysical elements of storytelling.
I loved the voyage of discovery that the novel delivers at a good, engrossing pace and the overall messages we glean about the world and our own journey to find our place within it."
--Readers' Favorite (5-Star Review) Shona was supposed to die at birth-- buried alive in an obscure grave in the mountains of her island home. The Ocan Elders, heeding the prophecies, decreed that it must be so. But Shona didn't die. And now the Ocan people fear that their secret existence and the safety of the world are in jeopardy unless they can find her before anyone outside of their mysterious island discovers who and what she truly is.
Blending elements of speculative fiction (i.e., fantasy and science fiction), A Crack in the World (along with its sequel, The Emissary's Catalyst) delves into the shadowy world of the Ocan island, where an isolated group of people have created a utopian community separate from any modern society's dictates or diseases.
Although no one has been permitted to enter or exit the island in centuries, the healer-woman's grandson, Taijaur, is sent to the mainland to track down and bring back the outcast Shona. Thus, a journey is set in motion with Taijaur and Shona not just seeking one another, but they also strive to find their purpose in the world as they unravel the ancient secrets that the Ocan people struggle to keep hidden.
