Elena Leman
This book was provided to me for free by the author in exchange for an honest review.
When I got the e-mail from the book’s author, saying that she’d have the feeling that I could enjoy her book I was kind of dubious about it. Could someone really know my taste in books just because of reading through my reviews? Yes, obviously she could. This book totally hit me. Although I had some difficulties at the beginning finding into the story. The main problem was that I somehow couldn’t imagine the surroundings and the looks of the characters, but after the third chapter the story totally had me and I could see everything right in front of me.
Sweet little Orobella is a crystal collector aka Crystellian, who travels from planet to planet to collect different crystals. Crystals are collected through sharing with another being – of course the opponent doesn’t know about the crystal sharing since he or she doesn’t see them. But he or she feels the joy of sharing. Since this is Orobella’s main gift, she gets what the other has to offer – mostly good feelings like hope or passion.
One important thing for Orobella is to never change crystals more than once with a person and to never get attached to anyone since her time on each planet is limited.
Arriving at a new planet is like being born. She never knows what or whose body she is into – the only thing that counts is that the body was free and available.
This time Orobella arrives on the planet Instaar in the body of Ruskala – a water nymph. She starts her journey with her given companion Smoku – a lizard only she can see.
Soon she crosses path with Sambor, the leader of the Lasota tribe and a spiritual tattoo artist, whose tattoos turn into spiritual animals once he has finished his work on someone’s body. Somehow Orobella feels drawn to Sambor and asks him for a tattoo which he eventually agrees to. In exchange she promises teaching his babysitter how to sing and so the love story begins.
Two beings that are used to going through life on their own – one of them because of the species she is, the other because things he had experienced through life had made him like that – meet each other and have to admit their feelings.
Orobella is full of joy and goes through life light-hearted, has her own point of view, cares about others, wants ‘people’ (beings) to be happy and seems to be fearless. But so far bonding with someone or having a partner for life has been unimaginable for her due to her way of life to exchange as many crystals as possible and therefore changing locations and acquaintances a lot.
Sambor is a worrier and the leader of the Laosta tribe. He was born into a society that believes in the one and only sole mate for everyone. Sambor saw his father going crazy after his mother had left him. Therefore he promised himself to stay on his own.
Can two beings with such stories really find their way together?
I really loved the book and how Orobella and Sambor started to feel for each other – although Orobella tried to deny it for a long time – Maybe because she didn’t have any experience with the feeling ‘love’ before.
I also loved the side characters – especially Smoku, Orobella’s companion, and Sambor’s little sister ‘Child’ aka ‘Damdamin’.