Blog Tour Review: Stealing Breath – Joanne Brothwell

Stealing Breath by Joanne Brothwell
Series:  Stealing Breath #1
Release Date:  March 8, 2012
Publisher:  Crescent Moon Press
Source:  Bewitching Book Tours
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Deep in the backwoods of North Dakota, twenty-one year old Sarah Ross is searching for a missing child when she is attacked by a glowing-eyed, transparent… creature. Sarah survives, destroying the monster by using mysterious abilities she didn’t even know she had. Bloody and bruised, Sarah flees the scene and runs directly into Evan Valente, a handsome, charismatic stranger who helps her back to safety. But what is Evan doing out in the forest at five in the morning?
Turning to a healer, Sarah is shocked to learn her eyes bear the mark of the Indigo Child-an evolved human with the ability to feel the emotions of others. But her indigo aura also makes her an easy target for those who wish to consume her powerful essence.
Soon, Sarah is falling deeply in love with Evan and wants nothing more than to follow her heart and trust that he is the man he says he is. But she can’t ignore the lingering feeling that Evan is hiding a terrible secret. The deeper she digs, the more danger she faces, leading her on a course that will force her to face the darkest, innermost parts of her soul.

Reviewer’s Thoughts:
Unbeknownst to Sarah Ross, she is the extremely rare Indigo Child.  A person with a blue aura who has special powers.  Sarah, who was just a girl who managed her parents sporting good store, suddenly finds herself thrust in the middle or a crisis with Native American Spiritwalkers (practicers of dark magic who can travel outside their bodies to steal someone’s soul) and an ancient Italian group of evil magic practitioners, the Malandanti.  Sarah also doesn’t realize that Evan Valente, the mysterious man she met and has already fallen hard for, is somehow involved with what’s been happening with the Spiritwalkers and Malandanti.

Sarah was an interesting character.  She’s a very strong person, but at times I had to wonder where her sense of self preservation was.  Knowing she had dark magic users chasing after her in hopes of stealing her soul and her powers, she basically went about life like it was business as usual.   Even after she discovers Evan’s secret, which now that it’s out in the open causes her even more issues and forces her to move, she searches Evan out and walks smack dab into trouble.  She was either the bravest woman or I have absolutely no backbone because I’m pretty sure I would have run far, far way from all this and chalked my feelings for Evan up as a lessons learned.

The story did leave me with questions.  Why was it Sarah was blessed with being an Indigo Child?  For that matter, how was Evan blessed as the Sapphire child when he parents were clearly practitioners of dark arts?  How did the Malandanti know about Sarah in the first place?  Why were the members of the local reservation practicing dark magic to become Spiritwalkers?  I know, that’s a lot of questions.  To be honest, with those questions were spinning around in my head while I was reading the story, it was hard to concentrate on exactly what was happening at that moment.  I’m hoping, with the next release in the series, some of those question could be answered.  I

If you enjoy magic and Native American customs and lore, this is a story rich with those elements and redemption for an Indigo and Sapphire Child hoping to stop evil.