Ray O’Meara

William Kendrick viewed himself as a basic high school senior until he started having horrifically realistic nightmares. His adoptive parents call in an old friend, Brandt, who turns Will's world on its head. Brandt doesn't give Will a choice regarding a trip in which he will find out secrets regarding old family ties, buried secrets in his past and potentially an apocalyptic even that apparently only he can keep from coming to pass.

Will always knew that he was adopted but Brandt throws in a curve ball regarding Will's actual bloodline - they carry the blood of demons within which manifests in extraordinary abilities. Will finds out that his dreams really meant and the fact that his birth parents were ordered to die by a man named Desmond Duquesne. Brandt as well as a shady "nonexistent" government faction called the Collective plan on forging Will into a deadly tool to finally end Duquesne's existence. While making their way to Boston, Will and Brandt run into others with abilities - Aberrationists, as Will coins them. Each "Aberrationist" with their own reason for hunting Will down; Francis Whitworth uses her ability to read objects, Mr. Wisp reads minds without consequence and lastly Candace an assassin who may be slightly deranged and loves nothing more than raising the dead.

I really do love this cover - the skull made of smoke, the neon font and the puddled candle. The only things I would alter about it is the font the author's name is in and take out (I'm guessing) Will and the vehicle. The Aberrationists throws you right into the story and you feel just as freaked out and clueless as poor Will. The figure in the opening chapter reminded me of a plague doctor and since it's not really a spoiler, I was right - the mask is indeed a plague doctor mask. Having just watched Madagascar with my daughter the character Andy reminds me of Melman - not a germophobe, just painfully cautious about everything. Will and Andy's characters really make me consider this book a young adult title - I'm not 100% if that is where the aim was placed though.

Will's background story and history of the paranormal as told by Brandt falls slightly flat and rushed for my tastes. A verbal onslaught of information that's tenuous at best especially coming from someone Will just met and really without valid proof. A good portion of this book is about describing the abilities that people with the demonic strain have but you don't see a lot of it in action. One of the first abilities you see was actually the one I had issues with - Candace and her ability to raise the dead. Her name itself was disappointing... Candace... the other two in the chapter had "bad guy" names - Stalker and Steampunk so I was a little surprised at the ordinary name. Candace passes over the recently dead humans stating that they're harder to control the fresher the corpse and so she opts for the taxidermy bear and wolf. This is where her ability doesn't make sense. Yes, that bear and wolf were once alive but they don't have anything with which to function anatomically - most taxidermy animals don't have many remaining original animal material other than some bone (antlers/teeth/claws) and their hide. Her ability would have been more believable if she could animate anything rather than the dead.

This is actually the second book I've read that had ties with an ancient tome that contains portions of the name The Lesser Key, even though they're not exactly the same they have similar ideals. The idea behind demonic blood is interesting rather than just the usual demonic possession - it seems that instead of possession host bodies are consumed so I'm not entirely sure how the demons managed to ummm... copulate with humans to create the demonic strain?

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy young adult fiction, fantasy, demons, the occult, paranormal, supernatural and suspense. The ending of this book seems to lean towards the possibility of becoming a series and I would be interested enough in a sequel to read it to see what Will's next adventure looks like. Thank you to The Parliament House and Ray O'Meara for the opportunity to read a digital ARC of The Aberrationists - all opinions within this review are my own.… (altro)