Ascenders Series: Ascenders Saga #5 Published by Big Picture Media on January 19, 2021
Source: Review copy
Genres: Dark Fantasy
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Format: Paperback
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The Fifth Book in C.L. Gaber's best-selling adventure of an after-lifetime
Forced to go on the run from her high school for the recently departed, Walker Callaghan must go rogue in a lawless afterlife realm called The Other. She's shot, kidnapped, and forced to fight for her existence.
Can she save her rebel love interest, Daniel Reid, or will fate twist and finally unite her with the man who insists he is her future: Cass Danko? An exhilarating race over untamed lands is filled with the famous and infamous, friends old and new, and time-travel adventures to epic historical events. Locating the elusive X-Catcher—a spirit who does the math—is her ticket back to the Midst.
Walker must ask herself: Can I ever go home again?Should I go back to fight for what’s right?
Review
Book number 5 in the Ascenders series, I think, is the most emotional, gut-wrenching one of all of them. Walker is determined, along with her love Daniel to save the rest of Daniel’s siblings from their psychotic father and go to any lengths to find them in the past time loop they have been hidden. At one point, Walker is his prisoner, and the gross way he tries to manipulate her makes my blood boil. The heartbreaking story cass shares with walker is bitter-sweet, and the amount of loss in this part of the series made me want to ball. I love the addition of Griz to the story; he is sweet and causes parts of the story to seem less bogged down in the sadness of some of the events. In the Ascenders saga, I have such a connection with these characters where they have been, where they are going, and where they hope to be in the future. I am dying for the next installment.
About C.L. Gaber
I’m C.L. Gaber, an author and film journalist for the New York Times Syndicate and Chicago Sun Times. I also co-authored Jex Malone series. Originally from Chicago, I make my home in Nevada with my husband, bonus daughter and two unruly dogs.
My husband knows that Ascenders began with me in bathroom half the night writing on tiny notepads because I didn’t want to wake him. When daylight did roll around, I told him, ”Baby, I had the most incredible dream”.
…
Scientists don’t always agree on many things because that’s their gig. But most will inform you that the human brain doesn’t fully form until you’re 24-years-old. It’s explains a hell of a lot of things including why we do such reckless and unforgettable things when we’re growing up.
It also begs the question: What happens to those who die young? Where does all that reckless energy and boundless potential go? Does it just get snuffed out…or does it ascend to another realm?
One foggy night in California, I had a dream about that and it played out in my mind like a movie. The dream starred characters named Walker and Daniel, but it also touched on my own youth in suburban Illinois, outside of Chicago. I remembered the moment when I grew up, officially. I was 17 and sitting in my backyard with my big black door Bear on a hot, humid summer night wondering why a friend from high school died on his motorcycle. It seemed unbelievable at 17 that Scott was gone – and I barely even knew this kid. But it still bothered me deeply.
Why was it every school year, we lost one or two teenagers to everything from drugs to suicide to reckless type of accidents? As an adult, I began to ask my friends who also heard such life changing news about one or two kids every single school year. Who doesn’t remember those high school announcements from your principal sounding terribly uncomfortable while telling the student body that we lost one our own last night. These were the kids who would never graduate, go to college, get married, have children or live out their lives.
Of course, school counselors were available, but as a student journalist back then and then a journalist later on, they never answered my real questions.
Why?
How?
Now what?
THE ASCENDERS SAGA tells the story of teens who died young, and a special limbo they arrive in that’s not very different from their life on earth. Why? If your brain isn’t pumping on all cylinders until you’re 24, I figured that you have some time to still be a teenager, but in a world with absolutely no rules. Imagine it: All that energy and you could do anything you wanted, but there would be no real consequences. Falling in love, however, would be dangerous. What if you ascended before him or her? In many ways, that would be like a second death.
In the end, it’s not really about loss. Or even death.
It’s about living the moments. Here. There. Everywhere.
I invite you to come on this journey with me.
