Gravity by Abigail Boyd

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I won this book via a Member Giveaway on Librarything.com.  The author, Abigail Boyd, is a young Independent Author.  This is her first novel. 

Description taken from Abigail Boyd’s website:

15-year-old Ariel Donovan’s best friend went missing over the summer.  Now she has to face the prospect of life without her, in the same close-knit town of Hell, Michigan.  When she dreams of Jenna running to the old orphanage in town, and starts experiencing supernatural phenomena, she knows she needs to discover what happens.

With the help of a new friend in quirky artist Theo, and handsome crush Henry, Ariel tries to uncover the secrets that Hell is hiding, and find out where Jenna is now.

I was really looking forward to reading something from a newly published author.  When I read the following in the first few pages of Gravity, I knew I would probably enjoy this book:

“Truthfully, all my life I’ve been a bit strange, with an interest in the macabre.  When I was seven I made a shoebox diorama of the Donner Party, complete with tiny clay body parts and half a bottle of red food coloring.”

Yeah, I have a sick sense of humor. 

There is so much I want to say about this book and I don’t know where to begin.  First off, this is a great story. I would describe it as a paranormal mystery with some romance thrown in.  There are some definite creepy parts (granted I am a huge wuss when it comes to ghosts).  There was a definite Buffy feel to it.  Sometimes the similarities were almost too much for me.  If a hell mouth opened up under the high school, I would have thrown my Nook across the room.  And that would have sucked….bad.  But a hell mouth didn’t open under the high school so I didn’t throw my Nook and I was able to enjoy the story for what it was.

As far as the characters, the heroine, Ariel, is pretty darn likeable.  Boyd did a wonderful job of developing her character as well as Ariel’s new friend Theo.  The love interest in the story is pretty happy and likeable and not gloomy like so many other YA heroes. 

The book did start out a little slow and I think that is because the writing comes across as a somewhat sophomoric.  There were also a number of grammatical errors which I have found common in self-published books.   But I think these things are more than forgivable considering 1. This is Ms. Boyd’s first novel, 2. The characters are so well developed and 3.The story itself is great.

I was torn between giving this book 2.5 stars or 3 stars.  I am going with 3 since it kept my interest enough to want to know what happens next.  I will be buying the next book in this series when it comes out on August 1^st.  

If you are interested in reading Gravity, you can purchase it for Kindle at Amazon.com or Smashwords.com for other e-reader formats.

Nat