Review: LEVEL 2

What’s comes next?

That’s a question many of us have probably asked themselves many times.

Death – the Unknown.

But Lenore Appelhans explores the question above, and more, in her debut LEVEL 2 (January 15^th, 2013).

Here’s a summary:

Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow drones, Felicia passes the endless hours reliving memories of her time on Earth and mourning what she’s lost—family, friends, and Neil, the boy she loved.

Then a girl in a neighboring chamber is found dead, and nobody but Felicia recalls that she existed in the first place. When Julian—a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life—comes to offer Felicia a way out, Felicia learns the truth: If she joins the rebellion to overthrow the Morati, the angel guardians of Level 2, she can be with Neil again.

Suspended between Heaven and Earth, Felicia finds herself at the center of an age-old struggle between good and evil. As memories from her life come back to haunt her, and as the Morati hunt her down, Felicia will discover it’s not just her own redemption at stake… but the salvation of all mankind.

I had the pleasure of reading Level 2 just a few days ago and I was stunned by Lenore’s imagination. You might think Felicia’s surroundings – a stark white “room” filled with other drones like Felicia – might get boring fast, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Not only does the slow unraveling of the truth behind Level 2 and the malfunctions of the chambers keep you on the edge of your seat, but the glimpses into Felicia’s life before death, which she relives by accessing her memories in the previously mentioned chambers, adds numerous fascinating settings to the story. And believe me when I tell you that Lenore knows how to write setting. Every place she describes comes to life. It feels like you’re there with Felicia.

I especially loved the scenes that allow us to see what happened in Felicia’s past and why she might not be ready to move on yet.

A fascinating, layered, imaginative debut! You should not miss it!