Sarah Holman - The Destiny of One

The Destiny of One
The Destiny Trilogy


By Sarah Holmanh Holman


Kindle Edition Available

Product Description (from Amazon)

Destiny – it's a word that plagues Maria Morris. What does God want her to do with her life? Should she go to college or does God have other plans for her? When her parents go missing during a business trip, Maria embarks on a quest that will change her life forever. Trying to fight against an overbearing Milky Way Government, Maria travels to earth in search of a lost prince and some crown jewels. Her faith is tested, however, when a new law is passed. Will Maria be able to find her parents and the crown jewels before it's too late? Is she strong enough to stand up for her faith even if it means never seeing her family again? Most of all, will Maria discover her true Destiny?

About the Author (from Amazon)

Sarah Holman, a homeschool graduate, lives in central Texas. When not pursuing her passion of writing, she can be found taking long walks, reading, sewing or spending time with her family. You can find out more about her at her blog www.destinyofone.blogspot.com

O.Scarlett! REVIEW by Kendra

I stumbled upon this author from one of the other authors who she had interviewed on her Homeschooled Authors blog (Molly Evangeline, I believe), and her first book sounded good, and since it was only 99 cents, I bought it.

It took me a while to get into, unfortunately, but once I connected with Maria, figured out what was going on, I was hooked.

The Destiny of One takes place a few hundred years in the future. People have developed advanced space travel, and have figured out how to live on planets with hostile environments. (No aliens have been discovered, by the way.) The world has also gone back to monarchistic government, but the current king, Wyndemere II, is not friendly to Christians. In fact he is currently trying to pass a law that will force all Christians to be branded – much like the Jews were forced to wear stars during the Nazi period. (And manner in which Sarah told the back story was genius! Not info-dumpy at all!) A few decades before, earth had been ruled by an God-fearing king … but it had been attacked by Wydemere's predecessor, and the line lost.

Maria is a normal nineteen-year-old girl who lives on Mars. She's Christian, and currently at the crossroads of life and trying to figure out what God's plan for her life is. While visiting her grandparents (who live on earth), she and her grandmother are attacked by a ruffian at the park. Her grandfather then takes it upon himself to teach her and her brother some tricks in self defense with both laser gun and light saber – and she proves to be quite good.

And then it's back to Mars. While Maria continues to contemplate her future, they suddenly loose contact with her parents while they are away at their job. Her uncle then reveals to her that their family is the keeper of the hints to where earth's royal jewels – and true prince! – are hidden. And so she takes a quick rocket ship ride back to earth to find the jewels. Should be easy.

Even though sci-fi isn't usually my genre, I ended up really enjoying this book. The cast of characters were delightful, especially Quint! (I've heard tell that Quint is a universal favorite with the readers, though.) And the message was well done.

However, I do have two issues, both dealing with the plot.

One. The story is told using what I call the flashback hook, which is one of my literary pet peeves. The reason it took me so long to get into was that, there I was wondering if Maria's ID would go through the system and she would get to return to Mars and then – bam! – there I was on Mars at the true beginning of the book, with muddy clothing and colleges being the thing to worry about. It took me quite some time before I could convince myself to pick the book and reacquaint myself with the younger Maria.

Two. I never figured out why the crown jewels had to be found first. To me, the logical thing would have been to leave them where they are (if they haven't been found in this long, you can be pretty sure that they're going to be safe for quite some time more) and find the prince first. Crown jewels can be safely retrieved once there's a guy to wear them and a throne for him to sit on.

But apart from those two issues, I really enjoyed the book, and was quite eager to read the next two when I managed to get my hands on them. (Which I since have done, and I'll review them later.)

Genre/Theme: Christian, Sci-Fi

Reading Level: TEEN - upper elementary to middle school 
Profanity: NONE - no offensive language 
Sexuality: NONE - not even hinted at 

Other: Quite a bit of fighting, some physical, some with laser guns. Maria gets a broken arm. Later, she is branded on the palm of her hand.