Strand of Faith is the first book in the Choices and Consequences series by Author Rachel Bonner about a monk, Brother Prospero and an orphan, Leonie, who meet and fall in love but are afraid to act upon their feelings, for obvious reasons. Sounds like a fairly common story plot doesn’t it? Yet I can assure you this book is far from anything a reader may expect. The two main protagonists are gifted with amazing and powerful clairvoyant and psychic abilities such as telepathy, telekinesis, and pyrokenisis. Each are haunted by nightmares and demons from their past. Leonie is afraid of what she might do to those she cares for if she stays, and Brother Prospero is afraid of what he might become if he leaves the monastery and follows his heart. Abbot Gabriel who is responsible for the welfare of the couple, possesses precognition and has a vision of a war that is to come, which Brother Prospero and Leonie seem to be at the heart of. He is torn with the choice of protecting the couple against their feelings for each other or manipulating the events and sacrificing them to maintain peace.
This an interesting and exciting plot that moves along at a good pace, developing the characters and their relationships in a way that is credible, and enabling the reader to emotionally invest in their outcomes. There is a good balance of drama, conflict and tension built throughout keeping readers engaged and turning through the pages. The story is well written with no significant editorial concerns that would distract a reader and spoil their enjoyment of the story. The ending leaves the reader wanting more and automatically reaching for the second book in the series, Thread of Hope.
I loved the story and I am truly looking forward to seeing how this develops further in the next book of the series. Particularly as the reader has been teased throughout the book by the protagonists nightmares and dark pasts, and so will definitely want to know more, and that the author has seemingly only scratched the surface of what gifts and powers the couple possess, promising a lot more chaos and excitement to come. I award a well deserved 5 stars.
