“I feel a little like I’m stepping off a cliff into the unknown, but if I don’t move forward, I know I’ll regret it.”
Marcie wants to believe that she has had contact with spirits, but doesn’t know who she can talk to about her experience. However, as soon as she arrives on her mother’s archeological dig for the summer, she immediately senses something different about her team leaders. Lorraine and Zeke say they are graduate students, but when they take Marcie, her brother, his girlfriend and Leo to a hilltop where they move a giant rock with their thoughts, it proves what Marcie sensed. They are given a vision of a destroyed Earth and are told they will learn to tap into energy fields to help heal the Earth.
I joined The Write Reads blog tour for Catalyst. I was given a copy of the book in exchange for a fair review. I’ve never read any of Richardson’s books and while I don’t normally read much fantasy, the plot seemed interesting.
Marcie and her brother are on board, his girlfriend is fearful and Leo is very skeptical. Besides being attracted to Marcie, they don’t have much in common. It’s not just the energy field they don’t see eye to eye on, but also on fracking, which is about to start happening nearby.
Catalyst is a book about a lot of things – energy fields, fracking, climate change, aliens and other dimensions. It also deals with relationships on several different levels – romantic, sibling and parent/child. I enjoyed the storyline and how it built the relationships with the characters. However, I was a bit overloaded with all the topics discussed in the book. I think it would have been improved by either making it longer to delve more into the topics or by focusing on fewer topics. Readers middle school age or older who enjoy fantasy books will enjoy Catalyst.
Do you enjoy books that cover a lot of topics? Share your thoughts in the comments!