Beyond The Fifth Gate
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About
Twelve years after being abducted by an insectoid race as a child, Elita survives an existence of forced labor and constant fear of a violent death within the hive complex. Laws prohibit humans from speaking, writing, or reading, but they develop clandestine forms of communication.
Elita and a handful of fellow captives hold fast to prophecies learned in childhood. The long-awaited Kamali’s Cycle, heralded by the conjunction of five planets, kindles tangible hope for freedom. But to gain that freedom, as the Chosen, Elita must travel through five mystical gates to secure crucial items, and return to Haldis before the planetary alignment concludes.
With no idea of what is ahead or what she needs to do, she must trust Kamali to find the way, discover what she needs beyond each gate, and return to Haldis. Mustering her faith, she enters the gateway knowing it is a one-way race against time before the planets move out of alignment and the gates close for another 50 years. Can Elita accomplish her mission in time to free her home world and return to the man she loves?
Praise for this book
an excellent story
I love the cover design for Beyond The Fifth Gate (by Donna Sundblad)! Typically, book cover designers are not looking to tell the story, but rather stop readers from scrolling long enough to check out the book. This book cover design does both, hinting at the storyline without revealing hardly a thing. I like how the title is spaced between the planets to imply travel. I personally feel the book cover design for Beyond The Fifth Gate is exceptional.
Instantly after finishing Beyond The Fifth Gate - I kept saying: "What a fantastic read that was!"
I had to take several days to digest it a bit before writing my review article for this project. In that time, I've spoken enthusiastically to my husband about it and now he wants to read it too.
The author provides readers with an incredibly unique and deeply entertaining ride... I didn't find myself skipping ahead out of boredom (which I often do). In between reading sessions I found myself often thinking about the characters, how they were feeling and what they were going through.
As a writer, I found myself occasionally pausing and reading sections several times - in awe of the author's use of language and seamless transitions.
Beyond The Fifth Gate features a female lead character that collaborates with many unlikely allies along her journey in following ancient prophecies. While she grew up with these prophecies, she often dismissed them and had forgotten many things. Interestingly there is this strong connection to a rare planetary event, and some type of quantum travel leading to other dimensions, or other planets.
Throughout the storyline the lead character struggles with the prophecies, as do her companions, while they learn to work with strangers and trust in support offered to them. Uprising against such a huge adversary seemed impossible, yet together they have a chance to create peaceful coexistence on all the worlds.
What I did feel after finishing the book... was getting another book written by Donna. Which proves she has written so well that the readers will be hooked and want more. In fact, I have already downloaded Wind Walker to my e-book reader just yesterday!
An excellent adventure
Elita, a young human child, is forcefully abducted by an alien insectoid race, and her parents are helpless to stop them.
Elita grows up and finds an opportunity to take on the alien race and vanquish them.
This is the premise for a well told story that examines both human and alien slavery. To free her fellow slaves, Elita faces a daunting task. She must escape her servitude and travel through multiple mythical gates in order to free her friends and ultimately the whole planet from Mantid slavery. But are the ancient prophecies real and can she find the five mysterious gates in which she must enter new worlds and find key items.
This is a well told story with characters that come alive as you read and learn more about them. Cleverly making use of our natural distaste when confronted with bugs, the alien insectoids are also well rounded characters, and as evil as you would expect. But hang on to your hat, because the twist is in the tale of this excellent adventure.