Despite all attempts at normality, Katya’s life is getting stranger than ever. While trying to celebrate a friend’s birthday, all hell breaks loose—literally. And in the midst of it, Katya unleashes a wave of inhuman power, leading her to be brought in by the Kyrios. These “Grim Reapers” walk the path between life and death, taking souls to the afterlife and preventing them from turning into demonic beasts known as the Want. And while Katya may not be one of them, she is certainly of interest to them.

Determined to be the “Balancer,” gifted with a drop of God’s power in order to close Want portals to the Live Realm, Katya will require training—both to do her job and to control her strong spiritual gift so as not to attract the Want to her. At the forefront of her training is a Gregor, a handsome Scots Kyrios who longs to reconnect with his humanity. As the attraction between Katya and Gregor grows, and as her training increases her power, the Balancer begins to uncover dark truths about the Kyrios, the Want, and the legions of angels above them all. With time running out and her mother and friends in danger, she will have to tame her power and decide what she’s truly fighting for.

K. T. Conte’s AWOKE (The Unseen War Book 1) presents an intriguing world: one in which Biblical and literary views of the afterlife mesh into an eternal, unseen battleground. A love triangle between Katya, Gregor, and fellow-Kyrio Jae adds some intrigue, but the majority comes from the machinations of the many levels of heavenly host at play. Not all is as it seems, and while the clues are there for sharp-eyed readers, the eleventh-hour twist changes everything. It’s a rewarding read from start to finish.

What’s especially interesting is how Conte balances real-world religion with the setting of AWOKE. This is not a “Christian book,” even if it is not explicitly anti-Christian. Katya is honest about her childhood disconnect from God, and how her grandparents’ approach to religion led to this disconnect until her destiny demanded otherwise. It also presents strong family relationships with Katya and her widowed mother, as well as close bonds of friendship with Katya and her “sister” Cynthia—stronger than the reader, or even Katya herself, realizes.

Overall, AWOKE is a good read for fans of paranormal romance looking for something a little different. While the finale pushes all the way up to the ragged end of the book and it will clearly function best as one puzzle piece in a larger story, it’s still a strong stand-alone.

K.T. Conte’s AWOKE (The Unseen War Book 1) is a promising beginning to a unique paranormal romance series—one that blends Biblical imagery, epic combat, and surprising eleventh-hour twists.

~Kara Dennison for IndieReader