By Ifè Oshun
Papa Grace Publishing, $4.99, 318 pages
Heart To Heart is a remarkable second book in Ifè Oshun’s Angelica Brown series. It follows Angelica’s extraordinary change into a newborn Shimshana and brilliantly describes this difficult but significantly important period in her life. For those who didn’t read the author’s first book Blood to Blood, Shimshana is an immortal vampiric creature. Although the ancient fallen angel race of blood drinkers gave birth to vampires, Shimshana hate being compared to them. The Shimshana have supernatural abilities and like sunshine. Oshun’s immortal world has its own rules and it is highly intertwined with the life of a normal mortal society.
“The pendulum of emotion had swung from one extreme to another and dragged my heart with it.”
Only six months after her transformation from a normal mortal teen to a very powerful Shimshana, sixteen-year-old Angelica Brown faces several crises. Angelica’s mom has gone into a Great Sleep that can continue for years and her father has escorted their mother’s body to a secret tomb in Africa for an indefinite period of time. Angelica is in love with Sawyer, a novice mortal wizard, but also has strong feelings for her now-immortal blood donor, Justin. Only one thing in her life remains firm: music. Angelica decides to leave Boston and moves to L.A. She invites Jules and LaLa, her best friends from the Kat Trio band, to spend summer there, to work on their album and to perform at the USA Music Award.
In the meantime, Angelica faces many decisions. She can become Incorporate and live in accordance with the moral rules of mortal society or follow Traditionalists and ignore such rules. Certainly Angelica has a very supportive sister but it’s up to her alone to decide what style of life she wants. This is an extremely hard choice for a tremendously unstable newborn Shimshana who has an abnormal appetite for blood. Anyone could easily become her prey. Will Angelica fall into darkness? It’s interesting to follow Angelica’s sways and there is also an incredibly intriguing epilogue. Although Angelica may have found some answers, many secrets are yet to be revealed.
Reviewed by Galina Roizman
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