THE RISING

By Heather Graham and Jon Land

Here’s my quandary: how do I review a book that defies expectations and genre? How do I review a book by two of my favorite authors whose collaboration is so good and seamless, I would swear it was written by one person? Well, I’m about to try . . .

“The Rising,” the remarkable debut collaboration from the minds and imaginations of Heather Graham and Jon Land is not what you have come to know from either of them. Yes, it’s a thriller, and yes, it involves the supernatural, but it is a species all its own. “The Rising” is part thriller, part YA, part sci-fi, and part supernatural, but it is all heart. Human relationships are at the core of this juggernaut; how they mold us and how they hold us when all seems lost.

In “The Rising,” we meet Alex Chin, adopted son of Chinese immigrants and high school football superstar. He is the guy other guys want to be and all the girls want to be with. We also meet Samantha (Sam) Dixon, Alex’s classmate and tutor; the girl whose beauty is overlooked due to her intellectual brilliance. The girl who secretly wishes she was more than just Alex’s tutor.

During a football game, Alex gets hit hard and is taken to the local hospital where his CT scan is not just inconclusive, it’s unusual.

As the plot progresses, Alex and Sam find his parents dead and discover that Alex is not entirely human. On the run from people and things that want her dead and him captured, they meet up with the guardian, the one who has been watching Alex since his “birth.”

Together, Alex and Sam will discover the truth behind Earth’s purpose, take you on an adventure beyond your imagination, leave you breathless, and have you begging for the next installment of this amazing epic.

Somewhere in the heavens, Rod Serling is looking down and applauding Heather Graham and Jon Land.