The Forgotten Ones is a NA/YA modern fantasy, which follows a young woman, Allison, who has done everything in her power to focus on caring for her mother. If not for her grandparents, she would never go out with her friends or even attend a cookout. All of this because her mother lost her mind after she was born. Beautiful and charismatic before, now she cannot even leave the house. It broke my heart, and Allison’s in the book, when her mother cannot remember her daughter and gets agitated thinking Allison is her father, whom she resembles. And then her father shows up and promises to make it right, to bring Allison’s mom back from the dark place she’s gone in her mind.



The story is well-written and short, great for those who like a quick read. I liked how it gets to the point, building the empathy for the mother and her daughter, making me hope Allison loosens up a bit and gets together with Ethan. The romance gets rather bazaar, though, particularly when the dad shows up. There’s lots of jealousy between Ethan and Allison, though I found Ethan’s to be rather amusing. I won’t go into why due to the potential for spoilers.



The fantasy focus is on Irish mythology, faeries who entrance and enslave humans. The mythology is interesting, but I found all of the names and personalities of the faeries a little hard to keep up with. They went from just a couple to half a dozen or so, rather quickly, I might add, and then migrated between being friend, foe and other. Allison also experiences a bunch of visions, but they seem to be hit or miss. Are they foreshadowing? Are they telling the future as it will be, or as it could be? Maybe some will be explained in the next couple of books, but I think some were there just to build tension whether or not they ever pan out.



Anyway, I thought this was a great book. There’s fantasy, dark mythology, and bit of romance and action in a neat YA/NA package. The book sets the stage for the next in the trilogy and isn’t meant to be a standalone.



I found this book for free on Amazon. I wrote this review for the Pure Textuality blog.