Review: Dangerous Designs by Dale Mayer

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Drawing is her world...but when her new pencil comes alive, it's his world too.

Her...Storey Dalton is seventeen and now boyfriendless after being dumped via Facebook. Drawing is her escape. It's like as soon as she gets down one image, a dozen more are pressing in on her. Then she realizes her pictures are almost drawing themselves...or is it that her new pencil is alive?

Him...Eric Jordan is a new Ranger and the only son of the Councilman to his world. He's crossed the veil between dimensions to retrieve a lost stylus. But Storey is already experimenting with her new pencil and what her drawings can do - like open portals.

It ... The stylus is a soul-bound intelligence from Eric's dimension on Earth and uses Storey's unsuspecting mind to seek its way home, giving her an unbelievable power. She unwittingly opens a third dimension, one that held a dangerous predatory species banished from Eric's world centuries ago, releasing these animals into both dimensions.

Them... Once in Eric's homeland, Storey is blamed for the calamity sentenced to death. When she escapes, Eric is ordered to bring her back or face that same death penalty. With nothing to lose, can they work together across dimensions to save both their worlds?

My Thoughts:  Holy Hannah! Are you trying to kill me, Dale Mayer?  Are you?!?  You must delight in putting your heroines into horribly taxing situations and then leaving them there like so much baggage!  I have to admit that I liked the story before but leaving poor Storey in the lurch she was left in made me gasp and jump online to hunt down when the next book would be available.  *curls into a little fetal ball and rocks*

So, in case you couldn't figure it out, this books ends on a pretty hefty cliffhanger.  I mean, there are cliffhangers and then there are cliffhangers.  This one is the second.  This is one that blindsided me.  I thought everything was working out and we'd get some happy time before jumping into the next part of the story.  Alas, no.  Am I salivating to know what happens?  Indeed I am.

*deep breath*  I liked this book.  I liked it quite a lot.  I thought Storey was an interesting character.  I liked that she thought outside the box.  I liked that her questioning of things made Eric begin to question things.  I liked that the bad guys aren't all black and white.  I have no clue how things are going to play out in the next book and that's kind of a neat feeling.  On top of the imminent peril our heroine is in, there are a lot of things that Storey unwittingly did as she was learning to use the stylus that she'll have to figure out how to undo.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the next book.

More books by Dale Mayer

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Dangerous Designs was provided for review.