Twin Powers

Recruits by Thomas Locke

Summary from Goodreads:

For more than a decade, twins Sean and Dillon Kirrel have felt pulled toward another world–a place they have sketched out in detail and posted on the walls of their bedroom. They are certain it is out there. Soon after their seventeenth birthday, they are approached by a clandestine scout. To him, Earth is just a distant and unmonitored outpost of human civilization. But he explains that Sean and Dillon share a unique gift–the ability to transfer instantly from place to place. Transitors who are also twins are especially rare, and so they are offered an opportunity to prove themselves as recruits to the human assembly. If they don’t succeed within thirty days, their minds will be wiped. Either they make the grade as inter-planetary travelers–or this never happened.

From the infinite imagination of Thomas Locke comes this otherworldly new series that will challenge young readers’ understanding of time, space, and human limitations.

Confession:

I first heard about this while wandering around the blogs I follow.  I’m sorry I don’t remember whose blog I saw it on, but if you have reviewed or mentioned this book recently I want to thank you.  It was a fascinating and riveting science fiction and exactly what I needed right now.    

The story is only told through Sean’s point of view, but I ended up loving both boys.  Like most identical twins I know, even though they look exactly alike and it is hard to tell them apart, their personalities are totally different.  Sean is the intellectual and Dillon is more the warrior.  But you can see and feel the love they have for each other and the fact that they always have each others backs even as their lives are rapidly and drastically changing.  You can also see the change happening to both boys as the story unfolds.

There are lots of other good strong characters that help Sean and Dillon through out the story.  Carter, their mentor and instructor, is a great father figure, even when he has to be tough with them.  At times he doesn’t always believe what they tell him they can do, but once they prove themselves he  becomes one of their strongest supporters.

There are two love interests for the boys, but only Sean’s girlfriend I felt was well developed.  Perhaps because he is telling the story, Dillon’s girlfriend is not shown as much.  I like both girls though.  They are both strong in their own ways and willing to sacrifice much to be with the boys.  Carey, Dillon’s girlfriend, is willing to accept Dillon and his abilities perhaps a little to easily, but when your boyfriend transports you to another planet, I guess you have to believe.  Elenya, is part of the boys new world and she seeks Sean out.  She is the stronger of the two girls, but that may just be because we see more of her than Carey.

The overall plot of the story is fascinating.  I don’t want to give to much away but the boys ability to transfer from one planet to another is amazing, and perhaps pushed the boundary of fantasy.  Some of their other abilities are more along the lines of supernatural and are a little more plausible.  There are some slower parts to the story, but for the most part it is fast paced and riveting.   The last hundred pages were especially hard to stop reading when I needed to.  

I have never read anything by Thomas Locke or Davis Bunn (his real name) before, but this is definitely an author I will be adding to my list of authors I like. The next book in the series came out earlier this month and I will be keeping an eye out for it as I need to find out how it all ends up.