Title:
The Silver Spoon

Author:
Stacey Klemstein

Published By:
Runestone
Publishing

ISBN #:
:
1-59648-001-7
Print:
1-59648-000-9

Release Date:
Available Now

Format:
Electronic
& Print

Zara Mitchell is the owner of a small, barely-making-ends-meet diner called the Silver Spoon, in the small town of Silver Springs. Zara hates the alien Observers. The Observers arrived on Earth two years before our story begins, and were made welcome by the peoples of Earth after they stopped a nuclear war from starting. Unfortunately, their arrival only began Zara’s troubles. From the first time she saw an Observer she began to have nightmares, which usually ended with her running outside and gasping for breath on the lawn of her home. Needless to say, the rest of the town’s populace considers Zara a looney-tune.

On the day our story begins, the local Sheriff brings an Observer prisoner into Zara’s diner, hoping to provoke a scene. The scene that actually occurs is a little more violent than the Sheriff expects, because someone attempts to blow up the diner with Zara in it. She is rescued by the Observer prisoner, a man named Caelan. When Zara finally gets to her home, she discovers that it has been trashed, and that an Observer named Nevan is waiting to kill her. Needless to say, Zara goes on the run with Caelan to try to buy time to figure out why someone – some Observer – wants her dead.

While I sometimes find novels contrived when the action turns around a “big secret”, I was quite satisfied with the plot development and follow-through that author Klemstein brought to The Silver Spoon. In this story, the problem is that none of the protagonists know why they are being attacked, where they are from, nor even who they are. The reader discovers the truth as the characters do, which draws the reader into the story very quickly. The character of Zara is interesting in that she suspects she might be going crazy, so her perceptions might not be real. This plot device keeps the reader on the edge of her seat. I thought this was a very intriguing science fiction suspense novel, and found it almost impossible to put down. It’s a satisfying read.



Reviewed by: Jean