Empath
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
From bestselling author S. Usher Evans comes a unique take about a real-world girl transported to a fantasy land and faced with a dragon that just might be the manifestation of her mental illness. Empath has "broken the feels" of readers around the world and helped them slay their own fears.
"I think we should just cut our losses and move on."
If you ask Lauren Dailey, things are totally fine after the breakup. She doesn't care that all her friends are getting engaged and moving on with their lives when all her dreams went up in smoke. She's not crying herself to sleep every night. Everything is A-OK.
That is, until a mysterious voice promises an easy out to all her problems, and she wakes up in a fantasy world with the powers of an empath.
Without a way home, Lauren embraces her new life. There's a village full of interesting characters, including Cefin, a handsome young man who's everything a fantasy hero should be. She's getting the hang of doing laundry in the river. And when she uses her empath powers, she's temporarily distracted from the sadness that followed her from California and crops up at the most inconvenient times.
Still, there's one large, dragon-shaped problem: The Anghenfil lives in the mountains nearby, and some say he's got a taste for empaths. And Lauren's afraid it might just be that mysterious voice tempting her deeper into her own darkness.
Empath will transport readers to a new world, while remaining firmly rooted in the realities of dealing with depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. Recommended for readers who need help overcoming their own dragons.
This is a stand-alone novel. Content warnings for suicide, substance abuse, and adult situations.
Praise for Empath
★★★★★ "A pint of ice cream for your soul." - Erin Sky, author of The Wendy
★★★★ "A brilliant allegory" - Elizabeth F., Goodreads Reviewer
★★★★★ "As someone who faces anxiety on a daily basis, this book spoke to me." - Katrina M., Goodreads Reviewer
★★★★★ "Empath is encouragement to accept your whole self and move forward into great adventure." - Sierra D.
Customer Reviews
A Pint of Ice Cream for your Soul (No Spoilers)
I love this book, and I love this character. Let’s just start there. I could say the book is a triumph (which it is), or that it’s a tour de force (which is just French for triumph), but that wouldn’t mean anything personal to YOU, the next potential reader, so in honor of our heroine, Lauren Dailey, let’s just be real and cut to the chase: this book is a pint of ice cream for your soul.
If you’re looking for a new character to be the very best friend you never had, to help you forget about your own life for a few magical hours and then inspire you to get up and move forward, because if she can do it, you can do it, this is the one.
I fell in love with the main character from the moment I met her, I empathized with her problems (you see what I did there?), and she never let me down. Not once. Not even when she probably thought she was letting me down. (You’ll get it once you get to know her.)
And here’s the best part: she’s real.
Lauren Dailey is not your typical fantasy character. She’s complicated. She’s struggling, and she’s frustrated that she’s struggling, and sometimes she even hates herself for it, and yet she always does her best to keep pushing through anyway, even when it involves a fire-breathing dragon. You have to love that about her.
There is a solid romantic sub-plot, which has its requisite steamy moments but that in the end (trust me, no spoilers) made me want to cheer in a way that very few romantic sub-plots ever have. In many ways, it’s a book about what love really is, rather than what it pretends to be, which had me laughing more than once and left me feeling far more fulfilled than the alternative.
I celebrate this character at forty-something in a way that says I wish I had had her around during my twenties or thirties to smack me over the head. Where most fantasy books leave you sorry to come back to reality, this one leaves you—well, yes, ok, sorry it’s over, certainly, but somehow more ready to handle whatever reality is yours to come back to, nonetheless.
And really, what more could you ask for from a fantasy novel than that?