Review: Under Another Sun by D.M. Siciliano

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A crack in time saves 99
But what do those ominous words mean?
Ray is about to find out, whether he’s ready or not. His ‘deceased’ twin sister, Ravynn, is warning him of impending disaster, but Ray can’t seem to convince himself, or his wife, that he’s not crazy.
But Ray isn’t the only one communicating with his sister. Ravynn’s surviving daughter, Amelia, seems to know things that defy reason, in a time when reason is slowly slipping away.
When Ray’s brother-in-law offers evidence of something terrible coming in the form of prophetic journals Ravynn wrote before her death, Ray can’t doubt the truth any longer. The world is falling down.
The family struggles to hold themselves together as the world they once knew and understood begins to collapse all around them, leading up to a cataclysmic end.
Can Ray save his family in time?

Dark and Gothic.  Under Another Sun is multi-faceted and strips the layers back of the human condition.  It examines our ability to decipher the logic behind trauma.  Our ability to cope with grief.  It is a highly intelligent and fascinating novel on multiple levels.  D.M. Siciliano has given us another deeply unsettling horror novel but a winner in its own right from Inside.  Horror that is so realistic and palpitatingly dark.  Our future is national disasters, it gives us a lightbulb moment and relinquishes the hold that monsters under our bed once held.  I had a lot of pleasure unfolding this story and I believe you will too. 

Ravynn is such a powerful protagonist in Under Another Sun.  She has a hold over the other characters – predominately Ray (her twin brother), Elena (his wife) and little Amelia (Ravynn’s daughter).  She is an ethereal force to be reckoned with.  She has experienced her fair share of trauma and suffering and knows things she really has no right in knowing.  Her journals are a great source of foretelling and anguish for her now ex-husband and something that maintains the strands of her being and her experiences and traumas. 

Two timelines come crashing together and it felt like watching the beauty and destructive nature of a supernova.  The story had so many layers of tragedy and sublime storytelling that I was unwilling to have my kindle prized out of my greedy little hands!  The setting. The protagonists.  The horror.  It tallied up to an experience.  I felt like I was living and experiencing the events.  I felt the fear.  I felt the worry.  Under Another Sun was stealing the show!  I don’t think I have the necessary words to describe Siciliano’s powerful way of writing.  The drama.  The threatening edge.  The narrative.  It made for a heady mix, and it made me shiver!  You can feel the author’s love for this story.  You can feels its impact escaping through its pages and reaching out to you. 

I really don’t want to give anything away in regard to the storyline but believe me, it’s so worth it.  Time had no consequence for me and the chapters flew by.  I needed answers, I wanted to delve further into the reasonings to some events.  The pace was magnificent, and the last page left me feeling like I had been on rollercoaster. 

Under Another Sun is evocative and dreamlike.  Don’t be fooled by its beautiful cover Siciliano has created something darker than night.  Superbly inventive. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DM is a lover of all things creative. From the moment she could speak, growing up in Massachusetts, she had a passion for flair and drama, putting on concerts for anyone who was even remotely interested (and even for those who were not). A storyteller by nature, she first pursued her young dream of becoming a singing diva while living in Arizona. She soon found that stage life wasn’t the only form of storytelling she craved, so she dropped the mic and picked up a pencil instead. She still hasn’t given up on her diva-ness, and hopes her pencil stays as sharp as her tongue. 

A dark sense of humor and curiosity for haunted houses and things out of the ordinary led her down the path of completing her first novel, Inside. Several other projects are constantly floating around in her head and her laptop daily, and sometimes keeping her up much too late at night. Occasionally, those projects are so dark and twisted, she needs to leave a nightlight on. 

She now lives in Northern California with her two fluffy furbabies, Cezare and Michaleto.