From the Sky

Beyond Moondust Trilogy, Book 1

By: J. E. Nicassio

Narrated by: Holly Holt

Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

J.E. Nicassio creates the kind of close encounter that will leave listeners spellbound.

When high school junior, Samantha Hunter, and her father move to New Mexico, it's a chance to leave tragedy behind and start over. However, the arrival of a dark-haired stranger changes everything. Lucien introduces Sam to the prospect of enjoying life again, and to the hidden world of aliens. But crazier than that, Lucien doesn't feel entirely like a stranger. Redemption and romance follow Sam in her new life as she works to understand the alien-human romance she's developing - a romance that feels beyond her control. There's something bigger happening around her, and to her, too, and this is just the beginning....

J. E. Nicassio packs in the action like a superhero movie - From the Sky has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood blockbuster - ready to light up the sky like a fleet of UFOs.

©2017 Jennie E. Nicassio (P)2019 Jennie E. Nicassio

Interesting idea, poor execution.

DNF. I left with three hours remaining on the audiobook. I tried. I really did. But like with previous times when I was unable to finish a story (it sometimes happens), I didn’t see the point in forcing myself to continue when the story/narration wasn’t doing it for me.

I had so many issues with this story, both the story itself and the narration. Where do I start?
I couldn’t get into the story at all. I’m all about looking for mistakes (it’s something I find fun to do), but maybe there were just too many that kept distracting me, along with the poor amateurish writing style and robotic dialogue. I don’t know. I’m not a writer but I do read a lot. I feel at this point in my life, I can pick out a well-written story and one that’s not. I see that this story was for YA, but I felt at many times that it was for younger folks. The chapter titles. Foreshadowing much? Could the author have made it any more obvious about what was about to happen?

With the narrator, I get that it takes practice to become a “professional,” but still. If an author writes that a character has an accent (multiple times), at least try to do an accent, any accent. Isn’t that how you’re supposed to get better? If an author writes that a character is happy, annoyed, angry, etc. make sure that emotion comes across in the character you’re speaking for…every time! Not just once in a while. All throughout the story, the narrator would go from narrative to Sam’s dialogue or vice versa and a lot of the times, I had no clue if Sam was actually talking out loud or just mentally. I swear the narrator had it in for Sam as well. Why was it that the other characters showed more emotion than her when she was the main character? The majority of her dialogue was so flat, unemotional. Did anyone notice the narrator pronounced “cicadas” as “kicadas?” I don’t know where the narrator is from, but for some reason, her accent just annoyed me. For example, pronouncing “feelings” as “fillings” or “heal” as “hill.”

As many other reviewers mentioned, Sam was an unlikeable character. She came across as being stupid. For example, Sam comments to Lucien’s sister that she has an accent like Lucien (no accent for the audiobook listeners), to which she replies she hadn’t noticed since they’d always lived there. Sam: How would you have known you had an accent? As though someone with an accent wouldn’t be able to compare the way they speak to others?! Seriously, Sam? Mrs. Author?

Speaking of stupid characters, when Sam “learns” that there had been an alien crash in Roswell, I couldn’t help but shake my head like what? How old is she? What person by a certain age hasn’t heard about “Roswell” in relation to aliens and top-secret government stuff? Come on, Mrs. Author! Or Sam having no clue what the NSA was. Now, maybe it’s just because my husband has been in the military, have watched a lot of movies, books that I know what it stands for, a vague idea of what they do, etc., I don’t know.

Questions/Comments:

Sam had been doing whatever in her bootie-shorts yet didn’t realize how short they were until after arriving at the mall? If you noticed your shorts riding up into your nether regions, wouldn’t you have noticed while you were at home?

Sam talks to Lucien at the bookstore and her Xanax bottle falls out of her purse. Lucien hands “them” back to her. It was a single bottle. There was nothing about the pills actually falling out.

Speaking of when Sam and Lucien first met in the bookstore, I didn’t understand why Sam acted so mean to him. It’s like she’d been the one starring. Why did she seem so surprised (kinda sorta) and angry when he came over to her?

The whole thing about Lucien having static from his lack of hair conditioner… no.

After hearing Lucien and his band (siblings) the first time, San wants Lucien to stay because she needs to talk to him. But then does a 180, two seconds later, and wants him to leave. Okay.

Before parting at the bookstore, Lucien puts his number on Sam’s phone. Later, she’s unable to find the number and thinks he hadn’t really done it. But then much later, it’s suddenly there, no talk about how she found it, nothing.

I think one of the funniest parts was when Lucien told Sam that he knew how she felt because of their strong connection. Lucien: “That’s why I was at the fairgrounds that night.” (Paraphrasing there.) He was always referring to that second night when she’d gone back on her own. What about the night she’d gone with her friends and had originally been attacked? What about that night, Lucien? Then when she got home to call him, he never answered or even said anything about it when they met up.

After that whole debacle, Lucien ends up telling Sam to not go out alone. “If you get any more calls, go to the police.” Calls from where? From who? No one had been calling her. Writing this review, I feel Lucien might have been just as stupid as Sam. LOL

Moving on… Sam ends up going back to the mall’s bookstore looking for more info on Roswell and the alien crash. She finds a stack of books to take home with her. She checks them out. Umm… she was in a bookstore, not a library. You can’t checkout books from a bookstore, only purchase them.
Speaking of the mall, she’d went there after she woke up that morning. There was nothing about her having been at the store for hours, yet when she leaves and goes back to the fairgrounds, it’s suddenly nighttime. FYI, there is a difference between fairs and carnivals. I couldn’t help but notice the author seemed to use the terms (along with carnies) interchangeably.

When Lucien wants to prove… I don’t know what? That his blood is special? Something like that. He whips out his dagger and cuts Sam’s forearm. Insert the crickets chirping here. Why, you ask? Because Sam never made a peep.

Another funny part was after Lucien and Sam watch the bad guy burn in the car. They drive away. Sam puts her head out the window and is throwing up. What does Lucien do? He moves over to her seat (the front passenger seat) and sits beside her. Thinking of how much space I take up in the passenger seat of my car, and imaging my hubby sitting next to me… I mean on my lap… while I’m throwing up out the window. Yeah… no. LOL

Or what about after Sam finishes throwing up. She suddenly feels a vibration behind her back. What could it be? It’s Lucien’s phone! That she somehow never noticed between her back and the seat.
When they’re heading back to Lucien’s family’s farm, they stop at the little convenience store. He asks her if she needs to go to the bathroom. “No, I can hold it (meaning she doesn’t have to go badly, not an emergency). Wait, how much longer until we get there?” (Again, paraphrasing here.) Lucien: “You should go.” Sam makes her way to the outhouse thinking about how badly she suddenly has to go.

At the farmhouse, Lucien shows Sam the door behind the tapestry. “He pressed a button and the door opened…” Lucien tells her how it’s safe and blah, blah, blah. Then, “The door opened.” Here’s a perfect example of repetition.

Or “He could sense my feelings and thoughts. I didn’t really appreciate the invasion of privacy. He could sense everything about me including all my secret intimate thoughts.” Yeah, we got that the first time it was mentioned.

Lucien’s sister gives Sam a change of clothes. His sister tells her to follow her to the bathroom. Yet, Sam doesn’t feel comfortable with them (his family) because “they weren’t human.” Ah… it wasn’t because they were sending you the evil eye, saying negative things to you? Hello. I doubt the fact they weren’t human really had anything to do with it since they weren’t doing anything supernatural.

Whatever. So picture this: you’re scared because of the group of people you’re surrounded with don’t like you, some want you to leave, some want to kill you, some what *insert negative action *.
What do you do in such a scary, nerve-wracking situation? You talk a bubble bath. Yup… that makes sense to me. It’s like you know you’re dirty, you were attacked earlier in the day, threw up… So when you have the chance to clean yourself, you don’t even wash your hair. You put it up BUT leave a few strands hanging down for a tousled look. What?!

I don’t remember who the assy-sounding brother was but he tells Lucien that he should have just bred with Sam. Again, ah… why do Lucien’s siblings act as though they, themselves, had previously lived on another planet with their fellow aliens and are now trapped on Earth? I know one of them could see the future, but that doesn’t mean they were able to connect with other aliens! I just didn’t get it. Why would the government create hybrids and all the other part-alien creatures and then just release them?

Even funnier is when the reader learns that the creatures living underground are upset that the aliens (I think it was just Lucien’s father, right? He’d been the only one to survive?) had made a pact with the human government. Even though the aliens, the hybrids, the no-whites (cheesy name), the underground creature/peoples have only every lived on Earth!

Expected more - was left disappointed

I'll be honest. This book ticked a lot of my favorite boxes: science fiction, romance, aliens. Young Adult was something extra that I hadn't tried when reading science fiction romance and, since the premise brought to mind the new CW show Roswell, New Mexico, I was all in. That ended up being a big mistake for me.

There were a lot of similarities between this book and that show. So much so that I did some research to find out if the show was based on this book. It was not. In fact, Roswell, New Mexico was a remake of a show based on another book with a similar premise. Somehow I missed that show growing up and I'm a little bummed about that.

The YA aspects really came through in this book and not always in a good way. It's a little juvenile even for a YA and is not consistent in details. I think one of the areas where YA romance often fails is it’s portrayal of the romance. Lucien did not coming across as romantic or cute, but stalkery, and I was so annoyed at the number of times he told Sam not to worry about something or that he'd tell her later. To me, this was a clear dismissal of Sam and her feelings, not mention that Lucien didn't seem to think that Sam needed to be on the same level information-wise. I'm not even going to get into the fact that Lucien was good at everything. *Eye roll*

As for Sam, I couldn't decide if she was TSTL or just a bystander in her own story. She stood around a lot and didn't do much. She also came across as selfish when things were clearly not about her. Between her and the secondary characters, I got whiplash from their emotions.

To be honest, the Area 51 scene seemed like the climax of the book, and yet there was still more to go that seemed to be mere fluff. I will say, however, that I enjoyed the ending. I felt that it was the right way to segue into the next book.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Holly Holt, did a fairly good job. She appears to be a great selection to narrate a teenage girl, but most of her male voices were atrocious. The shadowy bad guy at the fair was perfectly creepy and Lucien was passable. I often had to hold back a laugh at the others. Though the narrator sounds good for YA, I think the narration sounds best sped up a little bit. Holt has a slow cadence, but it sounds perfectly fine sped up 1.1x or 1.2x.

If you want my opinion, skip this book and watch Roswell, New Mexico instead. It's more New Adult than YA, but does a much better job with the storyline.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Kind slow to get thought

So this book had a great blurb and interesting premise. Once reading it however all I could picture was someone taking the tv show Roswell mixing in a bit of the Twilight books, and bam this was born. It had a lot of potential but a lot seemed borrowed from other things and that subtracted from its possibilities. There were some sentences that an editor clearly missed but I have seen that in traditionally published things as well. There were a few more of them than most books though. After the ending, I am a little curious as to how the relationship will end up but I am not sure if I will continue the series or not.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Wish there had been trigger warnings

From the description I had really high hopes in reading this book—sci-fi romances are a lot of fun. I got too triggered though in the first chapters to continue—I tried a few more times, but kept having a hard time. Suicide is such a hard subject, and I always appreciate when an author has a content warning in the description or beginning of the book, but that wasn’t the case here. If suicide is something that will trigger you, I’d advise reading with caution or moving past this book. Otherwise, I’m sad I won’t be able to read this book, but it did seem well written and narrated. I’m sorry I couldn’t leave a more comprehensive review.

I received a free copy of this book at my request which in no way affected my honest review.

Aliens...

There is a ton I disliked about this book, but in the end it was mostly just mediocre all around.

The main character Sam's life has fallen apart, She has a ton of bad habits personal hangups and addictions, she couldn't manage to fix any of those until a super judgy alien shows up and stalks her into fixing herself...

Lucien the male lead shows up and is immediately unlikable, Sam notes how unlikable and creepy he is on several occasions yet she finds herself capitulating to nearly his every whim, and wouldn't you know she's the better for it. This is one of those books that sets a bad example for young women, it idealizes co dependence, and seems to imply that when you find the right boy all your problems will go away. Unless they revolve around angsty problems to do with the exotic mystery that is the boy.

The moment Lucien shows up Sam seems to lose all agency she becomes a tool to tell you how right or wrong Lucien is and she no longer really matters. She is merely the pov for telling his story and I find that distasteful.

Other than that it was mostly just a predictable, ya romance. The main characters lack a large amount of what you would call common sense mostly because it makes for a vehicle to allow for exposition. Like how Sam hadn't known that Aliens supposedly landed in Area 51.

The narration was pretty bland, not bad just meh, a lot like someone reading out loud for the class, not a lot of inflections or accents. She kept on pace well though and didn't do that breathy thing you find in a lot of romance.

I received a free review copy of this book.

Twilight with Aliens

Title pretty much says it all, for the story at least. Narration was decent, but her take on Male voices was REALLY cringy.

felt for the characters, story different from so

many others like this one. the performance was spot on. can not wait to start vol 2, it really left me hanging on the story


i got a free copy of this book

Shows promise. Maybe I’m too grown up for book

Right away I kept thinking “It’s kind of like Twilight, except with aliens.” It was a good book and I think someone younger than me would of enjoyed it a lot more. Maybe someone my daughter’s age.
The author frequently mentioned certain things repeatedly. Yes, we know they are aliens and a few other things.
Narration was pretty good.
I wish I would of known it was a cliffhanger.

YA scifi romance

The book was predictable but that is not a bad thing and the characters acted juvenile but that is to be expected. If you love YA books and all the things that come with it then this book is for you.
Will be listening to the second book in the series.

From the Sky

I enjoyed this YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy story. The main character, Samantha, and her father pick up and move to New Mexico to get a fresh start after the deaths of her twin brother and mother. This is only the beginning of a whole new, and unbelievable adventure.

J. E. Nicassio’s story entertained me, and left me wanting more. I’m looking forward to seeing where this series goes.

The narration by Holly Holt was well done.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

From the Sky

This audio book will keep you on edge, and want to follow the series.. It is an intriguing read for a young adult. Good narrator.

amazing book

t's a chance to leave tragedy behind and start over. However, the arrival of a dark-haired stranger changes everything.
amazing story well written By: J. E. Nicassio
Narrated by: Holly Holt who brought it all to life can't wait for book 2