The Captives

The Heart of the Caveat Whale Trilogy #1

by Precarious Yates, Benjamin P. Rodgers (Illustrator)

The Heart of the Caveat WhaleBook 1"When the caveat whale is gone, the time of the end has come, but the rise of Shunda will stem the tide.” Mermen are capturing aquavians and enslaving them to fight land battles in the MerKing’s quest for world domination. But on the world of Aiqua Marrin, there have never been people as peaceful as the aquavians. And of all the aquavians, there has never been someone as peace loving and joyful as Shunda. Meanwhile, the MerKing hunts for Shunda? Mookori fights on land and Qoshonni fights in the sea. While both warriors fight to protect Shunda, they glean a hint as to how important Shunda is. He may be the only hope to stop the worst war Aiqua Marrin has ever seen. Encounter numerous beautiful cultures as well as gorgeous landscapes and seascapes in this Young Adult Christian Fantasy!

417 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2012

About the author

Precarious Yates lives in Texas with husband, daughter, dogs, chickens, rabbit, lizard and by the time you read this some other exotic creature my husband or daughter has brought home. She had studied the plight of and worked toward the abolition of modern slavery for over a decade before sitting down to write Revelation Special Ops. She was further inspired by the work of her sister-in-law, who helped to found Love146, an organization that works to raise awareness about human trafficking and builds safe homes in vulnerable regions. Yates spent several years overseas as a missionary in Ireland, and also did missions work in India and the Philippines. Her passion for literature has become her means of further educating young adults of the realities of modern slavery, while producing hope through the power of Christ Jesus in us.

Reviews

[Karilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far a great story

So far s great story ! Full of love, life , war , friendships , and so much more .

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautifully-imagined story. It's definitely a slower pace than most books of that nature, but, like the sea that is so central to the plot, it is always in motion. The concept of aquavians is intriguing. The way the diverse stories wove together, and several different characters had their chances to shine, rather than honing in on "the Chosen One" like one might expect—I really appreciated that part of it.

I also want to point out the massive amounts of creativity that went into developing not only character names, but also specific terms in the fictional language. I only wish they weren't so complex! The names and terms were regularly three or four syllables long, which is not too much of a problem–till you hit on a whole paragraph littered with them, and sometimes I caught myself wondering if the text I was reading was really English or not! Unfortunately, the cumbersome foreign words made it difficult at times to follow the story, since I had to stop and decipher the word first, and by then the fleeting images in my head had vanished, and I had to just keep reading to try and conjure them again. And I was having trouble being constantly told how the characters felt, since there seemed to be little to evoke emotion in what was said or described.
It wasn't wholly bland and flat. I carry the idea of an aquavian with me... I just cannot distinguish one character from another, either for lack of description or personality.
Good plot, good pacing, good premise—four stars!

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book free from Goodreads' first read.

A heartwarming story that deals with war, tragedy, and racism, but is mostly about survival and love. Most of this book deals with getting to know the world and the people in it. There is a great deal of description, which I love, but others may not. The writing and language used at first struck me as odd and archaic, but after a while I realized how much it fit. All these together have the effect of creating a vivid world full of complex and unforgettable characters.

This is the first of a trilogy and so the story doesn't really end. This is very annoying because the next book isn't out yet and I want to know what happens.