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Luminous Spirits
Old habits die hard. Old enemies, even harder.
Iris must now perfect her newfound abilities in order to help her shadow-oppressed family and friends, but more importantly, she must prepare for an impending fight with her most hated adversary. After the arrival of a new mean girl who seems to have history with Iris’s boyfriend, Iris quickly figures out that she is anything but the typical mean girl. She not only creates havoc and conflict among Iris and her friends, but her presence also means that Iris’s inevitable confrontation with her enemy may, in fact, be closer than she thought.
If Iris can figure out why the new girl is there and what her enemy is planning, she’ll at least be one step ahead of their game. But will she be ready when the time comes to face her biggest challenge yet? Or will they succeed in tearing Iris apart before she even has the chance?
Iris must now perfect her newfound abilities in order to help her shadow-oppressed family and friends, but more importantly, she must prepare for an impending fight with her most hated adversary. After the arrival of a new mean girl who seems to have history with Iris’s boyfriend, Iris quickly figures out that she is anything but the typical mean girl. She not only creates havoc and conflict among Iris and her friends, but her presence also means that Iris’s inevitable confrontation with her enemy may, in fact, be closer than she thought.
If Iris can figure out why the new girl is there and what her enemy is planning, she’ll at least be one step ahead of their game. But will she be ready when the time comes to face her biggest challenge yet? Or will they succeed in tearing Iris apart before she even has the chance?
391 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 17, 2017
7 people want to read
About the author
Dusty Crabtree
3 books43 followersDusty Crabtree loves a good story, but she also loves young people. These two loves are evident in all parts of her life. She has been a high school English teacher since 2006 and a creative writing teacher since 2014. She's also been a youth sponsor at her local church for as long as she's been teaching. She feels very blessed with the amazing opportunities she has to develop meaningful relationships with teens on a daily basis. With her love of reading in the mix, becoming an author of young adult books was just a natural development of those two passions in her life. She lives with her husband, Clayton, in Yukon, Oklahoma, where they often serve their community as foster parents.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 4, 2018
This was one heck of a ride, with the main character, Iris Kohl, leading the reigns of the plot. Here her powers were well developed, and it kept on improving and becoming stronger. I loved the way she annihilated the dark demon-y shadows.
This book saw the entire gang, teacher/guide Gregory, friends Kyra and Lexi, boyfriend Patrick all fighting the good fight against evil Lucas and Donovan. The plot read fast and straight. Dusty Crabtree was clear in her writing. There was romance and friendship along with action
The scenes were slightly repetitive as it was the same routine they did every night, go out and kill the dark shadows. The villains were just caricatures who appeared in corner, glowering at the group. Iris was still very immature, I was unable to like her completely.
Overall an enjoyable book based on a good theme good vs evil, angels vs demons.
This book saw the entire gang, teacher/guide Gregory, friends Kyra and Lexi, boyfriend Patrick all fighting the good fight against evil Lucas and Donovan. The plot read fast and straight. Dusty Crabtree was clear in her writing. There was romance and friendship along with action
The scenes were slightly repetitive as it was the same routine they did every night, go out and kill the dark shadows. The villains were just caricatures who appeared in corner, glowering at the group. Iris was still very immature, I was unable to like her completely.
Overall an enjoyable book based on a good theme good vs evil, angels vs demons.
November 3, 2017
‘Don’t ever underestimate the shadows.’
Luminous Spirits follows on from Dusty Crabtree’s gripping fantasy novel, Shadow Eyes. In this equally thrilling sequel, we follow Iris, a young newbie light warrior, as she works to keep evil at bay. Just as all seems right with the world, a stunning new arrival makes Iris’ school life a living hell.
The book opens with a lot of dark imagery that gives the reader a real sense of the danger to come. While there were a few characters I disliked (the scheming and manipulative type), I generally enjoyed this story as a whole. The gorgeous Patrick is just as mysterious in this book as he was in the first, his relationship with Iris slowly blossoming into something beautiful.
Dusty Crabtree portrays high school life and its related issues with the utmost accuracy. A winning sense of humour and cast of contrasting characters make these novels an absolute joy yo read.
With themes of good and evil, and past pain, Crabtree has created a world that will steal your heart, before filing it with every emotion imaginable. The abundance of action, in addition to Crabtree’s articulate and emotional style, provide a reading experience like no other.
Rated 5 stars.
Recommended for lovers of young adult and fantasy.
Luminous Spirits follows on from Dusty Crabtree’s gripping fantasy novel, Shadow Eyes. In this equally thrilling sequel, we follow Iris, a young newbie light warrior, as she works to keep evil at bay. Just as all seems right with the world, a stunning new arrival makes Iris’ school life a living hell.
The book opens with a lot of dark imagery that gives the reader a real sense of the danger to come. While there were a few characters I disliked (the scheming and manipulative type), I generally enjoyed this story as a whole. The gorgeous Patrick is just as mysterious in this book as he was in the first, his relationship with Iris slowly blossoming into something beautiful.
Dusty Crabtree portrays high school life and its related issues with the utmost accuracy. A winning sense of humour and cast of contrasting characters make these novels an absolute joy yo read.
With themes of good and evil, and past pain, Crabtree has created a world that will steal your heart, before filing it with every emotion imaginable. The abundance of action, in addition to Crabtree’s articulate and emotional style, provide a reading experience like no other.
Rated 5 stars.
Recommended for lovers of young adult and fantasy.
June 6, 2019
Luminous Spirits is the second book in the Shadow Eyes trilogy by Dusty Crabtree. Iris is finally coming into her powers and has started to go on more difficult missions with Gregory, Patrick, and Kyra to save people from the shadows that prey on them. But her best friend Lexi is being completely left out of the picture. She isn’t a light warrior and can’t go on the missions for safety reasons, but Iris is now spending all of her free time training. Soon, the shadows start to come for Lexi, and Iris has to figure out how to save her best friend. Her relationship with Patrick is also hurting because of a new girl named Lila that won’t leave him alone, and her ex Josh has come back into the picture and reminds Iris of how things could have been.
I am loving this trilogy so far! Iris has truly blossomed since the last installment of this series and has finally started to become a full-fledged light warrior, but she is still learning some important things. For example, she has to learn how to tell shadows apart in order to figure out how much strength will be needed to remove it, or if it can be removed at all. Some shadows are so strong that they have already started to kill their human hosts, but most can be removed before they get to that point. The shadow description in this trilogy has been done so well, as the shadows aren’t simply random “villain” encounters. The shadows have voices, the shadows can speak to their hosts, and Iris has to intercept them. I felt as though the shadows were real as I read this, and felt as if I wanted to be a light warrior to save people from the shadows that plague them.
The only thing that I didn’t like in this novel was how quickly Iris seemed to jump to conclusions. She seemed pretty indecisive about her relationship, but the minute her boyfriend does something totally out of character for him, she is willing to believe the worst. This could just be my bias against love triangles coming out, but I don’t see a love triangle in the near future for this series. This book focuses mostly on Patrick though, which made me glad.
My two absolute favorite parts about this book were learning about Patrick’s past and the side story with Iris’ best friend Lexi. Patrick wasn’t always a light warrior, and he starts to tell Iris more about his past self in this book. I am a little confused as to the timeline with all of this, but I understood what was happening when he was telling his stories. A lot of new characters were introduced this way, and I enjoyed learning about new people in this world. It also really touched me to have Lexi not be forgotten, and for Iris to realize how she was hurting her friend. In most books where a kid gets powers and leaves their friends behind, the friends either turn out to be evil, secretly have powers too, or just “don’t understand” so it is reasonable that they are forgotten. Lexi tried to be a good friend, but she kept getting pushed to the side, making her an easier target for the shadows that latch onto sad emotions.
This was an amazing installment in this trilogy! I would recommend the Shadow Eyes Trilogy to anyone looking for a new YA fantasy or urban fantasy series.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
I am loving this trilogy so far! Iris has truly blossomed since the last installment of this series and has finally started to become a full-fledged light warrior, but she is still learning some important things. For example, she has to learn how to tell shadows apart in order to figure out how much strength will be needed to remove it, or if it can be removed at all. Some shadows are so strong that they have already started to kill their human hosts, but most can be removed before they get to that point. The shadow description in this trilogy has been done so well, as the shadows aren’t simply random “villain” encounters. The shadows have voices, the shadows can speak to their hosts, and Iris has to intercept them. I felt as though the shadows were real as I read this, and felt as if I wanted to be a light warrior to save people from the shadows that plague them.
The only thing that I didn’t like in this novel was how quickly Iris seemed to jump to conclusions. She seemed pretty indecisive about her relationship, but the minute her boyfriend does something totally out of character for him, she is willing to believe the worst. This could just be my bias against love triangles coming out, but I don’t see a love triangle in the near future for this series. This book focuses mostly on Patrick though, which made me glad.
My two absolute favorite parts about this book were learning about Patrick’s past and the side story with Iris’ best friend Lexi. Patrick wasn’t always a light warrior, and he starts to tell Iris more about his past self in this book. I am a little confused as to the timeline with all of this, but I understood what was happening when he was telling his stories. A lot of new characters were introduced this way, and I enjoyed learning about new people in this world. It also really touched me to have Lexi not be forgotten, and for Iris to realize how she was hurting her friend. In most books where a kid gets powers and leaves their friends behind, the friends either turn out to be evil, secretly have powers too, or just “don’t understand” so it is reasonable that they are forgotten. Lexi tried to be a good friend, but she kept getting pushed to the side, making her an easier target for the shadows that latch onto sad emotions.
This was an amazing installment in this trilogy! I would recommend the Shadow Eyes Trilogy to anyone looking for a new YA fantasy or urban fantasy series.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
March 14, 2017
The classic never-ending conflict between good and evil, light and darkness is played out masterfully in Dusty Crabtree’s new book, Luminous Spirits. Dusty takes these real-life, unseen spiritual battles, and explains them in a unique and entertaining way. But remember, this series of delightful stories, is fictional, not fantasy. This kind of human drama is happening every day, all over the world to people like you and me who are trying to keep ourselves on the “good and honest” side of the ledger. But these dark shadows have other ideas for our lives. If you were a Christian, you would see these dark shadows as fallen angels. Like Dusty says in her book, “it’s hard to believe that we’re not the only ones on this planet”.
In Luminous Spirits, the protagonist “team” goes on shadow hunts as they get leads from the angel underground network. Dusty does an excellent job of keeping the reader in the middle of all the shadow-hunting activities. The book is suspenseful as well as eye-opening. But the end . . . At the end of the book, be prepared (if you can), because the most unlikely of antagonists becomes the hero, riding in on the wings of mercy and grace, the pillars of true sacrificial love. That hero would never even been the hero had it not been for extraordinary love and kindness showed to her by this character’s nemesis. If it were possible for someone to have a turn-around of more than 180 degrees, this would be it.
Just the insight you receive from this sneak peek into this invisible world of spiritual warfare is more than worth the cost of the book. But the hidden pearl of great price in the book is in the form of showing the tremendous power there is in true sacrificial love. That is priceless.
The story is told through Iris, our Phenom evil-spirit butt-kicker. The other members of this top-gun shadow-hunting group are; Gregory, their handsome teacher, mentor, and the angel in charge of the operation; Patrick, who was a dark servant in Dusty’s first book, but has turned back to being a light warrior; then there’s Kyra, a light warrior brought in from out of town to strengthen Gregory’s group; and Lexi. She’s not a light warrior, but a good friend of Iris that was being neglected by her friends. In this sub-plot lies another pearl of great price about how to show love to a best friend. And of course, there are all the characters representing the dark side. These shadows are actually demons that have various shades of darkness. Two of them, however, Lucas and Donavon are so evil and so well-defined that their form is almost solid. One could easily see their fingers and their creepy, evil eyes if you want to peer into that kind of thing.
You don’t need to read Dusty’s first book, Shadow Eyes that came out in paperback. Luminous Spirits is understandable on its own. However, the wonderfully written back story can be very helpful. Shadow Eyes is also an eBook on Amazon.
I give this book five thumbs-up or stars or whatever the grading system is. It’s written well enough that is could and should be required reading for High School Psych classes.
In Luminous Spirits, the protagonist “team” goes on shadow hunts as they get leads from the angel underground network. Dusty does an excellent job of keeping the reader in the middle of all the shadow-hunting activities. The book is suspenseful as well as eye-opening. But the end . . . At the end of the book, be prepared (if you can), because the most unlikely of antagonists becomes the hero, riding in on the wings of mercy and grace, the pillars of true sacrificial love. That hero would never even been the hero had it not been for extraordinary love and kindness showed to her by this character’s nemesis. If it were possible for someone to have a turn-around of more than 180 degrees, this would be it.
Just the insight you receive from this sneak peek into this invisible world of spiritual warfare is more than worth the cost of the book. But the hidden pearl of great price in the book is in the form of showing the tremendous power there is in true sacrificial love. That is priceless.
The story is told through Iris, our Phenom evil-spirit butt-kicker. The other members of this top-gun shadow-hunting group are; Gregory, their handsome teacher, mentor, and the angel in charge of the operation; Patrick, who was a dark servant in Dusty’s first book, but has turned back to being a light warrior; then there’s Kyra, a light warrior brought in from out of town to strengthen Gregory’s group; and Lexi. She’s not a light warrior, but a good friend of Iris that was being neglected by her friends. In this sub-plot lies another pearl of great price about how to show love to a best friend. And of course, there are all the characters representing the dark side. These shadows are actually demons that have various shades of darkness. Two of them, however, Lucas and Donavon are so evil and so well-defined that their form is almost solid. One could easily see their fingers and their creepy, evil eyes if you want to peer into that kind of thing.
You don’t need to read Dusty’s first book, Shadow Eyes that came out in paperback. Luminous Spirits is understandable on its own. However, the wonderfully written back story can be very helpful. Shadow Eyes is also an eBook on Amazon.
I give this book five thumbs-up or stars or whatever the grading system is. It’s written well enough that is could and should be required reading for High School Psych classes.
February 18, 2019
Iris is learning to work with her new abilities in dealing with shadows, and she's discovering some new ones as she goes along. She's training a lot and she's doing a lot of work, it's leaving little time to do anything else, especially things like hanging out with her friend Lexi. With the help of Patrick, Kyra, and Gregory, Iris is becoming a force to be reckoned with.
But the new girl at school, Lila, is causing a lot of problems, and not just corrupting the guys at the parties she's attending, she has all the boys attention at school, including Patrick's. He's told Iris they used to work together, but he's never been interested in her. But Iris's insecurities might just win out and ruin her relationship with Patrick. Meanwhile, we know something big is being planned, but we're not exactly sure what. Iris constantly has a tail, seems like Lucas has been watching her, and it's not just him, but someone way worse.
There are a lot of layers to Luminous Spirits. We have Iris wanting to appease Lexi and stop her from embracing the shadows intent to keep her down. How will Iris be able to keep their friendship when she's never available to be her friend? We have Iris discovering new things she's able to do when she's battling the shadows. She's also having to learn how to navigate her relationship with Patrick, and lastly, Iris still has some growing up to do. She's a bit naive about things, but she hasn't been out in the world as much as her shadow fighting crew, and those things will surely come to her.
I really enjoyed Luminous Spirits and the large variety of situations that Iris is thrown into. Crabtree did an excellent job keeping Iris busy and learning. The new abilities she learned to deal with the shadows were creative and unique, and I have a feeling where Crabtree might be going with Iris's abilities, so I can't wait to read Sacrificial Souls.
But the new girl at school, Lila, is causing a lot of problems, and not just corrupting the guys at the parties she's attending, she has all the boys attention at school, including Patrick's. He's told Iris they used to work together, but he's never been interested in her. But Iris's insecurities might just win out and ruin her relationship with Patrick. Meanwhile, we know something big is being planned, but we're not exactly sure what. Iris constantly has a tail, seems like Lucas has been watching her, and it's not just him, but someone way worse.
There are a lot of layers to Luminous Spirits. We have Iris wanting to appease Lexi and stop her from embracing the shadows intent to keep her down. How will Iris be able to keep their friendship when she's never available to be her friend? We have Iris discovering new things she's able to do when she's battling the shadows. She's also having to learn how to navigate her relationship with Patrick, and lastly, Iris still has some growing up to do. She's a bit naive about things, but she hasn't been out in the world as much as her shadow fighting crew, and those things will surely come to her.
I really enjoyed Luminous Spirits and the large variety of situations that Iris is thrown into. Crabtree did an excellent job keeping Iris busy and learning. The new abilities she learned to deal with the shadows were creative and unique, and I have a feeling where Crabtree might be going with Iris's abilities, so I can't wait to read Sacrificial Souls.
March 16, 2017
I've waited patiently for five years for the sequel to Shadow Eyes. I can honestly say it was worth the wait. Dusty's writing is even sharper and more compelling than her first foray into the world of light and shadows. The age-worn tale of good versus evil, dark vs light, angels vs demons rises once again with Luminous Spirits. But it's not a worn tale as Dusty puts her own unique spin on this gritty young adult tale that is layered with more than just fighting.
Iris has had time to to learn and practice her talents but she still has room for growth. She and her friends are still kicking butt and taking names, but Iris figures she has plenty of time to figure out her enemies next move. Lucas and Donovan are evil incarnate and they need to be taken out but Iris has to figure out what the new girl in school has to do with it first. While she and the rest of the team continue to shadow hunt, Iris hones her skills as well as as do some internal soul searching and thinking.
Luminous Spirits is classified as a young adult novel but as an adult, I quite enjoyed it. Also, you don't need to read Shadow Eyes to read Luminous Spirits. It reads well as a standalone. Plenty of action, romance, supernatural elements and striking writing. There are certain scenarios and elements sown throughout that bring about a myriad of emotions, including but not limited to triumphant, forlorn and empathic. The character building and how they interact with one another are the solid foundation for this series, in my opinion. Dusty has portrayed some growth with them but leaves plenty of room for more development. If you are looking for a new series or author to try, definitely pick up Dusty's Shadow Eyes or Luminous Spirits. She has a knack for drawing you into her world and it's well worth the ride!
Iris has had time to to learn and practice her talents but she still has room for growth. She and her friends are still kicking butt and taking names, but Iris figures she has plenty of time to figure out her enemies next move. Lucas and Donovan are evil incarnate and they need to be taken out but Iris has to figure out what the new girl in school has to do with it first. While she and the rest of the team continue to shadow hunt, Iris hones her skills as well as as do some internal soul searching and thinking.
Luminous Spirits is classified as a young adult novel but as an adult, I quite enjoyed it. Also, you don't need to read Shadow Eyes to read Luminous Spirits. It reads well as a standalone. Plenty of action, romance, supernatural elements and striking writing. There are certain scenarios and elements sown throughout that bring about a myriad of emotions, including but not limited to triumphant, forlorn and empathic. The character building and how they interact with one another are the solid foundation for this series, in my opinion. Dusty has portrayed some growth with them but leaves plenty of room for more development. If you are looking for a new series or author to try, definitely pick up Dusty's Shadow Eyes or Luminous Spirits. She has a knack for drawing you into her world and it's well worth the ride!
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