THE PORTALS OF SPARKLING FALLS

A girl without memories crosses into a different world.

After falling down a flight of stairs, Laura—at least, she thinks her name is Laura—wakes up in an empty house in the middle of a snowstorm with no memory of who she is. Something guides her to the basement, where she unwittingly crosses through a portal into the strange town of Sparkling Falls. There, the year is 241, counting from the date when Litchfield, their god and creator, gave life to its (mostly) friendly inhabitants. Laura is welcomed into Lord Arcturus’ household, where she befriends Rochelle, another traveler from our world who arrived in Sparkling Falls before Laura through a portal from the year 2017—although strangely, Laura left in 2003. As Laura adapts to her new life, she notices oddities, people going missing, and an insidious threat underscoring their lives. When Lord Arcturus’ child goes missing, Laura decides it’s time to find out what is really going on. This is a fun, well-thought-out science fiction novel with elements of romance and an underpinning of Christian beliefs (Rochelle is Catholic, and Laura is guided by her faith in her Christian God). Secondary characters are underdeveloped, and Laura sounds younger than her 16 years, but her dedication to finding the truth guides the novel to a fitting, poignant conclusion. Laura is White; the inhabitants of Sparkling Falls are racially diverse.

An entertaining read for fans of science fiction with religious undertones.