I’m kind of disappointed in these two authors. Nowhere in this book does it indicated it’s for young adults, but that’s who it should be directed to. Some of the actions by the main characters are not what you’d expect from adults because the two lead characters are 18 and 16 years old. James Sutton is the oldest child in the Sutton family and his sister, Holly Sutton, is not far behind at 16. Now both of these children have had some difficulty growing up in that their father left the family about 11 years ago. He just disappeared! Then, tragedy struck about five years ago when the eldest child, Steven, was killed in an auto accident.
So, it’s been James, Holly and his Mother living in a small town in Kansas. That was the three of them until Holly went missing one morning. James had to calm his Mother down so he could do some investigating to see what might have happened. He noticed strange non-human footprints leading around the house to Holly’s bedroom window. Then he sees human footprints, about Holly’s size, coming off the porch an to a circular depression in the wet morning grass. It appeared that something very large and round had landed on their lawn during the night. Was Holly a victim of an alien abduction?
Fortunately, James has the sense to figure out he needed some help in finding Holly. So, he goes to the nearest town to talk to the local Sheriff. Now these are small towns and the Sheriff usually takes care of any kind of crime within the area. Sheriff Will Johnson listens to James’ story and decided he’d better go see for himself. Once back at the house, he notices the same circular area that James described and then thinks he knows what has happened. He takes James out to his house and this is where the entire story starts getting strange!
The Sheriff actually has a small spacecraft in his barn which he pulls out and tells Jame to get aboard. Jame sits in the co-pilot seat while Johnson is in the pilots seat. Of course James asks where they are going and Johnson tells him they’re going to the back side of the moon to a secret US Space Force base! It seems that the activities at Rockwell, Nevada by in the early 1950s was the beginnings of America getting into space in a big way. Some aliens survived that crash and has slowly been providing information on a lot of new technology. While the US Space Force has just recently been acknowledged as another uniformed service, it has actually been operational for a long time. This secret base on the back side of the moon has been there for quite awhile and it’s where humanity has been interfacing with various alien races!
Will Johnson just happens to also have been a member of the US Space Force and now he’s going to see the General in charge about what’s happened on Earth. He believes there’s a certain alien race that kidnaps humans for the purpose of partnering up with them which in this case means the alien acts like a parasite on the human that can control the actions of that human. Up until now, Earth’s location has been a secret. Johnson and the General want to keep it that way, but if Holly has been kidnapped by the alien race they suspect, Earth could well be in danger.
So, this is where all the silliness, as I’m calling it, starts. Lieutenant Colonel Will Johnson meets with the General and is instructed to go find these alien abductors at all possible costs. He says he’ll do that if he’s reinstated to the US Space Force and wants James to come along as his co-pilot! Of course the General says that James Sutton isn’t even in the military and doesn’t know how to pilot anything. Johnson just says the first is only a matter of paperwork that the General can approve. He says he’ll teach James all he needs to know about piloting a spacecraft on their way to find his sister. This is just plain stupid. Johnson goes to personnel and has them put together paperwork declaring James Sutton a Captan in the US Space Forces! James doesn’t know a thing about the military and he certainly does have any pilot training, yet the story goes on as if this is normal.
Then there’s his 16 year old, soon to be 17 year old, foul-mouth sister. James and Will Johnson do manage to rescue her and then she refuses to go back home saying she wants to fight the aliens like her brother. The General ships her out to a distant planet where her older brother is the defacto Ambassador. Her she says she wants to go through the Advanced Jungle Training Course on this very dangerous planet. She’s also not in the military and not even old enough, yet she manages to get her way! This whole part of the book is absolutely ridiculous!
I for one will not be following this series. It’s just too idiotic for me and these young kids are doing things they would never ever do in real life or anything resembling real life. However, for those who want, book 2, “Opening Moves” is available for pre-order on Amazon. Should be out by 6 March 2024.