Book "Doubt" by Anne-Rae Vasquez

About the Book: At 21 years old, Harry and Cristal are fresh out of university with their PhD's. Labeled all their lives as being 'weird' and 'geeky', they find true friendships with other outcasts by playing online virtual reality games.

Harry Doubt, a genius programmer and creator of the popular online game 'Truth Seekers', has a personal mission of his own; to find his mother who went mysteriously missing while volunteering on a peacekeeping mission in Palestine. His gaming friends and followers inadvertently join in helping him find her; believing that they are on missions to find out what has happened to their own missing loved ones. During Harry's missions, Cristal and the team of 'Truth Seekers' stumble upon things that make them doubt the reality of their own lives. As they get closer to the truth, they realize that there are spiritual forces among them both good and evil, but in learning this, they activate a chain of events that start the beginning of the 'end of the world' as they know it.

Doubt is Book 1 of the Among Us Trilogy. Among Us is a book series which delves into the world of the supernatural and how it intersects with the everyday lives of seemingly ordinary young people as catastrophic events on earth lead to the end of times. Among Us weaves the theme of a young man and woman, who while not fully understanding their 'abilities', are drawn together in their desire to find out the truth about the world they live in which is similar to themes used in J.J. Abrams' TV shows Fringe and Lost.

About the Author: Anne-Rae Vasquez released Doubt, Book 1 of the Among Us Trilogy and launched it at the Raindance Book Festival. Among Us is a book series about a group of online gamers who band together to investigate who or what is behind the catastrophic events happening around the world.

Her novel Almost a Turkish Soap Opera was adapted into a screenplay and later produced into an award winning feature film and web series and was her directorial debut. Her other works include: Gathering Dust - a collection of poems, Salha's Secrets to Middle Eastern Cooking Cookbook published by AR Publishing Inc. and Teach Yourself Great Web Design in a Week, published by Sams.net (a division of Macmillan Publishing).

She had an interest in the fine arts and participated in theatre and drama as a child. Later she started writing and producing and acting in her theatrical projects. She eventually pursued a career in Internet Publishing when the internet was still only text based. She foresaw that the internet was a platform for her to further express her creative skills and establish her career as an internet pioneer.

Anne-Rae was approached by MacMillan Publishing to write a book about web design. She, with co-author Paul Chow, completed "Teach Yourself Great Web Design" which was published by Sams.net, a division of Macmillan Publishing which sold in major book chains around the world. She has since learned how to cook Middle Eastern meals and developed an interest in Arabic films. She loved the sound of the Arabic language and began watching Turkish soap operas dubbed in Arabic, which are very popular in the Middle East.

My Review: This is a very well written book, directed to the young adult audience, but that any reader that is looking for spending some hours entertained will enjoy very much this reading. The plot is simple to follow. Harry and Cristal just earned their PhD’s and went to work together for a company named GN (Global Nation). Harry is a young and brilliant programmer, son of a famous quantum physicist (Aaron) that died during an after-work dinner party. His father had some strong theories on how time travel was doable. His partner in business (Dr. Saeed) was also a famous experimental scientist. His mother (Bina) disappeared while volunteering on a peacekeeping mission in Palestine. Harry developed a game named Truth Seekers and he started hiring to work for him all the best programmers and game players he could find. They all had a mission to find out what was behind the scenes on certain mysterious events. And with the development of the story we learn that some members of this team have some special abilities that are not completely natural. Cristal is capable of produce earthquakes, although she is afraid of her powers and is not sure how they work or how she can control them. During a moment she was upset, she caused a major earthquake that was sensed in many different cities in the world. Kerim, her boyfriend, is capable of reading her mind. And things are not what they look like. They find some portals that could be entrances for wormholes for time travelling and they go to Israel to research one of those portals. But not everybody in Harry’s team knows what is going on and which his motivations to create his missions are. He wants to look for his father and mother. Mystery and intrigue cause turbulence on the relationship among the members of Harry’s team. And during a persecution from the Israeli Secret Service to capture Kerim, some details about his nature are revealed.

This is a very good start to a trilogy that promises to be very exciting.

This book was written by Anne-Rae Vasquez and I received a copy for reviewing from Inkspand and I was not requested to write a positive review. Opinion expressed here is my own.

If you read this review, feel free to leave your comments!